Tutorial IV - Increasing business productivity and reliability through RAID

Candler

So you’re a new business owner and you’re looking to expand out of your personal home office PC into a larger network system.   You will be dealing with a fast-paced, high demanding customer, but at the same time, you want to guarantee that information that you store will be protected.  You will need to look at a RAID system, to help provide your fledgling business with this capability.

RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks will give you a variety of option to improved performance while allowing for redundancy.  The size of your new business may dictate the type of RAID system that you want to go with, but we’ll cover RAID 0, 1, and 5 to give a few examples.

Candler

RAID 0 is one of the easiest and least expensive RAID systems to work with.  To basically break it down, imagine two hard drives side by side, but treated as one.  Half of the data would be written to the first drive and the second half to the other drive.  This would dramatically improve the read / write performance of your storage system, but RAID 0 offers no redundancy at all.  If one of the hard drives fail, then that data would be permanently lost.

RAID 1 on the other hand would be set up exactly the same way as RAID 0, except for one fact.  Instead of dividing the information to be written to the drives, it would actually duplicate all of the information on drive 1 to drive 2.  The read / write process would not be improved at all, but you would now have 100% redundancy in case one of the drives did fail.

Candler

RAID 5 would be a superior option providing numerous improvements over both the 0, and 1 system.  Raid 5 would provide multiple disks to divide the information that is read / written over, but at the same time would allow for redundancy.  A complete drive could fail, but data integrity would still be in place.  If a drive did fail, performance would be degraded, but the process would be seamless, until the broken drive could be replaced.

In all, if your business is growing, then looking at various RAID schemes to increase the performance of your system, as well as redundancy would be the way to go.  This would provide for faster support, along with a level of data security that cannot be offered on a single hard drive.

Secure Email Project

Secure Email is an area of computing that I was not very familiar with.  I had heard the terms used before, but was not used to hearing about encryption, keys, etc.  I found an article from 2001, regarding using secure emails, and I reviewed it just to decipher where secure email originally developed from.

Going through this original article on CNET news from May 30th, 2001, it seemed that at the time, there were a variety of loose secure email methods floating around. A standard had not been set yet. The article covers that only a few companies at the time were using any kind of secure email and that the Open PGP Alliance was becoming the Internet standard for encryption.  It used publc key specific to recipients.  This was just covered this past week in class, and I find it interesting that less than ten years ago, a standard had not been set. 

The article goes on to talk about how the key players that worked with the various encryption techniques were not all on board, but realized that a universal option needed to be devised.   It states that by joining forces it would enable the various companies to communicate better, faster, and more efficiently, without having to determine which format to use.

In all, I think that for companies with sensitive information, email security would be vital.  With companies developing new products and services, the last thing they would want is for a competitor to discover the new trade secret that might change the marketplace.

Article Link

http://news.cnet.com/Companies-ally-for-secure-e-mail/2100-1001_3-265402.html

Tutorial III - Using a Database for the St. Paul's Carnival

Candler

Tutorial III - Using a Database for the St. Paul's Carnival

Candler

Up until this evening, I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do this tutorial on.  I was leaning more towards the history of the World Wide Web or even the history of Mozilla Firefox browser system, but then it hit me tonight on the way home.  My wife has been working tirelessly building a volunteer list of over 400 parents for the annual St. Paul's Carnival.  The volunteers coordinate everything from games, rides, food, raffle, rummage sale, all the way to build up and break down.  Her list was hand-made and was extremely labor intensive.  After completing the Access project, using a database will be an extremely effective way to to coordinate all aspects of this project, from tables, to forms, and finally reports.

Candler

Coordinating 400 volunteers can be extremely cumbersome.  Her process begins by distributing forms to be completed and returned, so that she can begin building her volunteer board.  With Access database, she could immediately create the From template, print a blank for submission, including name, contact info, time availability, and choice of volunteer work.

Candler

Once the forms are filled out and completed, she could input the information straight into the database to create a usable table.  Currently she was placing phone calls for verification, making individual notes, and then trying to tabulate from there.  By entering the information straight into the form, everything is available on her new table that she can create.

Once all of information has been entered, tables set up, then she can go back, manipulate the data and create the reports that she needs, for example, who is working the Friday night second shift for the games.  The reports would be essay to create, and last minute volunteer adjustments could be made without having to use white-out.

Candler

In conclusion, using Database can highly streamline any major project such as the St. Paul's carnival.  The data would be extremely accessible and adjustable, making one's productivity much higher, therefore allowing for more time for the little one's that would truly enjoy the carnival in the first place.

Candler - Meez

Access - Database Project

Candler

I have used Word and Excel to an ad nauseum degree, but was not very familiar with Access and using databases.  After going through the course material, I was able to import external data, build tables, create queries, forms, and finally reports.  I can absolutely see the value in using databases to manipulate huge sums of data into quick reports highlighting areas of one's business or endeavour.

Candler

The one area that I feel increases the functionality of using the database is the Criteria area, used in sorting Queries.  You can take data from a table, sort it endless variety of ways to create the end-result that you are looking for.  Being able to use tables, queries, forms, and reports can give a business extreme power to coordinate information in a very short period of time.

ISM-3004 - Presentation - Florida Mom Magazine to VCs

Candler

Please find for review a link to my YouTube video,

Florida Mom Magazines presentation to Venture Capitalists.



I created and ran a magazine and website for over a year in 2008, the Florida Mom Magazine, www.florida-mom.com.  It was a labor of love, but was a tough venture heading into the economic headwinds at the time.  I think in retrospect, if I had looked for Venture Capital funding, that I might have had more success with the project.

