Corporate Blogging: A New Marketing Communication Tool for Companies

Blogs are helpful in many marketing and communication purposes which interact companies' vision, newly launched products online, especially to external parties. It can be used internally whereby it communicates the people within the organization.

Is corporate blog must be very "marketing literature"? I would say: "Won't it be too formalized? I would like to have some humour elements, please~" If humour can be well managed (either company-sponsored or user-created humour, with the right proportion), it can make corporate blog effective and great! Humour is a way to get your blog readers' attention, create close relationship with your customers, suppliers employees and so on. What if a corporate blog looks as if the company is the author of the blog that "voice out" itself? Sounds great isn't it?

I personally find Redfin's corporate blog is interesting whereby it either introduces the life within organization or promotes its core business in the way of humour. Nevertheless, it allows its customers to participate in the humour posts as well! I would like to share here. (Redfin is an online real estate brokerage)
http://blog.redfin.com/blog/category/humor

• Creating blog is a social media strategy whereby it plays a role of communication agent.
• It is a useful extension of the company's image in the marketplace.
• Updated information is vital as it encourages users to stick to the company when people find that they can obtain some organic search or keywords on the latest information from the blog. This could be done in a dialogue form. For instance, conversation between employees and customers can be included in the corporate blog to create a different way of customer service on enquiries. Whenever a customer types keywords to search for information, the answer for the enquiries will be shown in the dialogue way.
  
• Good for customers as they won't feel so boring as the traditional one does.

Here is an example from Johnson & Johnson's corporate blog: http://jnjbtw.com/

Reputation influence the marketability of a company's services and products. With the creative and useful blog the company established, new customers will be attracted and close relationship with customers can be produced; confidence in customers towards the company will be gradually enhance, thus reputation being pushed!

In the organization, its blog is normally set up through their intranet. Everyone in the organization can access regardless which level you are in. Employees have the opportunities to interact and share information among themselves, better relationship between managers and subordinates can be developed. It provides a more comfortable working environment that not putting employees under pressure, thus they will be more commit to the organization.

It is highly encourage companies to start establish their own blogs as it no only bring benefits to the company itself but also their stakeholders. It is like the idiom : one stone kill "few" birds :P

However, corporate blog should be revisiting frequently by the organization to prevent destructive comments and loss of control of over message.

Pros & Cons from the Students Perspective toward E-Learning in Malaysian Universities

E-learning can be simply described as a learning process in which students can communicate with their lecturers and peers, and access learning materials, over Internet or other computer network. This indirectly become a strategy movement and a key challenges for universities. As for UTAR, we have our very own Web Based Learning Environment (WBLE)

Those universities whose imply e-learning strategies, oftenly try to accommodate growing student enrollment, sustain academic diversity and gain a competitive advantage. However, now we going to look from the student perspective toward pros and cons of E-Learning in our local universities.

Pros:-

1. Learning is a process of self-paced and self-directed. This give a chance for students either to speed up or slow down during studying. This enable a student to keep in path in between learning and understanding the material in the same time. E-learning also allows students to choose content and tools appropriate to their differing interests, needs, and skill levels. It;s student centered, we even can skip the subject we already know and focus the topic which we are interested.
   
   
2. Eliminates the geographical, opens a broader education options. With E-Learning, every morning they just need to activate their computers and Internet and carry on their studies as like we going to class. It also reduced or eliminated travel time and associated costs (parking, fuel, vehicle maintenance). This definely a good news for students who have financial problems or poor family background.
   
   
3. 24/7 accessibility makes scheduling easy and this become one of the most favourable for students choosing E-Learning. Students are unbound by time, which mean they can choose whatever their free time to learn the course. They can adjust their schedule which fix them. For those part time labor/students, this will bring a lot of convenience to them to balance their work-life.
   

Cons:-

1. Uncomfortable for those who lack confidence in their technology skills and believe that e-learning will lead to more work. Students from poor family background may have not chances yet to own a personal computer and learn those technology skills.
   
