Amazing find on old hard drive part 2:

This paper will be an evaluation of the e-commerce website of Circuit City.  The address for Circuit City is www.circuitcity.com.  Many things about the website will be defined and discussed.  The items that will be evaluated includes the privacy policy, how the site is a consumer-based and business-based site, the guaranteed security, the way the website is set up, and many more things.  After all the aspects of the website are looked at, the actually layout of the site will be discussed, then the items that I feel could be done to improve the site.

            Circuit City’s website can be considered to be consumer-based and well as business-based.  It is consumer-based because of the ease a person can look up a product and compare it to others that fit into that category.  So let us say that a person is interested in getting a big screen TV.  One can either use the links that are located on the left side of the page, or type televisions in the search bar located at the top of the page.  The link on the side of the page can be a hassle because when you hover the mouse of the item will automatically bring up a drop down list which blocks the items that are shown on the current page. 

            When you type in televisions, you will be brought to a page that has over two hundred items.  To help narrow the search you can type in what brand on televisions that you might be looking for in particular.  This makes it easier for those people that already have an idea or might like to buy only certain brands of electronics.  When you find the item that you might be looking for, you can click on it to add to your shopping cart.  From there one can either go back to the shopping area of the website and choose more items, or they can check over the items that they have decided to purchase and then enter the needed information and check out. 

            Circuit City’s website can also be considered a business-based site for many reasons.  One is due to the fact that anyone can purchase items from there whether it be a business needing supplies or any person that does not have time to go to the store and just go to the site to look at items for sale.  This can be a business site because items can be purchased in bulk.  Just about anything that a business needs for computer equipment can be purchased through cicuitcity.com.  It is based on the facts that can be found throughout the entire website, that it can be concluded that this website is meant either to be consumer-based or business-based.

            Since items can be purchased through this website with credit cards and other personal information may be needed, a privacy policy is needed.  Generally these state that certain items have to be agreed to by the customer, such as what is done with the personal information that is obtained.  Sometimes some sites will sell this personal information to other stores and maybe even to the manufacturers of the items that are sold at Circuit City.  People may be more concerned about what may happen with the information that they give when they use their credit card.  Circuit City has a separate page that guarantees that this information will be safe, but this will discussed later in this paper.

            Since all companies that obtain personal information should have privacy policies, every one should be different.  This is because different companies may do different things with someone’s personal information.  Circuit City of course is no exception to this rule.  Some of the topics that are discussed in this privacy policy include what information they collect, how they use the information that is collected, is the information shared or sold to a third party, how one can collect or access their personal information that is collected, and our personal information is secured.

            Some information is collected and needed when you make a purchase through this website.  When you make a purchase, they will ask for your name, address, phone number, e-mail address and other information necessary to fulfill and track your order. For purposes of billing, one will need to provide your credit card type, number, expiration date and billing address for the card. If one will want items to be shipped, one will need to provide the name, address, and phone number of the person or persons that will be receiving the package. 

Different information may be needed to create an account at circuticity.com.  One may create an account through circuitcity.com at any time by providing your e-mail address and designating a unique access password. It is not necessary to create e an account in order to visit their site or to place an order through circuitcity.com. Creating an account will allow one to save certain billing information so that it is possible to track the status of orders that you have placed and also one can set their ordering preferences. For privacy and security, Circuit City will not store or keep any information about credit cards or gift card numbers that could be in one’s account.  Circuit City does not sell, or even trade any personal information with any third parties or any other companies.  One can access their personal information by going to the My Account Page link located at the top of the page.

            When one visits circuitcity.com, and other websites, small text files known as “cookies” can be stored on a computer’s hard drive. A cookie allows us to enhance and customize your online shopping experience and improve the design of our site. The cookies from circuitcity.com store random ID numbers and contain information about the first and last visits, the number of visits, items that have been put into the shopping cart, Express Pickup locations and affiliate referrers. One can set the properties of their web browser to notify them when they receive a cookie and one can easily erase cookies from their browser after a shopping session. Circuit City does warn you that if you delete their cookies, you will limit their ability to personalize the website for the next shopping visit.   Deleting a cookie will not prevent anyone from shopping and purchasing at the site in the future.

