Which Computer Vendor?

The reality is most computer companies are bad, mostly in the support in the support and warranty area. When it comes to home user support I give all the computers companies a failing grade. They have shipped all the support centers overseas where you get Fred the tech guy who can not speak English very well and is reading from a script, placing you on hold, having to try things that are completely unrelated to the issue. It is very frustrating to everyone.

On the business side with server support, those jobs are still in the US and I receive excellent support from most all the major vendors.

Here is my Picks on Vendors Home and Desktop support ratings.

• Dell (but they have been on the decline for that last 6 months and their support is getting worse)
  
• HP/Compaq (good support, can be difficult to get to, hold times are long) I am not a big fan of their priority none up gradable hardware, but it is quality.
  
• Gateway (Support can be very frustrating and an unwilling to replace failed hardware without speaking to a supervisor)
  
• Off brand or other vendors: I don’t not have any customers that have other one off brand systems. Dell has been the defacto standard and their warranty program and onsite support is better than the rest. If others wish to comment about their vendor I would love to hear about your experiences.
  
• SONY: I have a Sony Viao. I love my Viao, but Sony is by far the worst company I have every dealt with on tech support. Not only would I give them a failing grade on support, but I would expel them from the tech support industry. They have the crappest warranty program which basically covers nothing. Their repair turn around time is about 6 weeks on the minimum 3 months has been the worst case. They over charge for part to the turn of about 50%. You never get to speak to the hard support people, only a customer rep who knows nothing, and they will not let you speak to a supervisor of any sort. Their customer support is in FL and the hardware repair center is in CA. I will never buy another Sony computer product ever, not will I ever recommend them to anyone for anything. If you have or buy a Sony computer product, expect to go to tech support Hell. It angers me as we are a Sony house with Video, camera, Tivo and other gadgets. Not any more as my Sony Video camera just died and it too has a support Hell of its own, so we are looking at a Canon Video camera. Ok I am done with my RANT. I feel better now!
  
• Built it yourself: I only recommend building it yourself if you want the best of the best. My desktop is a custom built PC, but my wife’s PC, my primary Server, and my office PC’s are Dell builds. I bought 3 Dell Desktop 2.8 gig 256 meg for $350 ea w/o monitors. I could not build them for that price. You really can not save money building it yourself when you include your own labor.

Browser Security Issues

A new security alert has been posted at our security web site about a new browser security issue that attempts to obtain your banking information. It affects ALL Browsers and ALL Operating Systems.

To read more about it please go to the security.efsnm.com site:
http://security.efsnm.com/index.php

Databases Defined

Q: What are all the databases associated with the contents of your wallet? (i.e. your credit cards, library card, driver's license, frequent flyer card, etc.) How secure is the information therein? How much of the information is the same but managed by different companies?

: What are all the databases associated with the contents of your wallet?

Well I must say this is a very vague question. It is impossible to know what “ALL” the databases are. The only thing one can do is conceptualize the question. To be specific there is no way to know what exactly the database(s) that are being used by a company. Any particular company could be using DB2, Oracle, SQL, Access, Text file, MySQL or a proprietary database.

A database is a software application that contains certain types of data. That data is contained inside tables. The review or output of that data is formed by queries. Because the output comes from a query it could come from multiple tables with the database called a schema. With XML it could come from multiple different companies at the same time. The output presentation of the data is a farce designed by the developer(s). Because the data could be coming from different sources at the same time from completely different databases systems and different companies the output of the data is a user concept of what they are looking at and not really an actual singular point in space and time.

Here are real examples of database applications: Oracle or SQL

The term database is often misused. For example my contact database should be said to be my contact data set. The database is an application. The information within the database organized into tables is called a “data set”.

To conceptualize the question in proper terms as data sets not database(s):

• Credit Cards: these are commerce data sets.
• Library cards: these are personal and inventory data sets.
• Drivers Licenses: these are legal, personal and certification data sets.
• Frequent Flyer Cards: these are personal and commerce data sets.
  

: How secure is the information therein?

This too is vague. We do not work for the companies; therefore we can only hope the data is secure as it supposed to be limited to the individual user that holds the correct user name and password. When using these systems across the internet an SSL certificate is used to encrypt the data via your browser at a minimum of 128bits. You can tell by looking in your status bar of your browser for the lock icon.


