ISM3004 Computing Portfolio Project, 2008 for Kyle James Amann

My name is Kyle Amann and I am a 21-year-old senior at the University of Florida. I am majoring in Business Administration with an area of specialization in Sports Management. I am originally from Englewood, FL and lived there my entire life until I moved to Gainesville for college. I am a current member of the fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon, and have been since spring of 2006. I am planning on graduating in the fall of 2008 and hope to go on to law school and eventually start my own law practice in Florida. I am a huge Gators fan and love going to all of the football games, either home or away.

Click here to view my resume

Webpage Project

Why do you think a Web presence (site) is an "essential" for businesses of all sizes?

Having a web site is essential for every business, big or small. With all of the new technology and the growing use of the Internet, more and more people are searching for businesses online. With E-commerce growing at such a rapid pace, companies without a web pressence are being left behind. More people then ever are going online to shop, bank, pay bills, or compare prices, and without a web site certain businesses are not getting noticed because they lack a web site. Soon all businesses will have to be online or they will possibly be run out of business.

Podcast

The Use of Podcasting in the Business Enviroment

Since podcasting was first started a few years it ago, the impact it has made in society has grown tremendously. Podcasting is very easy to do as all you need is a computer and an internet connection. Podcasts can vary from parts of a talk radio show to a businesses report or even television shows. Many businesses have not yet tapped into the world of podcasting yet but more and more are incorporating podcasts into the business each and every day.

Podcasting can help a business in a variety of different ways. Instead of having a meeting, managers can now record the meeting on a podcast and send it out to the employees who need to hear it. This allows the employees to listen to the message over and over which allows them to go back in case they forgot something that was said. Unlike being in a real meeting, employees do not have to take as good of notes since the ability to replay the message is available.

Also podcasting can be looked at as an inexpensive way for businesses to get their message out to customers. Since creating a podcast is very cheap and they can be put on the internet for free, it is very cost effective for a business to put certain things on a podcast. The one drawback to this set up however is that the customers need to subscribe to the podcast, which not all of the potential customers will do. Overall I feel that podcasting will take off in the business world and it will encompass many new aspects that have not been tapped into yet.

Secure Email

The Use of Encrypted Email in the Business Enviroment

Before starting this project I had never used encrypted email or digitally signed email. Actually, I didn’t really know much about either one of those topics besides hearing about it from time to time. When using email, I had always used my Yahoo account until I got my University of Florida webmail account and I switched all of my important emails over to that account. I liked using Thunderbird a lot more than webmail because it was much easier to access and also if I leave it open I can tell when I get new emails without having to access the webmail site. I fully intend to keep using Thunderbird now that I have installed it and learned how to use the program.

I believe that using encryption and digital signing is very beneficial to any company, big or small. It makes sending email much safer and makes sure that only the people that need to be reading the email are the only ones that can. When sending encrypted emails back and forth to the professor and to other students I felt good knowing they were the only ones able to read it. Every time that I received an encrypted email back from the person, I was asked to put in my password in order to read the email. If I entered the password incorrectly, Thunderbird would not allow me to read the email and in a business world this can prevent unauthorized people from reading your private emails.

With the increasing number of emails that contain proprietary information, companies must find a way to protect themselves from outside people reading these emails. By not encrypting emails, anyone that is connected to the server or servers that the email travels through could potentially read the email. In some cases the contents of an email are for a very limited number of people and if the information contained within the email got out it could be devastating to the business. In the future I will try and use encrypted email to make sure that certain emails get to their recipients knowing that they will be the only one able to read what I have written.

Collaborative Computing

Collabrative Computing in the Business Enviroment

I have never worked online doing a group project before and this experience was very interesting. It showed me how I will possibly be working once I get into the business environment and need to communicate with people through the internet and not be able to talk to them face to face. Being able to use Microsoft Sharepoint for the first time was a very unique experience and I am glad that I was able to use it once before I enter the real world and have to use it again for my real job.