   
2. Face-to-face communication/meeting is threatened. Can you imagine a bunch of students keep nudging the lecturers /tutors to solve their questions and doubts? The lecturers/tutors might just forget or skipped over you during the Q&A session.
   
   Nevertheless, the main problem for E-Learning in Malaysian universities:-

1. Lack of technology support. The challenges associated with providing e-learning support more oftenly are associated with lack of knowledge than with testing the limits of availability. Lack of knowledge about course design and technology in general are cited , especially one where the system crashes can still be a problem. A low(or lousy) broadband speed also might affect the quality of E-learning. No one like to see their lecturer lagging in front of LCD screen right? (Even Millionnaire Donald Trumph said so :P)
   
   
2. Plays an increasing role in higher education as the line between face-to-face learning and e-learning continues to blur. However, i hope that our country's leaders will try to improve our facilities, technologies standard, educational level so that E-Learning only can be a truely have a big influence in education terrority.
   

Useful Links:-

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERB0316.pdf

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=cshe

Review on "New Rules for Cyber Cafe Soon"

The Government will be implementing new rules for cyber cafe soon.

Among the new rules are:

1. Have to close by midnight daily.
2. Banned from using tinted glasses in their premises. (must be able to see through from the outside)
3. Only allowed to operate from the ground floor.
4. Those under 12 years old must be accompanied by parents or guardian and only allowed to stay up to 10.00pm.
5. Prohibited from providing gaming activities, gambling, pornography, music and publications with negative element.
6. Cigarettes and alcohol to be prohibited from being sold.
7. A book log to record the entry and departure time of the patrons.

Nowadays you can see cyber cafe anywhere on the streets. Cyber cafe are growing non-stop like mushrooms. The original objectives or purposes of introducing the cyber cafe to public is to cultivate learning habits among citizens and also to expose citizens to the cyber world. Unfortunately, people had misused cyber cafe as a gaming zone, gambling zone and etc. Instead of molding citizens to be more educational, cyber cafe is now seen as an outlet that would harm youths mentally and socially.



It is no surprise that the Government is being strict and taking actions against cyber cafes now. In fact, all these should have done earlier by the cyber cafe owners. Owners of cyber cafe should have taken necessary actions against youngsters who surf sites like pornography, gaming, gambling and etc. Youngsters as young as 12 years old were seen hanging out with friends playing online games such as DoTA, making bets, smoking and drinking alcohol in cyber cafe. Such sight is an eyesore to others. The Government wouldn't have come out with such rules if all youngsters have self discipline and knows of their limits. However, we could not blame the cyber cafe goers entirely. Sometimes, it is the owner of cyber cafe that are in thirst for money. Some owners allow such activities to happen to attract youngsters and make profit out of them. Sigh.. if only these youngsters knew this! Sadly, these youngsters are more willing to pay more to satisfy their addicts towards games, pornography and so on. I strongly agree with the Government's actions and sad to say, for the cyber cafe businessmen, they might suffer some losses. Well, what goes around comes around. Some people just prefer to learn the "hard" way.

*Ahem* See what I mean?

Related Links:

1. http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/7/8/nation/21760296&sec=nation
2. http://www.onlinecasinoextra.com/casino_news_2526.html

E-Government in Malaysia

Just like every other countries, Malaysia too has its very own dream of becoming a first class nation. One of the initiatives taken by Malaysia to achieve this goal is to introduce the usage of E-Government in 1997 which was said to bring the citizens of Malaysia and the Government closer. The implementation of E-Government is able to improve the convenience, information flow and processes with government, and quality of interaction with citizens and businesses. The Malaysian Government main website can be accessed through here Perhaps one of the latest and most proud achievements of E-Government recently is the implementation of the system which allows citizens to replace their MyKad quickly. With the well built up system, Malaysian citizens can now replace their MyKad in one day in Putrajaya and Melaka. I personally find this fascinating as I can still remember the days of waiting in the JPN office when I was young. It was dreadful. Other services that are popular among citizens are the job application via TheJobsMalaysia, checking traffic summons, checking the EPF statements,and filling in tax returns. After providing numerous services, perhaps the most feared outcomes that Malaysia might receive is that no one is using it. People used to say that Malaysians have first world infrastructure but with third world mentality. In order to boost acceptability and inviting more people to use these services provided, Malaysia needs to educate the users and create awareness of the availability of such services. At the same time ensuring the users of their safety and confidentiality on every aspect. Also not forgetting making the sites more user friendly and easy to navigate.