            Circuit City uses the personal information for many reasons that will all help the next visits to the site to be easier for the customers.  Some reasons for collecting personal information include to  schedule deliveries of merchandise that one can purchase online , to create an online account for yourself, to bill a credit cards used for purchases, to track and confirm orders, and to make sure that the product is available for pickup at the store.  Other reasons help customize the site for each individual person by providing advertisements to those who want to receive them, offer the products you want, and to make the shopping experience easier.

            As stated earlier in this evaluation, there is a different page at the website that will guarantee the security of your credit card numbers.  This page contains information about how the site is secured as well as what they will do to help you if your number is somehow obtained by someone else.  Circuit City guarantees that their site is 100% safe because all of the personal information is stored on their secure servers.  They state that they use an industry standard technology called Secured Socket Layer, or SSL.  SSL encrypts the data when it is sent over the network to try to ensure that others will not be able to see your numbers or other information is they are looking at the line.  Circuit City has the Verisign secure site seal on this page.  If a fraudulent change does occur on your credit card statement The Fair Credit Billing Act states that the credit card company should not hold you liable for a unauthorized that is more than $50.  If the credit card does happen to hold you responsible for the charge, Circuit City will pay and be liable for the $50.  Between this page and the privacy policy page, a customer should feel confident about whether or not they will want to purchase anything from this site.

            Something that is found on this website is something that I have only seen done at the actual brick and mortar store.  This is the price match that some stores offer.  A price match is when you have proof, for example a sales flyer or the website of another company, and Circuit City will match or even bet that price.  They state that if one happens to find a lower price at a different store that sells the exact same product that could be purchased at their store, they want to know about it.  Once the proof of the item is shown to them, it is printed that Circuit City will beat that price by 10%.  Also Circuit City has to offer their price match plus guarantee.  This says that if you find a lower price for an item that you have already purchased, found in other sales ads or can even be their own ad, they will refund you up to 110% of what you have originally paid.

            By this time just about all parts or aspects of cicuitctiy.com has been evaluated except for a few.  These things include the actually layout of the site itself, things that have been done that were done well, along with the things that can be done in the future to may the website better.  The layout of each page stays basically the same.  All of the same links appear on the same spot on every page.  More than likely since the site contains numerous pages a cascading style sheet is being used to save time and to make the code look neater.  At the top of the page is located the search by bar that one can type anything that they want to search the entire site for.  Also next to the search bar is a drop down list that displays the categories that the item can be searched in like electronics, games, movies, popular music, and classical music.  This is extremely useful for those who know exactly what they are shopping for.  Also this is user friendly for those who are just “window” shopping.  Whatever category that one picks using the search bar can be found on the left side of the page that when the mouse hovers over it different selections in the category can be chosen.  The links on the side of the page are from the top to the bottom of the page.  Located at the top left of the page is a telephone number to call if you need help on how to shop at circuitcity.com.  The shopping cart is located at the top of each page.

            Some things can be done to improve the quality of this website or at least make use of it easier.  The first thing is the links that scroll down the side of the page.  When a page has only a paragraph of information on it, the links still take up the same amount of space and extend all the way down the page making the user scroll down to click on the link.  Another problem with those links is that the drop down box appears on the left side it can block items or prices that are currently being displayed on the page one is looking at.  The search bar can become a real pain in the neck. Just to look for an actor and the movies he or she is in, one must type in the name, choose them from a list or other people that have similar names, and then go to the movies section of the website.  All together the main problem of this site has to deal with the links.

            After taking closer looks to this site, looking at more than I have before, this evaluation has given me a good idea about whether or not I can trust circuitcity.com enough to purchase items from them online.  I have evaluated this site and determined that I am going to start buying from them online because I feel confident that my personal information will be safe and I have a guarantee that if a problem occurs they will do anything that they can to fix it.  On top of that I do not always have the time to go to the store.  Plus one can find things online that cannot be found at the store.  So overall on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, I give circuitcity.com a score of 8.5.

