▒ ▒ Inn ▒ ▒ Irene ▒ ▒ Bhuan ▒ ▒

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

2009-07-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, many corporate and business are using the efficient and effective services which provided by internet to introduce and running their business. One of the most popular tools that the corporate will use is corporate weblog. The purpose of the organization using weblog is mainly to reach their organization al goals. Corporate blogs can separate in two types which is the internet blog and external blog.

Internal blog is the weblog that provide to the employee and workers. Through the internal blog provide by the corporate, it will encourage the employee to participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence, direct communication between various layers of an organization and a sense of community.

On the other hands, an external blog is a publicly available weblog where organization employees, spokespersons to share their views or comments. It is often use by the corporate to update or announce new products, services, latest promotion, to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. Through blogging, it will allow a window to the company culture and is often treated more informally than traditional press release. Corporate will try to accomplish similar goals or comment which state in the blog. Corporate blog can collect many valuable information from public or global readers about the feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans, customer services, etc. Besides that, corporate can interact with a target market on a personal level while building link credibility that can tied back to the corporate web site.

Advantages of the Corporate Blog :-

1. Ease of publishing – the content of corporate blog and corporate website can be a big different. A blog can allow us to bring information and the latest news of the corpaorate to the public much faster and upadated than traditional website. Public will more interesting to understand and checking the latest information through corporate blog rather than websites.

2. Cost of making and maintaining is lower – To develop a corporate website, it need many graphic designers, usability experts, and it will cost much longer time and high cost. In contrast, blog can structure and restructure the corporate information in many different ways with the lower maintaining cost.

3. Community Building – There are a main different between blog and a “normal” website.Blogs will provide the ability to build a community and to interact with your reader more easily. People can interact with the organization each other through comments and out-of-the-box widgets of the blog.

4. A sense of forgiveness and tolerance – Anything published on a corporate website need to be more careful and must confirm don’t have any error before published it. It is because errors are often taken seriously by those who read. In contrast, as blogs have grown out of the personal sphere, blogs will have more an air of tolerance, of forgiveness.
Disadvantages of the Corporate Blog :-

1. Time consuming activity – Blogging is the time consuming activity, it need to keeping the content fresh and updated. The company need to spend more time to always renew it.

2. Legal and privacy concern – Some of the competitor or some reader who always like to make trouble on other people will purposely leave a bad comment and or bad suggestion on the blog to try to destroy the goodwill of the corporate.

others sources:
http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/02/corporate-blogs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/how_to_launch_a_corp.php
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/article.php/3547411

E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from the students perspective

2009-07-12T02:19:00.000-07:00

E-learning is an essential for network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. It is a type of Technology supported education or learning which using the internet or an intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM to deliver the content. E-learning applications and processes includes web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration. E-learning was first called "Internet-Based training" then "Web-Based Training".

Universiti Teknologu Malaysia (Technological University of Malaysia) is the oldest public engineering and technology university in Malaysia. Before this, in year (1904-1941) it was named as Technical School , in year (1942-1945) was named as Shihan Gakko, in year (1955-1971) was named as Technical College, in year (1971-1975) was named as Institut Teknologi Kebangsaan. After having a long times journey, finally the university was completed and became Universiti teknologi Malaya (UTM) on the 1st of April 1975. UTM main campus was in Skudai, Johor and the branch campuses was in Kuala Lumpur. UTM provide various types of education program, and focus in technical studies, with separate faculties for Education, Pure Sciences, Management, and HRD. The major source of graduate engineers and similar professionals are come from UTM. Since year 1990, the number of foreign students which from Asian countries, Middle East, and Africa, has been increasing. Most of the UTM graduates have involved themselves on many academic and professional institutions across the world. UTM vision is to be a worlds class university by the year of 2010.

On the other hands, UTM was providing e-Learning for the studies. E-learning in UTM can be defined as “the application of ICT to advance the effectiveness of the learning process” (UTM, 2005). By using this system, course content, lecture notes, communication tools, quizzes, tests and assignments can be accessed through the university computer network.

The pros of E-learning
1. No time and far distance spent to travelling to campus – Students of the university came from the whole state and whole country of Malaysia, the campus are very far for some student to come and attend class. Besides, some students need to work so they don’t have much time to spend to go campus study. With the e-learning, student no need spent many time and travel long distance to go campus but can study through access the university network easily and efficietly.

2. All Student is 100 treated fair and equal – By learning through the web, our work will stand merit alone, and we not be treated differently based upon race, sex, creed, sexual orientation, religion and disability.

3. Additional benefits of learning through E-learning – Study by using e-learning can provide students learning new technologies and practicing the use of the internet, office software and having more knowledge in IT than other face to face lecture’s student.

