MaRveloUs

Threat of online security:HOw safe is our Data ?

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:10:00 +0000

Online security is a kind of defense strategy to ensure that the data in our computer is not being grant access unless through authorization by hackers, furthermore avoid virus attacks. These method of prevention no longer can guarantee that our data is safe.

Threats of online security:
1.Worm
Worm is a self-reproducing until it interupts the whole computer system. The examples of worms are Blaster, Sasser, Bagle and Code red which are all causing interruption to the windows systems.

2. Computer virus
Computer virus is actually a kind of computer software that can copy itself to any computer without permission of the user. The examples of computer virus is "I love you".

3. Trojan Horse

The terms trojan horse comes from a Greek Myth. Trojan Horse is a kind of Malware which allows hackers to grant access to computers without any authorization. The examples of threats which can be perform are uploading and downloading files from the computer.

4. Identity theft
Identity theft occurs when there is criminal who uses other person's identity as their own identity. It can also incluse misuse the identity of cresit card and mail fraud.

5. Denial-of-service attack
Denial-of-service attack is an attempt to to make computer resource unavailable for its user. It usually slows down network performance, unavailability of certain websites or inability to access to some websites.

Methods use to prevent threat to the online security to make sure that our data is safe.

1. Firewall
Firewall is a system which limits network access between two or more networks. However firewall cannot prevent virus from spreading to the computer systems.

2. Virus defense
Anti virus softwares are use to detect and terminate virus before it spread to our computer system. Unfortunately, anti virus sofware cannot prevent every type of virus as we know virus nowadays are keep on transforming and there are difficulties for the software engineer to create new virus defense. Therefore, data may also be destroyed.

Review a local, transactional E-commerce website

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 08:43:00 +0000

The local, transactional e-commerce websites that i want to review is the website of Golden Screen Cinema. Golden Screen Cinema is well-known for its quality of their mega halls and services of their staffs. There are approximately 24 outlets of GSC throughout Malaysia. Which means thousands and thousands of people would log on to the website to check out what is the latest movie and etcits

The websites with many fixtures, such as we can check for the show times of movies available 24/7, membership sign in section is for members to log in and we can book out tickets so that we could avoid long queue. Sometimes, espically on satruday and sunday, there are a lot of people going for movie, there need to wait for a long queue. So the websites has made our job easy and we can collect our tickets before the movie starts without any queuing.

For this website, there aso have the e-payment tutorial to teach and help the consumer that do not know to purchase ticket on website.
There is a cineplex which is newly opened in Tropicana City, through website, we can get the free screening coupon and enjoy the new and luxurious environment for a movie.
The website also provise us the map showing us how to get to the cinema so that tourist will not get lost when want to get to the cinema.
As a conclusion, GSC website is a well known transactional website in Malaysia. The websites is very convinient for Malaysian citizens to check the showtimes and save their time with the help of the online booking system.

For more information, please log on to www.gsc.com.my .

A Discussion On E-learning Offered In Malaysian Universities: Pros And Cons Form The Students Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (~bIgWoRLdsMAlLBoy^^-) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:54:00 +0000

What is E-learning?

Electronic learning (or E-Learning or eLearning) is a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), where technology is used to support the learning process. Often the medium of instruction is through computer technology, particularly involving digital technologies. E-learning has been defined as "pedagogy empowered by digital technology". In some instances, no face- to- face interaction takes place. E-learning is used interchangeably in a wide variety of contexts. In companies, it refers to the strategies that use the company network to deliver training courses to employees. In the United States, it is defined as a planned teaching/learning experience that uses a wide spectrum of technologies, mainly Internet or computer-based, to reach learners. Lately in most Universities, e-learning is used to define a specific mode to attend a course or programmes of study where the students rarely, if ever, attend face-to-face for on-campus access to educational facilities, because they study online.

There is no doubt that technology gives us effective communication alternatives, which in some cases, can be better than attending a boring lecture in a crowded hall, and having to travel to class every day. In spite of all the hype surrounding online degree programs and e-learning, it is important to see this phenomenon for both its pros and cons.

Pros of E-learning from students perspective:

1. Effective Distribution of Information

In most modern universities, a ‘paperless’ environment is not just a myth. It is already being practiced on daily basis. It is certainly okay for the students to take notes while the professor is talking, and then later asking your seniors for their notes so that you can have enough study material. But it is seen to be less effective. It is much better when the lecturer can upload the following day’s lecture notes in the course web page. Students can then access these materials, print them out, and be prepared for tomorrow’s lecture. This helps them to listen more effectively to the information that is being passed on from the professor, without having to scramble to jot down notes. Since students can access these materials at any time, there is also no issue if they need to get these materials again at a later date.

2. Save on Administration Costs

E-learning is favored by both public and private universities, as well as colleges because it helps them to reduce their administration costs. In fact, for every course offered by the college, there only need to be one master document, which is uploaded to the server or web page, and protected by a firewall or anti-virus software. That is the cost occurred for the administration to implement a new subject, aside from tutor fees and utilities. The students do all printing, and the lecturer updates the course modules. With this system in place, the college can offer the course to thousands of new students without spending even one Ringgit more. They can even reduce the lecture hours since most of the materials are available anytime. Therefore, it makes sense for educational institutions to favor e-learning. Even though the initial cost or setting up the servers and software may be a lot, in time to come these costs can easily be recovered by increasing the intake of students.

3. Increase the reach of Educational Institutions

E-learning enables universities and colleges to go beyond big cities and towns when recruiting new students. With the Internet, any student, anywhere in the country, is a possible enrollee. As long as the student is able to pay for the course, and has the basic facilities such as a personal computer, a printer and an Internet connection, it does not even matter if he lives in an isolated island or mountain without regular transportation. Such is the power on communication technology (ICT), as it allows people from remote areas to get access to important information, and increasing their opportunity of getting a better education.

With e-learning, some institutions even go beyond the country, into other neighboring countries. It makes sense for both the student and the institution. For example, it a student in Cambodia wants to take a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Art, he may discover that a Malaysian college offers something that is attractive, and affordable to him. What is more, they even allow him to learn online, without having to pay for flight tickets and expensive accommodation. This is indeed a very good deal, which would not be so attractive without the flexibility offered by e-learning. While the advantages are obvious, the disadvantages need a little more scrutiny to be visible to us.

Cons of E-learning from students perspective:

1. Lack of Human Interaction

Learning is traditionally a process of passing information from one human being to another, such as from teacher to student, from father to son or from one friend to another. Even though knowledge can be put in books, CD-ROMs, the Internet and e-books, the special part played by a human voice and face can never truly be replaced. For example, we have all read instruction books on how to do many things. Even though these books or manuals may be easy to understand and gives every detail you need to know, almost everyone can testify that it makes more sense when a human being instructs them on how to do it. You can buy a book on how to cook, go through the details, and get a lot of information. However, you can only really understand when you attend a show or a cooking class by the author or another cooking expert. That is because not every type of knowledge can be written down and passed around. There is this thing called experience, which can only be passed on from one person to another through face-to-face interaction. Learning, at some point, involves getting a mentor or role model, and learning though their knowledge and experience.

