Posts
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1872381,00.html
http://www.thezombiechronicles.net/
Time's article "Podcasting Your Novel: Publishing's Next Wave?" by Hector Florin discussed the new ways struggling writers are presenting their stories to the public. Instead of having a publisher print and market a book by an unknown author, authors are recording their work in an audiobook format and releasing it free to the masses through podcasts or "podiobooks". This allows the author to create a fan base and potentially prove his or herself to publishers.
This is an example of how new media has created a new genre. There have been audiobooks for years; however, this takes it a step further in that publishing companies are left out of the process and individuals are able to share their own work directly to a wide audience. This service is usually free, but donations are accepted.
I have listened to a couple podiobooks, my favorite being "The Zombie Chronicles". Every week or so the author, James Melzer, releases two chapters of the book. Melzer narrates and gives each character a unique voice. This is backed up with sound effects and theme music that are remeniscent of classic radio serials. It is entertaining and free. Melzer's efforts are paying off. "The Zombie Chronilces" will be released in print some time in 2009.
Hopefully this medium will catch on and become standard practice for authors of all literary levels. Some are skeptical of its sustainability; however, most of the authors who release podiobooks have a full time job in a unrelated field. It doesn't seem likely there will ever be a lack of people who want to write a story and share it with others.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Risks in Outsourced Data Warehousing
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/credit/2009-01-21-visa-mastercard-credit-security-breach_N.htm
http://www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com/
The USA Today article "Mastercard, Visa warn security breach may compromise data" (Byron Acohido, 1/23/2009) illustrates the inherent risk associated with web-based data management. Heartland Payment Systems manages 100 million credit card transactions from Visa and Mastercard per month. On Tuesday, Heartland disclosed that hackers had infiltrated its system. It should be assumed that all transactions were compromised. It is still unclear as to the exact time frame of the data breach. Upper estimates indicate the breach may have lasted up to two months.
To put this breach in perspective, retailer TJX reserved $194 million to correct 94 million compromised records. If Heartland was exposed for two months, up to 200 million records may have been impacted. This current data breach has the potential to be the largest ever disclosed.
This episode shows the risks involved in data warehousing. The driving force behind data warehousing is the ability transfer large quantities of information over the internet. Because the internet is easily accessed around the globe, anyone with a computer has the potential to exploit the weakest link in a data warehouse's security. There is a constant challenge for white-hat hackers to stay one step ahead of malicious hackers. This latest breach demonstrates how quickly and unexpectedly hackers can infiltrate data believed to be protected.
For all the advantages data warehousing provides, this occurrence should be viewed as simply the cost of doing business. The business intelligence a corporation can gain by effectively utilizing data mining far outweighs the downside of the occasional security breach.
http://www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com/
The USA Today article "Mastercard, Visa warn security breach may compromise data" (Byron Acohido, 1/23/2009) illustrates the inherent risk associated with web-based data management. Heartland Payment Systems manages 100 million credit card transactions from Visa and Mastercard per month. On Tuesday, Heartland disclosed that hackers had infiltrated its system. It should be assumed that all transactions were compromised. It is still unclear as to the exact time frame of the data breach. Upper estimates indicate the breach may have lasted up to two months.
To put this breach in perspective, retailer TJX reserved $194 million to correct 94 million compromised records. If Heartland was exposed for two months, up to 200 million records may have been impacted. This current data breach has the potential to be the largest ever disclosed.
This episode shows the risks involved in data warehousing. The driving force behind data warehousing is the ability transfer large quantities of information over the internet. Because the internet is easily accessed around the globe, anyone with a computer has the potential to exploit the weakest link in a data warehouse's security. There is a constant challenge for white-hat hackers to stay one step ahead of malicious hackers. This latest breach demonstrates how quickly and unexpectedly hackers can infiltrate data believed to be protected.
For all the advantages data warehousing provides, this occurrence should be viewed as simply the cost of doing business. The business intelligence a corporation can gain by effectively utilizing data mining far outweighs the downside of the occasional security breach.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
IT, Does it Matter?