The application of pre-paid cash cards for consumers

People have been frantically looking for newer ways to make payments. One of the few types created is using Prepaid Cash Cards. This card is not to be mistaken for credit cards or debit cards. Though their concept is the same, all of them allows you to purchase items without literally handing in cash, there is one major difference.

Credit cards allows people to buy first, and pay for the items later. Debit cards on the other hand is directly linked to the user's bank account and if any purchases is made, it would be deducted through the amount in their bank account. Which also means that one should not be able to purchase anything if their bank accounts are empty. Pre-paid cash card is a whole different thing altogether, it does not give you a loan (like credit cards) or neither is it linked to your bank balances (like debit card). It has a whole account by itself. In order to buy something using a prepaid card, money must first be deposited or pre-loaded into the account of the card.

Prepaid cash cards are not new in Malaysia. One of the most highly used prepaid card in Malaysia is the TouchNGo card. Thanks to having many many tolls in Malaysia, this prepaid cash card becomes a necessity in order to not slow one down while travelling. The TouchNGo card was firstly created for the purposes of tolls payment which then later started to expand. Now they are allowed to be used in KTM's and so on. Of course prepaid cash cards have their advantages such as they provide control to people so that they don't over spend and at the same time removes the risk of becoming in debt like credit cards. But at the same time they too bring their little disadvantages. Imagine yourself in a supermarket after a long queue to purchase some groceries, then when you've reached the counter, you realised there is not enough credit in your prepaid card or the counter does not accept the prepaid card you are holding. One word.. "pissed".

As much as many different ways have been formed for payment, nothing feels more secure than cold hard cash in your pocket. It certainly makes me feel safe because cash can bring you everywhere and cards without a reader is nothing more than mere plastic. Till Malaysia is equipped with a card reader at every store even a mini market or grocery shop, I prefer to always have papers with Agong pictures in it by my side.

Review on - Using Touch n Go to buy Fast Food

Good news to fast food lovers! Previously created as an e-purse to be used at toll, KTM stations, LRT, and parking, on April 2008, Touch n Go customized its services by giving Malaysians the privilege to use Touch n Go card to purchase at selected retails and fast food outlets. Using Touch n Go Card to buy fast food would be AWESOME!! No more digging out money from your wallet and waiting for the cashier to give you back the change.

Now, there is no need to carry a bulky purse when you want to go out to Burger King. A&W or Dunkin' Donuts for meals. You could just simply touch your Touch n Go card on the scanner and walk away with your food. Isn't that simple and convenient? All you have to do is pay in advance and you could use the money all you want. You can even reload up to RM1,000.

With this new feature, customers need not have to wait in a long queue for their turn to purchase their food. It saves time and also takes away grumpy faces of angry customers. Business in fast food outlets will be much more improved.

But I still think that Touch n Go would be more successful if it is incorporated in McDonalds and KFC as both these fast food outlets are very famous among Malaysians. Often in either McDonalds or KFC, I have to queue in a long queue waiting for other customers to dig out money from their pockets and then wait for the cashier to give back the change. After a long queue and it finally reached my turn, I couldn't find a place to enjoy my meal anymore and this often upsets me. I would be more than delighted if there's Touch n Go in McDonalds and KFC.

Mobile payment system in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumers' adoption strategies

Mobile payment (M-payment) is a payment method for goods and services purchased via mobile devices, the most common device is cellphone. As we are moving forward to a more technology advanced era, wide range of mobile devices are available such as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), Smartphone and so on. Now, as long as we sign up for such service and bring mobile devices along, we can pay the transaction amount in anytime anywhere!

Is mobile payment system widely adopted in Malaysia? Well, the first mobile payment service called TeleMoney was launched in 20th November 2001, nearly 8 years it is implemented in Malaysia!!!