2. Abuse and Misuse of Technology

When something is digital in format, it means that it operates on certain rules, codes and definitions. If these rules can be modified or changed, it will produce a completely different result. This is the perfect setting for con men and dishonest people who prefer to break the rules and cheat their way to success. Throughout Malaysia, there have been many cases of students who manage to break though online or intranet securities set by the university, and actually change their results or get a preview of the final examination questions. As a result of this, students play a cat and mouse game with the administration, who are always working hard to outsmart students and cover any loopholes in their system. Due to the nature of anything digital, small mistakes can cause very big problems for the student body and the administration.

3. Lack of Motivation and Effort Among Students

One of the biggest arguments about e-learning is that it makes students lazy and ineffective, due to being spoon fed by the educational institutions. With e-learning, most educational task is done either by the tutor or some sophisticated software, leaving students with the simple task of just downloading notes and reading them. Although this may make the learning process easier and more effective, it also runs the risk of creating dependent and lazy students. When these students graduate and enter the working class, they tend to expect all the information to be delivered to them, too. This time around, they may find that they need to aggressively seek information for themselves or be left behind fast. Since these students are so used to being spoon fed, they become cripples in the working environment, unable to move forward without constant help from others.

Related Links:
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_learning
2.http://virtualcampus.wordpress.com/2004/05/01/e-learning-in-malaysian-educational-institutions/

E-Government in Malaysia

noreply@blogger.com (LYnxXX) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:45:00 +0000

E-Government a.k.a. electronic government, digital government or online government. E-Government uses of the information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transaction, and interactions with citizens, businesses as well as other government sectors. Malaysia have implemented E-Government since 1996 which was initiated by Multimedia Super Corridoor(MSC) by Malaysian Government. The application of this system tends to imrpove the government operations internally and externally thus how its delivery services to the citizens where enabling government, businesses and citizens to work together for the benefits of Malaysia and of all its citizens. The followings indicate the 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application:

Project Monitoring System (SPP II) is an online system that monitors the entire lifecycle of national programs from project application to approval to implementation. The objectives of SPP II are:
- To support and monitor the entire lifecycle of Malaysi's 5-Year develoment program.
- To have quality projects
- To provide platform for exchanging ideas and demostrating best practices models in project implementation
Human Resouce Management Information System (HRMIS) act as an integrated, technology-enabled HRMIS for Malaysian Public Service. The main objectives of HRMIS are:
- Effective staffing and right-sizing of civil service
- Up-to-data consolidated HR data for effective information planning
- Improving paperless HRM capabilities
Generic Office Environment (GOE) is a powerful document and office management solution that enable users to effectively and efficienly their office environment.
Electronic Procurement (EP) is used to re-engineer, transform and automate the current procurement system such as contral contract, direct purchase and tender. EP also increase tranparency, time and cost saving while encouraging suppliers to go electronic and join the K-Economy.

Electronic Services Directory (E-services) provides a platform for the citizens to make transactions with the government and utilities payment. For example, Telecom Malaysia (TM) enabled citizens to make their payment through online.
Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX) improves the mobilization of human resources and optimize work force utilization through systematic matching of job seekers to job vacancies.
E-Syariah is implemented to improve the quality of service in Syariah Courts.

For more information please refer to:
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/12073046901815

An Example of an E-Commerce failure and its causes

noreply@blogger.com (John) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:15:00 +0000

D0t-Com Company. It is a company that doing his buisness mostly by through the internet. Their internet link is Kibu.com. Kibu.com is founded at 1999. It was targeting teenage young girls between 13-18 years old and focusing on fashion, music, beauty, college and sport. Despite having US$22 million in funding from high-profile investors which included Jim Clark of Netscape fame, Kibu officials admitted bad market conditions for advertising-based business models convinced management and the investors to shut down the site.

The failure of Kibu.com was just like one of the many overfunded and under thought out initiatives in the kids and teens market. The massive amount of funding and low overhead costs might be one of the causes because most people learnt that running a dot-com was not that hard. However, poor management in a company causes crash and burn whether it's in sanitation or manufacturing or online. 46 days of operations were also not enough for getting the notice of targeted users.

Although kids market is profitable but the failure of Kibu.com was most probably caused by the mismanagement which leaded the company to shutting down. Its timing in financial markets could not have been worse.

The information is get from the link :

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/kibucom-kloses-2000103/

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-246440.html

Electronic Currency

noreply@blogger.com (~bIgWoRLdsMAlLBoy^^-) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 17:42:00 +0000

What is Electronic Currency?

Electronic currency, also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money, digital cash or digital currency, refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit are examples of electronic money. Also, it is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.

Electronic currency allows its holder to buy the goods and services that the vastness of the internet offers. An e-currency system may be fully backed by gold (like e-gold and c-gold), non-gold backed, or both gold and non-gold baked (like e-Bullion and Liberty Reserve).

Electronic currency trading can let you to do business and earn only few dollars of investment. In fact, some of the experts will suggest the beginners to start with only a few dollars so that they can first learn the ropes of electronic currency. Besides that, electronic currency trading has a low transaction cost. Unlike other businesses that will eat up your profit with a huge amount of fees, it allows you to do business with minimal fees and give you more profit and money. There are few websites examples that can let people to do e-currency tradings such as MG E-currency, JT GOLD.com.

While electronic money has been an interesting problem for cryptography, to date, use of digital cash has been relatively low-scale. One rare success has been Hong Kong's Octopus card system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into a widely used electronic cash system. Singapore also has an electronic money implementation for its public transportation system (commuter trains, bus, etc), which is very similar to Hong Kong's Octopus card and based on the same type of card (FeliCa). There is also one implementation in the Netherlands, known as Chipknip.

Major Electronic Currency Vendors

Firstgate's Click and Buy

In 1999 Norbert Stangl founded FIRSTGATE Internet AG. The Internet payment system ClickandBuy, a full-service solution for e-payment and billing, was launched in 2000. After a successful start - ClickandBuy saw numerous launches in other markets - ClickandBuy is now available all over Europe, in the US and in Asia. ClickandBuy International Limited is headquartered in London.

Firstgate works with about 3,000 providers of articles, information, games, and other content and has 2.5 million customers, mostly in Europe.For security, Firstgate uses passwords and secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption and also records the IP addresses of buyers' machines for reference in case problems occur.