The cons of E-learning
1. Lack of face-to face interaction – By study using e-learning, student and lecturer seldom meet each other. This happen especially in self-paced course. So it was difficult in developing the relationship with classmate.

2. Expensive study’s equipments are requite – By study through internet, student need to spent a large amount to buy the personal laptop or pc, licensed office software and internet online. It will increased the financial burden of the parent.

3. Self-motivated and disciplined are important – Without face to face interaction, student must be more self-motivated and disciplined to progress through their program in a timely manner. If not, student will getting more and more lazy and get worse on their studies.

Further sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universiti_Teknologi_Malaysia
http://www.elearners.com/resources/elearning-faq5.asp
http://eprints.utm.my/5948/1/e_Learning_Implementation_in_Malaysian_Universities_The_UTM_Experience.pdf

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

2009-07-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Electronic Government is a diffused neologism used to refer to the use of the information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses and other arms of government.

For benefits of e-government, please click below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government#Benefits

Current applications of e-government in Malaysia:

Employees Provident Fund Malaysia: http://www.kwsp.gov.my/index.php?lang=en

One of the government departments which is providing e-government services is EPF Malaysia. EPF Malaysia has been upgrading it services from traditional brick and mortar channel to online services and intends to move away from the traditional brick and mortar business to strengthen its efficiency. To make the services convenient for citizens, to be an effective and efficient corporate, we have to move away from just opening more branches and extending the operating hours. The advancement of technology nowadays is enabled us to look at providing the means for citizens to access the services provided “anywhere, anytime, and anyhow”.
EPF has increased its online services to offer an alternative channel for citizen to conduct their EPF transactions. This will help to ease the queues at counters and also allow who visit the service counters a speedier rate of service. The online services will enable citizen to access information at their convenience.
Thus in certain aspects, citizens are empowered to monitor what is happening to their EPF savings as often as they want. Online services will reduce or eliminate the need for anyone to use his precious time to visit service counters, endure the traffic and spend time and money on parking or public transport. People who only need to do simple enquiries such as checking the balance of their EPF savings or withdrawal application status will appreciate this online services.
Online services will greatly benefit not only to those who come to the service counters but also those who are not free or too busy to visit the service counters. Online services also enable customer service personnel to provide efficient and quality service.
Besides, citizens will able to better save their time by downloading and printing EPF forms online as well as their statements when they wish.

Ways to encourage more citizens to use e-government application:

a) Enhance the awareness of public about E-government. Government may enhance the awareness of citizen through mass communication such as newspaper, TV advertisement and radio to build up the awareness of citizen.

b) The benefits of using E-services get to know to the public. Educate citizens about e-government. Enhance the usage of online transactions by telling the benefits of using e-government services, but, the security issues must be educated.

c) Assurance of services and qualities provided. Government could grant the services provided are always at high level of satisfaction.

Review a local e-commerce site

2009-07-10T04:06:00.000-07:00

Mudah.my : http://www.mudah.my/
One of the local e-commerce websites in Malaysia is Mudah.my. Mudah.my is a Malaysian marketplace for buying and selling online. The philosophy behind this site lies in its name, which is convenient. Consumers can conveniently buy and sell on Mudah.my anytime and anywhere. People can easily buy and sell through this website where its product category include property, car, mobile phone, computer, clothes, or just anything else. With mudah.my, we can buy and sell basically everything and find cars for sale, houses for sale, mobile phones for sale, and computers for sale in our region conveniently.

Descriptions of mudah.my:

a) Electronic catalog: http://www.mudah.my/li?ca=9_s&th=1
mudah.my using electronic catalog to promote and advertise their wide range of products and services. Electronic catalog consist of a product database, directory and search capabilities, and a presentation function. They are the backbone of most e-commerce sales sites.

b) Search engine: http://www.mudah.my/li?ca=9_s&cg=3020
It is a computer program that used to access databases of Internet resources, search for specific information of keywords, and report the result.

c) Site design and layout of mudah.my: http://www.mudah.my/
The design and layout of mudah.my are simple, efficient and attractive. It can be easily seen by users and not complicated.

d) Customer service: http://www.mudah.my/support.htm?ca=9_s ca=9_s
From here, users can find use few ways to contact the personnel of mudah.my. Within the customer service’s site, users can find answers to the most frequently asked questions and some of the general information regarding mudah.my.

e) Navigation and others: http://www.mudah.my/li?ca=8_s&th=1
Links are provided for ease to use, viewers can scroll down to the bottom of the webpage and look for the link which they’re interested in.

f) Customization: Customization of products and services in mudah’s site. The classifications for products to sale and products wanted are separately assigned in different web page.

g) Banner advertising: http://www2.mudah.my/support/form/0?ca=9_s&id=14
Mudah.my is offering the space for those who wanted to advertise their products or brand with low charge.