Systems@Work was the one pushed TeleMoney in E-market. It picked TeleMoney as master merchant meanwhile Hong Leong Bank incharging the Mpayment processing. At that time, Celcom, the oldest mobile telecommunication company in Malaysia, having quite a large numbers of subcribers, coorperated with Systems@Work to prosper M-payment system in Malaysia. At the very beginning, this service was only offered to post-paid subcribers, however as this system is getting more and more developed, M-payment is available prepaid subcribers as well.

Recent growth of M-payment was the launch of world's first contactless mobile payment service--- Maxis FastTap, which uses near field communication (NFC). This new launched service is partnered with Nokia, Visa, Maybank and Touch n' Go Card. Users who sign up for Maxis FastTap will be benefited to buy goods and services at more than 1800 of Visa payWave merchant location, pay for toll and others only by using Nokia6212 classic phone.

M-payment overcomes the limitation of payment make through cash, credit cards, cheques etc. Consumers do not need to hold large amount of cash during shopping; payment will be made only if the users' have balance in their bank accounts, thus no worries about bounce cheque or unable to pay amount due. Furthermore, M-payment help consumers to save up a lot of time. For instance, consumers pay car loan through mobile phone instead of waiting in the long queue in bank. Besides, when making mobile payment, security PIN which for authentication purposes will be given to payer to keep user's information private and confidential. Isn't that make Malaysians' life easier?

There are criteria that make Malaysia's M-payment to be having a potentially bright future.

The following link is the illustration adopted from noewave.com on the process of mobile payment.

Related links:
http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_howitworks.asp

Credit Card Debts: Cause and Prevention

Nowadays, you can buy anything without carrying a big amount cash of wallet. Credit card has provided us convenient ways for shopping, online buying or even booking seat in airplane. Most importantly, for a Malaysian, credit card provides 'Safety First' so that we could avoid criminals' nasty plans.

As time goes by, the 'swipe' habit had sadly bring nightmares to credit card holders. The moment we realized, the 'snowballing' interest payment almost disrupt everyone's peaceful mind and their financial plans. Before tackling these problems, we must know the causes lie behind the credit card debts.

Causes:-

1. Wrong perceptions among the people.
If you want to apply for credit card, you need a stable income. Different credit card types (eg, Silver card, Gold card, Platinum card) require higher income stability. Thus, peoples usually use that to prove themselves as 'better' or 'higher status' than others. Men are usually forced to apply at least 1 credit card, due to the 5C ( car, cash, condominium, certificate & CREDIT CARD ) requirements of 'hooking' girls, making themselves more miserable when comes to financial debt.

2. Poor financial management.

Many ladies spend money like water when it comes to shopping. Men are not much of a difference when it comes to paying bills after have a dinner with girls or friends. Many people thought that credit card is fast money and 'free' when it comes to spending. Because everything is taken care by bank in the first place, people usually will not worry about their daily cash flow. Once the bills arrive in a month, headache comes, money flies~.

3. The card rewards

The lending bank usually use different kinds of rewards, especially travelling rewards, to "encourage" card holders to spend more by collect points. Unluckily, the allure of this awards eventually gets you deeper and deeper into debts. In the end, the money you spend on credit card point is enough for yourself to travel any places you would like to go (somehow cheaper if you made a late credit payment).

Prevention is better than cure. Here are TIPS for credit card holders:-

1. Keep the Right Perspective
Credit cards do not mean anything, neither to prove you are financially stronger nor higher status. It's just a PLASTIC CARD (of course, with a magnetic strip...). Instead of holding various types of credit cards, you have to reduce the number of credit cards. It is a wiser act to own the card which is most important to you. Keeping an equal perspective regarding credit and cash helps you well enough to be more aware and more keen on spending too much. If you treat your credit card as if it’s also cash, the less unaware you become of your spendings.

Anyway, CASH payment is always the best. It's better use your 'current' wallet rather than your future income.