**disclaimer** the position of this article is not necessarily the viewpoint of the blog host.
The position of our debate team (Tim, Joe, Brandon, Ted) is that IT doesn’t Matter. Nicholas Carr is initially taking a “devil’s advocate” pose but upon closer examination he actually has several valid points which logically support his position. Here are those key points:
>IT is expensive:
>In 1965 IT overhead was 5%, today it runs over 50% of a company’s resource cost. It is difficult to say that profitability has grown in proportion in credit to IT.
>IT stifles creativity.
>IT doesn’t challenge personal development or creativity. IT provides the “easy way out” solution rather than causing a desire to find efficiency. IT promotes the idea of “hey, let’s just throw a bigger server at it and that will give us the advantage” rather than “hey, let’s brainstorm and find a smarter way to do this”.
>IT removes competitive advantage.
>Carr calls it the “Corrosiveness” of IT. His viewpoint is that the same IT is available to all (keep in mind that it is hardware, software, and network) thus the first to buy the hardware only has an advantage for a little while until the next competitor buys it. Now, everyone is equal. It’s like a phrase from the Incredibles movie…. “Once everyone has the weapons to make them a Super(human), then suddenly, no one is a Super(human)”.
>IT is misunderstood
>This is perhaps the biggest argument poised by Carr. He says that too many hear him say “IT doesn’t matter” and in misconception they interpret that to be “IT can be eliminated”. Actually, Carr proposes a reduction in the reliance of IT. A reduction in IT being the top concern and factor of success. Once people understand what Carr is promoting (less dependency on IT) then they will become more acceptable to the concept.
Summary: IT is a factor of a business, but it shouldn’t be the dominant factor. IT is a means to an end, not the driving force. There is a misconceived mindset that IT will make the difference between success & failure of a business when in fact IT may be as much of a constraint as a contributor. Proper balance of IT’s role is needed for a company’s growth and success.
The position of our debate team (Tim, Joe, Brandon, Ted) is that IT doesn’t Matter. Nicholas Carr is initially taking a “devil’s advocate” pose but upon closer examination he actually has several valid points which logically support his position. Here are those key points:
>IT is expensive:
>In 1965 IT overhead was 5%, today it runs over 50% of a company’s resource cost. It is difficult to say that profitability has grown in proportion in credit to IT.
>IT stifles creativity.
>IT doesn’t challenge personal development or creativity. IT provides the “easy way out” solution rather than causing a desire to find efficiency. IT promotes the idea of “hey, let’s just throw a bigger server at it and that will give us the advantage” rather than “hey, let’s brainstorm and find a smarter way to do this”.
>IT removes competitive advantage.
>Carr calls it the “Corrosiveness” of IT. His viewpoint is that the same IT is available to all (keep in mind that it is hardware, software, and network) thus the first to buy the hardware only has an advantage for a little while until the next competitor buys it. Now, everyone is equal. It’s like a phrase from the Incredibles movie…. “Once everyone has the weapons to make them a Super(human), then suddenly, no one is a Super(human)”.
>IT is misunderstood
>This is perhaps the biggest argument poised by Carr. He says that too many hear him say “IT doesn’t matter” and in misconception they interpret that to be “IT can be eliminated”. Actually, Carr proposes a reduction in the reliance of IT. A reduction in IT being the top concern and factor of success. Once people understand what Carr is promoting (less dependency on IT) then they will become more acceptable to the concept.
Summary: IT is a factor of a business, but it shouldn’t be the dominant factor. IT is a means to an end, not the driving force. There is a misconceived mindset that IT will make the difference between success & failure of a business when in fact IT may be as much of a constraint as a contributor. Proper balance of IT’s role is needed for a company’s growth and success.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Clerkdogs
http://www.appscout.com/2009/01/clerkdogs_helps_you_find_good_1.php
http://www.clerkdogs.com/
The top link is to an article on AppScout.com called "Clerkdogs helps you find good movies." Clerkdogs is a website that is developed upon thousands of movie recommendations from video clerks. Much like Netflix's or Blockbuster's websites, Clerkdogs provides recommendations based on movies you enjoy. It goes a step further, however, by allowing the user to choose the degree of a number of movie characteristics he/she may feel like watching. This allows a real time recommendation based on personal taste and current mood. As compared to Netflix, which makes a recommendation based on how many stars you rated various movies over a time span of several years.