Electronic Currency

2009-07-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

Major E-micropayment Vendors
The various commercial e-micropayment technologies are similar in many respects but differ in others.

• Firstgate Internet
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 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 Technologies
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
Massachusetts Institute of Technology cryptography expert Ron Rivest and fellow MIT computer scientist Silvio Micali founded Peppercoin. 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. 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.

Macrochallenges for E-micropayments

E-micropayment technology faces a number of obstacles to success. For example, said the University of Minnesota's Odlyzko, although e-micropayment technologies may be reliable, they run on the Internet, PCs, and browsers, which are not always dependable.

Economic factors

E-micropayment products deal in very small transactions and thus potentially yield low profit margins, noted PayLoadz's Sofield. Therefore, it may not prove to be economical for many companies to invest in and distribute the expensive e-commerce systems only to get thin profits dependent on high transaction volumes that might not materialize. Also, Odlyzko said, content providers eventually may find that they can economically and successfully sell small items bundled into larger packages on their own, thereby eliminating the need for third-party e-micropayment technology.

Insufficient demand

Perhaps the key marketplace challenge for e-micropayment vendors is making content providers aware of their applications and selling them on the idea that their services are effective and worth paying for. Currently, said Strategy Analytics' Patel, many merchants are not interested in using e-micropayment technology until they see one or two products prove themselves over time as being reliable and attractive to buyers. Also, digital content is scattered all over the Internet. There are relatively few sites where potential buyers can see large amounts of digital content grouped together. This makes it less convenient to buy the material, thereby reducing the number of online micropurchases and thus the demand for e-micropayment software.

Credit card debt: Causes and Prevention

2009-07-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, credit card is playing an important role in people life especially to those who live in the city. With the flexibility and convenient provide by the credit card, it seems to be very common to use in our daily expense. For those people who owning a credit card, he or she must be very careful by spending with credit card and must be able to pay off the balance each month. As we know that many individuals are owe too much debt and the increase of the bankruptcy risk is due to the over-used of credit card.

The causes of people go into Credit card debts are:-

1. low income but high expenses
This is most probably happens on household. If the monthly expenditures are more than income, then the family was forced to use their credit cards for utility and groceries expenses. This obviously led to increase on debt.

2. Saving little
Nowadays, youngest generations are least saving their money in bank. They spend almost 80% of their salary on clothing, food and beverage, car and electronic product. With the lack of the saving, sometime people will don’t have the enough money and liquidity of cash to purchase things. It will cause them to relay and pay by credit card. Finally they will over-use of credit card and fall into credit card debt.

3. Poor money management
Financial planning such as monthly expenditure budget is very important to guide us become a rational consumer and keep away from having more debt. But unluckily, most of the people spend whatever they have earned or by credit card without planning. People are also lack of knowledge in manage their income and allocate their spending that finally lead them having a burden of credit card debt.
4. Gamble
Many people put on their disposable income on gambling. Some of them are borrow money or used credit card to gamble. As you can see, there is a huge of people in the Casino everyday. They try to put their money on their luck. It’s take high risk. Once they lose their money in the casino, it will cause financial problem. That’s why a lot of people go into credit cards debt.

5. Social pressure
Nowadays many people around us are wearing or using branded thing, it will more or less giving us some pressures. With this pressure, we will try and try to follow other people for having branded things. But with the limited salary that we earned, we will finally relay and using credit card to purchase the expensive branded goods. This will also over-use the credit card and increase our debt.

6. Spend based on your interest, preferences or emotion.
Some of the people will spend the money based on their interest or preferences; they don’t care about the price. Besides, some of the people will spend money based on their mood. For example, when they are upset they will try to let off by buying things without think of how much they need to pay for those things. It is irrational behavior.

To work your way to debt-free living, prevent for the credit card debt need to be treated serious. By taking control of your finances, you are taking control of your life, and making it better than ever. So, to make life easy and lesser burden, here are some ways and steps that can prevent for falling into credit card debt:-

1. Establish a monthly spending budget and then follow that budget exactly. - This mean that we can only spend by using credit card for the certain transaction payment and with the amount payment that already include in our monthly spending budget. So, we cannot simply think or tempted to buy a LCD TV by using credit card which doesn’t include in the budget.

2. Carry or owe a credit card balance for not more than six months. - This is because the compounding of simple interest will produce a very expensive balance to pay it off if the balances owned more than 6 month.

3. Pay double the minimum payment – If you can afford, try to pay double the minimum payment. It is because the minimum payment normally just enough to cover the interest and little of the principal debt balance. Paying extra will settle the debt more quickly.