Here is a link on the basics of SSL. We use it everyday and most people don’t even know they are using it. Verisign


: How much of the information is the same but managed by different companies?

This is yet another vague question that can not be answered with accuracy. The truth of the matter is we really do not know, unless you are the system administrator or system designer. As the admin/developer I can make the appearance of data be whatever I want. The output presentation is smoke and mirrors to make huge dataset understandable to the user. The data sets listed, I would hope that none of these systems shared the same information connections. All these systems contain similar data sets such as contact, address and certain personal information.

Understanding Memory

Here is a link to understanding memory.
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm

Killing Evil on the Desktop

I have given up on the desktop software that detect evil email, as it was often incorrect, would get corrupted and fail to reinstall even after a registry scrub. For an evil counter measures I have fallen back to the gateway of the internet where it enters a business, usually a single point for a small business. I have installed with most of my customers gateway security software that checks email from evil and spam.

I have tested about 12 different gateway security software programs. Most of them sux and are worthless. I have settled on GFI’s Mail Security and Essential software. It is not perfect but it is the best that I have tested. My customers love it and speak highly of it. The mail security will detect virus some Phishing. I had some customers that were getting 150 virus emails a day. At the desktop they use Symantec Corporate Edition Anti-virus. However the users get frustrated with the anti-virus popping up every few minutes killing evil email. So we kill evil at the gate and the users do not have to deal with see it.

Here is the Security Software:
http://www.gfi.com/mailsecurity/

Here is the SPAM software:
http://www.gfi.com/mes/

It works like this:

Internet
:
Firewall
:
Gateway Server
:
Mail Security Check
:
Mail Spam Check
:
Mail Server
:
Users Outlook

I do not have any desktop security or anti-spam software that I can honestly recommend. I will revisit the desktop for home users at a many the end of 1st Qrt in 2005 after the vendors have released their 2nd Gen apps.

Phishing for You

For those who do not know what Phishing is you can checkout this security site as their is an article about it with real world examples.

http://security.efsnm.com/index.php/weblog/phishing_scams/

SATA, Firewire and Disk Space

Video editing eats away a ton of disk space. The SATA option will address both your storage and backup issues. I have found that trying to do video editing from a desktop to a server is too slow across a network.

I have had to use Firewire to Firewire network which is built into XP. To move video files from server to PC. I have found that doing all editing on separate hard drives on a local fast PC is best for both rendering and managing video.

I would invest your money into a couple of high end desktops (over a high end server) and a ton of SATA hot swap removable hard drives. That way you can easily store your raw footage, edited footage, rendered DVDs and ISO’s that you may have on really fast high capacity drives.

Two 80Gig hard drive should cover all your music needs to include any mixes that you may be doing. One hard drive can be your master drive and the other drive can be a backup of your cloned music files.

SATA, ISO and Graphics Cards

When buying a new computer you might consider two SATA Drives, one for the OS and the other for your apps and data. Also putting the Windows Swap file on the other hard drive for a bit of an additional performance boost.

I have dual DVD CDRW drives, but I never use them as I had envisioned. Instead I burn my CD’s to a single ISO file to an external Firewire drive. When I need to copy a CD or make several copies the burn times with the ISO are really fast burning from an ISO. I create ISO files for backup only so I do not have to carry so many CD’s.

For gaming you need to look at the video card review from TechTV. The newer games with all the intense eye candy (shadows, reflections, frame rates) are too much for the built in card on the motherboard. I would look at Robert Heron’s Video roundup. I trust him for video card reviews.


I am not a PC gamer (surprisingly). G4TechTv is devoted to gaming and have the better reviews on these matters. Tech support is my game. It is embarrassing when my thirteen old son whip my butt on the Game Cube.

Hardware Concepts

Accuracy of data input is important. What method of data input would be best for each of the following situations and explain why: (Printed questionnaires, Telephone survey, Bank checks, Retail tags, Long documents).

The some reading text would have you believe that a keyboard is the important input device for the listed items. A keyboard is best for long documents as input. For printed questionnaires a scanner as input to scan a specific type of printed survey such as the SAT tests. Voice recognition would be ok for a telephone survey, but still prove to be very inaccurate as input. Telephone surveys are best using the telephones keypad. A specialize bar code scanner for Bank Checks is best as input. A regular bar code scanner found in most shopping centers provides the greatest degree of accuracy as input.

