Artificial Intelligence

All the chapter about AI was extremely interesting. AI is an idea that traditionally excited me. Now it excites me even more mostly from the computer scientist perspective, but also from the applications of it in a business environment. I've seen some very intelligent robots, that can astonish you with how intelligently they can answer to questions. One of those that I show recently was on a documentary/series on netflix called: "The next 10 big things" (Documentaries is all I watch).
So there was this guy that makes amazing robots which implement all the human facial expressions and simulate 22 muscle movements on the face. He also makes a sort of mask from a very realistically looking material. His best construct was a "guy" which implements all the above but especially has a sort of AI level of intelligence with voice recognition and his "brain" is connected on the internet so he receives and send information from the internet. Well that video blew my mind not only because the robot was looking extremely realistic (especially the facial expressions following the flow of his speech) but it would give especially intelligent answers sometimes 2-3 sentences long.
The robot was of a size of a human being, it was static on a sofa and could also move its hands. Of course it was connected to a desktop.

E-commerce

In general e-commerce is a daily concern of mine. I am trying to get better on every aspect of it, so I found all the chapter very interesting.
I will definitely come back to this information in the summer and look more into depth and make sure I further develop our online advertisement campaign.
Also during the summer I am planning to make a couple of personal online stores.

Some Nice Software

Comodo Intrnet Security 

An absolutely free firewall/diffender/sandbox/antivirus (can use whatever needed) package that had received many awards.
It's is a little pro (can adjust almost everything) but it is very reliable. A main reason that I like firewalls is because you know which program is trying to connect to the internet and with a little more research/knowledge you can know why too...(in general I block most of those types of request, except from very specific things)
 A bad experience that I had with firewalls is that they often do not work along with antivirus software from other firms. So for example don't use Comodo and Antivir. In general I would suggest using security software from one firm.
Also Comodo offers other free useful software and SSL encryption for webpages. They still offer a 6month free 128 SSL certificate for sites/businesses. 
www.comodo.com

SuperAntispyware and Mbam (Malwarebytes)

Both very nice and free (the free version does the job->there is a paid version too) pieces of software for trojan, malware, cookies, search and elimination.

Click and Clean for Chrome and Firefox.

A very nice add-on that cleans browsing history, cookies, cache, Flash objects, silverlight cookies, etc...You can set it up to clean anything of the above you want when browser closes (that's my preference).
They recently added a malware search tool.

By the way, long time ago I abandoned Internet explorer as an actual browser, but unfortunately I have to make sure all our sites are working fine on the Internet explorer. It seems that IE 9 is a great upgrade and hopefully it will make the web-designer's life easier (along with the html5.0 agreement).


Tune Up utilities

A relatively cheap piece of software that does what it says... It has many useful tools to improve performance and customize the windows environment. Most important, it has a great registry cleaner.
I've used it for many years to repair computers with software issues.
In general registry cleaners might damage some software that has unrecognizable functions (by the cleaner) on the registry. But if you have a really bad registry the system is dead.. so one good thing to do is to run registry maintenance accept all recommendations and then uninstall/ reinstall any software that might not run properly afterwards.
Sometimes to reinstall windows is better, sometimes its too much work if you can save the system with malware removal tools, antivirus, registry cleaners and tune-up programs.

A very interesting comment

   I never really thought what you mentioned last week, specifically how the selection takes place between big groups of candidates for a job. I am referring to the method of choosing/eliminating resumes through a predetermined selection of keywords! So write some simple code and run it on the electronic resumes that have been submitted, that sounds very robotic... Tbh it is a way to make a selection between a few hundreds or maybe thousands of resumes, but to my understanding through this method some good candidates would be eliminated.
   The best part is that by knowing this rule one can make more attractive applications for a specific type of industry.

Thank you for the great insight,
always have great information to share!

TLA Java Applet

Here are the two Java applets that I "promised" on my previous post.
This is pretty cool for memorizing and practicing TLAs
http://business.joe-upatras.gr/Java/Applet1.html

Here are the most important definitions of chapter 6 in a similar applet
http://business.joe-upatras.gr/Java2/Applet2.html

Take Care,
have a great week.