Hard to Believe…

For those of you that know me (and read my blog) 2 short years ago I was still a teller at First Midwest Bank.  I was comfortable there, but I did not make much money and it was definitely not in my field.  Sure I did some consulting on the side for people that knew me, even did some consulting with a business from time to time, but I knew that it was past time to get out of there.  I just bought a new car, I just bought an engagement ring for my girlfriend.  I knew that I would not be able to support her on my current salary, so I hit the job market hard.  This was no easy task.  Trying to get a job with only college experience is difficult to do.

After about a month of searching, Applied Systems gave me a call.  I went there for any interview (by the way I had interviews in 2006 but being stupid I told them no because I did not want to work overnights).  I got the job easily, from the last interview to this one, they offered me more money, which still wasn’t enough but it was more than I was currently making.  It was still overnights, but I  learned not to be picky.  So I started there on 8/6/07.  5 days after my 23rd birthday.  It was my first real “IT” job.  I was exciting, but for the first few months all I did was watch 18 monitors and do rounds.  I was basically a security guard.  The drive was 1 hour each way and in the mornings had to deal with school traffic.  I drove through a blizzard, I drove through a flood, and I drove through tornadoes.  But over time, I got more into projects and started to move the NOC group forward.  I got into good terms with our DCOs and our network admins.  I convinced them to start handing off jobs to the NOC group.  Since I work midnights, not many people knew I worked there, but soon my name was known.  I have to say, I started to really enjoy my job there, my boss was one of the best bosses I have ever had.  We had free beer and free caffeine bar.  There were Wiis setup everywhere (developers need relax time).  Everything was going great… Then I found out how long it took to move up, how poorly they paid the levels I wanted to be at.  By that time it was June of 2008 and I was starting to think about going back to college for my Masters degree.  I once again started to hit the job market.

My next job came from a professor at Purdue Calumet.  It was at another bank (great I thought, whenever I go to college, I seem to work for a bank).  I went there for an interview, the place seemed alright, it was on the software/services side of IT, which was fine with me.  I didn’t have much experience with it and was something I wanted to learn to be able to expand my choices in the future.  I took the job a few weeks later.  My first project, configure and figure out the new loan software program.  Everyone else had training in it 4 months before I started.  My main task was to learn how the loan department worked, learn all of their documents, and map the new ones with the proper database fields in the new system.  What a pain.  You can check out some of my earlier blogs to see how that went.  The nice thing is that the job was more money and was only 3 miles from my house as opposed to 26 miles from Applied.  My boss, one of the worst ones I have ever had.  The staff was rude, didn’t know exactly what the ‘Systems Delivery’ department did, and overall did not know their jobs.  I hated my job there.  The only good thing to come out of it was I learned from the Mortgage department all that was going on in the market, and I found it to be the best time to purchase a house in March of 2009.  So by June of 2009 I thought it was time to get a new job, one that paid more, since now I had mortgage payments to make.  I also had just finished my 2nd semester at Purdue Calumet.  I applied like crazy.  No place was calling me.  I needed out and fast, as in the job led me to start drinking, or maybe it was college…

Anyhow I am now working as a consultant for a company in Chicago Illinois.  It pays more money.  I am just finishing my 6th week here.  I enjoy the job, it was definately better than my last one.  The time for travel and being on call sucks, but I am used to it already.  I just have to say that working where I do now and this past summer semester ( which ends today!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and made the past 6 weeks some of my most time consuming yet.  More updates will be made about my job and other affairs.  I have to fix a house, finish my Masters degree, and plan a wedding all in the next year…  How busy my life has become in just a short amount of time.  More to come soon!!!!

P.S.  The best present for a system administrator on this glorious day is to not bring them any problems on Sysadmin day.

Amazing find on old hard drive part 1

While finding a hard drive to bring to work, I found some of my old undergraduate work. I have decided to post some of my papers in my blog.

Here is part 1:

Abstract:

Throughout this paper, the works of Gregor Mendel and Thomas Morgan will be talked about.  Mendel was considered the first person ever to have worked with genetic research.  He worked with pea plants, but he never even knew what he was really dealing with.  Mendel used pea plants because all he was really trying to do was bred the best pea plants for the monastery where he lived.  Almost one hundred years later, Thomas Morgan set out trying to prove that the laws and theories Mendel set were completely wrong.  All Morgan’s work showed that Mendel was more right now than ever.