4. Own a low interest credit card if your credit card’s interest rate is excessive – Banks credit cards are very competitive among each other. Different bank will promote different kind of plans or strategies to encourage people to spending with their bank’s credit card. If we are currently holding an excessive interest rate credit card, rationally we should replace it by using another bank’s credit card that which have a low interest.

5. Cut up with other additional credit card and holding one card for emergencies– By holding more than one credit card, it will make u always tempted to spend especially some luxury things and something that not necessary. To control the debt, we should cut up with additional cards that seldom use and if possible just remain one credit card for normal spending and emergencies.
In conclusion, spent smart, spent wisely to make life easy.

For more information, please click below:
http://www.mozdex.com/prevent-credit-card-debt/
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/5-simple-credit-card-debt-rules-1267.php
http://www.moneyinstructor.com/creditcards.asp

The Application of Prepaid Cash Card for Consumer.

2009-07-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Prepaid cash cards are used to help the users to control their spending. Prepaid cash card is a reloadable debit card that allows users to only spend up to the amount they have pre-deposited into the account. If a person would like to control their spending then a pre-paid cash card could be a good card for him and it can prevent the users from the risk of heavy debt or bankruptcy.

Benefits of pre-paid cash card:

* Spending independence: Users can use pre-paid cash cards just like regular debit/credit card at any card acceptable merchant locations. Users get the independence they deserve with the built-in spending controls of a pre-paid cash card.

* Convenience: Pre-paid cash cards can be used conveniently in urban area whenever Visa/MasterCard or Touch ‘n Go is accepted at stores, petrol station, restaurants, convenient stores and in the shopping malls. The card can also be used to access cash at ATMs.

* Budgeting: Users can figure out in advance how they will spend it, spending can be controlled by how much money is loaded. In addition, pre-paid cash cards provide a simpler way to keep track of money versus carrying cash.

* Safer than cash: pre-paid cash cards users are protected from unauthorized transactions if the card is lost or stolen. Cards can be replaced easily if lost or stolen.

* Be a good financial planner: pre-paid cash cards can help users to learn to manage their financial and have a better money management skill. Users can monitor the balance and can also review the transaction history in detail.

* Security: The card can be charged only up to the amount of the pre-loaded cash, the thieves cannot make an excessive charge using the pre-paid cash card.

Examples of Pre-paid Cash Card:

Malaysia's Touch ‘nGo:

http://www.touchngo.com.my/WhatTNG.html
Touch ‘nGo is an electronic purse used by Malaysian and it’s firstly established to be used at all highways in Malaysia, major transports in Klang Valley and selected parking sites. However, nowadays Touch ‘nGo can be seen at major convenient stores for small purchase transactions.

The major benefits of a Touch ‘nGo card are as follows:
- One card for all toll, parking (etc: KLIA, KLCC, Bangsar Shopping Mall, 1 utama,.. ), public transport (etc: Rapid KL buses, KL monorail, Ampang line, Kelana Jaya line, KTM komuter)and theme park (Bukit Merah Lake town Resort).
- Dedicated lanes for touch ‘nGo card holders.
- No need to prepare for exact change.
- No need to wait for the queue and wait for the attendant to give you the small change.
- No fumbling for cash at the gate of toll.
- Fast and convenient. Can reload or top-up almost everywhere. Can be used with smart-tag
For more information, please click here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_

Hong Kong’s Octopus Card:

http://www.oc/topuscards.com/consumer/en/index.jsp

Octopus card is widely used in Hong Kong for transactions on public transport, convenience stores, fast food shops, supermarkets, cake shops, vending machines, school and parking. Octopus card works like the Touch ‘nGo card in Malaysia whereby the system will deduct the amount automatically. Each Octopus card has a built-in microchip containing an electronic purse and other application which can accurately record the holders’ every transaction details. Users simply hold their Octopus card over the reader, and the correct amount will be deducted automatically.

BeiJing’s Yikatong :

htt p://www.economicexpert.com/a/Yikatong:card.html

Yikatong is a store-value contactless smart card used in Beijing, China, for public transportation and related uses. Yikatong means “one card pass” in Chinese. It is similar to Hong Kong’s Octopus card, or the Singapore’s EZ-Link.

Mobile Payment System In Malaysia

2009-07-05T11:03:00.000-07:00

Mobile Money is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd to address the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards. It unlocks the power of the mobile phone to make payments, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). This gives the freedom to shoppers to buy products online and pay the merchant using his/her mobile phone without being physically present at the store.

When it comes to online selling, selecting a payment gateway is one of the major obstacles faced by the merchants in Malaysia. There are too few choices available, worse, none of these limited choices are cost effective. This problem has been addressed by Mobile Money, since it allows merchants to take online order without the need for online shopper to disclose their credit card information.