2. Do a footprints on each credit cards

Before you own a credit cards, it's recommended to do some homework. List out every credit cards policy, interest rates, free interest payback period and make a comparison. Find out which credit card gives you the lowest interest rate or the longest free interest payback period. Remember, just choose the exact card which serves you well. Furthermore, you will be more certain and aware your payment debts when you only holding one credit card rather than a handful of credit cards with different balances, different expiry dates and different interest rates. This usually will lead to confusion when you make your payments at the end of the month.

3. Strengthen your financial control and management

A well-planned financial management scheme can help you to become a more prepared and more organized consumer. With a great management plan, you won’t even want to choose to pull out your credit card from your wallet. One of the most crucial factors of credit card debt prevention is paying on time. People who can control their finances and manage their card payment schedules are the ones who rarely acquire credit card debt.

Last but not least, think carefully before using credit card. Once you use it, make sure you pay on time. If you can't assure whether you can do it, then just use 'cash on hand'. It is wise to be 'debt free' rather than to spend on something you cannot afford it.

(Taiwanese credit card debtors show up at the street in order to seek help from government to help them get out of debt pool.)

Review on "Favourite passwords used online"

First of all, this post is for a review on a blog entry made here So here goes. As a summary, this post posted on Feb 18 is mainly about a short statistics of what is the most frequently used passwords online. It was stated that 16% likes to use their name as their password, 14% used numbers in order... meaning 1234 or 12345678 and another 4% uses the word "password". The other usages are like qwerty, iloveyou, and others.




To say the truth, I am very much not surprised by these choices of combination as passwords. These passwords are easy to remember, simple, easy to type, or in other words "good for the brains". One would definitely NOT forget it (forgetting it is simply.... unacceptable...), so the good thing is, you wouldn't lose access to the destination you are heading to. Sounds good doesn't it... so the reason to use these passwords are pretty much obvious. In fact, this problem does not only occur on the net, it also occurs on the ATM machine. Most people prefer to use their IC number, birthdates, or numbers on their ATM card as their pin codes. The reason to this is also the same 3 words which is "easy to remember" However, the consequences of using these passwords are at the same time disastrous. People who don't even know you can simply hack into your account and manipulate your information. And for those who use their name or IC number as passwords, the people who KNOWS you can simply hack into your account. (So yes, I'm saying look out for the people around you). There has been many cases whereby friends had stolen ATM cards and withdrew the money without much hassle at all.

Of course when such problem arrises, many people have somewhat came up with a "solution" or suggestion to curb this problem. One of the examples given in the post was "choose a password that is longer than 8 characters with one capital letter and one symbol". Other suggestions are usually "include numbers and symbol in your password", "use words that doesn't bring any meaning as your password". More methods to keep your passwords safe are explain here. All of these suggestions seem pretty much useful to avoid people from knowing what is your password. The bad side? Even you yourself cannot remember what's your own password! In order to solve this problem, most people started writing notes and keep them under their desktop, keyboard, sticking it at somewhere(like the picture on the left) and so on.



As far as my own experience, I've lost my password, I cannot remember what it was, and usually when you are trying to retrieve your password they have this "question" thing asking things like what is your favourite food/pet's name/ etc, and I can't even remember what I wrote for the question. And the conclusion is I totally lost access to that website. Solution? Start new account...

So yes, I totally agree that creating difficult passwords such as aS^hlo$54 is a super good password but that only happens if and only IF you can remember it without having to refer it from other places. Simple? Think again, I can hardly even remember which password i use for different website access, what more a wonderful password which is made up with symbols and capital letters...

Alert!! Online Security Threat!

Hackers nowadays are genius! Planting trojans, worms/keyloggers, hacking into computers and stealing information becomes their number ONE hobby in their life! Some do it out of fun and some with nasty intentions.

The worried ones always find ways to stop hackers from intruding into their private information and destroying their data. They go from anti-virus programs such as AVG, Norton Antivirus, Kaspersky and lots more anti-virus programs. As technology upgrades, the threat level increases too.

