Exercise 16

1. Choose ONE of the four ways to manage and develop integrated systems as listed below;

I will chosse the "Business process analysis" method to manage and develop integrated systems.

2. Summarise your understanding and describe its relevance (250 words max) in either your study at university or in your work environment;

From my understanding, every business is a set of processes that govern how the business operates, how much revenue it can makes, how the support of the customer is, etc. “Business processes” in a company is always unique and differentiate it from other market competitors and therefore it is a very important intellectual property (strategic asset) of the company.

My company starts from a very small company and growing becomes a three billion US business company. In the last ten years, we are relied on a lot of independent systems (Enterprise Resources Planning, Customer Relationship Management, and Sales & Operation Planning) to perform the business operations. Each system will have its own workflow, transaction handling mechanism and reporting methodology. In order to have a smooth operation, management needs to understand how individual sub-systems work and how they communicate.

As the company grows, it is very difficult to monitor and analysis the business processes in this model. The company starts a Varian Vision Program (VVP) last year which try to reform the old business processes. This VVP program has been divided into three phases; the final goal is all sub-systems will become system components in a single database system (SAP). New workflows, reports and training processes are developing in order to fully utilize the VVP features (time consuming & costly). The upper management believes that once the system integration is finish, the company can increase revenue by having visibility (monitor), efficiency (no redundant steps), agility (rapid change) and business empowerment (confident to make decision) (savvion, 2009)

3. Edit TWO similar versions (include bibliography) of that summary to CSU Interact:

a. post version A as a wiki page contribution;

Done.
b. add version B as a final entry to close your developer's blog.

Business processes define how a business operates, make profit and perform customer support. It is absolutely the strategic asset of the company. My company business relied on a lot of independent systems (ERP, CRM, S&OP) to perform operations in the last ten years. Each system has its own workflow, transaction and reports. Smooth operation depends on the understanding of the entire sub-systems. A reformation of business processes is held on last year in order to integrate all sub-systems into a single database system in SAP. It is a very time consuming and costly action for defining new workflows, reports and training. After system integration, the company should increase revenue by having visibility, efficiency, agility and business empowerment (savvion, 2009).

Exercise 15

1. What is meant by a location based service? Explain using the Web applications found on a late model mobile device.

From wikipedia (2010), Local Based Service (LBS) is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device.

There are a lot of Web applications found on a late model mobile device, such as AGPS navigation service, traffic alerts (traffic jam, detour from accident), restaurant information, advertisements or promotion from that local area.

2. Describe the purpose of the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Initiative?

The purpose of OMA (founded in 2002) is to develop open standards for the mobile phone industry. That means OMA is only to standardises applicative protocols and therefore it will provide interoperable service enablers working across countries, operators and mobile terminals (Wikipedia, 2010)

3. What are the main components of a mobile Web services framework?

The main components of a mobile Web services framework are the communication way (e.g. SOAP), the Web services description (e.g. WSDL), directory server to publish and advertise available services (e.g. UDDI). Unlike static stub based invocation of Web service, the mobile environments allows clients and services to change rapidly. Without the main components stated above, it is impossible for the users to efficiently discover and access to Web services at runtime (Nielsen, 2006).

4. Visit an airline Web site and search for information on WAP or SMS or 3G mobile application access to booking airline services. The same services exist in banking. How do both industries compare?

I have use the WAP mobile application access to the "Cathay Pacific Airline" and the "Citibank Hong Kong" Web site.

For the Cathay Pacific Airline, you need to go to a particular mobile site to download the mobile client and installed into your mobile device. The support mobile devices are Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Mobile, Other platform with Java support and iPhone. After installation the mobile client, you can run the icon from the mobile desktop. There are only six services provided in this client, they are Check in, Flight Status, Retrieve Your Booking, Flight Schedule, City Guides and Select Your Country. Only the Check in and Retrieve Your Booking options require the user to log on the system.

For the Citibank Hong Kong, you just need to visit a https mobile site rather than download a mobile client. The first screen is log on. After log on to the system, there are 9 options, three related with Banking and six related with Stock trading. For banking part, you can have A/C info, payment & transfer and time deposit. For the stock trading part, you can have HK stock quote, buy/sell HK stock, US stock quote, buy/sell US stock, stock trade status, Citibank stock holding and HKEx News.