Mobile Money will encourage more consumers to shop online. This will definitely be a great boon to the e-commerce industry in Malaysia. It will surely encourage more merchants to adopt online selling as an extra sales channel which complement perfectly with their offline sales channel to help them sell more of their goods and services. Realizing these needs of merchants in Malaysia, they are the 1'st shopping cart software provider who has integrated Mobile Money as a payment method in webShaper e-commerce software. This feature allows merchants to accept payment via Mobile Money and process the payment in real time within clicks!

In order to pay using Mobile Money, a shopper must have either a savings, current or credit card account with participating banks. It functions like a Credit Card if a shopper applies for a "Pay by Mobile Phone" credit card account (eg Hong Leong Mobile Credit Card). The shopper will be billed by the bank accordingly by month's end. In addition, it functions as a Debit Card if it is tied to shopper's savings or current account. The amount will be deducted instantly from the account upon successful transaction.

Reason for choosing mobile payment due to its customer base was nearly 1.3billion mobile subscriptions worldwide. The security of mobile or SIM as security token for keys, data and algorithms. Futhermore, its can be used in (almost) any place.

Success Factors for Mobile Payments

provide incentives for actors
co-operation with competitors
technology is basically there - use & improve it
comply to (regional) legislation

Mobile Money Merchant Benefits

Sell to Anyone, Anywhere at Anytime
No Minimum Monthly Transaction, No Rental Fee, No Merchant Account Required
Super Low Transaction Fee at 1.5%
Safe and Secure
Low Signup Fees
Get Paid Super Fast
Multi Methods to Request for Payment
Refund and Reversal Features

The application of 3rd Party certification program in Malaysia

2009-06-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

To maximize the benefit of e-commerce, security of e-commerce are becoming the important factor of growing of the globalization e-commerce. MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is the most popular application of 3rd party certification programme in Malaysia to secure the open network communications from both locally and across the ASEAN region. It is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) which operating in the Multimedia Super Corridoor in Malaysia in 4th March1999.The vision of Trusgate is clear which stated that “To enable organizations to conduct their business securely over the Internet, as much as what they have been enjoying in the physical world.”

Trustgate is licensed under the Digital Signature Act 1997 (DSA). As a Certification Authority, Trustgate’s core business is to provide digital certification services such as digital certificates, cryptographic products, and software development. Besides that, The products and services of Trustgate are SSL Certificate, Managed PKI, Personal ID, MyTRUST, MyKAD ID, SSL VPN, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development Trustgate are committed to provide the finiest Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to assist all tpes of companies and institutions conducting their business over the internet.

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) is an American company which incorporated in 1995 at California. This company is the trusted provider of internet infrastructure services for the networked world. VeriSign, Inc. has extended its existing reseller relationship with MSC trustgage Sdn Bhd by entering into an additional agreement to deliver a range of advanced identity authentication services in Malaysia on 20th October, 2008. Under the new strategic agreement, MSC Trustgate will resell the VeriSign® Identity Protection (VIP) and VeriSign® Unified Authentication Services. These services offer businesses strong authentication for protecting the online identities of their customers, business partners and employees.

In our life, we can usually found out the Digital certificate through an e-mail message or some web page that provide credit card payment or some personal private data to verifies who they claim to be. User authentication, digital signatures and encryption is very common function of the digital certificate. Digital signatures are the signature that we use in digital world and to identify someone identity. Besides, the security of the webpage that we need to login our ID and password is relate to the User authentication. By using the information encrypted, Encryption can transferred the important information data in more secure way. The data we sent will not sent wrong to other people.

Fraud and identity theft have created a chilling effect on e-commerce and it is one of the fastest growing crimes in Malaysia. As we know, gaining the trust of online customers is vital for the success of e-commerce. From the point of view of e-commerce company, they need to make sure the website is earns its full potential by increasing customer confidence when they involve themselves in the e-transaction. By using the Digital certificate, it will increase the confident of consumer to involve in e-commerce transaction.

For more information about MSC, please log on to:
http://www.verisign.com/ssl/ssl-information-center/ecommerce-trust-ssl/index.html
http://www.msctrustgate.com/about_us.htm
http://www.verisign.co.nz/press/2008/20081020.html
http://www.verisign.com/ssl/index.html?sl=t72030166150000002&set=b034738&gclid=CJab3O2OrZsCFYEvpAodPHQZCg
http://milkteablog.blogspot.com/2008/06/application-of-3rd-party-certification.html

How to safeguard our personal data and financial data??

2009-06-28T10:11:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, there are many incidents about the personal data has been lost or get stolen. The internet is unsafety for using. A lot of hackers try to hack into the others computer to steel the data in order to get the benefits. So, we must prevent those incidents happen in order to protect our authority.

