This last blog post is a summary of all web sites discussed in class and in this blog. I hope you enjoyed the class and learned something. College is a gateway to a higher standard of living and better lifestyle. However, its up to you to go through that gate and use the information and knowledge presented to you.
After 30+ years of teaching at Morehouse, I know only some of you will take advantage of this opportunity now. While others will need more maturity thru difficult time before you realize the opportunity.
In this new information age, never stop learning.
Sistrunk
P.S. This blog will remain active through its old web address: http://mis2012.blogspot.com/
blog.hba322.info will become the address for the Fall 2012 course
Sites for the Frugal:
http://www.slickdeals.com/
http://www.mertline.com/
http://www.dealnews.com/
http://www.livingsocial.com/
http://www.groupon..com/
http://www.atlantadealsites.com/
http://www.moneysavingmoms.com/
http://www.halfoffdepot.com/
http://www.restaurant.com/
http://www.macofalltrades.com/ - discount used apple products
Sites for finance/accounting:
http://www.billingboss.com/ - free invoices
http://www.mint.com/ - tract expenses and bank activity
http://www.paypal.com/ - financial transactions
http://www.square.com/ - mobile credit card reader for your smart phone
Site for managing your credit:
http://www.experian.com/
http://www.equifax.com/
http://www.transunion.com/
http://www.freecreditreport.com/
http://www.expensify.com/
Site for cloud-based phone:
http://www.trustfax.com/ - cloud fax service
http://www.maxemail.com/ - cloud fax service
http://www.ringcentral.com/ - cloud PBX
http://www.parkmyphone.com/ - save your old phone number
http://www.youmail.com/ - cloud voice mail
Sites for creating and managing marketing list
http://www.leadnetpro.com/
http://www.mailvalidator.com/
http://www.email-validator.com/
http://www.phonevalidator.com/
http://www.smartysheets.com/
http://www.mailchimp.com/
http://www.directmail.com/
http://www.call-center-tech.com/
Misc. Sites:
http://www.killerstartups.com/ - finf the newest web services
http://www.pubnub.com/
http://www.cnet.com/
http://www.datpiff.com/ - music
http://www.livemixtapes.com/ - music
http://www.box.net/ - cloud storage
http://www.join.me/ - share computers
http://www.godaddy.com/ - buy your domain name
http://www.tunein.com/ - connect to radio stations all over the world
http://www.netronline.com/ - real estate data
http://www.formsite.com/ - create online forms
http://www.smartsheet.com/ - online speadsheet, forms and more
http://www.wix.com/ - flash-based web creation
http://www.yola.com/ - free web creation
Monday, May 28, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Jason Ealey Blog - The Future of Home Appliances
I noticed everyone has posted videos and links related to "The Future". From cars, glasses, to a day made of glass, each video gives up a sample of how our lives will be effect with the advancement of technology. I want to inform my classmates on the smaller utensils, the ones we take for granted. This video shows the future of coffee makers. Now this might not appeal to the masses of college students considering most don't drink coffee, but for the ones addicted to caffeine this is great. Soon this technology will be in the homes of many Americans and across the world. From the business world, i would pose the question. What will Starbucks do to continue to be more competitive? Lets watch this....
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
George Young - Mobile Browsing
It
is crazy how mobile usage has accounted for an extremely large amount
of percentage as it pertains to internet usage. With more and more
advancements being made so that mobile usage may be more convenient,
it is hard not to use your cellular device to get to the internet
instead of an actual cpu. Throughout the semester in Prof. Sistrunk’s
class, it was apparent that this was true in that mobile devices can
be and are used a lot more. In his class, I noticed that students
wouldn’t have to bring nothing to class, not even a laptop. Simply
bringing your iphone or android to class, gives you the ability to
connect to the web and sign the attendance role, look at the class
blog, or even watch the lecture as it is being streamed. In an
article that I recently came across, it mentions the number of people
accessing the web through their mobile device has significantly grown
since 2010 and is still growing all over the world.
The
number of people accessing the Web through mobile devices has doubled
since 2010 and now accounts for 10% of worldwide Internet usage.
According to numbers compiled by Pingdom, Asia’s mobile usage
amounted for 17.84% of the country’s total Internet usage, a 192.5%
increase over the past 18 months. Africa’s mobile usage placed the
region in second with 14.85%, usage in North America sat at 7.96%,
followed by Australia, Europe and South America at 7.55%, 5.13% and
2.86% respectively. Pingdom notes that while worldwide mobile usage
may only account for 10% of Web access, the number is growing at an
extremely fast rate, and some countries’ Internet usage, such as
India, is already nearing 50% from mobile devices.
Jamal Thomas
In our classroom discussions, Professor Sistrunk completely captures my attention when he applies lectures to real life situations. The three lectures that impacted me the most were responsible use of credit, establishing a budget, and property information via public records. In this blog, I will show how you can further educate yourself on all three of these subjects.