The similarity for both industries are :

1. The Web page is very simply with a few options (not full option compare with the standard Web site)

2. Require log on for information related to personal

3. Use text rather than graphics

4. The display can be multi-languages depend on user selection

The difference for both industries are :

1. airline needs to install mobile client (limited environment) but not the banking

2. Banking provide more options than airline

3. Banking mobile site is more secure than airline mobile site.

4. Banking provide real time update data but airline is not (data on request).

Exercise 14

1. What is a spider? What does it do?

A spider is a program which crawls the Internet in a specific way for a specific purpose. The purpose may be gathering, filtering and potentially aggregating information for a user. For example, a search enginee (Google, Yahoo) (Jones, 2006).

2. Differentiate the various types of software agents.

There are four main types of intelligent software agents (Wikipedia, 2006).

1. 
   
   Buyer agents or shopping bots
2. 
   
   User or personal agents
3. 
   
   Monitoring and Surveillance agents
4. 
   
   Data Mining agents

3. Identify various activities in e-commerce where software agents are currently in use.

The various activities according to different agents are:-

• 
  
  Buyer agents or shopping bots -- Amazon.com (shopping bot) , provide a list of books that may fit your interest or base on your buying history in that site.
• 
  
  User or personal agents -- jobdb.com , sending email about the current available jobs in the market which fit with your personal resume data.
• 
  
  Monitoring and Surveillance agents -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, monitors inventory, planning and scheduling equipment ordering to keep costs down.
• 
  
  Data Mining agents -- use in credit card company, provide a list of consumer's interests according to their shopping behaviour/habit. They can have promotion on particular products or services which can keep the card user to use their card.

4. Computing ethics and bot programming case study: rocky

    a. Get an account username and password from the lecture to LC_MOO at http://ispg.csu.edu.au:7680/ and login to the Welcome Lobby.

Get is from the CSU interact. Train1 to Train20.

    b. Hold a 5-minute discussion with Rocky on a special topic. Commands and chat are entered in the command box (bottom-left of screen in Figure 11): act rocky (start bot) hush rocky (stop bot)

Done. Try to talk with rocky about internet game. The discussion content is shown below.

c. Rocky is an ELIZA-like bot. Report your findings.

First of all, I have wake up rocky by the act rocky command.

My findings are:

• All conversation should be inside "" sign in order for rocky to understand.
• Rocky will ask random question to me.
• When I answer Rocky's question, Rocky will take the keyword of my answer to create another question.
• Moreover, Rocky will try to base on my positive/negative keyword (YES/NO) to predict my thinking.
• Some answer from Rocky is very reasonable (like a human), but most of them are not human like.
• Rocky likes Python
• Rocky has a small brain - question repeat easily.

Exercise 13

The Shopping Cart Class Diagram is shown below:

Exercise 12

Examine the Use Case in Figure 4 and explain the MVC architecture of the online bookstore (the model, the view and controllers) needed to Lookup Books and Add to Shopping Cart.

From the CSU forum, the Figure 4 should be change into Figure 10.

For the MVC architecture, model is for maintaining data, view for displaying the data and the controllers for handling events affect the model or view.

In the online bookstore case, if we are going to explain the MVC architecture for the Lookup Books and Add to Shopping Cart part, the result will be illustrated as below:

For the Lookup Books:

• 
  
  Model will be the online bookstore's books database 
• 
  
  View will be at least a "search book" view (by categories, author and publisher), a "lookup result" view and a link to the Add to Shopping Cart View
• 
  
  Controller will be the coding that query the books database by different search criteria (categories, author and publisher), selecting the book(s) from the search result and export to the next stage (Add to the Shopping Cart)

For the Add to Shopping Cart:

• 
  
  Model will be the Shopping Cart List from the customer's database
• 
  
  View will be the "Shopping Cart" view which contains the selected book(s) result from the Lookup Books part and a link to the Purchase Book view
• 
  
  Controller will be the coding that imports the selected books from the Lookup Books part.

Exercise 11

1. Give a description in your own words of the ACID properties of a transaction.

ACID refers to Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability (Wikipedia, 2010).

For a transaction to have ACID properties, the database can only be updated if the whole transaction is finished. If part of the transaction is finish but not all, the whole update data should be dropped and the database should keep unchanged. In addition, the transaction data format should follow the database schema data format, such action will ensure the data get updated into the database. Moreover, the transaction should not access the data being updated by other process, it should wait until the data is released by the other transaction. Finally, when the transaction is success completed, the data should be updated into the database accordingly. Data could be roll back from the database even after system failure.