The way to secure our personal data and financial data:

1. Protect computer's security. You can install and keep updating firewall, antispyware and antivirus programs to protect our personal and financial data. Firewall can prevent our personal data send out automatically. Besides that, our computer can get protection against virus and Trojan by using antivirus. Antispyware is the program that protect against from spyware or adware which is hidden in software programs in order to maintain our computer performance.

2.Set your PIN wisely.
Try not to use the personal data to create your password. The password must be strong enough, something that the thief can not guess. Besides that, you have to change the password frequently for protection. For example, you use your birthday as your password. It can easily guess by someone.

3. Do not reveal any personal information or passwords to anyone.
Try not to give the information to others if you can. You only can give your personal data to others for real need or the person u trust the most. Do not write down the password or personal information. It must be remember in your mind in order to prevent steel by others

4. Be cautious when accessing financial information in public especially when you withdraw money from the ATM. Do not let others see when you key in the password. User must remember to log out properly after using any of the Financial Data Center or member services. Be vigilance in every moment.

5.Backing up data externally for safety. It can prevent from any uncertainty events or disaster occurs. For example, fire, robbery, flood disaster and so on.
6. Review your monthly statements. This is the protection for an inaccuracy amount that you spend. A lot of cases happen in Malaysia, the amount charges is more than actual amount. So, the users must check it frequently to get the confirm amount. It will alert you to possible fraudulent charges and legitimate charges for services that are either redundant or no longer necessary.

7. Avoid clicking on pop-up ads or downloading information from unknown sites. Don't open mystery attachments. Some of the ads is a virus, once you click, the virus will infect to your computer. Thus, your personal data and financial data will get stolen easily.

8. Be caution while receiving an Email. Avoid Phishing email. It is a theft that used to gain information for purposes of identity theft, using fraudulent email message that appear to come from legitimate business. for example, asking for account number and passwords, credit cards numbers.

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

2009-06-27T05:33:00.000-07:00

The meaning of Phishing:
Phishing is a crimeware technique used to steal the identity of a target company to get the identities of its customers. While crimeware is software designed to infect a computer and take personal information that can be used to steal from the computer user. In other words, phishing is an e-mail fraud method in which the perpetrator sends out “legitimate-looking” email in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients.

Usually, these massages appear to come from well known and trustworthy Web sites in order to ask for individual’s personal and sensitive information such as the bank account number, username & password, and others security number. Fraudsters and scammers like to use reputable organizations such as May Bank, Citibank, and Trusted Bank. Besides, most of the phishing web sites have the “link” and it always request recipient to click on the link in order to bring the user to another web site. Although the URL of the fraudster’s webpage appears to be true, it actually links to a fraudster/phisher’s webpage.

Examples of Phishing:
http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/examples/phishing_visa_mastercard.html

http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/examples/phishing_hsbc.html

http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/examples/bankofscotland_phishing.html

http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/examples/phishing_nab.html

http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/examples/phishing_rbs.html

other examples:
http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/phishing_examples.html
http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html

How to avoid Phishing Scams:

First and foremost, use common sense. Fraudsters are very effective at pretending to be companies, people and even government that they’re not. Therefore, individual have to carefully determine who you’re dealing with. For example, if a promise sounds too good to be true, it probably is a fraud.

Second, never give personal information to a stranger who contacts you by emails or phone or other means. Never agree to anything without researching the facts. No matter how urgent the fraudsters claim the deal is, for safety purpose you yourself should call up the legitimate company for verification and confirmation. Don’t use the links in an email, instant message to get to any web page.

Third, avoid filling up forms in email messages that ask for personal or sensitive information if you suspect the message might not be authentic or you don’t know the sender. Always ensure that you’re using a secure website when submitting your personal or sensitive information via Web browser.

For more information about how to avoid phishing, please log on to:
http://www.antiphishing.org/consumer_recs.html
http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs17a.htm
http://www.antiphishing.org/DOJ_Special_Report_On_Phishing_Mar04.pdf

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

2009-06-27T02:06:00.000-07:00

Online security threats are one of the biggest challenges on the Internet today. Most companies continue to enhance their systems and processes as electronic banking system evolves. The question is “Are they protecting their customers’ information from being hack and how safe are their data?” However, in order to cope with the online security threats, many organizations are continually looking for ways to help their customers aware of the threats/fraudsters and to protect themselves.