Convenience and quality of output are important. Explain what method of output would be best for each of the following situations and explain why: (Hand held computer, Color photograph, Resume, Memorandum, Statistical report, Company annual report).

This question does not state the purpose of the output. The purpose of the output is changing each day as technology advances. Old ways are morphed into new methods and better management of the data that is outputted. The reading text would lead you to believe that a printer or monitor is best for these items as output.

For a handheld computer the most common method output is a small LCD screen either monochrome or color as output.

A photograph is dependant upon the output intent. Is the photograph for a web site, a database, a printed magazine or for a holographic image? If it is for a picture frame, then a high resolution printer is best to print a photograph that is an electronic high resolution as output.

In the past a standard laser printer would have been best for output of a resume. Today with online databases systems prefer a particular input format of the data from the resume so it maybe disseminated to a large number of potential employers. Tomorrow resumes will be in an XML format to allow seamless integrations with any online job hunting service. For today and tomorrow a monitor either a CRT or LCD is best for a resume as output.

Today many companies have abandoned the old paper memorandums for well formatted emails. Some companies require electronic signatures and encryptions for memorandums. An LCD or CRT is best to view today’s memorandums as output.

Statistical report output is dependant upon who the audience is. A scientist, stock broker or accountant would prefer an LCD or CRT as output. Where as a CEO, board member or the general population that might not have access to a computer would prefer printed stats on paper as output.

Today most company’s annual reports are available online on their websites. However there are a great many that still spend $1,000’s of dollars on glossy paper annual reports for the board members and investors. For the website and LCD or CRT is best for output. For printed reports a commercial based printer is best for output.

Explain the difference between primary storage and secondary storage.

Some text states: “Primary storage is temporary storage, and anything stored in it is lost when someone turns off the power to the computer. Secondary storage, however, is permanent storage; anything stored in secondary storage remains there until the computer changes it, even if someone turns off the power.”

To better understand RAM (Random Access Memory) it is the fastest place to store and retrieve data. On page 13 of the Course Notes it implies that RAM is the primary storage area for the computer. It is the preferred and most common method. It is not the primary area for storage as there are many devices that have RAM such as video cards, network cards, fax cards, the CPU has memory called cache, hard drives have cache and hard drive controllers like a RAID 5 card have cache. These devices also contain firmware that are flash updatable. Your hard drive is the preferred area for permanent storage of data, but not exclusive. RAM is only useful while the computer is turn on. Once the computer is turn off all data being kept in RAM is lost. During the boot process data is read from the hard drive and loaded into RAM most commonly called "memory". The data is kept there for fast access and processing. When things in "memory" get really corrupted, rebooting is the only way to clean out the RAM of the bad data. A cold reboot is preferred. A cold reboot is powering off the computer, wait one minute and power it back on. A warm reboot is just a simply restart. That is fine for the OS but some hardware issues require and cold boot. While the author of reading text calls “memory” primary storage, this is incorrect.

Different types of storage devices are optimal for different situations. Explain what situations are appropriate for the following devices and explain why: (Hard disk, Floppy disk, RAM, CD ROM, Tape).

Floppies, CD-ROMs and Tapes are old school portable media that are quickly being replaced by portable hard dives, and Jump Drives. Most computers today do not have floppy drives or CD-ROMs any more when you go to make a purchase. They are replaced by DVD-/+RW ROMs and Firewire and USB 2.0 devices.

The hard drive is the primary area that the operation system is installed. Most data used by the user is stored on the hard drive. It is the fastest permanent storage media with the highest capacity.

RAM (Random Access Memory) is where information is temporary stored for fast access. It is faster than a hard drive, but it is costly and has less capacity for storage. It has no ability to permanently store data without the aid of battery backup or a secondary power source to keep data alive while the computer is turned off or suspended.

Tape is still commonly used for backup systems, but is quickly falling out of favor for that usage as portable hard dives decline in cost and increase in speed and capacity. Tape Drives have not been able to keep up with removable hard drives in these areas.