2. Describe a TP monitor environment. How can a TP monitor stop an operating system being overwhelmed?

A Transaction Processing (TP) monitor environment is that a control program will manages the transfer of data between multiple local and remote terminals and the application program that serve them.

For a distributed Client/Server, a TP monitor will ensures the transactions never get lost or damaged. It can be a placed in a separate workstation and used to balance the load between various application servers, Database servers and clients. Moreover, it creates a high availability system by fail over the transaction to a good machine. Finally, it guarantees that all databases are only be updated by a single transaction (Pcmag, 2010)

Exercise 10

1. Find definitions for eight terms and concepts used in threaded programming:

1. Thread Synchronisation - a process to coordinate execution of threads (Lundh, 2007)
2. Locks - make sure that two processes do not get into each other's way when accessing a common resource (Eustace, 2010)
3. Deadlock - two processes are each waiting for the other to complete before proceeding (Webopedia.com, 2010).
4. Semaphores - a more advanced lock mechanism with an internal counter which will only blocks when the counter reaches to a given number (Lundh, 2007).
5. Mutex (mutual exclusion) - a program object which allows threads to share the same resources, but not simultaneously (Webopedia.com, 2010).
6. Thread - a flow of control through the process, plus a private stack for local data (Eustace, 2010).
7. Event - an action or occurrence detected by a program (Webopedia.com, 2010).
8. Waitable timer - a synchronization object whose state is set to signaled when the specified due time arrives (Microsoft.com, 2010).

2. A simple demonstration of the threading module in Python (threaddemo.py) that uses both a lock and semaphore to control concurrency is by Ted Herman at the University of Iowa. The code and sample output below are worth a look. Report your findings.

Findings from the codes are:-

1. There are 10 tasks (threads) to run. Start from 0 to 9
2. Only 3 out of 10 can be run at the same time (control by Semaphores - sema)
3. Each task will randomly run from 0 to 2 seconds.
4. There is a read lock (mutex - running counter).

Findings from the output are:-

1. Each thread gets its running time at the beginning (not before starting the thread)
2. Threads start according to its order (0 to 9)
3. Threads end according to its life cycle not order (random time).
4. There are at most 3 threads running at the same time.

Exercise 9

1. Find out about SET and the use of RSA 128-bit encryption for e-commerce.


SET stands for Secure Electronic Transaction and is a standard (based on RSA) which ensure secure credit card transactions take place over Internet. SET is endorsed by major by all the major players in the e-commerce area, such as Microsoft, Visa and MasterCard. SET is based on digital signatures to verify the buyers are who they claim to be and moreover ensure the merchant has not about to see the number as the credit card number is over transfer between cardholders and card issuers (e-commerce-guide, 2010).

RSA (Rivest, Shamir and Adleman who first publicly described it) is an algorithm for public-key cryptography. It is suitable for signing as well as encryption and therefore it widely used in e-commerce protocols. (Wikipedia, 2010) RSA 128-bit encryption means that it is using a 128 bit key length key to encrypt the data and the longer the key implies the higher security the data is.


2. What can you find out about network and host-based intrusion detection systems?

Both network and host-based intrusion detection systems (IDS) are looking for attack signatures (specific patterns that usually indicate malicious or suspicious intent) to recognize and deflect attacks. The network-based IDS look for those patterns in network traffic but the host-based IDS looks for those patterns in log files. Either method will has its own strength and weakness, (such as network-based - low cost, difficult to remove evidence, OS independence; host-based: well-suited for encrypted and switched environment, no additional hardware) therefore a truly effective IDS should employ both technologies (Internet Security Systems, 1998).


3. What is 'phishing'?

Phishing refers to a method that the identity theft setup a fake website which seems to represent a legitimate company, then they will send fake emails (looks from the legitimate company) out to the victims and provide a hyperlink to them to access the fake website. Once the victim provides personal information such as username and password to the fake website, the identity theft will use them for their own purposes or sell them to other criminal parties (dictionary.com, 2010).


4. What is SET and how does it compare to SSL as a platform for secure electronic transaction? Is SET in common use?

Please refer to question 1 for SET definition.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a standard for encrypted client/server communication (public key) between network devices. It runs on top of TCP/IP and is invented by Netscape. SSL is built into all major browsers and web servers and its capabilities can be turned on by an installation of a digital certificate.

