Week 4-Hardware and Computer Forensics

           This week's lecture was about hardware and computer forensics. We learn from lecture that it is very easy for an id thief to obtain our social security number and other personal information. We have to learn to protect our identity because if we don't, id thieves can use our information to ruin our credit. To protect our customers, we would encourage them to use their credit cards instead of debit cards. We would also not require them to provide us their social security numbers when it is not necessary. Usually, we would not need their social security numbers for just purchasing. If we do decide to let customers apply for our credit cards, we would have to check their credit reports.
          Since my business is online, it is very critical for me to be able to receive orders asap. It would be a plus if the computers have a large amount of RAM and a high-speed processor. With a high-speed processor, the control unit and arithmetic logic unit would make it easier for the employees to manage the orders online. The attitudes of employees are really important also. With the technology today, if employees are working with slow computers, they will be irritated.
        If I do decide to replace the hard drives of the computers, I would have to destroy, disintegrate, incinerate, pulverize, shred or melt the hard drives, according to the DoD 5220.22-M. We learned that even though we may think that we permanently deleted files from our hard drives, it is possible to retract the information deleted. I would not risk selling or just throwing away the hard drives because it would risk revealing my customers' information.

Week 2- Social World Privacy/Spreadsheet Essentials

         This week in class we talked about social world privacy and spreadsheet essentials. Though there is no such thing as being fully secured in the Internet world, some sites still try their best to fully secure users. My online business should somehow protect my customers. I have to ensure that when customers pay for their orders online, their personal information and credit card information would not leak out. Paypal would be one of the best options.
         Some customers would not know how to safely input their information during payment, so if they have a Paypal account, they can just log into their Paypal account and would not have to worry about getting their personal information stolen. I had my credit card information stolen twice but after starting to use Paypal, I felt more secured. Every customers should be secured.
         Relating to payment issues, I can use Excel to organize all the money I will be receiving and money that I will be paying for goods. As Professor Rubin showed us in class, it is easier to use the functions in Excel than to calculate everything manually. It would save me a lot of time and I can use that time to do more productive things for the business.

Week 1- Social Media.

            I intend to start an online business, selling sweets, from candies to cakes to baked goods. Many girls would crave for sweets when they are in an unhappy mood or even when they are happy. This online business can target women, birthday parties, and any other special occasions. The advantage of starting it online is that internet users can easily get access to the website and see the samples of my products just by viewing the website. 

           Since it is going to be an online business, we cannot easily attract people on the streets. Therefore, I have to use social media to advertisement and let netizens know more about my business. It is made possible with Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and etc. There are many users on Facebook and Twitter, making it simply easier to advertise. I believe that my online sweets shop would be a success if I am able to get the words out there about it on Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp.

           Many companies are advertising on Facebook. If they do not wish to pay for advertisement, they can start a fan page for Facebook users to like. The advantage of this is that users, whom choose to like my fan page, can know about what deals I'm offering. Deals and coupons usually attract customers to buy. Friends of the people who like my page can see it on their newsfeed also, which is a plus. On Twitter, users with similar interests can share about my sweets and discuss. The most reliable comments usually are from peers, for example, many would check the ratings of a restaurant on Yelp to see the comments. If my sweets shop has good ratings on Yelp, I will most likely get a good amount of customers.