Explain the role of each of the following in determining the speed of a computer: (RAM, Clock speed, Data on hard disk, Data on CD ROM, Data on floppy disk).

In today’s computers there are many things that can affect performance or the speed of the computer. These are called bottlenecks.

RAM can be a bottleneck if the bus speeds are faster that the speed of the memory. In the old day’s memory used to be measured in nanoseconds such as 80, 70, and 60ns memory. Today they are measured in clock speeds of PC100, PC133, etc. There are also many difference types of RAM that the reading text has not bothered to talk about that are contained on other devices like the video card and the CPU called cache.

Clock speed is typically referred to as the speed of the CPU. Today other devices have clock speeds such as the video card. The clock speed of the CPU used to be an indicator of how fast the CPU was as compared to other CPU’s. That is no longer the case. The type of CPU is more important to know now rather than the clock speed. For example a Pentium M 1Gig processor is faster than a Pentium 4 1.8Gig processor. So clock speed doesn’t count any more. You have to use a comparison or benchmark chart to figure out which processor is faster.

The “Data” on a floppy or CD-ROM has no bearing on the speed of the computer. The speed of the floppy drive or the speed of the CD-ROM has an affect on the speed of loading/reading data from the media. A floppy drive is by far the slowest device of reading and writing data.

Getting Started in IT

I was a freshman in high school when I used a similar system. My first program I wrote was a game that I saved, retrieved and played on an ordinary household cassette player. I cut my teeth on the Tandy TRS-80 Model III as that was the computer that changed my life. We had no hard drives back then. Booted the OS from one floppy and use the apps from another floppy. I have a ton of stories about that.

I wrote my first database application as a junior in high school. It was a student schedule database to track where the students were during the day. I pirated a word processor app from a near by school lab and had the first word processor with spell check. As a result my school was so happy they took one of the two computers we had and put it in the front office. I was not happy about that, but it was nice to see my work being used. I latter trained my physics, math and other teachers how to create their tests on the other computer and securely store them on floppies. That was in 1983.

Most of the people I have grown up with in the industry to include my industry hero’s have not completed their degree nor do they have the desire. My degree completion was always a goal of mine. However life and the computer industry was paying me more than would I could make with a degree in Electrical Engineering. I also saw that the universities could not adapt and were way behind on the up take in the tech industry.

Backup Solution Evolution - SATA

Today tape backups are still dominate for both big and small business. It has been the cheapest way to do backup since its invention. Optical archiving and backing up in the mid and late 90’s was an excellent alternative, but it proved to be more costly and computer speed out paced them.

However in the last year Moore’s Law has broken down as many of my customers adapting new technologies have been doubling and tripling the amount of hard disk space that they are consuming with data, photos, and scanned documents. On the commercial real estate side of the business an average contract with high-resolution photos is about 150Meg. For a small business of 10 people they have burned through 80 gigs of RAID 5 SCSI disk space in less than 1.5 years. That kind of server setup is expensive.

As a result the current industry standard 40/80 gig tape backups can not keep up with the demand for more disk space. Since on the small business side we do full backups every night, it “is” taking 12 hours to do backups. We do not do incremental backup do to a history of issues that is too much to go into here. Another problem is the DTL and DAT drives running 12 hours a day shortens their life and they die within 18 months.

We conducted a series of lab tests to determine that most economical way to do backups. I will not cover all the details here, but I will tell you what our final result was. We settled on removable hot swap SATA Hard Drives. Our worst case customer was taking 20 hours to do a 50gig backup with verification. With the SATA Hard Drives it took 2.0 hours to backup and another 1 hour for verification. We were clocking in about 1gig per 2.5mins. Plus since the SATA drive is 160gig that gives us two FULL backups per drive.

The overall hardware verse hardware costs are SATA Hard Drives backup solution is 50% cheaper, 4 times the backup capacity, in 75% less time in a production environment. In our lab we were getting even better speeds and times than this, but those tests were in ideal conditions.