The main difference between SET and SSL is that under SET transaction, the merchant will not receive any credit card information from the buyer, therefore the credit card information is more secure. Nowadays, SSL is the most common use method as the setup and running cost is cheap when compare with SET (Chen, 2010)


5. What are cookies and how are they used to improve security? Can the use of cookies be a security risk?

A cookies is a text string (user preference, information) send by a web server to a web browser (stored) and then send back to the same server when the user access it next time. It can be used for authentication, session tracking, storing site preferences, shopping cart contents, identifier for a server-based session, etc.

The use of cookies can be a security risk as they do not always accurately identify users, they can be used for security attacks (spyware) and the content is easy to extract (Wikipedia, 2010)


6. What makes a firewall a good security investment? Accessing the Internet, find two or three firewall vendors. Do they provide hardware, software or both?

A firewall is a device which control access between the Intranet and Internet. It determines whether a data packet or a connection request should be passing through or denied. It can quarantine an organization Intranet is free from any unauthorized traffic if the organization places a firewall at each external connection (Eustace, 2010).

There are a lot of firewall vendors, such as Checkpoint, Cisco, IBM, ZoneAlarm, etc. Most of the business firewall solution is hardware and the personal firewall solution is software. Some of the vendors are doing both HW and SW firewall products. (Checkpoint)


7. What measures should e-commerce provide to create trust among their potential customers? What measures can be verified by the customer?

The measures that e-commerce should provide to create trust among their potential customers are maintain logs audit, encrypt email messages, secure client/Server security, secure data transport security, secure operating system security, use security transport protocols (SSL, SET, HTTPS), use firewalls and secure browsers with security and scrambling features.

The measures that the customer can be verified should be the encrypt email messages, security transport protocols and audit logs (Eustace, 2010).


8. Get the latest PGP information from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy
The use of digital certificates and passports are just two examples of many tools for validating legitimate users and avoiding consequences such as identity theft. What others exist?

The others are PGP tools, HASP key and security dongles (use by bank). Such tools are exist both HW and SW format.

Exercise 7

1. Why is the perception getting stronger that integration will become a critical factor in coming days?

Nowadays, e-commerce will involve a lot of Business-to-Business (B2B) communications. Information (data) needs to transfer from one platform into another platform within trading partners. Those trading partners will have its own islands to handle their own e-commerce data, thus successful e-commerce model will involves how they can efficiently handling data exchange. Integration is the main direction in order to achieve a best e-commerce model. In an integrated environment, due to well-designed communication method (data format and protocol), the communication is more streamlined and therefore B2B visibility will be enhanced. Business decision will be made much faster to respond for the market need and it is a critical factor for a business to success in the coming days.


2. What is the relationship of AJAX to JQuery (jquery.com) and the lightweight Web 2.0 JavaScript framework called MooTools (mootools.net) within the enterprise software architecture?

In JQuery site (2010) states that "jQuery is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript."

In mootools.net (2010) states that "MooTools is a compact, modular, Object-Oriented JavaScript framework designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer."

It is very clear that they are both open-sourced JavaScript libraries which can improve the efficiency for developing the enterprise software (rapid development). They helped the WEB developer to implement flexible, powerful and multiple browser coding on the fly.

3. What are the similarities between the object-oriented development using model-view-controller (MVC) in Ruby on Rails 2.0 and Action Script 2.0 (Flash animations)?

Ruby on Rails 2.0 (RoR) and Action Script 2.0 (AS) both are object-oriented development tools using MVC model to achieve rapid WEB development. They are both class-based cross-platform (OS) tools to develop internet applications and websites relied on WEB servers. They are both language dependent tools which RoR is based on ruby and AS is mainly based on ECMAScript - similar to JavaScript.

4. What does it mean to develop RESTful practices into our web applications?

A Representational State Transfer (REST)ful practices means to make our web service (Client-Server) application communication with standardization. REST is related to the Service Oriented Architecture base on resources by putting some constraints into application architecture and has the following properties: scalability, performance, security, reliability, and extensibility. (Hao, 2004)

Exercise 8

Create an XML document for an online catalogue of cars where each car has the child elements of make, model, year, colour, engine, number_of_doors, transmission_type and accessories. The engine has child elements called number_of_cylinders and fuel_system.