This paper will go back and show people some of the many experiments done by Gregor Mendel and what the results mean to us today.  Also it will show how the work of Thomas Morgan showed that Mendel’s work was almost flawless.  Later the results will be shown.  The results of Mendel and Morgan will  be compared and contrasted.  Also in the discussion, the work of Mendel will be brought into the light of today and will pave the way for all the genetic research we now hold dear.  In the end, cloning will be discussed and how Mendel’s work helped scientists are looking and cells and chromosomes today.

Introduction:

“You have your father’s eyes.”  This phrase, or something like it, is known by most people.  It does not mean that one literally has their father’s eyes, but their eyes are similar to one of their parents.  All of one’s traits are linked to their parents.  This is due to the fact that every chromosome within one’s body is from either one of the parents.  One gets half of their chromosomes from one parent and the other half from the other parent.  Everything that has to with inheritance from genes from parents to their offspring can all be explained by the works of Gregor Mendel and those who follows in his footsteps to broaden his findings.

For many centuries nobody even knew about DNA let alone chromosomes.  Gregor Mendel, “the father of genetics”, had no that all his experiments dealt with chromosomes.  From all of his experiments, Mendel was able to create three theories, two of them which became laws.  The two laws are the principle of segregation and the principle of independent assortment.  The theory he made is the law of dominance.                                              The work of Gregor Mendel was the most important work in genetics ever done even today.  This paper will deal with the three theories of Mendel and what they mean.  Also the many different experiments performed by Mendel and how those experiments developed into the field of modern genetics that are used by many scientists today.

Methods and Materials:

For all of his experiments, Mendel experimented with pea plants.  Mendel was a monk that lived in a monastery in the year 1856.  Pea plants were a good choice for Mendel’s investigations.  They are easy to grow, and they mature quickly.  Different plants show sharply contrasting traits^1.  Mendel experimented with seven pairs of contrasting traits.  These seven traits are the seed shape, the seed color, the seed coat color, the pod color, the pod shape, the stem length, and the flower position.

Mendel’s first theory he made was the principle of segregation.  The principle, or law, of segregation states that members of each pair of alleles of a gene separate when gametes are produced in meiosis^2.  Genes are units of information about specific traits, and they are passed from parents to offspring.  Each gene has a specific location on a chromosome.  Alleles are different molecular forms of a gene^1.

Mendel’s second theory was the principle of independent assortment.  This states that pairs of alleles separate independently of each other during gamete formation.  We now know that this is only true for genes located on different chromosomes^2.  This means the pairs of genes separate apart from one another during the meiosis.  In meiosis, gametes form and the chromosomes split and start to form new cells.

Mendel’s last theory is the law of dominance.  This theory is stated that each inherited characteristic is determined by the interaction of two heredity factors, one from each parent.  In the characteristics that he studied, Mendel found that one factor of the pair always predominated^1.  This means that one factor is the dominate one and will show up.  The other factor is the recessive one and it is a rare occasion when it is seen over the dominate factor.

One of the experiments with pea plants Mendel worked on was contrasting tall and short pea plants.  The parents were one tall plant and one short plant.  He crossed pollinated the parents and the first generation (f1) were all tall.  Mendel then allowed the f1 to self pollinate.  Of their offspring three-fourths were tall (787 plants) and one-fourth were short (277 plants).  Then this generation self pollinated and the hybrids from the generation produced once again three-fourths tall and one-fourth short^4.

Other traits that Mendel worked with were the seed shape being either round or wrinkled.  The seed colors could be either yellow or green.  The seed coat color was either grayish brown or white.  The pod color was either green or yellow.  The pod shape could be inflated or wrinkled.  The flowers positions could be lateral or terminal ^1.

All of Mendel’s experiments can easily be done with any trait found from any living organism when they breed.  A simple monohybrid cross is one in which data about one gene with two alleles is obtained.  A diagram called a Punnett square (named after Reginald Punnett!) can be used to predict the outcomes of such a cross^2.  The Punnett square looks like an ordinary box with the traits (or gametes) on the outside.  It is used just like a cross multiplication diagram would be used in math.  An example of what a Punnett square looks like is stated below for when a pure tall plant and a pure short plant are bred.  In order to make this work one just brings the top row letter to the rows below them.  Then bring the letter from the left column to the columns to the right of them.  Just put the capital letter, if there is one, in front of the two letters combined to designate what type of plant it will be.  TT would be a pure tall plant.  tt would be a pure short plant.  Tt would be a hybrid mix with the T gene being the dominant one while t would be the recessive gene.