WiseGeek shares the TOP 10 Online Security Threat which are:

1. Web servers and services
2. Workstation Service
3. Windows Remote Access Services
4. Microsoft SQL Servers (MSSQL)
   
5. Windows Authentication
6. Web Browsers
7. File Sharing Applications
8. Local Security Authority Subsystem (LSAS) Exposures
9. Mail Client
10. Instant Messaging

Are our data still safe?? How to mitigate these threats?
In my opinion, mitigation is almost impossible. However to avoid, there are ways such as:

Installing firewalls

Lots of software developers have created firewalls. Then firewall works similar as a police traffic, checking network traffics and block unauthorized passages and only permitted ones. However, I personally find firewall sometimes quite annoying and a waste of time. Especially in stress and tensed moments when you need to access into a site urgently and then there comes the firewall message stating whether to allow access or not. It can be a little irritating at times. But to protect from harmful threats, firewall comes to the rescue! However, sometimes it didn't really work because our "itchy" fingers might click and authorized the access of harmful sites.

Encryption

For example when using Paypal, while transferring information, people can tap into the line in which the data is transferring and steal it.When Computer1(C1) is sending to Computer2(C2), and before it reaches C2, the hacker can tap into the line to steal the data. Usually before sending a data or important information out, it is advisable to encrypt your data. In case if someone did tap into the line and steal the data, he will not be able to understand what he had stolen unless he has a program which can decrypt it.Otherwise, in Paypal for example, if the hacker succeeds in stealing your number and passwords, he may finish up your money on any online transactions. Last time it is not safe to use ATM and online transactions but nowadays, if people want to transfer money from one account to another, they will receive an SMS to confirm the transaction. Upon confirming the transaction with sms, then it will proceed in transferring the money. But! not to worry~ Lately Microsoft and other online transaction has already performed data encrypting in order to save and ensure customer's data is safe.

Protect Your Data with IP Security
Can data be protected using IP Security? Of course it can be done! IP Security can protect your data when it's in transit provided both the sending and receiving systems have to support it. Windows 2000 and later Microsoft operating systems have built-in support for IP security. Worry not, because IP security operates at a lower level of the networking model. There is this program called Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) which IPsec uses to encrypt data that are sensitive and confidential. It can operate in tunnel mode, for gateway-to-gateway protection, or in transport mode, for end-to-end protection. Therefore, we can be assured that our data is quite safe through IP Security.

Password Protected Documents

Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader provide such functions allowing user to set passwords on confidential documents. With the availability of these functions, our data can be deemed to be safe. However, keyloggers can be embedded in spyware allowing private information to be transmitted to an unknown third party. A keylogger is a program that runs in the background, recording all the keystrokes. Once keystrokes are logged, they are hidden in the machine for later retrieval, or shipped raw to the attacker. The attacker then scrutinize them carefully in the hoping to find passwords, or possibly other useful information that could be used to compromise the system. This leaves our data not safe anymore.

All in all, as much as developers has become smarter to develop more programs to save us, the hackers have also became smarter to creating ways to continue stealing data. It's a battle of who is improving faster than the other to outsmart them.

How to Safeguard Our Personal and Financial Data?

Finally, PTPTN loan released...... This time I decided to pay the student bill through Public Bank E-banking service. The next day after class, I entered the computer lab, at the moment when I was accsessing Public Bank website to make online payment, my friend stopped me... He advised me to make such online transaction by using own's laptop as to keep my personal data from being tracked and stole by unknown party. I puzzled and thought to myself, "How come I have never thought of this issue?" Readers, have you ever thought about that?

In this E-century, information technology has become more and more advanced. It is very important for us to focus our attention on safeguard measures when using online transaction, who knows somebody who has evil motive is keeping an eye on your credit card information and might steal it?

There are several ways to safeguard online transactions:

1. Keep your firewall or any security software up-to-date to ensure no information to be seen by unauthorized people as we usually would not be able to know how safe the transaction processing is.
   
   
2. If you were to use credit card for online transaction, use the one which has the lowest limit, so that even if unfortunately, the credit card is being stolen, we loss only a small amount.
   


3. Try not to keep all your log in information in the computer, instead record the information in daily notebook or paper and keep it in a secret place.
   