Here are links to the hard and vendors that we chose:

SATA Hot Swap Enclosure - MRK-200ST-BK
http://www.vantecusa.com/product-storage.html

PCI Card - Serial ATA (SATA)
http://www.vantecusa.com/home.html

Serial ATA Hard Drive
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=57

Veritas Backup Exec Software
http://www.veritas.com/Products/www?c=product&refId=296

I predicate within two years all my customers will no longer be using tape backups as hard drive prices will have killed them. I know; I have seven different tape backup drives that I have had to migrate my archived data from before the drive died and was no longer supported. In my personal opinion tape drives are doomed and good riddance.

Rapid Application Development Explained

I really hate being the negative one here about RAD (Rapid Application Development) and JAD (Joint Application Development), but these are MBA buzz words and “In a perfect world” concepts. Having been a software developer for 22 years I can tell you that you will not see the JAD methods widely used as described in the text.

First of all RAD is a concept to speed up software development. RAD is accomplished by using other software tools to quickly produce an end product. Visual Basic is a software tool that will aid in RAD. RAD as described in the text do not facilitate speedy development. What is being described are simple shorten phases of the development cycle. You can shorten the phases as much as you want, but if the software developer doesn’t have a tool to make the development go faster then the RAD as describe in the text doesn’t work.

• Development of a product to sell (Vendor i.e. Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com )
  
• Custom software development for a customer (Consultant to Customer i.e. my company)
  
• Business Need Development Internally (MIS for a specific Department Development i.e. HR)
  
• Open Source Development (Community to Users i.e. http://sourceforge.net/index.php )
  
• An Excellent Developer Resource: http://msdn.microsoft.com/

These are just a few, as there are hundreds of variations on a theme. The JAD method is ideal for internal business need development as the company can afford to a lot such human resources.

Typically the company is unwilling to a lot that much human resources as all the development teams have more work than they can handle. It is terrible expensive to employ JAD as described in the text and you will find modified versions that are really scaled back. Scaled back JAD is also true with custom development as TIME is money therefore the costs would be greater than what the customer would be willing to pay.

If you do a Google search on JAD at Microsoft, Apple or Sun you will not find a single reference to this concept and these guys are world leaders in software application development.

• Sun – No reference
  
• Microsoft – No reference
  
• Apple – No reference

Also in the JAD method there is no mention of Scope CREEP. That occurs as the project is expanded to accommodate additional features and functionality. That leads to a whole different set of issues we can discuss later.

Virtual Offices

Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of virtual offices, including telecommuting?

Virtual Offices and Telecommuting are older terms used in the late 90’s that are marketing buzz words that have no physical association to a thing, device or software. They are mental concepts that could be a collection of a whole host of devices, software, connections and configurations. Once these collections are assembled they form an area in which people from the same company can share and manage information that aids in running the company. This information is not usually accessed by people that do not belong to the company.

The information is accessible outside the office by various means such as VPN (virtual private networks), dial-up, or dedicated connections such as old school ISDN connections. These connections are also encrypted. The latest industry trend is to out source the services to a third part company called an ASP (application service provider).

My company uses both concepts. Our internal servers manage our internal systems. A company called http://intranets.com at (to view the demo) hosts our virtual office. The term virtual office is being replaced by the following terms which have a more exacts meaning: “intranets”; VPN; work from home; and road warrior.

The advantages are remote access to all your information, any place and any time. The disadvantages are remote access to all your information, any place and any time. Having this unprecedented access to that much information allows people who work at the office to work at home and on the road, and people who like their work tend to work even more, putting in a lot of hours. Family and social life can be affected.

I have remote access ability from just about anywhere in the United States, except rural areas without telephone or cell phone service. Outside the U.S. remote access is much more difficult and very expensive. I await the cheap satellite data phone access and that problem will be resolved.

The studies you to believe that the local communities that the business is in would be affected by virtual offices and that is a disadvantage. That is pure nonsense. I am not sure where that came from but it is definitely wrong. It has a positive impact as it aids in reducing travel and fighting traffic.

If there is any contribution made by a person that consumes resources in the area of the business office, that consumption is simply transferred to the local community where that employee is working.

For example, if I eat lunch at several places near my office, working from home I will be eating from the restaurants in my community. I would prefer to support my community over a place that has a tax break for a business office building.

WWW vs Internet

The Internet and WWW are two different things often misunderstood. The Internet is a collection of networked devices using a common protocol (i.e. TCP/IP) over a wide global area. WWW or World Wide Web utilizes a single protocol called HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) that runs across TCP/IP using the common port 80 on a web server that transmits to a Browser HTML code. This is one protocol of hundreds that use the internet.