The company charges content providers an up-front fee—which varies based on the complexity of the project—for set-up, integration, and consulting. Firstgate then tailors its systems with business rules for each participating merchant.The company bills buyers' credit cards, debit cards, or phone accounts, once they have accrued a few dollars in charges. North American customers can buy material via a charge to their bank accounts.

Firstgate aggregates consumer micropurchases across merchants to enable a single processing of multiple transactions, explained Chief Operating Officer Ed Burrell. "This reduces processing costs, per-purchase credit card fees, and administration," he explained. Firstgate then remits money to merchants via checks or bank transfers.

Payloadz

PayLoadz is a leading online marketplace for digital downloadable goods.They enable tens of thousands of customers to sell digital goods such as videos, video games, ebooks, software and templates to a large audience of buyers from our online store. Payloadz play a leadership role in this exciting market and continually strive to provide a dynamic and seamless selling experience for their users.

The explosive growth in online commerce has moved into the realm of digital goods and assets. Demand is increasing for digital goods such as videos, ebooks, music, video games, software, design templates, etc. Payloadzgoal is to create a dynamic online marketplace and platform in which users sell their digital goods to interested buyers in a seamless efficient way.

They have made substantial progress in the past four years and today they are one of the leading “go to” sites for downloadable digital goods. Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity is our motto. Their site is easy to use (for both buyers and sellers) and offers a straight forward pricing model.

PayLoadz works with about 1,000 merchants and generates about $3 million per year in revenue, explained founder and lead developer Shannon Sofield.

Rather than having prepaid accounts with PayLoadz, users pay sellers directly through PayPal, which also verifies that the buyers have enough money in their accounts to make the purchase. Merchants pay PayLoadz a flat monthly fee based on their sales levels, rather than a percentage of each transaction.

PayLoadz delivers files via a secure server to the customer using PayPal's Instant Payment Notification system, which lets vendors integrate PayPal with their back-end operations. Buyers never see a PayLoadz interface.

The PayLoadz system consists of an application server that hosts the Web site and handles transaction processing, a file storage and delivery server, and a database server. Separating the components into servers tuned for specific roles improves performance and reliability, Sofield said.For security, PayLoadz uses SSL with 128-bit RC4 encryption.

Paystone Technology

Customers in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Europe can access Web content after setting up prepaid Paystone accounts by mailing funds directly to the company using their bank's bill payment service or by depositing cash at any Bank of America branch.
Merchants that sell content via Paystone create links to the e-micropayment system. Customers follow the links, enter their Paystone password, and are redirected back to the content they want to purchase. For security, Paystone uses 128-bit SSL encryption.

Peppercoin

Peppercoin is a cryptographic system for processing micropayments. Peppercoin Inc. was a company that offers services based on the peppercoin method.The peppercoin system was developed by Silvio Micali and Ron Rivest and first presented at the RSA Conference in 2002 (although it had not yet been named.) The core idea is to bill one randomly selected transaction a lump sum of money rather than bill each transaction a small amount. It uses "universal aggregation", which means that it aggregates transactions over users, merchants as well as payment service providers. The random selection is cryptographically secure -- it cannot be influenced by any of the parties. It is claimed to reduce the transaction cost per dollar from 27 cents to "well below 10 cents."

Peppercoin, Inc. was a privately held company founded in late 2001 by Micali and Rivest based in Waltham, MA. It has secured about $15M in venture capital in two rounds of funding. Its services have seen modest adoption. Peppercoin collects 5-9% of transaction cost from the merchant. Peppercoin, Inc. was bought out in 2007 by Chockstone for an undisclosed amount.

Buyers at participating Web sites who want to use Peppercoin see the e-micropayment technology's interface, which looks like a common credit card interface, noted Bob Nix, the company's vice president of engineering.

The application's new version, Peppercoin 2.0, doesn't require pre-enrollment or predeposit of funds. Consumers just enter their credit or debit card information with the merchant online as usual, and Peppercoin processes the transaction.As picture below shows, the application uses a universal aggregation technique to efficiently process many small interactions between multiple consumers and merchants as a few large transactions.

The company uses RSA BSAFE software to provide encryption and digital signing capabilities for the security of a buyer's information and the transaction's integrity. Digital signatures can authenticate a message's sender's identity and verify that no one has altered the original content.To reduce overhead on small transactions, Peppercoin uses an online self-service customer-service module.

Digicash

The name of one man stands out way above anyone else in the history of DigiCash: David Chaum, US citizen, born into a wealthy family, brilliant mathematician and one who had to always have things his own way. After travelling around the world he ended up in Amsterdam in the late 80's. Here, he became head of the cryptography department of the CWI (Centre of Mathematics and Information Science). Cryptography is the science of encoding and decoding of data, in order to maintain privacy. Chaum had built a big reputation in this field in the previous few years. Insiders estimated he was in the top 5 of the world at the time.

At the CWI, they also worked on electronic payment systems. In the early 90s, Rijkswaterstaat became interested as they were thinking about introducing automatic toll-collection roads. Chaum got together a few researchers, mainly from earlier contacts with the university of Eindhoven. All guys who knew each other through a "young researchers" programme sponsored by Philips. They had all spent their youth programming behind a computer. Enthusiastically they started, and within little over a week the job was done.

Rijkswaterstaat was satisfied and the team got another assignment. That was the moment when Chaum smelt money. Why couldn't he turn the patents he claimed in the 80s into money? On the 21st of April, 1990, the company DigiCash first saw light of day. Unfortunately Rijkswaterstaat decided to put the advanced system on the shelf and to continue with the old standby, number plate recognition. Chaum could have divested himself of the company and continued his work at the CWI, but he had apparently tasted the forbidden fruit of business. He decided to market his research other ways: smart cards, point-of-sale applications, cash registers and tele-banking. Of course, he had to quit his job at the CWI because of the risk of conflict of interest.

Financing of the company was done privately by the American. Former DigiCash employees agree that Chaum and his wealthy family had at least contributed a few million.

It all started out quite nicely. The brand new company sold a smart card for closed systems which was a cash-cow for years. It was at this time that the first irritants appeared. Even if you are a brilliant scientist, that doesn't mean you are a good manager. David Chaum was a control freak, someone who couldn't delegate anything to anyone else, and insisted upon watching over everybody's shoulders. "That resulted in slowing down research," explains an ex-DigiCash employee who wished to remain anonymous. "We had a lot of half-finished product. He continuously changed his mind about where things were headed."

This drove a few people crazy and it didn't take long before the first few turned their back and started their own company. In 1992 Boudewijn de Kerf and Eduard de Jong quit the company and went to Silicon Valley where they invented and sold an operating system to Sun Microsystems for a substantial sum.

Digicash’s mission is to create a new personalized dimension to the shopping experience. They transform online incentives into powerful new tools, establishing a strong, high-value connection between consumers and ecommerce companies. The Digicash Wallet, Digicash first product, gives merchants a revolutionary new approach for initiating real-time, value-creating coupons and promotions to increase sales, margins, and customer loyalty.

