Welcome to my first web page! My name is Caroline Ibarra.
This is my first semester at the University of Florida and I am very proud to be a part of the Online
Undergraduate Business Program. I was born in Elmhurst New York, and lived in the City until
the year 2000 when my family and I moved down to Ocala Florida where we have lived now for 8 years.
My family is one of the most important things in my life and with that said I will describe them each in one sentence.
My family is comprised of Seven wonderful and unique individuals; My father who is one of the most
patient men in this world, my mother who is a beautiful and caring women, my older brother who
is a thriving individual and a soldier serving his country, my beautiful young sister who is my best friend
and has a noble heart, my younger brother who is an artist, dreamer and a comedian, the baby of the house
or my youngest brother who lights up the house with his innocence, and finally there is me;The crazy, caring,
and also comedian of the house. I love traveling, meeting new people, immersing myself in different cultures,
and learning about others customs and ways of life. My future plans are to study abroad through the University of Florida
in several different countries. Tokyo, Japan will be my first destination in my quest to travel the world.
Click here to view my resume
All businesses strive and work continuously to attract attention to their business or improve their businesses image. There are several ways of doing this; through recommendation of current customers, business advertising and most important of all, the internet. I believe it is absolutely vital to the success of any business to acquire a web site for many reasons. First, it will increase the businesses exposure to different types of consumers and mostly likely future customers or clients. A web site has the ability to be seen by individuals around the world unlike a billboard or a newspaper advertisement. Second, it allows a business the opportunity to inform the public of its experience, services, and products from the convinience of one's home or office.
Click here to listen to my podcast
As a first time podcast user, I have learned a lot from this project but I have also experienced what I believe to be a very useful and vital tool for the future use of any industry. Podcasting is a fantastic tool for individuals to voice their opinions with others about any sort of topic or issues. It is a great tool for business to attract and maintain a close relationship with their customers/clients. With podcasting technology, businesses can inform their customers of upcoming events, sales, and new items at low cost or even at no cost. Podcasting, I believe, could someday remove the use of paper mail advertising. Businesses could advertise through their weekly or daily podcasts. Businesses would of course have to promote and inform customers/clients about this new and exciting technology but it would be well worth it. There are podcasting out there for any interest, likes or dislikes that one may have. I find the educational podcasts available on Itunes very informative and will be using them to learn new languages. The only flaw that I see with podcasting might be the credibility factor; especially when it comes down to those podcasts that are being posted to educated individuals. How credible and reliable are the sources/individuals posting these podcast? Besides that, I believe podcasting to be the interacting technology of the future.
We live in a time where computers dominate and are essential tools for businesses all across the globe. Businesses transfer, share, and communicate vast amounts of information everyday through the internet and networks; but this makes one wonder “How do they keep this information safe from unwanted eyes?” It should come to no surprise that businesses are constantly looking for new ways to secure themselves from theft and in the process they spend a hefty amount of money on new technology to secure their information from these unwanted eyes. Secure email encryption is a method of delivering encrypted data to and from users in a safe, secure and private matter. With a combination of public and private keys, users encrypt data that will only be seen by the intended recipient. This method of security deters interceptors and information theft. This is, of course, vital to businesses. Not only must they insure themselves that their businesses information is secure but they must also give their clients or customer security from possible theft threats. Digital signed email messages go hand in hand with encryption emails as they also provide a method of safe deliver. Digital signatures help Businesses verify the identity of customers and also deters impostors that wish to forge e-mails. I have yet, and hope never to, experience identity theft. I do know of a family member who constantly purchased merchandise on-line through many so-called “secure sites.” One of those sites ended up being not so “secure” and some random Joe in Hawaii ended up charging his credit card for $500 dollars. Luckily, he had theft protection on his credit card and didn’t have to pay for the merchandise. The real loss here was for the online business site who lost my cousin as customer and probably many other customers if this incident has repeatedly happen. For obvious reasons, it is necessary and of utter importance that businesses worldwide take precautions to make their records, information and their customer’s information as safe as possible during transactions and transferring of data. A business who does not take the necessary precautions against these security threats are at risk of losing their credibility and customers.
Not too long ago interaction and collaboration amongst businesses and individuals on opposite sides of the globe were hard tasks to manage. It was either a hassle or a very expensive venture to collaborate with business across oceans, states, or even so within cities. Phone calls, faxes, paper mail where basic methods of communications but they were neither fast nor efficient. Businesses did not rely on the fast accessibility and commodity that today’s technology offers all individuals. In today’s fast paced world the internet, email, web conferences, collaborative software, and groupware are some of the many available resources that a business utilizes to excel their businesses performance. Collaborative Computing is one of these new and efficient tools available to businesses. Collaborative Computing allows businesses, particularly those in which group work and collaboration amongst its employees is vital, to share, compare, and participate in common database. This of course leads to a greater quality of work in a business because of the diversity of ideas brought by a group’s reviews and inputs. Having partaken in a Collaborative computing project I can express my point of view on this collaboration system. Through the software Microsoft SharePoint I was able to interact and share information with my team member s on an assignment which required frequent participation and input. SharePoint offered a variety of tools that facilitated our groups’ project; On-going discussions boards, uploading and downloading services of pictures and documents, the ability to create surveys, an event calendar, contacts information, and many other features. One of the features that I found very efficient was the “alert me” which enable you to receive messages to your email address every time a new post was added by one of your team members. Overall, I believe that Collaborative Computing is a tool that promotes and implements group work for businesses. Group work is of course a great way to assess all possibilities and solutions to a problem. Collaborative Computing provides groups with an opportunity to share and relay information in a way that encourages and demands team participation and interaction to accomplish giving tasks and duties.
Thanks to this project I have been able to understand and utilize some of the many of tools and functions that Microsoft Excel offers its users. This project required one to organize a DVD Rental Analysis data spreadsheet into columns using text operation functions. Once the data was organized, the next step was to create a pivot table to demonstrate the data in an easier and more professional way to be read. This project also required some use of an excel tool called goal seek, which allows excel users to estimate the possibilities of earning different amounts of revenue by increasing or decreasing price values or sales amounts. Before this project, I was hesitant to use excel because it seemed to me that it was very complicated to manage and use; I was wrong. Like with anything else, learning the basics of excel and practicing them can take you a long way. With a little time and patience excels functions, tools, and tables can save any individual tons of work and hours in front of a computer.
Prior to this Project, I had very few encounters with Microsoft Access; I am ashamed to admit that I use Microsoft Access at work almost every day to do simple data entry and prior to completing this project I had no idea as to how to create a simple query. As a matter of fact, very few people, outside of those who are constant users of Microsoft Access, know how powerful and useful this database software is. Microsoft Access is not only a simple and user friendly database software but it is also one that with proper training and usage of can be a great asset to any business. Microsoft Access might seem intimidating to many new user, including myself, as I mentioned before prior to this project I could not tell the difference between a table and a field. Thanks to this DVD Rental project I have acquired the skills to efficiently work with Access. I can now create tables and modify them to perform specific operations on the data that is entered into the database. I have also learned how to create relationships within the data tables. This vital feature helps eliminate redundancy of data and ultimately makes for a much more efficient and trustworthy database. Queries were also required in this project. A query allows users to instruct data to perform or return information sorted, grouped, or filtered for easier use and access. As I have experienced firsthand through my employment, Microsoft Access is crucial to the data management of any company. With my new acquired knowledge of Microsoft Access I know that I can now navigate, create and modify databases. This is of course of great benefit to many businesses. I plan to own my own music store in the future and I am sure that I will be using Access to keep my business data running smooth.