Google and Verizon Take a Positive Step Toward Net Neutrality
Posted by Stephanie in General Knowledge on August 9, 2010
Late last week reports were circulating that Google and Verizon were in secret talks regarding net neutrality. It appears today that those reports were half right. They have been involved in private meetings trying to reach an agreement but their goal according to a joint announcement today is actually for net neutrality.
It all started when the New York Times published an article alleging the two were in cahoots and attempting to work out an agreement after their group meetings with the FCC and other Internet service and content providers like AT&T and Skype were getting them nowhere. It made sense that perhaps it would be in Google’s best interest to garner a deal with one of the leading ISPs in the business considering Google is one of the largest providers of content on the web and the Google owned YouTube is an easy target for ISPs claiming it slows their service to customers. But Google has been pro net neutrality since the argument began.
Dynamic SQL
While working on a project I was challenged to build a table that showed only the columns of data associated with the current family of data. The challenge was the database I was pulling from had over a hundred columns and hundreds of rows. I only wanted to show the columns associated with the products showing in the table so I needed a way to remove the unneeded columns from the table. This could be done by hiding the unneeded columns after the data was retrieved but it was time intensive to pull all the columns and then hide some of them. What I chose to do was to build the table completely during the SQL call using Dynamic SQL methods.
The 3 Essential Functions of Social Media
Posted by Stephanie in Business Intelligence on July 27, 2010
A friend asked me the other day why companies get involved in social media. After posing her question, she proceeded to answer it herself. “So they can do more advertising and stuff, right?” Wrong. There may be some companies out there that just use social media to further flood the market with their current ad campaign, but there is so much more to social media. And the companies that are truly successful at social media understand that it is so much more.
1. Monitor
One of the most basic functions of social media is to help businesses monitor their name, brand, and products as they’re discussed in the online world. This is a crucial point that many businesses overlook. There will always be conversations online and in real life about people, places and things and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. But a business can monitor and listen to those conversations and in some cases join in on the conversation. This is particularly important when it comes to negative comments about a company’s product or service. Often a scorned customer can be appeased with a simple acknowledgment of the problem and an apology. People want to be heard and they want people to care about what they have to say. If they don’t feel like they’re being taken seriously, a problem that often times could be quickly and easily resolved, gets blown entirely out of proportion. Look at the apple iphone fiasco. The antenna issue could be easily resolved with bumpers to fix the reception. Had apple immediately acknowledged the reception issue, apologized and said “We’re looking into it,” maybe they wouldn’t be facing a class-action lawsuit. Instead, Steve Jobs chose to deny, deny, deny and they’re in much hotter water because of it.
Improve your Ecommerce Presence
Posted by Damon in Business Intelligence, Solutions on July 23, 2010
The world of Ecommerce is at a unique point in its young life. With the increased focus on web standards and usability, web users are constantly on the lookout for something cutting edge and easy to use. That being said, creating an online shopping presence is becoming an increasingly important avenue for selling your goods. However, without a specific, granular approach to your
Ecommerce store, it’s likely that it will produce less than desirable sales, be difficult to maintain and ultimately ineffective for users to perform even basic actions.
There are some fairly fool proof ways to combat common mistakes, however. By following some pretty simple rules within your Ecommerce store, we can improve sales, generate leads and referrals and subsequently increase conversions. Let’s get started!
Read the rest of this entry »
QR Codes Unleashed
Posted by Andrew Newby in Business Intelligence, General Knowledge, Solutions on July 22, 2010
As mobile application acceptance and influence grows, finding better ways to connect information will evolve. That means not only sharing but also accessing information and application interaction on a device level – bridging the divide between print, mobility and infosharing. One of these methods is the QR Code (Quick Response Code). A QR Code is a 2D bar code configured in a matrix; information is stored horizontally as well as vertically. This differs from a traditional bar code which only contains information horizontally. A QR Code uses blocks (called modules) instead of variable width lines. The benefit of this is the ability to store a lot more information. Here is an example.
A QR Code of the url www.trustyourtechnologist.com
The basic function of the code is to be scanned (laser based 2D bar code scanner – or more likely, a phone’s camera). On a phone the image is analyzed by a QR Code reading application such as QRdvark and the content, link, and info is then available on the device.