Some Critical Thinking

It is ridiculous to see Chapman students during lectures (and I am not talking specifically for this class) on Facebook; I can't believe how they waste their time like this... It is really pissing me off even watching them or even knowing that they are doing it.
I was making fun of facebooking- or other online-time-burning-activities, with my professor in Business Law  last semester, He used to teach in a small lecture hall; annoyed, but in a humorous style he told me one day in his office hours, some people are just relentless all of a sudden during the lecture they will throw huge smiles or even laughs, totally ignoring where they are. It was on a small lecture hall, but he could point-out who was time-burning on their laptops...

I recalled you mentioned you failed someone because of Facebook, nice!

I forgot to mention that another important reason that the whole thing bothers me is that it has an impact on me. I use computers for note taking, I type fast and blind and I am really organizing information on computers very well. Also this last year I finally got a multi-screen environment on my Desktop, for work initially, but I couldn't believe the productivity boost on the student part. Computers are a great tool for students, if used wisely. My conclusion is that some professors do not allow laptops/computers due to the fact that students will be wondering away online... So back to hand-written notes where I can barely take 1/3 of the notes that I would with a laptop (and with serious pain on my hand) and then scan... blah.. (CR won't even work on my handwriting, hehe, so failure)

I am glad you keep a strict policy with this whole issue.

Maybe Chapman should block Facebook!

That would be funny! I am sure it would raise hell... (just joking)

Thanks for the opportunity to relax a bit and get back to work/studying.

Some fun staff!

   I will implement a Java applet to assist me in studying for midterm 3 and also for some practice in Java.(It can be a useful template for other exams too). I ll post the link on the blog when it's ready so you can see it.
    Something else that I am excited about is that we are developing another site (blogs, forums and a main site). It's a scientific community with major topics: Business/Econ, Physics, Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering (Constructions). I am writing the code with one more person and I will be writing the Business/Econ blogs and forums and the Computer Science blog (Can't have a forum on that). 2 more people with great technical knowledge and friends for years will be responsible for the Physics and Engineering. I am working for a month now on this project and have finished the template designs. It is going to be ready after the spring brake or by June.
   We 've got big plans to develop in many ways, one is possibly to soon implement an online tutoring environment.
  I 'll let you know when it's ready.
Or maybe I 'll do a tech news report on it... hehe

Today's lecture was much harder and very technical but interesting. I watched a lot of videos' for Oracle BI 11g in the beginning of this course and they analyzed numerous aspects of CRMS. Many times during the last lecture, I had the "flash": oh yea that was they were talking about in BI 11g...

I probably mentioned that I really like this course and actually all the courses that I am taking, especially because this course has connected and built-on my tacit knowledge. It's an experience...

I never asked, do you teach other courses?

Also I just remembered, I posted some of the sites that we have made and mentioned that they are in Greece just so you wont be surprised . They have at least, an English template.
I am saying so because you replied you won't check them because their are in Greek.
Either way, check them out if you have a minute :)

Oracle Business Intelligence 11g

    I did more research on this new BI package from Oracle that I told you about. I didn't know that Oracle serves 70%+ of the S&P 500companies for over a decade now. The presentation that I show by the president of Oracle for Oracle BI 11g proves that they came up with a high quality enterprise package. (common file extensions for all departments, very flexible, customizable interface with applications, statistics  and many other).
  The funniest thing is that they offer a free download of the package and I thought that it would be a free product as long as you rent the Oracle servers (which are quite expensive alone).
Well I thought wrong, the license to use the package is 259,000$ per processor! +40000$ a year for support!

Just another proof of how prosperous the future is for BI in general.

In Action!

  Exciting week, I guess we are getting into the exciting part of the class. Let's make some databases then!
I am excited to get a better understanding of database structures and functions. At this point my goal is also to be able to construct a database using phpMYadmin and MySQL since they are OSS.

I am also studying for Thursday's exam. I like the fact that we have a bunch of exams for this class.I guess more exams will encourage students to study regularly, adsorb more, and those who already study lots, to get a satisfactory grade. I get a feeling that if we had just a couple of exams for this course they would have been pretty hard due to information overload. (Especially for people that are not computer fanatics-not me)


Have a great week

Some more input

Probably after the exam, the most exciting topics of the new material covered are not new to me so, I am looking forward for the following chapters.

