Extra Credit: Avatar

My avatar




I have created an avatar of myself with the Doppelme website. It was easy to use and was very quick. The experience was very cool. You register with your email address and then they send you a password. Once you are logged on you can access more features than just being on the site. That had many colors and accesories to choose from. I didn't use the accesories because I wanted my avatar to look business ready. So I put her in a colared shirt, with my favorite color of course. I would have liked to be able to change the shape of the face- like you can when you creat a Mii on the Wii.
I picked doppelme because it looked simple and the avatar didn't look to complicated.

Week 7: Presentation

This weeks project was to find a business appropriate message. Early this week I found a foundation that was geared to helping entrepreneurs. They have done awesome working, including sponsoring the Epcot Innoventions learning center in Disney World. They have donated 25 million dollars to 8 different universities of the course of time.
I decided to take one aspect of this company, its FastTrac program, and gear it to entrepreneurs who have businesses but don't know where to go from here.
I was able to critiques someone elses presentation along with my own. In this presentation, there were alot of words. I realized then that Don McMillan knew what he was talking about.
As the audience I was able to see some of the things a presenter might over look. Becoming the audience is a good way to avoid the "curse of knowledge" that the Heath brothers talk about in their book, Made to Stick.
While this presenters information was good and meaty, I was overwhelmed by the words and very little pictures.
I learned in my listening class last semester that humans can speak up to 100 words per minute while the brain has time to think of 500 words per minute. Pictures help to keep those words in the "oh and ah" area and out of  the "man I'm hungry area, I wonder if this meeting is gonna have snacks at the end, should I wear blue shoes or red shoe... oo presentation, right" area.  
Now that I have critiqued someone else and gained a little perspective, Ibegan to focus on my critique.
My presentation was perfect! -I WISH!
I began to see that I had to many words and only one or two pictures.
So I reworked it. I added a story to help with the emotional aspect of the presentation and added more pictures. Now, my audience can have a visual of what Im talking about.
I feel that my flow at first was skewed, I didnt have alot of detail of the main point I was making. So i had to add more information about the program.
I anticipated simple questions such as and?, why? What?
I direct my first question at my audience instead of raddling off facts.
I feel like the cookies would spark someones interest enough to listen at first and then stay for the rest of the story.
I feel im clear that im sharing about fastTrac growthventure.
Claims are validated from my story.
There is no clutter on my slides.


You can check out my video by clicking the link below!
Presentation 2012

Week 7: Clear

This week's discussion was about cloud computing. Cloud computing, along with other steps mangers can take, can decrease costs. Costs in electricity, training costs, software and hardware costs, etc.
The original cloud could probably be said to be the Internet. The basic idea of the cloud is that material used daily for a company, a class, or just personal use can be store outside of your computer and safely in another location; In the cloud!

http://lucaskrech.com/blog/index.php/2010/06/28/template-basics-clouds-and-skies/

There are three types of cloud computing:

PaaS, or Platform as a Service. This provides vendors with hardware and operating system. The benefits to this type is that the user is not responsible for the maintenance, upgrades or updates, or backups. Sometimes this type is referred to as Utility computing. Utility computing is basically the users software being run via the Internet.

DaaS, or Desktop as a Service. This provides an Operating system and apps. It is also scalable. which means, if you create one can ask the provider for 50 of the same thing the next day.

SaaS, or Software as a Service. This type provides everything. this is a per user per month subscription.

Cloud computing can be very beneficial to a business. It saves money and allows a company to run more apps or software than it could afford otherwise. Cloud computing isn't that new. We have used types of cloud computing when we used email. The data is stored somewhere else and doesn't take up memory on the device.

A manager does have to be cautious though. A company should never have so much of its data tied up into a program such as cloud computing that it would be devastating to either retrieve it or loss it all.

