Blog Three: Doing Business on the Internet

In this week's lecture, i decide to touch on E-commerce. After watching the clip that Mr Choy showed us in class about the evolution of e-commerce, i come to conclude that e-commerce is an online transaction of business. It links us(consumer) to the host and the vendor and vice-versa. Such electronic transactions involve the transfer of ownsership to use a particular goods or service. The common types of e-commerce include business-to-consumer electronic business (B2C). Examples include Amazon.com,travelocity.com etc. The video below tells us the origins of e-commerce which i find to be interesting..




Most of us, like me, are frequent consumers of online shopping. For me, i can spend the whole day clicking on various websites and buying tons of clothes, without consciously knowing that in fact, i am causing a huge hole in my pocket just by STAYING AT HOME. However, as we have heard and seen before last week, Second Life is now making its mark and before we know it, i will not be surprised if all of us start shopping like the avatar below.. cool isnt it?!


Therefore, i definately feel that competition for business will increase, especially in such bad times where there is recession and the economy is bad, thus, leading to war between those who own traditional shops and those who have shops online.

No doubt, having e-commerce in this time and age does save us alot of time and money. In addition, we can even target people overseas with the click of the mouse. People who want to earn quick cash but have not much revenue to invest in will be able to create a thriving business with lower costs than many offline businesses. The list goes on and on, but on the other hand, we should also take note of the kinds of disadvantages that e-commerce may bring us.

Which then leads me to think of how future of e-commerce will affect us.Everyone will be linked to the internet and perhaps in the future , none of us will need to even step out of our homes to work, to buy food, clothes, shop, even go to the movies because everything can be done at home, on the net.

It scares me to think of such a world whereby we all are dependent on the net, where face to face networking does not exist anymore, people will become more isolated and less interactive, and even perhaps less sensitive with no emotions.

I would not be surprised if one day our working environment turns into....


Hence, i believe that there is still much more room for growth in the market of e-commerce and i anticipate what e-commerce will bring us in the years to come...

Blog Two: Social Media

In today's lecture, Mr Choy mentioned about Social Media which i am sure many of us are familiar with.

Firstly, what is social media? There are many definitions to it but for me, social media is simply a medium whereby individuals like you and I can become bonded together by a certain relationship - a social network.

Moving on, you will then question" So what is a social network?" In layman terms, it means a kind of network that focuses on constructing social relationships on online social networks. One example i can give is the very famous and popular Facebook, Friendster, MySpace etc that many of us are hooked onto.



With the evolution of so many social networking sites avaliable to us, most of us are unable to decide which site to use and end up subscribing to every single one, even though the friends we have on each of them are most probably the same. The problem of social networking sites competing for our attention then creates a problem...


As you can see, we spend hours and hours online accepting requests, applications, community groups etc. The list goes on and on.

BUT how many of us realise the dangers of such social networking sites? I doubt so. Disadvantages of such sites are many, ranging from false information provided by others, to stalking people... Many of us often put up our personal information without giving it a second's thought.


For others, the social media has sucked them into the virtual world that most of them are absorbed into the virtual world that they totally forget their existence in the real world. How can you tell someone is an internet addict?



Common symptoms include:
Having a sense of well-being and comfort of euphoria while at the screen of computer

Spending more time at the computer

Carving long time at the computer until neglecting family, friends and relatives

Feeling meaningless, dull, empty, depressed or irritable when not at the computer

Being unable to carry out daily activities without sitting in front of the computer

Having problems with school or job


Hence, i urge each and everyone of us to have a balance between the real and virtual world. As much as we need the computer, we also need time with our friends and family. As for myself, i have a real-life example in my family: my brother. Therefore i am not one who often goes online or spend time playing much of the internet.

Before i end off , some food for thought:

Blog One: Introduction to the internet

After going through today's lecture, i decided to research further onto the subject of the different types of network topologies. As included in our lecture slides, there are 3 types of computer networks, however, do any of us know exactly how each of them work? I definately do not.In my blog entry this week, I explore into further detail about each of these standard structures and how they aid in the networking of the internet.Firstly, in computer networking, topology refers to the layout of connected devices. I will be touching on 5 standard topologies, i call it BRSMT


No 1: Bus Topology


As shown in the diagram, computers are connected via a common backbone by a single cable. This single cable functions as a shared communication medium that devices attach or tap into with an interface connector. Eventually, a device wanting to communicate with another device on the network sends a broadcast message onto the wire that all other devices see, but only the intended recipient actually accepts and processes the message.




IMPT NOTE: Bus networks work best with a limited number of devices. Performance problems are likely to occur when more than a few dozen computers are added to the network bus. In addition, if the backbone cable fails, the entire network effectively becomes unusable.



No 2: Ring Topology
For every device in a ring network,there are exactly 2 neighbours for communication purposes. Every single message needs to travel through a circular motion in the same direction. Failure to do so breaks the loop and breaks up the entire network.



IMPT NOTE: Ring topology are often used in school campuses or office buildings.



No 3: Star Topology

The star topology is a typical home network. It consist of a central connection point called a "hub" that may be a hub, switch or router. Devices typically connect to the hub with Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Ethernet.


IMPT NOTE: A failure in any star network cable will only take down one computer's network access and not the entire LAN. BUT If the hub fails, the entire network also fails.


No 4: Mesh Topology



The mesh topology is unlike each of the previous mentioned in that messages sent on a mesh network can take any of several possible paths from source to destination. A mesh network in which every device connects to every other is called a full mesh.




IMPT NOTE: Partial mesh networks also exist in which some devices connect only indirectly to others.

No 5: Tree Topology

This is my favorite topology because it integrates multiple star topologies together onto a bus. In its simplest form, only hub devices connect directly to the tree bus, and each hub functions as the "root" of a tree of devices.

IMPT NOTE: This tree topology supports future expandability of the network much better than a bus or star.

My conclusion on the subject of computer networking is that topologies still remain an important part of network design theory. Each and every one of them are important and uniquie in its own way, hence we should all take some time and effort to study the diagrams. I hope that through this mini lecture on the different topologies, fellow classmates will gain more knowledge regarding computer networking.