Gametes	T	T
t
t

Mendel was not the only scientist that worked with chromosomes and their traits.  Thomas Morgan was not convinced that Mendel had the right explanation.  Seeking a better way to explain inheritance, he chose to work with the fruit fly.  The fruit fly has a number of advantages.  It breeds quickly and requires little food and space^5.

Morgan breed male and females flies to see what traits are carried, if any, by the male or female.  He breed a male fly, which he found by chance, that had white eyes and a female that had red eyes.  It was unusual that the male had white eyes because the fruit fly has red eyes.  The male fly happened to be a mutant.  Morgan breed them and wanted to see if the male Y chromosome had something to do with the white eyes^5.

Results:

When Mendel cross-bred the pea plants, he results were the same for every trait.  Let’s use the tall and short pea plant experiments.  The offspring of the parents were showed the dominant trait, but were hybrids because they carried within them the recessive gene.  When these hybrids were allowed to self pollinate, the offspring were 75% tall and only 25% short^1.

Mendel found out that these results were true for every trait.  When the hybrids were allows to reproduce, the offspring always showed 75% of the dominant gene and 25% of the recessive gene.  When the plants with the dominant gene were bred, some of their offspring were pure-bred tall pea plants again, while others were hybrids.  The same thing happened when the plants with the recessive genes were bred^2.  So the example from above completed would look like this.

Gametes	T	T
t	Tt	Tt
t	Tt	Tt

The work of Morgan with the fruit flies looked very similar to the results of Mendel.  It turns out when the male fly with white eyes is breed with the female with red eyes the ratio was the same as with the pea plants.  75% of the flies had red eyes and 25% had white eyes.  The Y chromosome found in the male fly carries the recessive trait for the white eyes.  Morgan’s findings confirm Mendel’s rules that say that chromosomes are the carriers of genetic traits^5.

After Mendel carried out hundreds of experiments he came up with three ideas that must be true based on his results.  One is that each parent carries two units of heredity governing each trait.  The second is when parents make their sex cells; only one unit of heredity goes into each.  The third is when the units combine in the offspring, the effect of one may dominate the effect of the other^6.

Discussion:

The work of Gregor Mendel is the most important work done in the history of genetics.  The work of Thomas Morgan proved that Mendel’s experiments and results were very accurate.  Mendel proved that chromosomes carry genetic traits that make an organism have certain qualities to it.  These traits come directly from the parents of the organism.  In some cases, the offspring of the parents will show the recessive gene, almost making it seem entirely different from the rest.

I think that more work should be done with genetics.  If Mendel was able to figure out how to make pea plants with certain traits, why can not this type of work be done with other organisms like humans? Society is already seeing this type of genetic research being done.  Cloning is one of the most significant work being done right now.  With cloning, people that need new organs or tissue can get it without a donor.  Doctors will be able to clone the person’s own organs using their cells.  Many people think that this is wrong, but this paper will not discuss the social debates about cloning and other genetic works.

Conclusion:

Gregor Mendel was one of the greatest minds that ever work with the idea of chromosomes.  He discovered, without even knowing it, that traits are carried from parents to their offspring through chromosomes.  Like many have said before he was the “father of genetics”.    Others have tried to prove his theories wrong, but in the end they only strengthen Mendel’s laws.  One day if scientists keep using his theories and following his work, we may one day be able to make a human being with certain traits in them.

The never ending project implementation

Here I am, the middle of January, still working on a new software implementation.  This started in February of last year and was supposed to be done by November.  The problem has been the fact that the company that we got the software from has been dragging their feet because we are one of the first to implement their new software.  Any time there is a problem it takes them weeks to figure out how to fix it.