Week 6: Muddy

When we were discussing writing a program we touched on the programming language of C++ and C#.
I decided to do a little more research on what these two things meant. According to Msdn.microsoft.com, C++ was designed to be a low-level, platform nuetral, object-oriented programming language. Windows from the 1990s would be an example of this.
Now we have C#. this was created as a higher-level, component-oriented language.
There is not precise control like in C++ , it has a framework that helps the user focus on a larger picture. C++ allows the user to control everything, even the layout.
C# is also referred to as .NET on the msdn.mircrosoft.com website. An example of this would be Microsoft.




http://www.computingverticals.com/106/c-sharp-programming-basics-for-beginners/

According to Computingverticals.com, Java, C#, C++ have similar languages which makes them easy to use. C# was made for the gaps that existed between C++ and VB, another programming language. C# is suppose to be for intermediate level use and more user friendly than other languages. C# borrows keywords from C++ so transferring is easier and programming becomes easier for users of C++ going to C#.

Sources:

http://www.computingverticals.com/106/c-sharp-programming-basics-for-beginners/

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc301520.aspx

Week 5: Clear

I'm using Arial font for this weeks blog because I in fact do like the Little Mermaid! According to Dan McMillan's presentation about presentations, using different fonts not only can distract the audience but it can also say things about you.
I found this week to be very clear. I have taken public speaking and presentations were a big part of the grade.
Things I learned from that course that reiterated in this week's lesson were:
1) Avoid Clutter 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/4016589563/

2) Don't use crazy fonts or make your words move.
3) always make a presentation for your audience.

Things that were new this week:
1) Using Kuler.com to create your own background or theme colors
2) James Geary is the only one who used Prezi effectively!

There is one idea that needs to be made more clear for making a presentation. Just because the capability is in the software does not mean you have to use it!
I'm not a fan of prezi because people use all the features- and the features that we have just learned NOT to use!
For example, when you make your presentation zoom in and out... STOP! Your audience might have vertigo! (which I do!)
So your presentation could be telling me how to make $1 million, but to me your presentation looks like this:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Hypnosis/Chapters/Methods

I read "Made to Stick". It was awesome book. The thing I took away most was to be unexpected. The myths they used as examples were myths I had heard before. When creating a message it is best to use SUCCESs. My favorite one is Stories. I have been telling stories since I could talk. In high school, I was voted "best storyteller" because I always had a story to tell. It's cool to think that it will come in handy =]
My favorite line in the whole book:
page 110. If the phrase "Hey Jude" drew a blank, please exchange this book for a Beatles album. You'll be happier.
These guys know what they're talking about it!

Week 4: Clear

The Value Chain has become a guide for companies.
In order to have a succesfull business a company can follow this as a road map.
The Primary compenets include everything that a business needs to "run" smoothly.
The first is Inbound logistics. In other words getting your product into your door.
the second is operation. The third outbound logistics; in other words, getting your product to a customer.
Marketing is the fourth component which would include sales. Finally support which incompasses customer service and other aspects of customer care.

The secondary components will include the infrastructure of the firm, human resources, technology and purchasing.

Week 3: Clear

This week we talked about networks and all that it includes. Part of the discussion was focused on TCP and UDP encapsulation. I found it very clear to remember and learn.

Networks use this encapsulation when sending data from one place to the next.
TCP stands for transmission control protocol and UDP stands for user datagram protocol. The difference when using these two types of protocol is how much data is guaranteed to be transferred to the destination requested. TCP guarantees your data will arrive safely and in its original full form. UDP only sends what happens to make it to the destination.


http://www.skullbox.net/tcpudp.php

TCP guarantees the data will get there by going through one extra step; It's called retransmission. Although retransmission can sometimes slow the process down sometimes a company or PC user will use this for important data like bank records.
UDP does not guarantee the sender the data will arrive fully intact but it does guarantee that it will send it faster. Mr. Nelson said this would be okay to use when sending data like video or music because if anything is missing it wont be noticeable.



http://www.skullbox.net/tcpudp.php

So what does retransmission mean? TCP retransmission requires that the receiver notify the sender that all parts were completely received and saved properly. According to msdn.microsoft.com, if the sender does not receive this notification of the packet the retransmission process will start again. 
Depending on the data and the time limit a receiver may have, chose your packet protocol wisely. TCP may send the data in complete form it does take longer; UDP sends the data faster but may be missing a few things.

Sites used:
Skullbox
http://msdn.microsoft.com/