Consumers are embracing the Digicash Wallet because it’s fun, easy, convenient and personalized to their shopping needs. Capture the benefit of rising coupon usage without sacrificing profits!

Related links:
1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercoin
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_money
3.http://ecommercesite.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/electronic-currency/
4.http://www.clickandbuy.com/US/en/company/firmenprofil.html
5.http://www2.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/abs/html/mags/co/2004/08/r8019.htm
6.http://www.digicash.com/index.php#
7.http://www.jya.com/digicrash.htm
8.https://www.payloadz.com/aboutus.asp

The application of pre-paid cash card for customers

noreply@blogger.com (LYnxXX) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 08:35:00 +0000

Since entering modern age, transactional cards have been used to replace currency business trading. Why people prefer to use card more then using cash during doin a business? Due to its flexibility, card is much more compatible when doing a big business (require huge investment or money or large amount of payment). Transaction card is much convinience, instead of carrying a few million dollars of cash why not just a card contains of millions of dollars in your bank account.

However, pre-paid cash card have much similarity to original transaction card when offering the ability to purchase products and services, it even looks just like a credit or debit card. But, the main advantage about a pre-paid cash card is that you oly get to spend the balance that you have preloaded into the card meaning that risking nothing into debts as it has no credit or overdraft facility.

Money inside your pre-paid card can be loaded by cash at bank, Post office, PayPoint terminals or via bank transfer. But not all of these loading options are provided by the providers. In Malaysia, Touch 'n Go appeared to be carried out some function just like a pre-paid cash card where it give the holders the efficiency and time saving when paying a toll. There are many advantages you can find through the application of the pre-paid cash card.

No debt risk since with a prepaid cash card, you are limited to spend only the amount you put in your card.

Control on spending of either youself or your children. Like a credit card, you will get a full breakdown of spending on the card so you can see what has been purchased, who from and when.

The right card to travel. For any holidaymaker, prepaid cards offer a good alternative to travellers' cheques. They are much safer and offer a better exchanges as you spend.

The application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia

noreply@blogger.com (LYnxXX) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 07:52:00 +0000

What is third party certification programme?

Third Party Certification (TPC) or Certificate authorities (CA) is actually a a third party that developed to secure personal data from leaking through surfing any website or by making any transaction online such as making currency payment, uploading personal information and etc. Internet users must be total awared of fraud as well as information security, this is where TPC comes in. MSC Trustgate appear to be one of the TPC program applied in Malaysia since 1999.

However, Trustgate offers a complete security solution that needed by the e-commerce businesses wherein securing their information as well as personal data and customers valuable data. As CA, the core business of Trusgate is to provide digital certification services, including digital certificates, and cryptographic products, Managed Public Key Infrastructure (PKI - enhance organization's security of data thus managing the identification credential from users and organization), Personal ID, My Trust, MyKad ID, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development.

MyKad PKI
MyKey is a digital certificate that loaded into MyKad. The enrollment of this programme is accepted in Malaysia since 1997. MyKey provide highest protection for your data and transaction online and reliance limit for fraud protection.

Furthermore, Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) also appear to be one of the best solution to build Internet users' trust. During having an online negotiation or trasaction, SSL CA provides security of confidential communications and identifies individuals and websites on the Internet uniquely by serving as a sort of digital passport or credential.

VeriSign SSL Certificates is the public encrypted key that Webmaster sends to CA, which will then review on the credentials and check through all the background of the organization to ensure that the claim of organization before issuing any server certificates. VeriSign is one of the most trusted brand on Internet where it further enhanced the operation of e-commerce by giving Internet users more confidence to communicate and do transaction online.

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

noreply@blogger.com (-JoE~) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:47:00 +0000

Nowadays corporate blogging has become a new marketing communication tool for an organization during this technology age and it is not only for personal usage. The corporate blogging is widely used by an organization for business purpose. It has become the hottest communication tool on the web.

Google is one of the company had implemented a corporate blog in year 2004. This blog used in sharing all information about Google with people and visitors can leave their own comment or feedback about the services are provided. Besides that, it can divide to two types which are internal blog and external blog. An internal blog is accessed through the corporation’s intranet. It allows employees can communicate with each other and share their information or experience which can help them in complete task and work within organization. It also improves the communication between different department and layers of management.

The external blog is a blog can be view by public and let people leave their comment in the blog. This is one of the effective ways that organization can collect the feedback from the customers. Not only this, organization using this blog to communicate with outsiders about corporation events such as press releases, updating new product or service, announcements and so on. It will help in building better relationship with the outside of organization.

Pros:

Easy to set up
Dialogue with customers
Marketing with low overheads
Stopping rumors spread
Proper medium for customer feedback

Cons:

Requires strong written communication skills
Privacy concern
Time-consuming to maintain
Negative comment
Loss of control over the message

For Further information, please refer to following links:
http://www.wayneliew.com/10-benefits-business-blogging/
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7770488/Top-10-Risks-for-Corporate-Blogs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog

Mobile Payment System in Malaysia

noreply@blogger.com (LYnxXX) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:28:00 +0000

Mobile payment appeared to be a new alternative payment method in nowaday econmy. This rapidly-adopting method is used widely in Asia and Europe. Instead paying anything with cash, cheque and credit cards, a consumer can use mobile phone to pay for wide range of service and digital or hard goods. The followings indicate the major methods for mobile payment:

Premium SMS based transactional payments - in this model, payment is made by consumers via SMS text message to a short code and a premium charge is applied to their phone bill.

Direct Moble Biling - a true alternative payment mehtod that does not require the use of credit/debit cards or pre-registration at online payment such as PayPal.

Mobile Web Payment (WAP) - where consumer uses web pages displayed or additional downloaded application and installed into her mobile phone to make payment. It uses WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) as underlying technology.

Mobile Money (MM) is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd where in adopted by Malaysia since Fubruary 2005. In order to pay using MM, shopper must either a savings, current or credit card account with participating banks (Hong Leong Mobile Credit Card). The shopper will be billed by the bank by envery month end.

The advantages of using mobile payment:

Conviniency of payment through just a click on the phone. Physical presence to the place is not necessary.

Easy to complement to cash, easily reacheable especially during emergencies.

Beside MM payment system, another company in Malaysia also apply the mobile payment as well that is Maxis. Maxis launched a system call Maxis FastTap which is an integrated mobile payment service that utilises near-field communication (NFC) technology.

For more information about mobile payment: http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp

The revenue model for Google, Amazon.com, and eBay

noreply@blogger.com (LYnxXX) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:52:00 +0000

Everything businesses succeed in its ability to acquire and earn profits where capture all necessary revenue and value from the customers through offering the right products and services. Three of the following businesses indicate their revenue model and how it's generated to make the business success.