Since I am working with Java a lot lately I discovered Oracle's Business Intelligence package, which implements many aspects of what he have discussed. The software is free but I read that you need Oracle, Microsoft or IBM servers who are all quite expensive) The exciting news are that Chapman has an Oracle and Microsoft server( i found about it today) that students can use for free. I will sure learn more about the software and about the Oracle servers so I can make it work and see its potential. I think it must be a great piece of software though from some reviews that I read and after playing around with it a bit.

Update on the Stuxnet

From a computer engineer friend I found some scary details on stuxnet. The virus would affected the sensors that control the nuclear reactor and other important instruments in a manner that they would not respond in an abnormal situation. That means that a leak on the nuclear reactor, or other serious damage for example would not be detected by the system to respond in the appropriate manner!

Well I guess that's why the Russian NATO ambassador said that we could have had a new Chernobyl.  Of course he said that because everybody suspected the U.S behind this; but also Russia since the stuxnet event, has stalked their nuclear programs, coincidence? I don't think so.

My journey to... Chapman

    Since you were interested to learn how I ended up in Orange County, here is the story:

      Probably the main reason why I flew over the Atlantic Ocean, around three and a half years ago was, because of my desire to research for new, more mind-boggling things. I graduated in high school in 1999, I was in physics school for four years (from where I didn't graduate), I have a market maker certificate. Throughout my University years and I had various business interests. I started working in our family business (pharmacy) since high school and I was always challenged by entrepreneurship, management and the financial markets. I have done a few different jobs throughout the years after high school, I was a tutor in math physics and also in business and economics here in the U.S. I was a tutor in Orange Coast college where I did my first two years of business Adm-> transferred to Chapman last year). I was an employee in the pharmacy, a cashier, the kid to run to the banks and outside jobs, later I had many managerial responsibilities, which have been growing over time (I am also an owner know since the pharmacy changed from a partnership to a form of LLC.)  My interest in the financial markets, business environment and my cousin, who was one of the most successful stock brokers in Greece, (he is in Chicago now) were the reason that I got the market maker certificate but mostly worked as a broker along my cousins' side for a period of two years. I did investments for funds and individual customers and worked for two different investment firms. I also have done a lot of work on computers. software, hardware, networks and this last year a lot of web-design and graphics.
   To summarize a bit, I was always disappointed with the educational system in Greece, so I did visit the U.S. for 3 months in research of whether I would like to stay in the U.S. and of course if so find me a good school to start.( I had decided on the business major by that time) It was a fun period I traveled a lot and stayed mostly in Chicago and in Los Angeles. My cousin (the broker) moved to Chicago to work in an investment firm and my aunt (my mothers' sister) and my uncle live in Dana Point. After all California won the debate and I attended Orange Coast College after the period of 3months.
  It was a big investment for me to move here but I am really glad to be here and accomplished many of the goals that I put throughout this journey. I am also currently very happy to minor in computer science since not only it will perpetuate my computer skills and passion, but also it absolutely relates to the modern entrepreneurial model of business. I also declared my major last year to be entrepreneurship, since I believe that is what naturally attracts me the most and I also find it one of the most challenging but also rewarding business aspect/model.
      In general I am very attracted by knowledge and new information, even more since I became a student in Chapman. That raises another question for me which I still need some time to figure out. How to distribute my time should I be a student for a good while and get more degrrees,(computer science master, or business phd, etc or should I focus on implementing some really good business ideas. So far I do a lot of both but I have zero time for what people call fun ...at least I find a lot of pleasure in both. I have my "ideas to do list" and I am implementing them slowly following some hierarchy.

     

My impressions on the Course

   After I said a few things about myself I guess it's a good time to express some of my thoughts regarding the course. To be honest I did not know what was it all about but just because of the title "Computer Information Systems" I was already excited about it; I love computers and knowledge/Information.