Clerkdogs furthurs its scope by linking all of the information on its website to Netflix, Internet Movie Database, Blockbuster, and Amazon. If a user has a Netflix account, they could find a movie to watch on Clerkdogs and have the movie easily added to their Queue. With Netflix adding more and more "Watch Instantly" films, the potential is there for a movie to be discovered and viewed within a short time frame. This plays into the site's feature of selecting a movie based on mood. Additionally, Clerkdogs allows the user to easily research and purchase a movie or TV show through its link with Amazon.
Clerkdogs demonstrates how a third party site can integrate itself into more mainstream websites and still provide a service that users find interesting and helpful. It will be interesting to see whether a large number of people choose to use an additional recommendation service to search for movies. Netflix currently has the ability to make recommendations based on an individual's data compared to the data of millions of other users. The law of large numbers favors Netflix, however, Clerkdogs presents some fresh applications that are a definiate advantage.
http://www.clerkdogs.com/
The top link is to an article on AppScout.com called "Clerkdogs helps you find good movies." Clerkdogs is a website that is developed upon thousands of movie recommendations from video clerks. Much like Netflix's or Blockbuster's websites, Clerkdogs provides recommendations based on movies you enjoy. It goes a step further, however, by allowing the user to choose the degree of a number of movie characteristics he/she may feel like watching. This allows a real time recommendation based on personal taste and current mood. As compared to Netflix, which makes a recommendation based on how many stars you rated various movies over a time span of several years.
Clerkdogs furthurs its scope by linking all of the information on its website to Netflix, Internet Movie Database, Blockbuster, and Amazon. If a user has a Netflix account, they could find a movie to watch on Clerkdogs and have the movie easily added to their Queue. With Netflix adding more and more "Watch Instantly" films, the potential is there for a movie to be discovered and viewed within a short time frame. This plays into the site's feature of selecting a movie based on mood. Additionally, Clerkdogs allows the user to easily research and purchase a movie or TV show through its link with Amazon.
Clerkdogs demonstrates how a third party site can integrate itself into more mainstream websites and still provide a service that users find interesting and helpful. It will be interesting to see whether a large number of people choose to use an additional recommendation service to search for movies. Netflix currently has the ability to make recommendations based on an individual's data compared to the data of millions of other users. The law of large numbers favors Netflix, however, Clerkdogs presents some fresh applications that are a definiate advantage.
About Me
Hello,
As you can tell, my name is Brandon Eudy. I am a 2006 graduate of Appalachian State University with a degree in Business Economics. I have a wife, Dana, an Australian Shepherd, Amos and a Beta fish, Captain Faraday. Dana teaches fourth grade and also graduated from Appalachian State. She is currently earning her master's in Reading Education through Appalachian.
My interests include movies, music, TV, and video games. My favorite movie is The Empire Strikes Back and my favorite TV shows include LOST and The Office. The bands I'm currently listening to most are The Decemberists and Modest Mouse. I enjoy playing Halo and, lately, Metal Gear Solid 4.
Interests outside the living room include Appalachian State football, trips to the mountains and the beach, and searching for great deals on used books.
My favorite number is pi.
As you can tell, my name is Brandon Eudy. I am a 2006 graduate of Appalachian State University with a degree in Business Economics. I have a wife, Dana, an Australian Shepherd, Amos and a Beta fish, Captain Faraday. Dana teaches fourth grade and also graduated from Appalachian State. She is currently earning her master's in Reading Education through Appalachian.
My interests include movies, music, TV, and video games. My favorite movie is The Empire Strikes Back and my favorite TV shows include LOST and The Office. The bands I'm currently listening to most are The Decemberists and Modest Mouse. I enjoy playing Halo and, lately, Metal Gear Solid 4.
Interests outside the living room include Appalachian State football, trips to the mountains and the beach, and searching for great deals on used books.
My favorite number is pi.
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