Google

Google AdWords and Google AdSense - A pay per click advertisement program developed by Google that generates profits from receiving every payment from advertisers whenever the published ads were clicked by anyone that try to surf for information. Try find for more information about Google Adsense and Google Adwords here.

Last year (2008) through the above methods deployed by Google, it made a revenue of $ 21 million where is a 31% growth in the growth rate compare to past earnings. The financial statement of Google indicates that the business is going in a downfall because advertisers are becoming more and more concern about the fraud and error that will appear when advertised through online.

Served as one of the most successful third part e-commerce business, Amazon was first stand as an online bookstore wherein selling new and used books and other reading materials through online. Amazon can even provide more than 200,000 titles compare to those brick-and-mortar bookstores. Then the business diversified its product line by selling instead of books, Amazon sold videos, musics, computer software, furniture, apparel and etc.

Amazon Marketplace is one of the most successful determinant for Amazon success, it enable buyers to sort and browse for the products then buy it through online. By charging a commision rate based on the selling product's price where this act as a transactional fee wherein Amazon have a revenue of $19 billion over the year of 2008.

In 1996, Amazon launched an affiliate marketing program called aStore where by having website owners serve as affiliates of having the program installed on their website, Amazon rewards affiliates for every customers brought by the website owners.

The final example of business, eBay. eBay is an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. You can possibly find whatever you can think of in eBay. It provides over millions of collectables, equipment, appliances and even vehicles. eBay generates two main kinds of fees that is the promotional fees and final value fees.

Promotional fees are the fees that charged for additional listing options that help attract attention for an item, for example those highlighted of bold items.

Final value fees are the commission that are charged to the seller at the end of the auction.

Online advertising tends to play an important role in eBay's revenue. On the trasaction fees revenue, eBay offers PayPal where enabling the holders of PayPal to exchange money over the Internet .

Furthermore, eBay generates its sales revenue through subsidiaries such as Half.com and eBay express. Where both of the subsidiaries offer a fixed price for selling the product but eBay will charge a 15% commission on the complete sales.

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

noreply@blogger.com (-JoE~) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:43:00 +0000

The cost of living has increase due to the economic crisis nowadays. This crisis creates many problems that direct and indirect towards consumers. Many consumers did not have enough cash in hand is one of the reason they would choose to use the credit card. Another reason is because is an extremely convenient tool can solve their problems immediate. This kind of situation lead the number of credit card debts increase and it may lead many consumers facing the problems of bankruptcies. It is because consumer did not realized of consequences financial and non financial perspectives.

Top 3 major causes of credit card debts:

Unemployment
Some of the consumers lost their job when the bad economies. This makes them unable to maintain their living expenses such as the groceries, utilities or education fees of children in that time. Moreover, they could not find a new job during the short period forced them to use the credit card to cover their basic living expenses.
Poor Money Management
Many consumers are unaware to conduct a monthly spending plan and do not keep monthly bills or receipt to record how many money are already spend. Without keeping the bills, they would not realize how much their spending and whether their debts have rise or not. Sometimes they maybe spend unnecessarily that do not have any value to their life.
No saving cushion
Most consumers using the future money when using the credit card and do not have extra money to save in bank. Besides that, they don’t understand the benefits of how money works and grows or how to save and invest the money for the emergency needs or expenses.

Prevention methods

Making a budget plan
Every person need to have a budget plan especially those credit card holders. This can help consumers to perceive that they will avoid the unnecessarily spending or will not overspending their budget. This plan must set before and prevent from the debts.
Self control and discipline
Have a direct set up is one of the best practices so that able to pay back the full amount each month and for emergency use only. Like this way, consumers can control themselves by limit the credit card amount and learn not to overspend more than their limit budget every month.
Cash transaction
Another way is stop charging items on the credit card and use cash to make transaction for the items they buy. Then the consumers do not need to pay the extra charges for the credit card debts.

Phishing: Examples And Its Prevention Methods

noreply@blogger.com (~bIgWoRLdsMAlLBoy^^-) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:51:00 +0000

What Is Phishing?

In the field of computer security, phishing is a form of criminal activity using social engineering techniques. Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT Administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Even when using server authentication, it may require tremendous skill to detect that the website is fake.

You might see a phishing scam:

•	In e-mail messages, even if they appear to be from a coworker or someone you know.
•	On your social networking Web site.
•	On a fake Web site that accepts donations for charity.
•	On Web sites that spoof your familiar sites using slightly different Web addresses, hoping you won't notice.
•	In your instant message program.
•	On your cell phone or other mobile device.

Often phishing scams rely on placing links in e-mail messages, on Web sites, or in instant messages that seem to come from a service that you trust, like your bank, credit card Company, or social networking site.

Typically, phishing attacks will direct the recipient to a web page designed to mimic a target organization’s own visual identity and to harvest the user's personal information, often leaving the victim unaware of the attack. Obtaining this type of personal data is attractive to black hats because it allows an attacker to impersonate their victims and make fraudulent financial transactions. Victims often suffer significant financial losses or have their entire identity stolen, usually for criminal purposes. As a successful and lucrative form of financial fraud, phishing made its mark on the networked landscape in 2004. Today, it is a booming segment of the identity theft “industry”. In January of 2004, there were 174 phishing Web sites identified by the cross-vendor Anti-Phishing Working Group. By December, there were over 1700. Finally, that year, the reported consumer loss due to Internet-based fraud was estimated between US$500 million (according to the Federal Trade Commission) and US$2 billion (according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group). Financial institutions and law enforcement agencies alike were ill-prepared to deal with organized, technically literate, internationally-based criminals.

Examples of Phishing Scam

Web sites that are frequently spoofed by phishers include PayPal, eBay, MSN, Yahoo, Best Buy, and America Online.

This phish claims that Washington Mutual Bank is adopting new security measures which require confirming ATM card details. As with other phishing scams, the victim is directed to visit a fraudulent site and any information entered on that site is sent to the attacker.

The email warns that failing to comply with the instructions may result in account suspension. Note the use of the SunTrust logo.This is a common tactic with 'phishers' who often use valid logos they have simply copied from the real banking site in an attempt to lead credence to their phishing email.

As with the SunTrust example, this eBay phishing email includes the eBay logo in an attempt to gain credibility. The email warns that a billing error may have been made on the account and urges the eBay member to login and verify the charges.

There is no shortage of irony in the Citibank phishing example. The attacker claims to be acting in the interests of safety and integrity for the online banking community. Of course, in order to do so, you are instructed to visit a fake website and enter critical financial details that the attacker will then use to disrupt the very safety and integrity they claim to be protecting.