I have download a very handy tools XML notepad 2007 from microsoft to create the required XML document. It is a very user friendly tools and I have insert the catalogue as follow:

The final XML file is as below:

Exercise 6

1. Design the form
    'Retrofit' the form data string below:
name=Evan+Burke&card=Visa&number=8443261344895544&order=French+perfume
    for buying some French perfume into the HTML form fields and submit button on te Web page form.

I am using the HTML coding below to create the form. I am use the GET rather than the POST function as I can see the submit data is correct.

The created form showed in the Internet Explorer is like this:

By hitting the Submit button, the entered data is submit into the server. The form's fields will clear up and the transfered data will show on the address bar.

2. Write the script

Script archives exist for PERL, Python and JavaScript. Search the Web for a script that processes the HTML forms data. Read the code and list the steps involved in processing the form.

After searching the Web, I found a JavaScript archive in the Javaworld.com which can processes the HTML forms data. This Java Script is very simply, it reads the data from "myform" and then display the result on the browser screen. The JavaScript coding and the execution process and result are show as follow:

Execution process

Result

3. Can you modify the script to process the form?

Yes, of course. First of all, I need to update the JavaScript form structure in order to fit the data string. Afterward, I will add more lines  in the JavaScript in order to display the submit data on the browser by the user.

The modified coding is as below:

The execution process is:

The final result is:

4. Improve the user experience by add a Javascript feature.

In order to imporve the user experience, I have add a Javascript feature which prodvide a drop down selection list for the Card option and moreover a pop up window to show the card selection from the drop down menu.

The modified coding is as below:

The pop up window will show the user has selected the Master card.

After press the Submit button, the browser will show all the inputed details.

Exercise 5

Database case study

Do EITHER Case A or Case B as your database case study for this exercise.

On your own machine, setup and testeither database system and report your findings.

I will use Case B as my database case study for this exercise.

Case B: PHP and MySQL

Some server practice with PHP

Instead of using individual versions of PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin and Apache, I'm using the XAMPP 1.7.3 for window which is a setup packing for PHP 5.3.1, MySQL 5.1.41, Apache 2.2.14 and phpMyAdmin 3.2.4. The installation process is very simply and it only takes about 5 minutes to finish. This XAMPP is a lite and green version which it will not install any services in the windows environment.

After installation, the Apache is not working due to the Skype install in my computer is using the port 443. I need to close the Skype application in order to turn on the Apache service.

1. Examine the environment variables on the server, the coding is as below

The result is as follow

2. Create a web application , hello_world.php

The result is as follow

3. Create an HTML page with teh form:

4. Then, Create a PHP file named submit.php with the following code:

The coding has been modified from $myname into $_GET[myname] in order to work.

The result for 3 and 4 is as follow:















After press RETURN, the result is as follow:

5.

a. Create a web page, the corresponding code is as follow:

The result is as follow:

Because the mydatabase is empty, I need to use the phpMyAdmin tool to input the employee data into the employees table in order to give the output.

b. Create the add_record.html

c. Create the corresponding add_record.php with the POST method:

The original code provided by the study guide is not written for the windows environment. I need to change the $first,$last,$address,$position into $_POST[first], $_POST[last], $_POST[address],$_POST[position],

in order to make the program to run. Moreover, there is also a typo mistake in the original coding, the INERT needs to correct into INSERT.

The execution result is as follow:

After putting in the required data and press the Enter, the result is as follow:

d. Get multiple records from the database

The correct coding is as below:

The original coding in the study guide is not grabbing the correct data from the employees database. The first, last, address and position is count from 0 to 3 rather than 1-4. Therefore the $myrow[2] and $myrow[1] needs to change to $myrow[1] and $myrow[0] correspondingly.

The result is as follow:

Task completed.

Conclusion

This is a very good exercise to understand the PHP and database relationship. But it is very time consuming for setup and moreover a lot of steps is not cover in the study guide. I had used almost 10 hours to finish this exercise. Fortunately, by follow the blog from Leo Lee  and read some hints from the internet (w3schools,2010), I can finally finish the task.