HTTP was developed by Tim Berners-Lee so he could format the plain text coming from a legacy system. This single protocol coupled with the ability for business to be able use the internet (which was limited only to Universities) made the Internet usage explode.

The internet is often thought of as your web browsers, but that is just one application that uses the internet. Others are FTP port 21, Email (SMTP port 25 / POP3 port 110), NNTP 119/433 (these newsgroups) and Telnet port 23 are a few. One old protocol no longer used is Gopher, which was a text menuing systems that allows different system to connected and was the old way of browsing. The University of Minnesota used to the mother gopher where most people began their browser via text. These are just a few examples.

Links:
Inventor of WWW:
http://www.w3.org/People/all#timbl

Web History:
http://www.w3.org/History.html

Why you should Protect Yourself

Q: Exactly what are we trying to protect? It has a lot to do with our culture and the fact that they named rogue programs viruses.

As a practicing tech support guy I can give you real world examples as to why you should care and worry:

Scenario One: Imagine it is 11:50 pm, you just finished typing up a paper for this class that was 16 pages in the APA format. Now imagine that you have saved your document, only to realize that your document has just been deleted by a virus and the virus flashed the BIOS of your motherboard, and the firmware on the hard drive with corrupted data. Now not only have you lost your document that can not be replaced but your motherboard has been permanently be destroyed as well as the hard drive.

Scenario Two: A simple spyware program gets on to your pc via a popup and steals your bank account and credit card info. You monthly statement comes with a 100 or more monthly statements from other credit cards companies that you did not setup accounts yourself and now your owe $100,000 in debt legally.

Everyone needs to take defensive measures for safe computing. Otherwise you may find yourself at the wrong end of someone else's evil.


Q: To answer the question posed, we should blame Microsoft for all of the viruses. If they hadn't gone around making people angry, these mad computer scientists would never have created these things.

Blaming Microsoft for all the viruses is like blaming god who created us for all our problems. Individual people are the responsible ones not Microsoft. If someone takes a butter knife and kills someone, is the person that did the killing or the butter knifes manufactures fault.

If you read the department of homelands security's web site you will see that there are just as many holes and security issues with Linux and a ton of others software and devices.

http://www.us-cert.gov/

As for the mad computer scientist his motive is profit and there is no profit in a virus. It is a well known documented fact that the vast majority of viruses are written by teens with virus writing tool kits freely available for download. The guys are known as script kiddies.

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending Microsoft, as there IS a lot they could do to help curb the issues too.

Information Systems Explained

Q: What is an information system? What are the components? In your work environment, describe the information system you utilize. (i.e. hardware, number and type of users, advantages/disadvantages).

What is an information system?

An information system is an ever evolving concept that involves a number of things both physical and abstract. The reading material defines an information system as a collection of 5 components (hardware, software, stored data, personnel and procedures). Having evolved with technology as it evolved I disagree with this definition of an information system.

An information system is broken down into to basic elements hardware (the physical) and software (the logical abstract).

The hardware element is all of things referred to in the text that are used to process, store and transmitted data via some type of medium either wired or wireless. The text does not give the new student to technology a clear picture of what the hardware layer looks like. Below I have attached a common small business hardware configuration. A big business diagram would look much the same but with more devices and connections.

The software layer is the non tangible logical abstract. It is a series of bits arranged in a manner that information can be manipulated and stored. It is stored in a machine readable format and displayed in a human readable format. This logical layer uses the hardware layer to transmit and receive data. You can review the software layer diagram below.

What are the components?

The provided reading material states that there are 5 major components (hardware, software, stored data, personnel and procedures). I argue against this as I have already defined hardware and software.

The reason I do not consider stored data as part of the overall is it is a hardware device that provides yet one function. It is part of the hardware layer.

The reason I do not consider people as part of the equation is an information system does run without people. People are the users of the system are not a direct component of the system. In order to qualify as a component I used this process; if the component is removed will the system stop? If a person dies the system will still continue to function.