   And of course I was on the right track because since day one I am really excited not just from the teaching material but also about by your teaching style, the organization/structure of the course (slides, tech reports) and in general I have learned many things already.
    Due to my close relationship with business (my parents are pharmacist and owners and I also had my few entrepreneurial years before I attend Chapman) and my computer background, I naturally know a lot of the material. But on the other hand even these few classes, have greatly assisted in connecting numerous ideas and processes that were scattered in my head. For example the idea of Information Systems connects numerous things regarding my understanding of databases, business networking, customer service and customer satisfaction, profitability through information systems. The Virtual Company is an idea that I am trying to implement for some time now (We are in the process of creating an online store that will sell the best products/deals in electronics from the online market, interesting commercial/business news and technology news in Greece) and the information that you have provided has clarified numerous aspects and assisted in my own planning. In other terms I will know how to do things better when this course is done.
    I have no doubt about the convenience of IS/IT (you preached about them the first day of class) and about their contribution in the present and the future of businesses, services and societies as a whole.

   I ll honestly say after this class has started, I am creating a database of our customers and our customers' customers and soon we will construct a facebook-like site to promote networking, advertisement and create value for everyone in the network. (You emphasized a lot on the significance of this and you are right)

    Also around the summer,  I want to come up with a complete IS/IT proposal, train my team,  implement a nice IS package solution and market it.

    I love win-win situations and IS is one of them! Also I am going to paraphrase Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, who referring in cloud computing, mentioned that all these years humans are mostly serving computers; development, errors, etc. It's about time that computers will actually do what we really need and serve humanity) I believe that IS are IT are very relative to this approach.

Learning about me

Programming Background:

I have worked on C++ and Fortran back in 2000 when I was in Physics school mostly to evaluate expressions.
I am currently taking Java and C#( visual programming) in Chapman and I am very excited with both languages.

Web Design:

About a year now, me and a team of a few more people are constructing websites for a variety of businesses (many hotels) or individuals. We are using html, javascripts, flash, java, Google API and we are continuously progressing on the quality of our work, while doing lots of research and trying to keep up with the continuously evolving market.
Here are a few of our sites: (They are all Greek Sites)
http://www.dionysoshotel.gr/
http://www.sklavenitiscarpets.gr/
http://kiklamino.com/
http://www.serkos.gr/
http://www.ofotografos.com/new/
http://www.pamemetram.gr/
In general I do a little bit of everything on the technical part; coding, graphic design, and of course a lot on the business part (advertisement, networking, planning, finances etc)
The last two months we are also offering online advertisement to all of our customers, including facebook, twitter, Utube channels, myspace, orkut, blogs and of course Google adds.

Computer Background:

  Probably you wouldn't be wrong if you called me a computer geek. Computers have been a hobby since I was 8 years old (I am 29 now) . I've been putting together my computers and repaired hundreds of computers over the years, handling hardware or software issues, for friends or for some extra cash.

Excel and Access:

I've been using excel for years now and in my daily life too, for statistics, expenses, organization on my businesses, for my classes, assignments and wherever I can consider it could be helpful.
As far as access I haven't used it for a couple of years now but at some point I was pretty good at it.

The Internet

Since the earliest years of the internet I fell in love with the idea, networking for personal relationships or exchange of information, I really believed in it. Kinda funny I also believed in Google a lot and was from the first few thousands that registered for a g-mail account, when it became open to the public. Saying that, Google is probably one of my favorite companies and I am trying to follow up with their continuous contributions.

Information Technology in a modern business environment

   Technology can be the cause and driver of forming business strategies. Specifically, IT can provide a competitive advantage and assist towards meeting a variety of enterprise objectives through collecting and organizing information and knowledge; what is called a strategic information system.

 

 

   In a really competitive global environment we can recognize the necessity for an organization to absorb and use most of these strategies to be prosperous. In addition middle of the road approaches, including unclear strategies are destined to fail.

The essential Role of IT in implementing those strategies.

IT business solutions can assist in:

• locking customers and suppliers 
• delaying competitors from entering the market
• leveraging investment in IT to develop products or services not possible without IT include IT components in products in order to make substituting competing products difficult to produce.
• Focusing products and services on a particular market or geographic segment

An essential element for an organization's success is to provide Customer Value by
tracking Individual preferences, follow market trends and provide quality customer services to every customer.
Without doubt the Internet and Intranets can be proven valuable to further produce Customer Value, extended networking opportunities, but also can provide valuable Knowledge-Management Networks to be used internally by the organization.
     
      The Value Chain refers to the view that each Primary (manufacturing or delivering products) or Support (supporting day-to-day activities) is to be viewed as a chain that each step should add value to its end products or services. To accomplish so every organization must first prioritize its objectives.