Looming Online Security Threats in 2008 and 2009:
One of the nontechnical attacks-social engineering, is a type nontechnical attack that uses social pressures to trick computer users into comprising computer networks to which those individuals who have access. With social engineering, an attacker tries to convince someone that he is someone else and also can be as daring as putting on a mask and pretending to be someone else. The social engineering tactics have changed. In the past, they used cleverly worded conversations to get information to launch attacks, this tactic continue to be used because it is extremely effective. But now, social engineering attacks are Web 2.0 attacks. Web-based services including social networks like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook are becoming prime targets for hackers seeking individual personal information.
For example, in September 2008, the information of ten thousands of customers of Automatic Data Processing(ADP) and Sun Trust Banks(STI) were stolen from Salesforce.com which provides online customer management software for these two companies. The incident occurred after a hacker tricked a Salesforce.com employee into disclosing a password.

Major online threats:
http://www.bsagovernment.com/downloads/MajorOnlineThreats.pdf
Apple Macs Becoming "Soft Targets": http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_online_security_threats_for_2009.php

Several ways to protect our data:
1) Access control mechanism: used to determine who can legitimately use the network resource and define which users have access to which resources and what rights they have with. E.g. window log in system
2) Passive tokens: storage device that contain a secret/hidden code such as ATM card, membership card and credit card.
3) Active tokens: small and stand alone electronic devices that generate one-time passwords used in a two-factor authentication system. E.g. Public bank’s E-payment.
4) Biometric system: Authentication systems that identify a person by measurement of a biological characteristic such as fingerprint and iris (eye) patterns.
5) Encryption: The process of encrypting or transforming data in different way that’s difficult, expensive or time-consuming for an unauthorized person to decrypt it.

Google vs eBay vs Amazon.com

2009-06-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

The more obvious differences between Google, Ebay, and Amazon.com are in the revenue models. Broadly, advertising for Google Ads, and commissions for Ebay and sales minus costs for Amazon.com. Another way to look at it would be that a user reads about the newest, coolest widget on Yahoo, researches about it on Google, while clicking on a few ads there, buys the product on Amazon, and then auctions it off on Ebay. The major revenue models include sales revenue model, transaction fee revenue model, advertising revenue model, subscription revenue model and affiliate revenue model.

For Google, its major incomes were from advertising revenue model which includes Google AdWords, Google AdSense and so on. The Google Adwords is a pay per click advertising where advertisers published advertisement on Google’s website and is paid once online users’ clicks on it. However Google AdSense is an ad serving program. Website owners can enroll into it to enable text, image and video advertisements on their sites. These ads can generate revenue on the basis of per click or per thousand impressions. Others related programs are Google advertising professionals, Google audio ads, Google TV ads, Google website optimizer and Google site search.

Ebay generates revenue from a numbers of fees such as insertion fees (when an item listed on Ebay, this nonrefundable fee is charged), promotional fees (charge for additional listing options that help attract attention for an item, such as highlighted or bold listings), and final value fees (commission charges to the seller at the end of the auction). Furthermore, Ebay generate revenue by sales revenue model through its subsidiary, Half.com, offers fixed price, person-to-person selling of goods. It charging a 15% commission on completed sales. Additionally, a portion of Ebay’s revenue also comes from direct advertising on the site, as well as end service providers whose services increase the speed of transactions. The acquisition of PayPal, whose products allow the exchange of money over the Internet, brings additional transaction based fee revenue.

Basically for Amazon.com, it charges a commission rate based on the sale price, a transaction fee and a variable closing fee which are sales revenue model and transaction fee revenue model. Moreover, Amazon.com also generates revenue by affiliate revenue model. AStore is an Amazon.com affiliate product which website owners can use to create an online store on their site. The store doesn’t allow website owners to sell their own products directly. Website owners pick products from Amazon store and earn referral fees on the products purchased by their readers. The fee structure is currently the same as for the other affiliate links and ranges from 4% to 10% of the product price.

ToysRus.com failure and its causes..

2009-06-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

Purpose of Toys R Us launched its e-commerce subsidiary (ToysRus.com) were hoping to reach and provide their customers the products and services whenever and wherever they need. In 1999, ToysRus.com had established as a premier online toy, video game and baby store outlet. Unfortunately failing to handle the orders flushed into its website, the company totally lost track of thousands of orders or failed to deliver them on time. Information on the Internet spreads like wild fire. If words of unhappiness are being spread around to potential customers, the reputation would be damaged. Therefore, poor order fulfillment had been affected ToysRus.com. The Federal Trade Commission was fined Toys R Us $350,000. Although the company had pumped millions of dollars into setting up its own online operation and distribution network for order fulfillment it had to announced 75% slump in profit 2000.

For our opinion when the big company intended to do business online they were forgetting some common factors that will affect their company during the holidays. Shipping takes man power especially during peak season. It tends to slow down simply by the volume of orders of the mail service industry receives in short period of time. Frankly, not all the companies have the capital to invest in such a large expansion. If they are going into the e-commerce industry, they can't avoid from not putting in that investment.

