Secure E-mail Project

It was truly an experience using Thunderbird for this project. I have never even heard of it before. One thing I do know, it makes my computer run super slow! Aside from that it is a pretty cool application.

Link: http://news.cnet.com/Secure-wireless-e-mail-promised-for-office/2100-1033_3-893756.html?tag=mncol;8n

This article was from CNET.com. This article talks about Sprint, Sprint PCS and Cingular all getting mobile, wireless secure e-mail apps or features for their phones. It is amazing how fast technology is changing and instead of reading about new secure e-mail programs online, we are reading about them being installed on wireless devices.

Sprint is also debuting a secure more like "text messaging" system where IT persons at a company can download the program at the computer and you can send e-mails and text messages simultaneiously.

I think with the way corporate America is going wireless, this is defintely needed.

I never knew how to encrypt an e-mail or what that even meant until this project. It was really interesting to even sign up with VeriSign because I had no idea what any of that even was. Very information and meaningful project!

Access Database Project

I'd say after watching the video lectures online, it was not too bad doing this project. I guess I was a little nervous after the readings online said this project would be harder than the excel project. I learned actually a lot from the project- I really like the Report Wizard part the most. It is nice, thinking about it, after you make the forms and queries, putting it into one report and being done with it. The steps I found challenging, but I worked through them easily. I'm glad I got to download this program and do this project- it may be very certain I will use this during an internship or a job.

One item of functionality is importing one file at a time, or many files. For instance, if we wanted to just import one file on one certain person, we could do that- we would not have to import the entire file list containing all 1000 people. This would be good for use in a doctors or dentists office- for they have tons of patients and it would be time consuming if they had to import all of their patients name at one time, or just selecting one to import. Perhaps this would be useful when making the schedule for appointment or the list of patients for the next day.

I really enjoyed this project-I can't believe it is the second to the last project left for this semester. Can't wait to see what the Secure E-mail project is all about!

Week 11: Clear

I really enjoyed this weeks lesson on a topic I was a little foggy on. However, I was suprised when we went over Microsoft Project! I knew about the program, and was under the impression not a lot of other people did. I used it for one of my intenships over the summer. With my major being Public Relations and us using Gantt charts a lot, I found this program very useful!

The book, on page 623 talks about Project Management Software. It's software a project manager can use to assist them in things like planning and implementating, and making sure all parts of the project were divided up and among whom. The book talks about Gantt charts and PERT charts, both of which I have learned about in my PR classes.

A Gantt chart is abar chart that uses horizontal bars to show the project phases or activities. It is pictured above and was invented by Henry L. Gantt.

A PERT chart, pictured above, is a chart that analyzes the time requried to complete a task and the minimum time required to do so. It was developed by the US Department of Defense.

Either of these charts would be useful. During my internship, I used Microsoft Project to assign tasks to other interns who were Freshman. It gave due dates and short project descriptions for each. I found it very helpful.

Below is a link to a video to help you use Microsoft Project. When I first started using it, I found it very difficult to understand and manevuer until I finally got the hang of it! Hope this helps.

Microsoft Project help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2tQLHD1cRk



Presentation and Web 2.0 Project


Here is a link to my Web 2.0 Presentation:
http://www.slideboom.com/presentations/226533/Haven-Hospice--Ashley-Horn
This project was by no means easy to me. Even though I am pretty comfortable with PowerPoint, I had never added the narration to the slides before. I must admit, the end result was pretty cool and made me look at web presentations in a whole new way. I have, however, had experience with placing a YouTube video into a PowerPoint presentation before. So that was easy.

Here is an evaluation of mine, according to the rubric.

I think there is a logical flow and sequence. I think I helped this by using "10 reasons YOU should donate." It helps keeps the listeners on a path to the end of my presentation: Excellent. I'm not sure I do a good job at anticipating questions, mainly because I am dishing out information on different levels, but I feel like I hit the main points well enough not to keep the auidence guessing: Meets the Minimum. I think I grab my auidnces attention, with the text style and pictures, and with the "10 reasons" heading- it keeps the listeners wondering what will be next: Excellent. I do believe I spark curiosity, with the Even pictures for one, as that is #1 on the presentation. Who does not like a good, fun event? I used that as the first point to spark questions: Excellent. I think it is clear what I am trying to present, however, beyond my control, I am curretly sick and my voice is going in and out during the presenation. It's hard to share a good presentation with poo voice narration: Meets the Minimum. I think I do a good job validating claims: Exellent. I do not believe my presentation has any unbelieveable claims or typos: Excellent. I avoid clutter, however, I could have worked on the use of white space, I just did not want to overwhelm my viewers, especially since this is to get donations: Meets the Minimum. I do think my presentation ensures readability, mainly because I did not overwhelm my slides with text: Excellent. Also, because I do not have a lot of text to just read, I think I did say and show and not read directly off the slides: Excellent.

I learned some thing critiquing someone else's project. First, it's not easy to make your own Web 2.0 presentation, so it was even harded to grade someone else's. I liked watching the other porjects, though, so it almost made evaluating them fun. Critiquing others made you really look at the content, even down to the text to check for typo's, and it made me look more thourough into mine to check for these errors.

I will definitely use this in the business envirnoment again, especially in my next internship or first job if it calls for it. I learned a lot, especially as mentioned adding the vocie narration to my PowerPoint; it was almost kind of fun to hear my voice directing the presentation. I learned that Web 2.0 presentations are effective and even fun to watch. Also, getting the copyright information was no big deal, so it made the project fun. My organization was willing to let me use photos and one video, so it made the project go by more swift.

Excel Project



This project defintely tested all of my nerves and my patients. I am glad it is finally done though! Excel has always been a little bit of a pain to me, but I must admit, I did learn a lot! And the most I learned was about the formulas. I see how easy they can be to use. Sometimes when you hear "formulas in Excel", people can get freightened. But, after this project I see them in a nicer light.  As long as you give yourself time, and you grasp the basic concept of the formula set up, you should be fine.

I also learned a lot about Pivot Tables. They can really come in handy when you want to analyze data. The pivot tables in this project were defintely easy to do with the instructions provided. It made looking at the given data easier to understand, and these are real time questions that our bosses may ask, and now we have the tools to do it for them. I really felt like I learned something when it came to the Pivot Tables. It can look at anaylzing data in a whole different way.

Between the scavenger hunt and the Excel project, I felt like I learned how to do a lot in Excel. From centering text in cells or modifying the text within them, to using formulas to maniuplate data, and finally using the pivot tables. I know at my summer internship I used a lot of Excel, but never to these dimensions as far as formulas and pivot tables. It seems to me, though, that there are more features even beyond these learned here that are offered on Excel. I think this was a good introductory lesson on Excel.