I do not consider procedures as a part of the component as that is an element of software. The text has you to believe that it is part of explaining how to use the information system. If that were true then we would spend our entire life understanding how the information system works. A person does not need to know how a watch works in order to tell time. Nor does a person need to understand how an internal combustion engine works in order to drive a car. A person is a user of the watch, not a component of the watch that makes it work. The human procedure component as the text states, is a very tiny part that does not hold enough weight.

Q: In your work environment, describe the information system you utilize. (i.e. hardware, number and type of users, advantages/disadvantages).

Please see my diagram as a picture tells a 1,000 words for the hardware and software systems. The advantages are processing more information, from anywhere, anytime. The disadvantages are you are processing more information, from anywhere, anytime. It is a double edge sword that cuts both ways. The diagram below generically represent a company's information system.

Systems Approach

Since I have been apart of technology for the last 22 years and have a great deal of experience in its use, deployment and I work the front lines of business technology daily. I am somewhat constructively critical.

Defining the Systems Approach

The systems approach is a collection of components that work together in order to share information. It is an abstract concept that is defining the way information is shared, stored and processed. It uses for basic functions, input, process, storage and output. These concepts do not correlate with the actual way an information system works. They are simple concepts being conveyed. These are the text book ways.

There are 5 major components of an information system. The provided reading material states that there are 5 major components (hardware, software, stored data, personnel and procedures).

A component is a part of a system that is needed in order for that system to work. The
hardware element is all of things referred to in the text that are used to process, store and transmitted data via some type of medium either wired or wireless.

The software layer is the non tangible logical abstract. It is a series of bits arranged in a manner that information can be manipulated and stored. It is stored in a machine readable format and displayed in a human readable format. This logical layer uses the hardware layer to transmit and receive data.

The reason I do not consider stored data as part of the overall, because it is a hardware device that provides yet one function. It is part of the hardware layer.

The reason I do not consider people as part of the equation is an information system does run without people. People are the users of the system are not a direct component of the system. In order to qualify as a component I used this process; if the component is removed will the system stop? If a person dies the system will still continue to function. People are used to build and maintain the system and users use the system, but the system does not require a human in order to perform its tasks.

I do not consider procedures as a part of the component as that is an element of software. The text has you to believe that it is part of explaining how to use the information system. If that were true then we would spend our entire life understanding how the information system works. A person does not need to know how a watch works in order to tell time. Nor does a person need to understand how an internal combustion engine works in order to drive a car. A person is a user of the watch, not a component of the watch that makes it work. The human procedure component as the text states is a very tiny part that does not hold enough weight to be a component of a system.


Explaining the Different Roles in Systems Development

Having been a systems analyst, a telecommunications analyst and now a certified systems engineer, I can clearly stated that the role called “systems analyst” is an old term used in large companies as a pay grade reference.

It no longer defines or is used as it is stated in the text. For a large company the roles for systems development are broken down in to categories not defined in the text. For big iron mainframe the groups are commonly called datacenter analyst, for server systems they are called systems engineers, for local area networks they are called network engineers, for connectivity they are called telecommunications engineers, for tech support they are called tech support specialist.

The names may vary from company to company, but the roles and areas are much the same and require a small army to support 1,000’s of people. For smaller company they typically depend on outside support and are called system engineers. That is what they do engineer, design, build and maintain information systems.

The text calls the roles just systems analysts, project teams, users and programmers. There is a ton of roles missing from the text. As a result I find it to be misleading for the new person learning about the roles for the first time.


Explaining and Defining Systems Development Life Cycle

The text explains that the system development life cycle (SDLC), yet another executive buzz word, is divided in five main phases.

• System Planning
• System Analysis
• System Design
• System Implementation
• System Maintenance

Since there is no certifying agency that controls this definition from company to company the structure of the SDLC may vary greatly. I agree with the author that these are the main items. However the phases of a project most of the time do not correspond to the phases listed in the text. In a perfect world that would be nice. Due to geographical makeup, the organizational makeup, the financial makeup, the leadership skills of the project teams, the impact goals of the company, the presidential directives largely dictate how the phases of a project may break out. So of the items listed above may be in the same phase or span several phases.

