BIT part 2

Chapter 4

Q1.
Many difficulties can arise from managing data. For example the amount of data that needs to be managed grows. Individuals use numerous methods and devices to store data. Content cannot be truly represented and is extremely difficult to manage.

Q2.
Internal data, external data and personal data.

Q3.
A primary key is the identifier field or attribute that uniquely identifies a record. A secondary key is whereby the identifier field or attribute has some kind of identifying information, but typically does not identify the file with complete accuracy.

Q4.
An entity involves a person, thing, place or event where information is maintained in a record. It is the number of entities in which make up a relationship and the degree of the relationship. The main types of relationships include binary, one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many.

Q5.
Relational databases are usually designed with a number of related tables; where each of these tables contains records (listed in row) and attributes (listed in columns). An advantage of relational databases include allowing users great flexibility in the variety of queries they can make; a disadvantage to this though as large scale databases can be composed of many interrelated tables, the overall design can be complex creating slow access times.

Q6.
Knowledge management is a useful concept whereby it aids organizations in an attempt to manipulate important information that is part of the organisaation’s memory. This is normally in an unstructured format. For a particular organisation to be successful in relation to capital, knowledge must exist in an exchangeable format.

Q7.
Tacit knowledge involves ‘the cumulative store of subjective or experiential learning; highly personal and hard to formalize knowledge’. This is comparably different to explicit knowledge which is objective rather than subjective, and is also rational with technical types of knowledge.


Tech Guide 4

Q1.
The main wired communication channels consist of; twisted-pair wire, coaxial cable and fiber-optic cable.
Twisted-pair wire is the most inexpensive, widely available and unobtrusive. In saying this though, it does have a low bandwidth and low security in comparison to coaxial cable and fiber-optic cable. Coaxial cable has a better bandwidth than twisted-pair wire but can be relatively expensive and inflexible. In comparison, Fiber-optic cable carries the higher bandwidth, good security and relatively inexpensive but can be somewhat difficult to work with.

Q2.
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and the Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), enable users to send high-volume data over any network. ISDN is the older of the two which uses existing telephone lines to transfer voice, video, image and data simultaneously.

Q3.
- Adapt to the constantly changing business environment
- Flexibility
- Networks enable companies to shar hardware, computer applications and data accorss and amongst orgs.
- Improve innovation/efficiency.

Q4.
LAN connects 2 or more devices in a geographical region, usually within the same building. WANs over large geographic areas and centrally connect multiple LANs. LAN – local area network – WAN – wide area network

Q5.
A network protocol is made up of computing devices that are connected to the network access and share the network to transmit and receive data. The components work together and adhere to the set of rules and procedures that govern transmission across a network.

Q6.
Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the protocol of the Internet.
- The TCP has three functions
1. To manage the movement of packets between computer by establishing a connection between the computers
2. It sequences the transfer of packets
3. Acknowledges the packets that have been transmitted.

Question (7):
Cable and DSL connections
Dial up connection
Broadband connection

Q8.
Application layer - enables client application programs to access the other layers and defines the protocols that applications use to exchange data. Hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) is one of these protocols, which defines how messages are formulated and transmitted.
Transport layer - provides the above layer with communication and packs services. This layer includes TCP.
Network interface layer - places packets on and receives them from the network medium, which could be any networking technology.

Q9.
The role of browsers is to decode and display the HTML code, which was sent from a server (being displayed on an individual’s personal computer).

Q10.
Internet is collectively a networking infrastructure, which connects millions of computers globally, whereas, the World Wide Web is a form of accessing information over the Internet.


Chapter 5

Q1.
1. Discovery – internet allows users to acces information located worldwide databases. With the way the internet is structured, individuals can now access billions of webpages from all around the world about all different things in all different languages.
2. Communication – e.g. e-mail, chat, video conferences.
3. Collaboration – where two or more entities come together to collaborate anfd perform work. People can communicate any place and time…almost!

Q2.
Video conferencing and other interactive networking tools now have high emphasis in business life as well as social life. It allows people at any time and location to connect which is of high need within today’s current business environment. It also enables participants to share data along with voice and video, allowing them to work on documents together and exchange computer files.

Q3.
AJAX: allows sections of Web pages to reload with fresh data instead of requiring the entire Web page to reload.
Tagging: allows users to place information in multiple, overlapping associations rather than in rigid categories.
Blogs and Blogging: whereby a person can enter a site and express his or her feelings.
Wikis: are where material can be posted, and changes can be made to other material.
Really Simple Syndication (RSS): allows users to customize information, receive this information when they want it and without having to surf thousands of web sites.
Podcasts and Videocasts: are digital audio files that are used for example, to build relationships with customers (as Cheerios did).

Q4.
They permit the sharing of data and services without needing humans to translate. Web services can also be used in a variety of environments over the Internet, performing a wide variety of tasks for businesses.

Q5.

Service-orientated architecture (SOA), allows the construction of business applications through using Web services. These web services can be reused across an organisation in other applications.


Chapter 6 – section 6.1

Q1.
E-Commerce is the process of buying, selling, transferring, or exchanging products. Services or information via computer networks, including the Internet. E-business adds to the above processes as it also refers to servicing customers, collaborating with business partners and performing electronic transactions within an organisation.

Q2.
B2C – sellers are orgs and buyers are individuals.
B2B – both sellers and buyers are business orgs
C2C – individual sells products or services to other individuals.
B2E – an org uses electronic commerce internally to provide information and services to its employees.


Section 6.2

Q1.
The major issues relating to e-tailing are channel conflict and order fulfillment. Channel conflict is where conflict may occur for companies with their regular distributors when selling online to customers. Channel conflict can arise in areas such as pricing of products, services and resource allocation.
Order fulfillment can occur at any given time where a company sells to customers directly and is involved in a variety of other order-fulfillment activities.

Section 6.5

Q2.
Electronic payment mechanisms include electronic checks, electronic credit cards, purchasing cards and electronic cash. Electronic credit cards allow customers to charge online payments to their credit card account. Electronic checks is where a customer wishes to use e-checks and established a checking account with a bank. And purchasing cards are normally used for unplanned B2B purchases where corporations normally limit the amount per purchase. Electronic cash appears in forms such as stored-value money cards, smart cards, person-to-person payments and digital wallets.

Q2.
Small payments of a few dollars or less for goods that are purchased over the internet – normally these payments are transferred with a lower security.
Section 6.5

Q1.
A major ethical issue involves threats to privacy. For example, most electronic payment systems know who their customers are. Tracking is also a privacy problem as an individual’s activities on the internet can be tracked by cookies