As seen with the previous Citibank phishing scam, the Charter One phishing email also pretends to be working to preserve the safety and integrity of online banking. The email also includes the Charter One logo in an attempt to gain credibility.

PayPal and eBay were two of the earliest targets of phishing scams. In the example, this PayPal phishing scams tries to trick recipients by pretending to be some sort of security alert. Claiming that someone 'from a foreign IP address' attempted to login to your PayPal account, the email urges recipients to confirm their account details via the link provided.

As with other phishing scams, the displayed link is bogus - clicking the link actually takes the recipient to the attacker's website.A security flaw on a US government website has been exploited by a phishing scam claiming to be an IRS refund notification. The phishing email claims the recipient is eligible for a tax refund of $571.94. The email then tries to gain credibility by instructing recipients to copy/paste the URL rather than clicking it. That's because the link actually does point to a page on a legitimate government website, http://www.govbenefits.gov. The problem is, the page being targeted on that site allows the phishers to 'bounce' the user to another site altogether.

Prevention methods

There are several (technical or non-technical) ways to prevent phishing attacks:

Educate users to understand how phishing attacks work and be alert when phishing-alike e-mails are received;
Use legal methods to punish phishing attackers;
Use technical methods to stop phishing attackers.

Social Responses

Users who are contacted about an account needing to be "verified" can take steps to avoid phishing attempts, by contacting the company that is the subject of the email to check that the email is legitimate, or by typing in a trusted web address for the company's website into the address bar of their browser, to bypass the link in the suspected phishing message. The Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry and law enforcement association has suggested that conventional phishing techniques could become obsolete in the future as people are increasingly aware of the social engineering techniques used by phishers. They propose that pharming and other uses of malware will become more common tools for stealing information.

Legal Responses

Microsoft has joined the effort to crack down on phishing. On March 31, 2005, Microsoft filed 117 federal lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. The lawsuits accuse "John Doe" defendants of using various methods to obtain passwords and confidential information. March 2005 also saw Microsoft partner with the Australian government to teach law enforcement officials how to combat various cyber crimes, including phishing. Microsoft announced a planned further 100 lawsuits outside the U.S. in March 2006.

Technical Responses

If we can cut off one or several of the steps that needed by a phishing attack, we then successfully prevent that attack.

Detect and block the phishing websites in time:

If we can detect the phishing Web sites in time, we then can block the sites and prevent phishing attacks. It’s relatively easy to (manually) determine whether a site is a phishing site or not, but it’s difficult to find those phishing sites out in time.

Enhances the security of the websites:

One method to enhance the security is to use hardware devices. Another method is to use the biometrics characteristic (e.g. voice, fingerprint, iris, etc.) for user authentication. With these methods, the phishers cannot accomplish their tasks even after they have gotten part of the victims’ information. However, all these techniques need additional hardware to realize the authentication between the users and the Web sites hence will increase the cost and bring certain inconvenience. Therefore, it still needs time for these techniques to be widely adopted.

Block the phishing e-mails by various spam filters:

The phishers hide their identities when sending the spoofed e-mails, therefore, if anti-spam systems can determine whether an e-mail is sent by the announced sender, the phishing attacks will be decreased dramatically. From this point, the techniques that preventing senders from counterfeiting their Send ID can defeat phishing attacks efficiently. The spoofed e-mails used by phishers are one type of spam e-mails. From this point of view, the spam filters, can also be used to filter those phishing e-mails. Most of these anti-spam techniques perform filtering at the receiving side by scanning the contents and the address of the received e-mails. Furthermore, spam filters are designed for general spam e-mails and may not very suitable for filtering phishing e-mails since they generally do not consider the specific characteristics of phishing attacks.

Install online anti-phishing software in user’s computers:

Despite all the above efforts, it is still possible for the users to visit the spoofed Web sites. As a last defense, users can install anti-phishing tools in their computers. The anti phishing tools in use today can be divided into two categories: blacklist/white list based and rule-based.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

noreply@blogger.com (-JoE~) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:13:00 +0000

Internet is very common in nowadays. Every person need to use computer to complete their task or job everyday. They all rely on computer to save our personal data and through online financial services to do the financial transaction such as online payment, online banking to save time.

It is very convenient but internet is not a safe place especially for those people using online banking or payment. It is because hackers have the expertise and ability to intercept and do falsely when they using the information such as credit card numbers. So we need to take some prevention to increase internet security and decrease the probability of data being stolen. There are some suggestions stated in below:

Avoid using password that easy for memorize, use those password hardly to guess by other people. Beside that, don’t write down the password and carry it in your wallet. Use combination of numbers and letters if it possible
Install or use updated antispyware and antivirus software to protect. For example, Symantec, Norton and Avg antivirus are most popular software use by computer users. Its clean computer and protect personal information, financial data and etc.
Avoid accessing financial information in public. User must avoid logging in to check its own bank account or other sensitive personal data when using a free wireless connection that outside coffee shop, airports and other public places provided.
Biometric device. Biometric devices using some biometric identifier to access program, computers or rooms to safeguard our own personal and financial data. Those biometric devices include fingerprint scanners, hand geometry systems, face recognition systems, voice verification systems, signature verification systems and iris recognition systems. Advantages of using this method is the data won’t lose although it is being stolen.

Additional informations:
1) Six ways to safeguard your online assets
2) Keep your financial data safe online
3) http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/tips/ST06-008.html
4) http://www.msisac.org/awareness/news/2007-03.cfm

An example of an E-commerce success and its cause

noreply@blogger.com (LYnxXX) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:42:00 +0000

For example - eBay

eBay is a global online marketplace where practically anyone can trade practically anything. Launched in 1995, eBay started as a place to trade collectibles and hard-to-find items.

eBay founded in Pierre Omidyar's San Jose, a computer programmer, wrote the code for an auction website that he ran from his home computer in September 1995. It was from start meant to be a marketplace for the sale of goods and services for individuals.

Today, eBay is the world's largest online community of buyers and sellers. With a global presence in 38 markets, including the US, and over 241 million registered users worldwide, eBay offers boundless opportunity to come together in one Internet site and be able to buy and trade a wide range of items, including fine collectibles. It allows people pursue their interests and their passions in the areas of their hobbies and their collectibles.

eBay has built an online person-to-person trading community on the Internet, using the World Wide Web. Buyers and sellers are brought together in a manner where sellers are permitted to list items for sale, buyers to bid on items of interest and all eBay users to browse through listed items in a fully automated way. The items are arranged by topics, where each type of auction has its own category. It's convenient and easy to be found by people.

eBay has both streamlined and globalized traditional person-to-person trading, which has traditionally been conducted through such forms as garage sales, collectibles shows, flea markets and more, with their web interface. This facilitates easy exploration for buyers and enables the sellers to immediately list an item for sale within minutes of registering.

eBay has done a regular basis to promote eBay, they have had isolated campaigns through radio and print, and they've also done some tradeoffs and some banner ads on other sites. But the really unique thing about eBay is that when compare theirs to traditional businesses or other e-commerce sites, they have done very little external promotion to build membership.

eBay is such a unique community that they've been able to build their membership through the word-of-mouth of their users and they've also attracted new members due to the amount of media attention that has come to the site in the past few years.