4. When signing up for the online transaction account, create a longer or more complex password (e.g.: a password with both alphebets and numbers) to strengthen your data security.


5. Be cautious when your come to the payment stage, calculate the amount that you need to pay beforre you click on the "ok" button for payment as the bad motive person would catch your uncautiousness and change the figure of amount you need to pay. For instance, suppose you have to pay only RM 699.00, someone who has bad intention may change it to RM 969.00.




6. Make sure that you send your payment information to a right and secure site. Legitimite website will always come with "https' instead of "http". Besides, there will be a padlock symbol at the bottom of the screen.
   
   
   
7. At the top of the webpages, most of the time there will be a "pop up" bar requesting you to send some personal information through email. Bear in mind that not to trust such instruction.



8. Choose to conduct online transaction with those websites or company that have good reputation and have strong security policy to ensure customers' personal information are confidential.
   

In my personal point of view, Public Bank is practicing a good online security policy whereby all information of customers are encrypted using the 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) from MSC TrustGate Certificate Authority. In addition, the registration procedures of first time users are thorough. Users have to register e-banking service via Public Bank's Automated Teller Machine(ATM), which is to get a pin number as the first time log in password. The password can be changed when logging in to the website later on. PBeBank.com Authentication Code (PAC) will be sent through sms whenever payment were to be made. PAC is a 6 digits authentication code acts as additional security on our transactions and update our personal information.

In 25 June 2008, Kotak Security Limited also introduced similar "security key" to safeguard online transaction.

Related Links:

1. http://www.prlog.org/10083168-kotak-securities-introduces-security-key-to-safeguard-online-transactions.html
2. http://www.ehow.com/how_4880323_keep-online-transactions-safe.html
3. http://www.pbebank.com/en/en_content/info/security.html
4. http://www.pbebank.com/en/en_content/info/pac.html

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

Nowadays, Internet brings us a lots of convenience, especially buying online products, making online transactions, etc. We do not need to drive out anymore to spend our car fuel and energy. However, everything is not perfect. Knife can made out a good dishes, but also misuse to kill somebody. What i going to discuss now, is PHISHING.

Phishing is a process of luring users to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, password and credit card details by putting on a deceptive appearance as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. It is usually carried out by sending an e-mail and the e-mail will direct the user to visit a Website where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is fake whose look and feel alike, is a set up only to steal the user's information.

Example of Phishing methods















Sometimes, the phisher will use another tricks to cheat by sending e-mail with promotion package, discount affair, low price to bait so that we might give out our personal information in order to 'buy' these products & services. Human being easily be tempted when come to financial benefits. What we have to do is, THINK CAREFULLY before we made a decision.

There are several simple actions and reminders to tackle and avoid those phishing acts:-

1. Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information.(they typically ask for the personal informations such as username, password, credit card numbers, etc.)
   
   
   
   
2. Don't use the links in an email, instant message, or chat to get to any web page if you suspect the message might not be authentic or you don't know the sender or user.


3. Avoid filling out forms in email messages that ask for personal financial information.


4. Always ensure that you're using a secure website when submitting credit card or other sensitive information via your Web browser.


5. Remember not all scam sites will try to show the "https://" and/or the security lock. Get in the habit of looking at the address line, too.





6. Consider installing a Web browser tool bar to help protect you from known fraudulent websites. These toolbars match where you are going with lists of known phisher Web sites and will alert you.



7. Always update your web browser to latest version. Latest version usually come with stronger phishing filter and other features. Beside that, ensure that the phishing filter always activated.



8. Regularly log into your online accounts. (Don't leave your account too long to login and check, one week once is enough.)
   

An Example of E-commerce Failure and Its Causes

Kozmo.com was established by Joseph Park in the year 1997 in New York. He developed the idea of "delivery in less than one hour" and "FOC (Free of Charge) delivery" regardless what product has been ordered. (It sounds so good when I am hungry yet lazy to travel outside for food!) It adopted "bicycle delivery" to deliver the goods ordered by customers. The company was making losses for every order, but it was getting more and more popular and reached at 30% growth in sale per month. Until January 2000, it expanded from six markets and six locations to 11 cities and 22 locations, such as Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C etc.