Exercise 4

1. Describe the important and distinguishing properties of Peer to Peer computing with the client/server architecture?

Peer to Peer (P2P) computing refers to network connections bypass the server and the two hosts (peers) are communicate with each other. In enterprise level network, most of the data exchange is going through the client/server architecture and is handled by the centralized server. The centralized server take care all the security and data exchange roles. The important of P2P computing is that it can reduce the traffic load on the centralize server as all the communications and resources are handle by both peers. The hosts in P2P computing will share their local information, such as files, music, movies, etc. from each other and it is widely distributed among the network unlike the client/server architecture which all information is stored inside the server.

2. Frameworks for development. Compare and contrast any TWO of:

a. Java b. .Net c. Ruby on Rails d. Turbo Gears e. Google Gears f. AJAX frameworks

I will compare and contrast on Java and .Net.

1. Java and .Net are based on virtual machine model which the program will not need to take care about the hardware configuration.

2. The program language for C# and VB used in .Net has a lot of similarities with the JVM and Java

3. Both .Net and Java are supporting multiple programming languages.

4. .Net can only be installed in Microsoft windows environment, but Java can be installed on a variety of operating systems (windows, Linux, Mac)

5. Java is an open source but .Net is a commercial product which the .Net framework base class library will only for reference purpose.

(Wikipedia, 2010)

Exercise 3

1. Explain DNS and DHCP.

Domain Name System (DNS) is the hierarchical naming system for the computers connected to the internet or a particular private network. It is always running in a server which stores all the computer's naming conversions within the domain. The main function of a DNS is to convert the human understand computer hostnames or internet domain names into Internet Protocol (IP) address. For a universal internet DNS server, it always stores all the registered domain names around the world. Of course, there are different levels of DNS servers act as authoritative name server which will handle sub-level naming conversion request. It will make the DNS system becomes distributed, fault-tolerant and avoid a single point of failure.

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a networking protocol used by the network clients (equipment which require IP address) to obtain IP address and other necessary network parameters (DNS server). It is a client-server based design which the DHCP client will broadcast the network information request to the network, the DHCP server will respond and send back the IP address and network parameters. All those dynamic data will have expiration, therefore depending on the client OS design, they need to request the DHCP data refreshment from time to time. Without the DHCP service, all the clients need manually configure for the IP address and network parameters.

How does DNS differ from DHCP configuration?

As describe above, DNS only store the naming conversion within the domain and DHCP is responsible for the network information assignment. They are totally differing from each other, but in the real world, they are always working together. DHCP helps to distribute the DNS server IP address to all the clients and all the clients can use the DNS server content to go out to the Internet.

2. Why is it important for your online business application to use a static IP address rather than have it dynamically assigned?

Static IP address is almost a must because an online business customer will use internet browser to access the online application by typing in the site name (www.onlinebusiness.com). Such internet naming conversion is handling by the DNS server pointing by the customer's computer. We need to understand that the DNS servers around the world are not using real time synchronization and it takes a huge time for doing so. If the online business application is not using static IP address, the customer's DNS server may not have the correct IP address pointing to the online business server. Therefore, the customer cannot reach the online application and there is no business happens. Customer will not wait and re-visit the online business site again afterward. E-commerce is a 24 X 7 business.

3. What role can the following play in business-to-business e-commerce?

a.Virtual Private Network (VPN)

VPN is important for business-to-business e-commerce as it provides a secure tunnel for data exchange underlying the network traffic (internet). Without VPN, business-to-business e-commerce will need to go through a dedicated lease line which is too expensive and not flexible.

b. Next generation of wireless mesh networks

The wireless mesh networks will enlarge the coverage of the internet in the rural area and moreover it can provide a more stable and expandable networking environment than the wired ad hoc network. For e-commerce this is very important as high good quality coverage implies more business opportunities.

c. Social Cloud applications

Social Cloud applications will help the e-commerce business to cut down the application developing cost and time. Moreover, in business-to-business environment, using social cloud application means both sides are starting from the same ground. Therefore, the integration and communication between e-commerce will become seamless.

4. If clouding computing is the 'balck box', then grid computing is a component as the 'white box'.

Explain what you interpret about that statement.

Grid computing is a cluster of computers using a parallel processing architecture where the CPU resources are shared across the network acting as one large computer. Cloud computing is a set of dynamically scalable, virtual services over the Internet. (Eustace, 2010)

From my point of view, such statement is true if we are looking from a computer hardware standpoint. For grid computing, we can absolutely understand the infrastructure of the system, the amount of resources that can be allocated and more likely the system performance. For clouding computing environment, everything is unknown. We don't where the data is located, the system performance and reliability.