Candler - Florida Mom Magazine

I basically assembled a VC downloadable 5 min video presentation that could be hosted on the www.florida-mom.com website.  After coming up with a storyboard, I posed the question, would the Florida Mom Magazine make for a good investment?  I introduced who we aimed the magazine at, what the magazine was about, who our target advertiser base was and opportunities, our Media Kit, and finally bringing everything together with our business plan.  The final slide basically said for answers to questions, check out our website or contact me, Robert Candler.

Candler - Florida Mom Magazine

Going through the presentation rubric, I tried to anticipate the vc's questions, as well as make it attention grabbing, informative, but too intensive.  The VC viewer should have a great overview of the idea of the magazine, as well as places to look for more in-depth information.

As far attention grabbing goes, I posed the questions about what a Florida-Mom was, and then tried to answer it with a 30 second video that I had assembled for our website.  It basically shows an active, outgoing, energetic, passionate lady that continues to live life to the fullest, even with having kids.  It has high energy music, pictures, and bullet points to highlight what a Florida Mom is. 

Candler - Florida Mom Magazine

I don't feel that there was any inconsistencies nor errors, due to the fact that all of the information had already been published and pulled straight from the website. 



Working on this project has reinvigorated my passion for magazine publishing.  I thoroughly enjoyed my time coordinating and working all aspects of this publication, as well as working with a talented staff. 

Tutorial II - Public Speaking Tips and Presentations

Today we are going to discuss public speaking and presentations!

What is the proverbial joke? The two most things that people are most afraid of are death and public speaking, and the majority of people actually pick public speaking over death.

Candler

I had the pleasure three years ago of being in Las Vegas working on the Electrolux team for our company when they rolled out the high-end Electrolux appliances with Kelly Ripa as the spokeswomen to back them up.  The meeting was very informative and light until towards the end, they mentioned to us that we would now how to go into the field and set up training engagements in front of 100 people plus.  I personally was intimated, as I think the rest of the team was.  Luckily the next presenter for us was Arch Lustberg, a leader in the field of dynamic communications.

Arch Lustberg has a long resume of public speaking trainees from George Bush, Dick Gephart, and Charles Osgood.  Obviously as well as with any good presentation, preparation and familiarity with the material is key, but a few side notes that I felt were very interesting were, the introduction, relatable stories, and the pause.  I was able weave these added components into my presentations, which helped me become more comfortable in front of people, and therefore made me a better and more effective speaker.

www.lustberg.net

Candler

The first area that Arch delved into was the beginning of the presentation.  He noted that a lot of people will turn their powerpoints on and just start hammering away at the nuts and bolts on their agenda.  He said the problem was, that a lot of times, you don’t’ actually capture the audience.  His suggestion was to take the first minute or two and start out with a story, a personal story.  It did not even have to relate to the subject material, but something that was somewhat light and humorous and would draw the audience into emotionally, before delving into the heart of the presentation.  Personally I would start off all of the presentations with a quick story about my two boys watching Star Wars for the first time.  The story was short, humorous, got a quick laugh, put me at ease, as well as the audience.  This helped me tremendously as I was beginning.

Candler

The second area that Arch mentioned was to add emotional interest to bullet points by adding in more personal accounts or stories.  This is not always accessible, but for example, I was training on the new Electrolux appliance line.  When training on certain aspects of say the refrigerator, I would add in a story to highlight a certain feature, or a joke to accentuate another feature.  The stories and jokes were my own, which again helped to keep me at ease, but also made the training more relatable to the audience.  They were able to ‘see’ what I was describing versus just rattling off bullet points on the features.

Candler

The last area that I use on a daily basis, not just on presentations is the ‘pause’.  Just like an artist leaves blank areas to make the areas of color more vivid, or like on the powerpoint, where you don’t want to overpower a slide, the pause accomplishes the same thing.  If you want to make a solid statement about a certain area, then say the bullet point and pause for a second or two.  It will accentuate what you said.  Sometimes this is extremely hard, as most people want to add in the um’s and err’s to fill the verbal space, but this creates noise to the audience.  Speak, pause, accentuate, and move to the next area.

Candler

I will tell you that now having conducted training session up and down the East coast, I thoroughly enjoy the process.  Just like being a rock star, holding an audience captive can be very invigorating.  If you are prepared, practiced, and add in some personal stories to draw them in, and add in the pause now and then to highlight your bullet points, your audience will appreciate you more and remember your presentation better. 

Good Luck!

Excel Project!

Welcome to my Blog Post!

Today we are going to discuss my Excel project that I have been working on in my ISM3004 class at UF.


Enjoy!

Avg of PctIncrease - Pivot Table - Candler

Microsoft's Excel program, a part of the entire Microsoft Office suite, is spreadsheet software that includes calculating and graphic tools, along with Pivot Tables.  While working on this project, I was able to expand on the basics that I learned from my Intro to Computing class over the summer.  Using Excel, I was able to take large amounts of raw data, manipulate it and produce quick scan almost dash-board like results using Pivot Tables.

For my project, I was presented with a large volume of workout data on hundreds of exercise enthusiasts.  Using Excel, I was able to take this copious amounts of raw data and begin to transform it into an answer for the study.  I used various formulas such as MAX and IF to find the results I as looking for.  Once I had the percentages computed through the formulas, I cleaned up the spreadsheet to make it look presentable and professional.  I then set it up to print on legal paper, one sheet wide with two rows frozen at the top, and headers and footers added.  Lastly, I took the raw data and created two Pivot tables to give the quick snap shot of the total date collected.

Full Screen Shot of Pivot Table - Candler

As you can see, Excel is extremely powerful software, that if used right, will allow a used to manipulate large amounts of data very quickly.  It will allow you to print out report, and boil the information down to quick, snap-shot, mini dashboard, known as Pivot tables.  The speed and accuracy of Excel make it an invaluable resource to any business.