When Kozmo started, its only product was videos. By the end, the product lineup had expanded to include the 4 major categories which are Entertainment (videos, games, DVDs, musics, books, newsstand), Basics (personal cares, sundries, medicine cabinet, household, tobacco), Food ( snacks,meals, softdrinks, beer, gourmet), Specialty (Electronics, executive, home accessories, bath, toys, flowers)

However, sad story of Kozmo.com came over when it had to close down due to:

1. Cost-effectiveness: In order to satisfy customer and make itself competitive, Kozmo.com charged its products at a lower price, in addition, promised to deliver small products free of delivery charges. However, this affected the profitabilty of the company whereby it could not support the high cost of delivery.


2. Insufficient funding for merger: Kozmo.com was dealing a merger with Los Angeles- based PDQuick, an online grocery, however, because of the funding promised by investor did not meet, the merger collapsed. http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-255710.htm/


3. Employees' job satisfaction declined: It is good that the company emphasized on benefits of customer by satisfying what they want. However, it seemed like torturing the employees whereby they have to deliver the products ordered to the customer within a very short time. Customer's need has gone beyond what the company can provide: One of the employees of Kozmo.com said:"I was asked by one customer, who had the flu, if I would walk her dog," said Andy Verdano, who was fired from Kozmo during a previous round of layoffs. "After I said yes, I was told that she started placing small orders three times a day, right around dog-walking time.http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2001/04/43025


4. Failed to deliver on time as it has pledged on, which was one of the important dilemmas. In order to accomplish this promise, Kozmo.com has to forecast the demand of customer; neither stockpiling too much till the stocks tie up the most liquid cash, nor too low that misses the order. Forecasting inventory demand is a very challenging and difficult part to be achieved. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/7598.html?wlc=1245220913

Google Changing Everything?

Classic Google Homepage

Google, undoubltly, is a shinning star, a best known "dictionary", instead of just being an Internet search engine. It has been identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine's #1 Best Place to Work, and as the most powerful brand in the world (according to the Millward Brown Group).

Google carries its mission as "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" [1]. Over the past decade, Google had enhanced the ease of information-gathering, lowered research costs and made creativity effectively cheaper and easier. Today, students wait untill the last minute to Google assignments ( Oops, it sounds like it is referring at me :P). Shoppers google-ed products and prices before purchasing. One columnist suggested that Google is so vital in our lives that it's a deity of sorts, everywhere and all-knowing.

Indirectly, Google had brought us to a higher level of Information Age, where everyone not need like our grandparents, went to library or school few miles away from home to find the learning materials, journal articles, etc. Now, we just Google and wait till it pops up in front of our monitor screen. It's all at your fingertips!

Google has developed several useful applications that improves our life quality. Google Map is a map searcher that shows the road routines, building locations of your country. If you wonder how to get to your destination, probably a strange place or places you never been before, key in the address, Google Maps will tell you the destination by offers walking times, walking distances, route connection times and ride times. Google also shows actual photographs of the route that you will take and a picture of the stop I should get off at. As a Sarawakian, this helps me a lots when i was studying at Kuala Lumpur to ensure i wouldn't get lost.

Google revolutionized email with GMail. The concept behind this GMail is: NEVER DELETE ANYTHING. This concept was unheard of before GMail because none had a service that could search thousands of emails intelligently and efficently. When GMail first began the invite only beta testing in 2004 each user was give an unprecedented 1000 megabytes of storage space. No other public email server even came close to 1000 megabytes. The most popular Microsoft Hotmail offered a measly 2 megabytes and Yahoo 4 megabytes (Hansell, 2004). In addition to a rediculous amount of storage Google offered integrated services within the email client. GMail scans each message and display relevant data. If an address was included in the email GMail would automatically display a miniature map of the location and offer driving directions if the address was located in the city [2].

So far now, these are the most significant where Google changes the quality of our lifes. Even though it doesn't wholly changes everything, but it create a sequence effects and impact through our life and living environment. I believe, Google will plays a greater role in the future as well.