    

     The implementation of Smartphones in business is part of a complete IT solution since a smartphone is also a pocket-size laptop, ideal for any type of network connectivity. Also Smartphones are used to better monitor the business' day-to-day operations, a reason to often be hated by employees. 


Due to the complicated Cross-functional process of modern businesses, an example of which can be seen below,

IS can greatly assist in updating every different department and employee of the organization with the most recent information->keeping everyone on the same page.

    Probably one of the most interesting models of a modern business is that of a Virtual Company that uses IT as its basis.

A virtual Company is using the Internet, Intranets and Extranets to link to business partners, so it creates an inter-enterprise information system to link customers, suppliers, subcontractors and competitors. (Flexible and adaptable virtual workgroups)

   As previously mentioned the model of managing knowledge is consider the cutting edge for developing a healthy and continuously adapting organization. Managing Knowledge refers to the creation of network channels between every level and employee of an organization to share problems, ideas, processes, best practices and fixes. Knowledge Management Systems are a major strategic use of IT and make knowledge broadly available to everyone whenever is needed.





    

Cybernetic Systems

  Necessity is the mother of invention. Many sophisticated systems have been developed under the circumstances which were eventually used for the market or societal needs. Some of those systems suffer from what is known as brittleness, meaning that some of those are designed to work on specific scenarios but not in many others.
   One of the critical issues regardless IS and healthcare is that through intranet server technology the patients' data is entered, verified, stored once and at-once and is now accessible from all the hospital who participate in the IS network. Due to possibility of failure multiple backups are recommended in IS.
   A Cybernetic system (stems from the Greek kybernētēs, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder — the same root as government) is a self-monitoring, self-regulating complex system that uses feedback and control.
Feedback consists of data about the performance of the system and control involves monitoring and evaluating the feedback to determine whether a system is moving towards the achievement of its goal, then making requisite changes.
   Cybernetic systems are all around us. An every day example would be while driving on a road with curves:
-Input: visual images
-Processing: steering wheel; gas pedal; brakes
-Outpout: moving along the road
-Feedback: deviating out of your lane of traffic
-Control: turning the steering wheel.

A business may be viewed as a Cybernetic System:

 A Business is an open system that interacts with other systems in the environment. It is also an adaptive system that it can change itself or its environment in order to survive.

Major components of an information system: people, hardware, software, data and networks. These components perform input, processing, output, storage and control activities. 

Information systems are cybernetic systems themselves

Overview of the course, Business Intelligence, IS and IT

Business intelligence (BI) refers to computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes.

BI is a highly paid job and relates to drawing useful information from your business, customers, competitors and markets.

Data->Information->Knowledge

Creating emotional bonds is the secret of doing business well!

An organized combination of:

1. People
2. Hardware
3. Software
4. Communications/networking
5. Data resources
6. Policies and procedures

that stores, retrieves, transforms and disseminates information in an organization is an IS

Effectiveness is the essential part of IS; secondly work for efficiency.

Effectiveness

–       Support business strategies

–       Enable business processes

–       Enhance organizational structure and culture

–       Increase the customer and business value

.

 

IS are a never ending cycle, while both IS and IT systems cannot be considered stable. 

Interesting Tech News Report: 

Google Translate: truly the new version of Google translate is not a only miracle of server technology, but also a live translator that can voice translate from and in English, German, Italian, French and Spanish. It can translate long sentences, which if have a basic grammar structure, with minimum errors. With a smart-phone an earpiece and some typing skills one can probably communicate decent enough in any of those languages. (Of course, if one has some understanding and skills on the pronunciation since Google Translate still can't pronounce words accurately)

Tuesday 1 February 2011 - First Day of Class

   I was excited to discover in more detail what this course is all about. In the age of information I am sure I will appreciate the understanding of the many aspects of information systems and how they can empower an organization. In general I am an advanced computer user and I use the internet for seeking technology, business and other interesting information to contribute to my work but also for fun. No questions asked I'll enjoy this class.
       Relative to the material that was presented today I'll post the first internet router:

   Also here are some of the interesting TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) we mentioned:

PDF (Portable document Format)
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
URL (Universal Resource Locator)
USB (Universal Serial Bus)
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
IP (Internet Protocol)
DNS (Domain Name Server)

IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)