Another cause has helped to make eBay as successful as it has been, is that people really enjoy the experience of the shopping bazaar. They enjoy looking around for merchandise. The other component is they really enjoy the competition of the bidding process. Everybody likes to get a bargain, and in some way, shape or form, likes to haggle a little bit over the price. eBay's auction format allows users to do that.

Obviously, people are becoming more and more comfortable with shopping online and they're getting more and more accustomed to doing that. That's another factor why eBay is grateful.

The History And Evolution Of E-commerce

noreply@blogger.com (~bIgWoRLdsMAlLBoy^^-) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Definition Of E-commerce

E-commerce can be defined as a modern business methodology that addresses the needs of organizations, merchants, and consumers to cut costs while improving the quality of goods and services and the increasing speed of service delivery, in which transactions take place over networks, mostly the Internet. It is the process of electronically buying and selling goods, services and information. Certain E-commerce applications, such as buying and selling stocks and airline tickets on the internet, are growing very rapidly, exceeding non-Internet trading.

E-commerce is not just about buying and selling, it also is about electronically communicating, collaborating, and discovering information (sometimes referred to as e-business). It is about e-learning, e-government, social networks, and much more. E-commerce will have an impact on a significant portion of the world, affecting businesses, professions, and, of course, people.

History Of E-commerce

The history of E-commerce basically starts in the 1960s.History of E-commerce dates back to the invention of the very old notion of “sell and buy”, electricity, cables, computers, modems, and the Internet. E-commerce became possible in 1991 when the Internet was opened to commercial use. Since that date thousands of businesses have taken up residence at web sites. At first, the term E-commerce meant the process of execution of commercial transactions electronically with the help of the leading technologies such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) which gave an opportunity for users to exchange business information and do electronic transactions. The ability to use these technologies appeared in the late 1970s and allowed business companies and organizations to send commercial documentation electronically. Evolution Of E-commerce
The evolution of e-commerce can be attributed to a combination regulatory reform and technological innovation. Through Internet (which played an important role in the evolution) appeared in the late 1960s, e-commerce now took off with the arrival of the World Wide Web and browsers in the 1990s.

E-Commerce were first developed in the early 1970s with innovations like:

Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) - funds can be routed electronically from one organization to another.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) – used to electronically transfer routine documents, that expanded electronic transfers from financial transactions to other types of transaction processing.

Inter Organizational System (IOS) – a system which allows the flow of information to be automated between organizations in order to reach a desired supply-chain management system, which enables the development of competitive organizations.

Since 1995, many innovative applications, ranging from direct online sales to e-learning experiences had been developed. Almost every organization in the world has a Web site.

In 1999, the emphasis of e-commerce shifted from B2C to B2B.

In 2001, from B2B to B2E, e-government, e-learning, and m-commerce.

In 2005, social networks started to rise and so did l-commerce and wireless applications.

E-commerce will undoubtedly continue to shift and change in the future.

Year

Event

1984

EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

1992

Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

1994

Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995

Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998

DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

1999

Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.

2000

The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

2001

E-commerce was adapted by almost every major retail company such as Wal-Mart. The transactions that took place between the businesses where recorded at around $700billion.

2002

eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion. Niche retail companies CSN Stores and Netscape are founded with the concept of selling products through several targeted domains ratherthan a central portal.

2003

Amazon.com posts first yearly profit

2005

The U.S. government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until this year.

2007

Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million.Fortune magazine have ranked Dell as the 34th largest company in the Fortune 500 list and 8th on its annual Top 20 list of the most successful and admired companies in the

USA

in recognition of the company’s business model.

2008

The U.S. E-commerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $204 billion, an increase of 17% over year 2007.

Early Adopters Of E-commerce

History of ecommerce is unthinkable without Amazon and Ebay which were among the first Internet companies to allow electronic transactions. Thanks to their founders we now have a handsome ecommerce sector and enjoy the buying and selling advantages of the Internet.

Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the most famous ecommerce companies and is located in Seattle, Washington (USA). It was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was one of the first American ecommerce companies to sell products over the Internet. After the dot-com collapse Amazon lost its position as a successful business model, however, in 2003 the company made its first annual profit which was the first step to the further development.

At the outset Amazon.com was considered as an online bookstore, but in time it extended a variety of goods by adding electronics, software, DVDs, video games, music CDs, MP3s, apparel, footwear, health products, etc. The original name of the company was Cadabra.com, but shortly after it become popular in the Internet Bezos decided to rename his business “Amazon” after the world’s most voluminous river. In 1999 Jeff Bezos was entitled as the Person of the Year by Time Magazine in recognition of the company’s success. Although the company’s main headquarters is located in the USA, WA, Amazon has set up separate websites in other economically developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and China. The company supports and operates retail web sites for many famous businesses, including Marks & Spencer, Lacoste, the NBA, Bebe Stores, Target, etc.

Amazon is one of the first ecommerce businesses to establish an affiliate marketing program, and nowadays the company gets about 40% of its sales from affiliates and third party sellers who list and sell goods on the web site. In 2008 Amazon penetrated into the cinema and is currently sponsoring the film “The Stolen Child” with 20th Century Fox.

According to the research conducted in 2008, the domain Amazon.com attracted about 615 million customers every year. The most popular feature of the web site is the review system, i.e. the ability for visitors to submit their reviews and rate any product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Amazon.com is also well-known for its clear and user-friendly advanced search facility which enables visitors to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the database.

eBay allows just about anyone to be an online merchant. Founder Pierre Omidyar started eBay when he developed AuctionWeb, a site from which he offered a broken laser pointer. It sold – to a collector of broken laser pointers. The idea was that the Internet was the great leveler. Since its beginnings in 1995, eBay has developed a sophisticated system that allows anyone to set up a storefront and sell merchandise.

Currently there are 5 largest and most famous worldwide Internet retailers: Amazon, Dell, Staples, Office Depot and Hewlett Packard. According to statistics, the most popular categories of products sold in the World Wide Web are music, books, computers, office supplies and other consumer electronics.

Group Profile

noreply@blogger.com (LYnxXX) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:28:00 +0000

Lo Hiok Leong (Leader)

Hi, this is the first time i've ever manage a blog if its not for the subject that I'm taking this semester (E-commerce), I think i will be clueless about what is the meaning og blogging. First of all, let me introduce myself...