Recently I was working on writing SQL reports in SQL Server Reporting Services and I asked if there was anyone at the company that knew the primary keys between two database tables so I could link them together.  I was told no one there knows anything about writing the reports so I should contact Microsoft to get the answer.  I could pay the company to write the reports, but no one would help us even get started.  It took 3 weeks for us to get all of the services implemented properly on a workstation because this company would not give us any documentation on how to do it.  Then we were told we could use SQL server 2005 instead of SQL server 2000, which turned out to be false.

A word  of advice…  Only be a guinea pig for new software and technology if you trust that company to know what they are doing.

Project Management

So the company I work for is in the 8th month of their 6 month project.  We still will not be going live until January.  The good thing is that the reason for the delay is not my part of the project.  Believe it or not, the delay is the company that sold us the product.  We were promised by the vendor that the product would work a certain way, and surprise surprise it doesn’t.

VENDORS LIE!!!

So whenever we find a problem with the product, a manage engine must be done.  And their solution to the manage engine is, “a billable solution”.  So now we are getting billed to get the product to work the way it was originally supposed to.  I think that is a problem.  Why should we pay more because we want the product to work the way we were told it was going to?

After every “solution” they send us a survey to fill out.  They have gotten so bad that the highest up people are starting to notice all of the problems that we have been having with the implementation.   Everyday more problems are found answers are not.

Any suggestions?

The dangers of one company hosted solutions

The company that I work for has been slowly going to one company to get all of their software from. They also keep all of our data on their servers. Some people may think that this is a good idea, which don’t get me wrong, it can be, but in my case, it is bad. The main company that we use is to be classified. They are a good company, but they seem to buy any financial company that makes good software and make it their own. The problem is that they do not throughly investigate the product and make sure that their support team or developers fully understand the product.

I have had a ticket open for over a month now. I have to generate a security file and then export it when I am done to save the changes to their web server. The problem is that whenever the file is generated, it always checks the box that allows users to override the global settings. This is bad!!!! I was given a solution last week, but then today, I was told that the solution I was given was incorrect. So in the 1.5 months I have been using their software, I have gotten 4 different procedures.

Another problem is that I create reports using the guidelines, but the reports I am given, the developers DO NOT. I get asked why didn’t I follow the guidelines. I got so sick of them not being able to figure their own products out that the last time I asked their manager why doesn’t their company follow their own guidelines. I have been at my work for 1.5 months. In that time I have had 10 open tickets, and only 3 have been closed successfully. My company thought that going all out with this company would be good so we won’t have to deal with multiple companies (also we become the guinea pigs for all new software, which means we pay less for it all) but this is going horribly. Not a single piece of software works the way it was designed!!!

By the way, I am still in a process of moving old reports from a old drive to a new one. It has been over 2 weeks. It was supposed to take 3 hours, but a year ago when we started to use their software, our old data was imported incorrectly which is causing a huge headache for me and the IT team.

Does anyone else only go with one company for all of their systems and software and not have a lot of problems?

Does not posting a warning on a website make me a Communist?

Today at my job, I got one of the strangest e-mails I have every seen. The company I work for and myself, was compared to Communist China. The person stated that due to a recent upgrade in our software, QuickBooks was no longer working on their computer. It is true that we had a recent upgrade on Sunday, but e-mails were sent out to the clients about this upgrade and the error that occurred, which was quickly taken care of the next day. The next e-mail from the same person stated that even with the upgrade, Quickbooks was giving a different error, but was still not working properly. The client then went on to state “Your company is like the Communist Chinese government, never admitting that there are problems and just sweep them under the rug, never taking responsibility for our mistakes.”

The client was under the impression that since they were the only one to have this problem that it is our fault, and we should post it on our website. I must admit, that maybe we should have edited our website to state more clearly the possible side effects of the upgrade, but not say that one person cannot use QuickBooks properly and warn all to stay away from us…

In addition, this client then goes on to state that whenever they hit tab to indent a paragraph on our site, when sending and e-mail, and then they hit enter that is always cuts them off and sends the e-mail. This happens because when they are hitting tab is is moving the selection from the text field to the button that is “Submit” so when enter is then hit, it automatically sends the message.

So my question is: What do you think our responsibility is when we use software from a different company and they do not fully test their upgrades before putting them into place? Should we warn everyone and scare them away from our product or just post that we have an up and coming upgrade and not make a special note for a single user’s problem that is not because of the system on our end?

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