In college, students are introduced to credit without knowing fully what it is to begin with. Credit card companies bombard campuses and sell a dream that college students buy every day. Professor Sistrunk explained that it is up to us, the students, to make sure we are properly educated about credit. Below you will find a link to a website that provides credit education as well as a site that offers a free way to check your credit history once per year.
Upon graduation, monthly budgets are essential in ensuring that you do not loose track of your finances. In class, we learned how to create a budget on Microsoft Excel. However, when you are not always around your computer, it can be difficult to manage that budget. I found a cool app called Expensify for iPhone AND Android that offers an easy way to keep track of your spending by importing credit card data and information from receipts that can be tracked by photographs.
When buying a house, it is important to find out all information about the house and the neighborhood that it is in. You want to know that you are getting a good deal on the house and you can do this by accessing the neighborhood property value, mortgage history, as well as the assessed value. I found a website that allows you to look at all of that information as well as the current sales price if it happens to be for sale at the time.
The understanding of these three resources could mean the difference between a good decision and a bad decision. I encourage my peers to learn about all three of these topics as they will prepare them for the real world that comes after college. Sacrifice today so that you may live a better life tomorrow.
Chris Carr - Next Generation Flexible Displays
This semester MIS has been one of the
most productive class’ in my schedule. Professor Sistrunk has
provided us with many different tools to not only generate revenue,
but also start to think about how we can change the future by
contributing to technology.
One of the first classes Professor
Sistrunk showed the class about a video made decades back predicting
that we would have computers, telephones, and fax machines. It was
considered absurd to many back then, but it made me wonder what else
is on the verge of reality that society doesn’t know about, so I
did some research and this is one of the interesting things I found.
This video is about a flexible LCD
display that Samsung created in 2011 that I have never before seen.
The screen is flexible and can literally be bent in half with no any
reprecusions. TO my knowledge this screen was never released but this
gave me several ideas that it could be used for. This could be
especially useful in the classroom or even in luxury vehicles.
Everyone should take a look at this video and understand that the
future of technology is moving towards being faster, slimmer, and
more mobile and this flexible screen is a perfect example of that.
Here are more links of videos that I
found interesting:
Kenneth C. Harris, II
A World Made of Glass
In one of our earlier classes Professor Sistrunk had made an observation on the technological
advancement from when computers filled a room to how they are as small as a smart-phone. We laughed about how our parents generation somewhat struggled with the huge leap that technology took. My grandfather would be 92 this year. I can only imagine him with a iPhone 4s, confused at how a small machine could interactively communicate with him. It also made me wonder what technology would have my generation baffled when we entered our 60s and 70s, let alone our 90s. Here is a video by Corning that, as a 20 year old, baffled me.
I then saw this next video which explained what was possible today and what is being worked on now.
I was amazed at how a piece of glass as small as our modern day iPhone could control a whole house. It then expands outdoors and even into your vehicle.
On another note, with this semester coming to an end, it is only appropriate that I share this short testimony. On May 1, 2012 my truck was broken into. They stole everything from my bookbag with my laptop in it to my bass guitar. They even stole my iPhone car charger. After filing a police report, I contacted all my teachers to inform them of the recent tragedy. When I contacted Professor Sistrunk, his response was, "There's nothing to worry about if you have insurance and the "Cloud" I told you guys about in class." I sat there feeling completely stupid at the fact that I had not taken advantage of those pieces of information he had given to me on cloud computing. I was so comfortable with having my computer backed up on an external that it would have been troubling to sign up onto another Cloud besides the one that Apple already provided. Now I realize how useful and important it would have been. I now appreciate the advice and plan to utilize the online storage in the future. I now have an account on www.box.net. If you guys have yet to do so, get one!
Friday, May 4, 2012
Adam D. Boyd - Music
In Professor Sistrunk’s class we
speak about how everything is becoming Cloud-based. That being said all hard
copies of anything are becoming available to us in a more efficient way known
as the Internet. We now don’t need a Blockbuster or Movie Zone because we have NetFlix. No longer need to have meeting in the same room because we have Skype
and Oovoo. But where we as a society use the Internet the most is downloading
music.
No
longer is there a need to go to a store and buy an album when you can have the
album before it comes out, not have to pay for anything, and it download
straight into your ITunes connecting straight to your phones, IPads, ect. It
started off with LimeWire back in High School and has now progressed to
basically any music site on the Internet.
These are two of the main places
where you can go and download entire albums and/or mixtapes in the blink of an
eye. The new found love for downloading music rather than buying has effected
the music industry a lot by bringing down record sales to an all time low and
making it harder for artists to stay relevant. It seems like when Michael Jackson
was out, as long as we were able to get an album every year and half (12 Songs)
the public was satisfied. Yet now with times changing it seems a record every
week is now the norm. Artists no longer wanting to sign record deal where they
are required to complete four albums where their money is split multiple ways
when they now can release a mixtape for free not have to pay no where as many
people as they would a studio album and go on tour performing songs from
his/her mixtape. Performances in which result in tax-free amounts, split
between artists, managers, and that person here and there. Is this a good thing
or bad thing! We as the pubic get free music and the artist stay on tour for
years at a time releasing new music continuously just to stay relevant.
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