An Outside Glimpse into AVATAR
Posted by Stephanie in General Knowledge on July 21, 2010
This is a guest post by Jake Newby. Jake is the nephew of the owners of AVATAR and will be majoring in Computer Science at Ball State this Fall. He came to observe the office for the week and see what we do everyday.It’s my third day in Toledo and I’ve experienced an atmosphere at AVATAR that can only be described as the genuine small business experience. On one end, you have an engaged business, but given the opportunity for playtime, the gang will not hesitate to poke fun at each other and engage in office shenanigans all in the name of fun. For example, today I decided to eavesdrop on a conversation between Robert and Damon with Damon accusing Robert of eating his last dinosaur Silly Bandz bracelet. Watching this exchange I was reminded of similar situations on the hit TV series “The Office.” This exchange was certainly something that you wouldn’t want to miss! But what’s great is how work still gets done in this atmosphere. One end of the office could be in the middle of a rubber band war while I am sitting across from Kristin and Stephanie who are meeting to discuss AVATAR’s next big step in the social media arena. Moments of raucous fun are quickly followed by the sounds of feverish typing and clicking with everyone hard at work. In short, AVATAR is a small business atmosphere upheld by close-knit friends seldom seen at your typical nine to five job.
Reflecting on my visit so far, I’d say that two very valuable things have come of it to this point. First, I’ve learned quite a bit about web development. Second, don’t try something just because someone tells you that it tastes good — you may regret it the following morning.
HTML5 Apps On The Rise
Posted by Tommy in Business Intelligence on July 16, 2010
In the article “Understanding the Future of the Web & Your Business,” HTML5 features were discussed and the question was asked: Is your business on the forefront of this new technology? But what businesses are using this technology and is this technology worth jumping into so early in its development?
Yahoo! Mail on iPod Touch
Early this month, Yahoo launched a new mail HTML5 App. Smartphone users can start previewing and using the new site by going to m.yahoo.com/mail. The new site utilizes the power of HTML5, looks great and is lightning fast. Yahoo was able to create something better then a native application by developing it in HTML5. Last week, YouTube released its new mobile HTML5 App to overwhelmingly positive critical response. People are saying that the mobile site “put the YouTube App to Shame” and “the video quality beats native Apps hands down.” Mobile sites have great advantage over native applications because they allow the developer to update their App in real time, adding new features and new advertisements to generate more revenue.
The Debate Over Net Neutrality and the Free Exchange of Information
Posted by Robert in Business Intelligence on July 14, 2010
Recently Comcast Corp. won a case against the FCC barring the FCC from enforcing “net neutrality” regulations. This has set off debate in the political realm of free market vs. regulation as well as on the internet between ISPs (internet service providers) and content providers such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon. The FCC defines net neutrality as:
- Equal access to the lawful Internet content of your choice.
- The ability to run applications and use services of your choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement.
- The ability to connect your choice of legal devices that do not harm the network.
- Competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.
How to Force Facebook Profile Info to Link to Official Company Pages
I was recently updating my Facebook account and I added AVATAR as my current employer in my profile. But when I clicked on the link to AVATAR it went to a generic community page with little content and no administrator. This was unsettling considering I had just taken the time to set up an official business page for the company. Apparently Facebook makes no attempt to check if an official page exists before they link to their generic community pages. Even worse, this seems to be a common frustration among employees and business owners alike who would like to link their profile to their company’s official page.
Luckily, we have a solution for you. It is a bit more complex than a couple of clicks in your settings but it is not very technical. Essentially, you’ll be hacking the page to force the link. To get started, you’ll need to use Firefox by Mozilla (if you’re an IE user you’ll need to download Firefox). Whether you’re a lifelong Firefox user or you’ve freshly installed it, you need to download an additional tool to actually make the changes you’ll need. You’ll be making the changes using the Web Developer Toolbar that you can download as an add-on to Firefox.
Protecting Your Data with On-Disk Encryption
Posted by Shazad in Business Intelligence, Solutions on July 7, 2010
A common issue facing businesses and organizations today is a lost or stolen laptop or PC that contains sensitive data. As a result, many companies are starting to move to on-disk encryption to protect their data. Windows Vista and Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise editions contain a feature called BitLocker which protects data by encrypting information over entire volumes.
BitLocker is a full disk encryption program that uses the AES encryption algorithm in CBC(Cipher-block chaining) mode with a 128-bit key. BitLocker is only available on Server 2008 and select editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. There are 3 different authentication modes that can be used as building blocks to implement BitLocker encryption.
Transparent Operation Mode
Transparent Operation Mode uses a key for the disk encryption. It is encrypted by the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip and will only be released to the OS loader code if the early boot files appear to be unmodified. By using TPM, a user can only protect against software based attacks but the computer is still vulnerable to hardware based attacks. An example of such attack would be a cold-boot attack where a user doesn’t let the computer shut down completely. This attack relies on data to be in the RAM after power has been removed.
Follow Us!