Exercise 2

Describe the steps involved with the Rapid Evolutionary Prototyping Approach as it applies to developing a Web application.

There are four main steps involved with the prototyping process

1. Identify the basic user’s requirements including inputs from the users and outputs from the applications.

2. Develop the initial prototype which only include the user interfaces

3. Review and examine the prototype by stakeholders (customers, end-users), then collect feedback on additional requirements or changes.

4. Enhance (features) and revised the prototype (plan) according to the feedback and changes.

Step 3 and 4 will iterate until the final prototype meets the contract requirements.

For Rapid Evolutionary Prototyping Approach (REPA) in developing a Web application, it will mainly follow the 4 steps above but with some enhancements. This approach depends on reuse of software components, use of software templates and on an architectural template. Moreover, the development process focus on multiple small teams working engineering discipline (parallel) and frequently customer interaction in a timebox manner according to a particular function of a software project(Wikipedia,2010).

How is it related to agile development?

Agile development is a term for iterative and incremental software development methodology. (Versionone, 2010). REPA is exactly using the iterative and incremental method to speed up the developing process of the application. This approach involves continuous planning, testing, integration and other forms of evolution of the project and the software. In addition, the REPA is lightweight and focus on force stakeholders to collaborate and have decisions quickly and effectively.

Exercise 1

1.Visit http://yahoo.com/ and http://facebook.com/ as examples of online communities.

       

a. What is meant by an online community and how is it important for e-commerce?

Online community refers to a group of people which have same kind of interest, regardless of the geographical, race, national and time constrained to communicate/exchange information/ideas in the cyberspace (such as yahoo.com or facebook.com). The members may not know each other's even they have communicate for a long period of time.

It is very important to the E-commerce world because of the following points:-

1. Users have computer skills, they will more eager to use e-commerce tools

2. Each online community has its own interest (e.g. golf, car, photo, travel), a concentrated user group for a particular product or service. Easy to advertise them and gain efficiency.

3. It is easier for small E-commerce Company to compete with national and multinational companies as online community is more globalize.

4. E-commerce marketing strategy can be more flexible in the online community as it is easier to get the market trend from the online users.

5. Of course, the E-commerce shop is open 24 X 7 which is convenience for the online users and makes it more competitive with the traditional shops.

b.  Is there a common thread and a local community sense in action?

From my point of view, the only common thread for the online and local community is that they are a group of people which share the same kind of interest in a particular place. (Cyber or local)  For example a Photo group, no matter it is online or local, will only interest in photo related things. Such as camera, lens, etc.

2. Visit the famous online store front at http://www.amazon.com/

a. Why has it been a successful site? How does the purchase of a book work?

First of all, the site is very user friendly. It is a very clear setup site,even a first time user will know where to go and find the required products. Secondly, it provides a wide range of products (books, tools, electronics, etc.) which almost anyone can find something to buy in this site. Thirdly, this site providing a recent history section, so you can always go back to your favorite area by a simple mouse click and therefore you can never miss any items. Fourthly, the site is full of photos but not words, less boring and more interactive. Fifthly, Amazon provides a platform for the user to sell the product in this site. In conclusion, it is very easy to get information out from this site and make the shopping more easily and faster.

You need to be a member in order to do any transaction in the Amazon site. When you want to purchase a book, log in and go to book department and select the corresponding section (books, kindle books, textbook or magazine). Afterward, search the book by title, author or ISBNs and click go button. The search result will show up, the user can choose which item he wants depending on the condition of the book (new, second hand). Add the required book in the shopping cart and you can continue to shop if you wish or you can hit the "proceed to check out" button to check out the book. Select the shipping address and payment method and then you are done.

b. Are there any secure transactions not involving money?

Yes, the sign-in operation is involving the secure server transactions. It may due to the fact that all the credit card information is store inside the Amazon server under the customer's profile and therefore it is safer to go through the secure server transaction.

3. What happens with new models emerging such as price comparison sites?

It is always welcome to have new models for E-commerce as it will make the customer has more information before they make their shopping decision. But the new models should be a fair model, not only driven by the commerical side (advertisement). Moreover, a price comparison site model should not only concentrate on the price comparison details but also need to provide the creditbility, reliability, shipping price and cycle time of the compared shopping sites.