My name is Lo Hiok Leong, which i strongly recommend people to just call me Ah Leong. I'm 21 years old in my current semester in UTAR branched at Sungai Long and this is my 3rd consecutive year in pursuing my studies at UTAR. People might know me as outgoing and sometimes even kinf of noisy but i normally think of myself quite quiet and shy. The hometown i come from is Pahang, Kuantan (you can actually find the freshes salted-fish you can possibly find in all around Malaysia... I do believe that's true though~). Kuantan is quite well known for not only it's salted-fish but also the romantic and gorgeous view of the beaches such as Teluk Champedak, Cherating Beach, Black Stone Beach and many more... This takes me to my first hobby, though i'm quiet but I'm very sporty, I loves all kinds of sport (basketball, volleyball, badminton, swimming...). I like drawing either because by drawing, i get to express my feeling that lies within my mind and my thought because of that, I love watching movies and comics A LOT~ Culinary and baking is also one of my favourite activity when i have to much free time to waste.

The Top 5 Website in my list and the activities I do with those Website:

http://www.hotmail.com/ - I login to the website very often to check my mail because I just cant stand my mail box being flooded.
http://dm.99manga.com/ - This website is where I read my comics the most, there are tonnes of comics you can possibly find here and this website update very often to keep their comics in track.
http://www.tom365.com/ - I usually download movies through this website, but if you planned to view the contents (moveis) you are required to download a program calles QVOD player where its licensed so you don't have to worry about illegal downloads.
http://www.facebook.com/ - This website porvides to fullest public social facilities ranging from profile sharing to communication to online gaming which will lead to total addiction.
http://www.epicwar.com/ - A website for gamers (DotA) to download their favourite gaming maps.

Tan Hye Guan's Profile

Before I start... I have to tell u all, my English is very poor, so please forgive me if u you do not understand my blog...

It time to introduce myself now I think... Nothing much about me. My name is Tan Hye Guan. I am a very young boy. Age? It's secret!!! Like girls is it? Hope you all wont mind... But one thing that I can tell you all is that my horoscopes is Aries. A very aggressive and hot-tempered Aries as you all know. I was born in a beautiful place in Malaysia, in a hospital!!! Surprise? Hope that my friend wont laugh and punch me... Actually I was born in the central of Malaysia, of course everyone know where it is, Kuala Lumpur a.k.a KL. Being born in a city doesn't allowed me to enjoy and have a wonderful, fantastic, colorful and of course, marvelous life... In fact, I am just an ordinary boy. Yes, everyone know, i am a boy... Nothing much but a boy...

Now, i will reveal some of my hobbies. First, of course, playing computer games for sure. But besides that, i also use comeputer to do other things such as search information and others. Second, watching movies and dramas. Of course, musics too. Third, doing some sport activities such as playing badminton and ohters. Others hobbies, maybe next time I only tell you all because now i can't think more about my hobbies....

Currently, i am pursuing my study at University Tunku Abdul Rahman a.k.a UTAR, Faculty of Accountancy and Management at Bandar Sungai Long. I am undergoing the degree of Business Administration (Hons) Entrepreneurship. Many people will ask me what and why I choose this course. Well, the answer is, this is a course that receive little attention. Funny ? Maybe...I was being allocated into tutorial group 2. I was proud to be in this group as i can get to know many friends and they are very friendly and helpful. Thanks to you all for being helpful always to help me solve my problems. This is the last year that i am studying in this campus and this semester there is a subject that needed us to create a blog. So, here I am...

Below are the top 5 websites that i visited the most:

http://www.google.com.my/ - This websites helps me to find anythings that i want.
http://www.yahoo.com/ - this also can let me search anything that i want.
http://www.youtube.com/ - This website can let me find musics and videos such as movie clips and etc.
http://www.msn.com/ - A website that i can search anything and to check my mails and sending mails to my friends.
http://verycd.com/ - A website that i can search musics and videos to download.

Top 5 Internet activities are:

Check mails
Search for music to listen
Finding movies to download
Chatting with my friends
Search for information

John Profile

hey , everybody. My name is Tan John Kern , born in Bukit Mertajam, Pulau Pinang but stay in Sg Petani Kedah. My age now is 21 years old, still alone ( wait people introduce to me but must pretty de ) . In my family, I got two eldest sister and I am the youngest brother. So my family love and protect me a lot and I also love my family. For my home town, Sg Petani. Although it not advance as Kuala Lumpur but the enviroment here is the best . The air here are fresh and peaceful. Furthermore, the food is delicous such as laksa, rojak, char keow teow, ice kacang, mee goreng. All those food is my favourite, so i quite fatty, haha.

My hobby ..... haha sure is playing computer games, espically DOTA. What is dota ? Dota is a strategy game and a team work game . It is very interesting and need to concentrate and collabration to win the game. Second of my hobby is reading novel (武俠小說), espically written by Jin yong and gulong . I have collect many of their novel and hope one day i can meet Jin Yong and let him sign the signiture on the book. Besides that, i also like sport a lot. Almost every week wednesday, I will go futsal with my best friends at Kajang . Sometimes we also will play Badminton or go swimming .

My top 5 visited web sites :

http://www.faceboook.com/ This web site let me easy to communicate with others friendsand it have a lot of games let me to play.
http://www.hotmail.com/ I using hotmail to email and check my mail.
http://www.google.com/ When i want to do my research, i will use google to search myinformation.
http://www.youtube.com/ This web site having a lot of vedio. I usally will watch thefootball video in this website
http://www.sina.cn/ This is the web site that i reading the news .

Joe’s profile

My name is Lee Hwee Lei can also call me as Joe. The place I born is a small town in Johor where is called Tangkak. My lovely hometown doesn’t have much more delicious food but it near the nature. That also one of the reason I went beck always.

I came to the UTAR campus in Sungai Long to pursue my degree after I finish study the Foundation in PJ campus. As I know, gain more knowledge and education are the steps before I can pursue my dream also the successful I want in the future. Besides that, I also have gain some working experiences when having the semester break. This can help me reduce the fear when facing a new environment in the future working place. Not only this, build the good relationship with people who outside the campus is one of the experiences can gain through the part time job and that could not learn from university life.

The top 5 websites I visited more:

www.hotmail.com – check mail is the important thing I need do it daily so I won’t miss any announcement or updating message through email.
www.facebook.com – one of the methods I keep in touch with all my friends. Sometimes will make some new friends when playing the games is provided.
www.google.com – can search or get the information I need when I doing assignment.
www.gougou.com – this is one of the websites can find the music album, movie, and drama also.
www.publicmutual.com.my – get the updating information about the mutual funds and those activities provided.

Top 5 internet activities are:
a) Checking mails
b) Listening music, watching drama and movie online.
c) Chatting with my friends through msn
d) Playing online games in Facebook.
e) Search the information I need from the Internet.