I felt that collaborating with people online was a very good idea and that in the real world it helps because you are able to communicate with the people in your group without having to be at the office or at a meeting with them. It allows you to stay at home or be away on vacation and still access the files that your group is accessing and be able to contribute to the project. Also I liked how you could be on any computer and login to the website because sometimes you might not have your computer with you and you need to access certain items and with Sharepoint you can do that from any computer.

Using Microsoft Sharepoint was a very good experience and I believe that many businesses should use this to allow people to stay at home and work. Many people have certain problems that come up or they just need to work at home and this allows them to continue working while they are at home and not miss out on anything and also let them contribute. I think that in the future more and more companies will use this type of program to allow people to continue working while at home because it will allow the employees to have a more flexible schedule and also it will cut back on costs of having to pay the employee to be at the office and now they can be at their home which would reduce the size of the office and also help the company save money.

The Swamp: Where Winning is a Lifestyle

Excel

Excel 2003/2007 Skills

This part of the project got me familiar with many different functions in Excel that I have never used before. While I have worked with Excel in other classes, most of the things that were done to the spreadsheet were brand new to me and I felt that these tools will help me use Excel more efficiently in the future.

During the first part of the project, I had to take a bunch of data from one specific column and organize it better in separate columns. To do this I had to use several different functions such as find, replace, left, and right. Another function that I had to use was vlookup, which I had used before but was not quite sure how to still use it until now. All of these functions help to organize the spreadsheet, making it much easier to read and look at.

The next step of the project was creating a pivot table, something I had never even heard of until this class. By using the columns created in the first part of the project, I was able to make a pivot table on a new spreadsheet that allowed for much quicker access to different items that were in the spreadsheet. This also helped to organize everything much better because it was all done by region and state instead of being jumbled together.

Finally I used the goal seek function, also something that I had never used before until today. This function allowed me to see how much I would have to change one item in order to increase revenues and achieve my new goal. I was able to put in how much I wanted to increase revenue and by selecting which item to change, I was able to see how much more I would have to sell or how much I should charge for an item in order to achieve my goal. I feel this is very useful for businesses to find out what they must do in order to achieve their goals. I felt that all of these functions were very useful and am glad that I was able to learn how to use them.

Database

Microsoft Access Skills

Before this project I had never used Microsoft Access, let alone heard of the program as it was not included with the Microsoft Office set that I got when I purchased my new computer. I thought that it was very challenging to get used to and unlike the other programs that we have used, this was new to me and it was very clear as I had to keep going back and checking things over and for the first time had to seek help and look through the discussion boards extensively to figure out how to complete part of the project. However, after having used the program I can now see why it is used and feel that if I ever have to use it again I will be able to remember what I learned from this part of the project and use it later on.

The first part of the project was to import files from an Excel spreadsheet and then take this information and put it into tables in Access. I felt that this part of the project was very easy until I had to create my own table and I ran into trouble there. Once I found the flash lecture I was able to quickly figure it out and now understand how to make a new table on my own. The relationship part was very easy and by looking at the relationship table I was able to understand how everything was being pulled from one table and used in another and how all the tables were connected. Also the queries were not all that difficult as I was able to figure this out by only watching the flash lecture once. This is a very good way to narrow down a huge set of information and just let you see what you need. Finally the report was the hardest part for me. I was having trouble getting the right information on the report and finally figured out what I was doing wrong. The report was very useful because it broke everything down and grouped it together and made it very easy to read.

Overall I felt that Microsoft Access was a very good tool and I wish that I would have had it on my computer before this project because I feel as if I would have been able to use it for other projects earlier. While most of the concepts seemed easy when explained, it was a lot harder to fully grasp without doing it a few times so I could see what I was doing wrong and then fix it to make the final outcome right. Hopefully this project will not be a waste and I will be able to use Access later on after college once I get into my real job. Having shown that it is capable of helping to organize something as simple as what movies are located in what movie stores, I feel that it will be much more useful in a big business when someone needs to organize inventory or where shipments are going and what is to be included in those shipments. I believe Access should be taught just like Excel, Word, and Powerpoint as it is just as useful.