Defining and Explaining What Comprises a Feasibility Study

A feasibility analysis is an excellent tool to determine the technical, operational, and economical feasibly of a new system. This is a step/phase that is often not done or not done properly in large companies. If this step was done more, large companies would save a lot more money. There are two scales to a feasibility analyses not mentioned in the text, and that is large scale and small scale. The end result of a feasibility study is to cost justify the project (a.k.a. from the text “cost/benefit analysis”)

On a large scale the analysis is long and can be drawn out. It is sometimes given to a person that does not have the knowledge in other areas of the information systems. They in turn spend a great deal of time collecting information about other systems.

On a small scale a systems engineer can evaluate a project based upon his past experiences and draw conclusions quickly without the formal process as described in the text.

Smaller, Faster and Cheaper

The ENIAC which was the first digital computer and it was huge! It had less power than the original IBM AT 8086 desktop which was 8 MHz with 512k of RAM. I still have one and use it for my world clock, not much use for it after that.

More about the ENIAC:
http://ftp.arl.army.mil/~mike/comphist/96summary/

Computer Historical Photos:
http://ftp.arl.army.mil/ftp/historic-computers/

Another example would be when I worked at a fortune 25 companies our Big Iron IBM mainframe had 40 Meg hard drives that were as big as a full size refrigerator. We had 60 of them and they we water cooled. Years later they were replaced with one unit that was about the size of one full size refrigerator that held 90gig. All of the 40 meg drives where removed. We have so much empty space left in the data center management held a celebration putting tournament in the empty space with 18 putting holes.

Here is funny story on the 40 meg refrigerator hard drives. A third party company was contract to remove and dispose of the hardware. They loaded them onto a Simi, but did not tie them down or lock the wheels on the hard drives. As a result when the truck pulled out of the loading dock as started up the hill all the hard drives shifted to the back of the trailer ripping the doors off, dumping them all on the ground and some roll back down the hill. What a mess that was. We were glad that was not our project.

That was the last time I saw a hard drive with wheels!

Hardware Reviews & Research

Here are a couple of links that I use regularly. They contain the latest information on hardware reviews and pricing. The best way to learn more about hardware and components is to read the review sites and check on the pricing. I used to use Computer Shopper magazine back when it was the size of a telephone book each month. It was a great tool to stay on top of the latest stuff. Now I do everything online at these links and others. Note, I do not always purchase from these sites. I use them to get the latest info and price comparison.

Tom's Hardware
http://www.tomshardware.com/

Price Watch
http://www.pricewatch.com/

Management Implications of Tech Trends

Q: What are the implications for management of each of the following trends:

• Reduction in cost of hardware with time
• Reduction in size of hardware with time
• Increase in power of hardware with time

Implication means consequence. The obvious benefits are better management of information and better productivity. The benefits listed in the text are better quality information, more accurate, helps to provide improved service, increase in productivity (which means doing a lot more in the same amount of available time). Instead of completing 5 things in 8 hours you are completing 30 things in 8 hours. They also provide competitive advantages.

One would think that the trends stated above would have a positive impact on your business. The key word in those items list is time. The only positive benefits that can be reaped is in the future purchases of that better hardware. There is no benefits to a business currents state and does impact a business in negative ways. This is not stated in the text provided.

Taking your current business state with the huge investment in hardware, software, engineering and ongoing support costs, a reduction of cost, size and an increase in power of hardware can affect the business by allowing competitors who are in a position to purchase and deploy the hardware into production immediately.

Most businesses have a fixed budget in which they can afford to purchase, lease and write-off the hardware as a capital expense. If a business is held in financial hostage and can not afford to make the purchase of the faster better hardware, then they are at a disadvantage point against those who can make the purchase.

I see this every day as businesses try to squeeze every last ounce out of their purchases to get a return on their investment, more commonly know as ROI. Microsoft in there marketing packages called this the “Total Cost of Ownership”.

How to know when to upgrade is easy. Is the overall cost of doing business losing money using the existing hardware? If so, can the current company financial state afford to make the purchase relevant to the loss in doing business with the current hardware?

So the overall implications as a result of faster, smaller, cheaper hardware puts companies with current heavy investment at a disadvantage. However as the company is able to afford in the future the newer faster, smaller, cheaper hardware it will greatly benefit the company.

Another key word in the question is “hardware”. Notice that there was no mention of software. Software has its own dynamics.