Other cause of failure is the inability of the customer to choose products that are more effectively sold online than in the real world. Clothing shopping online requires the customer to guess at what they had looked like in the garments presented on a website. Attempts to sell automobiles online without the test drive have been woefully unsuccessful. And even provisions are a hard sell, the people still want to pick out product that they look for and prefer in spite of having inconvenience to going out to do it themselves.

On the other hand, the failure cause is delivery stock to the customer is not on time. As we should know that, getting customer to the site is one thing, while delivering is another thing. Bricks and mortar retailers have no such problems. Failure to deliver the ordered stock on time to customers caused eToys (Toyrus Company) to give away hundreds of $US100 vouchers to displeased customers.

Amazon.com success and its causes..

2009-06-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

E-commerce has a great deal of advantages over “brick and mortar” stores and mail order catalogs. Consumers can easily search through a large database of products and services. They can see actual price, build an order over several day and compare prices then buy the selected product at best prices.

In return, online vendors also get distinct advantages. The web and its search engines provide a way to be found by customers without expensive advertising campaign. Even small online shops can reach global markets. Web technology also allows to track customer preferences and to deliver individually-tailored marketing (for example, dynamic catalog).
Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the most famous e-commerce companies was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was one of the first American e-commerce 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. Shortly it become popular in the Internet after renames his business “Amazon” formerly known as Cadabra.com. 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 at USA, Amazon has set up separate websites in other economically developed countries such as the UK, 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 and so on.

Amazon is one of the first e-commerce 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.

The history and evolution of E-commerce

2009-06-21T06:48:00.000-07:00

Shopping would be one of the most popular activities among the web. It has much allure in it! You can shop at your leisure, anytime, and in your pajamas. Literally anyone can have their pages built to display their specific goods and services.
Dates back to the invention of the very old notion of “selling and buying”, 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 existed at web sites.

At first, the term e-commerce means 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. In the 1960’s EDI allowed companies to send commercial documentation electronically. There was several different EDI formats that business could use, so companies still might not be able to interact with each other.

However, in 1984 the ASC X12 standard became stable and reliable in transferring large amounts of transactions. In 1992 when the Mosaic web-browser was made available, it was the first ‘point and click’ browser. The Mosaic browser was quickly adapted into a downloadable browser, Netscape which allowed easier access to electronic commerce.

Although the Internet began to advance in popularity among the general public in 1994, it took approximately four years to develop the security protocols (for example, HTTP). The development of DSL was another key moment in the development to of e-commerce. DSL allowed quicker access and a persistent connection to the Internet.

The development of Red Hat Linux was also another major step in electronic commerce growth. Linux gave users another choice in a platform other than Windows that was reliable and open-source. Microsoft faced with this competition needed to invest more in many things including electronic commerce.

Napster was an online application used to share music files for free. This application was yet another major step in e-commerce. Many consumers used the site and were dictating what they wanted from the industry. A major merger, in early 2000, between AOL and Time Warner was another major push for electronic commerce. The merger worth $350 million which brought together a major online company with a traditional company.

Today the largest e-commerce is Business-to-Business (B2B). By the end of 2001, its had around $700 billion in transactions. According to all available data, e-commerce sales continued to grow in the next few years and, by the end of 2007, e-commerce sales accounted for 3.4 percent of total sales. Other varieties growing today include Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) where consumers sell to each other through auction sites. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is another form of e-commerce that allows users to share resources and files directly.

E-Commerce (tutorial 2)

2009-06-14T04:42:00.000-07:00

This blog is created to accomplish one of the tutorials which is tutorial 2. Since this is the first blog we try to create, therefore it may has quite a lot of mistakes when you read through this short blog.
We have been asked by our tutor to create a blog which contains the brief information of every member of our team. We would like to start with introducing our team members then following by listing out the top five websites that we visited the most and the top five activities as well. Our team members are Tan Doo Inn, Tan Hwei Ting(Irene), and Yap Bee Huan. We are all UTAR students and live in Sg Long. Meanwhile we having the common hobbies which are like to "Yam Cha" & chit-chating, always looking for delicious food( ho-jiak) and also like to "lepak-lepak" when people are concentrating in the class *skip class*...hehe..
Besides there are 2 things that we hate the most....final examination and the assignment...because during this period we have to put a lot of effort and spend a lot efford on it....
Secondly, we would like to list out the top five websites that we visited the most which are Google, Youtube, Facebook, Kennysia, and the Hotmail website as well. While the purpose we always log on to these websites is to keep our information updating and to know more friends through the world wide web.
The End...we will post the next blog as soon as possible..

Tan Doo Inn

Yap Bee Huan

Tan Hwei Ting