Webtop Applications

For my ninth blog I would like to discuss the topic of web-top applications. A web-top application is basically any desktop application that is run through a web browser. This is not to be confused with a web/network operating system. A web-top integrates web applications, web services, client server applications, and application servers to provide and environment similar to Windows, Mac, or any other comparable desktop application.

The term Web-top was first introduced by Santa Cruz Operation in 1994 to describe the web based operations for their Unix operating system. Since then it has grown significantly with many major online companies trying to get in on the expanding market. The most used is Microsoft, which offers its popular Office Suite as a web-top, while the ever growing Google is not far behind with Google Apps. Other companies like yahoo, Adobe, and Lazlo are also in the race, but seem to be falling behind the two front runners.

Web-top applications have many advantages and disadvantages. Some of the advantages include convenience, mobility, software management, and high availability from many locations. These are all very good reasons to use web-top applications. There are still disadvantages though such as speed( speed of the application relies on the speed of the connection), network connectivity, the applications features, and central control issues. One area that is an area for debate is the issue of security, as on one side your information will be less venerable to typical attacks( such as viruses, worms, and other vulnerabilities) as well as stored on a secured server. Unfortunately, the recent attacks on Google have showed us that any server can be hacked, so as long as your information is still transferred over the Internet it can still be intercepted. None the less web-top applications are a great advancement in technology, and are sure to grow to new prevalence over the next few years.

The IT Industry

Last Tuesday we talked about the IT industry in general, and what is out there. We also discussed Apple's humongous market share over the music industry. There are three general major markets in IT: hardware, software, and service. I did some research into the service side of IT, and decided to do this blog post mainly about accenture.

Accenture is defined as a technology outsourcing company, a global management consulting company, and also a technology consulting company. In simple terms, they do a lot. They are single handedly the biggest consulting firm in the world. They are considered a Fortune 500 company, and last year they had a revenue of $23.39 billion.

Accenture did a nice job with the Indian outsourcing upstarts that occured eight years ago. They essentially combined the best aspects of the Indian offshore concept with their own business consulting. To block Indian companies from getting a hold in their accounts, Accenture took on their low-end jobs. They also invested in staying ahead of the competition.

I'm excited to see how this company will succeed even more. I never had an interest in management consulting companies until now. I can see how businesses hold these companies in great stature.

Out of the Norm

Today in class I liked having a discussion about the case studies. I don't know that much about computers or the industry that surrounds it but it was quite interesting. I didn't know that Microsoft had a product in every category of the industry, that's quite impressive. I like hearing about Apple and how they came about. I never knew that Steve Jobs was the one that really made them what they are today.

Having class discussions are wonderful because they breakup the everyday routine. I hope that next time the discussion will be even better. I think that it may be better because there are handouts instead of using the book. Since I don't know that much about this area of business I like to hear others' perspectives on the different topics.

One thing that I am rather skeptical about is putting everything on the internet. But this afternoon I went to my accounting club meeting and they were talking about that same subject. A firm came in to speak and it was Thomson Reuters and they specialize in accounting software. It was interesting because they had a set of integrated programs that were based on the internet. This wasn't through google or anything like that though. So maybe there is something there but I am still unsure.

Web Mashups

Put two or more web applications together and what do you get? A web-mashup!

Part of how Web 2.0 is changing the way people interact with the Internet is in the creation of web-mashups. Want to know what there is to eat in a specific area? Try Foodio54. Foodio54 provides you with a list of restaurants within a radius (that you specify), of where you would like to eat. You can even tell it what type of restaurant you are looking for and have it exclude fast-food joints if you are in more of the sit-down type mood. You also have the option of subscribing to their site, which gives you the added bonus of Foodio54 learning about your eating habits and making personalized recommendations for you!

Or, maybe you are going on a vacation, and want to know the base price of hotels in a given area, what restaurants are nearby, if there are any landmarks, even how many and the locations of the Starbucks in the area. You could give HotelMapSearch.com a try. It will show you on a Google map right where these services are located.

These are just a few of the mashups that I found while on a web-site called Webmashups.com. They have lists of sites that utilize mashup technology, based on categories such as: food, music, sports, mapping, etc.

The Internet is getting a whole lot more interactive!

Web 2.0

So, today we talked about web 2.0. I never knew that there was two different versions of the web. Ever since 2004 we've had 2.0, and it couldn't be more amazing. I will begin with a quote from Terry Flew, the associate professor of media and communication in the creative industries faculty at Queensland University of Technology in Australia. "move from personal websites to blogs and blog site aggregation, from publishing to participation, from web content as the outcome of large up-front investment to an ongoing and interactive process, and from content management systems to links based on tagging (folksonomy)". He believed that these were the things that spawned the dawn of web 2.0.


Networking is bigger than ever now. With the enhancements of 2.0 we now have things like Facebook. It has 400 million active users as of today. We are able to not only communicate with people around the world without even leaving our homes, but we are also able to share files, such as pictures, videos, music, or basically anything you want. A very useful tool in the right hands. Google maps is another great example. As you are browsing a map, it requires a lot of information. When you zoom in and out on the map, the loading of the pictures is instantaneous.

Web 2.0 is not a different version of the internet, per say, more of a change in the way that users and developers use the web. For example, when you go to a site that uses the network effect, such as digg, you are not only able to gather up information, but build your own web page and utilize things such as comments, running software applications entirely through a browser, and, again, sharing files with each other. The user has much more control over their data, and their data is their data. Almost none of this was possible with web 1.0.


The network effect blew my mind. The math that is behind web 2.0 is amazing. I believe we have made our networking and business sites very useful because we have a lot of users out there today. The only way it could be utilized to the max is when every single person in the world is using the service, but that will never happen.

I'm excited to see what the next big thing will be in networking and the world of web 2.0. Can it get any better than this?

Photo courtesy of evohosting.

Internet Piracy

It makes me quite nervous to realize that most of our personal, financial and social information is stored in some database somewhere. What makes me more nervous is that there are people that can hack into these databases and access all of your personal information from the safety of their own home. You can google pretty much anybody's name these days and find out where they live and information about them. The convenience of the Internet definitely comes with some vulnerability issues with the storage and access of personal information.

Every time somebody finds a way to hack into someone's information, there is a team of people who are in control of the security of this information that add a provision to their system to avoid that same hack. This just gives hackers another challenge to overcome and often allows room for another hack to be successful. Since the internet is just code written by people, I feel that there is always away to rewrite the code. I mean let's face it, has internet piracy gone away? No. How long has it been a problem? A very long time. So will it ever end? Or will criminals just keep getting smarter and smarter?

One method to eliminate the stealing of personal information over the internet is to hire the people that stole it in the first place. The government is hiring hackers to work for them to help expose flaws in their systems and help to stop people from being able to access information. Read all about it in this article:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/21/cybersecurity-students-hackers-technology-security-cybersecurity.html

This scares me even more. Hacking has become such a big problem that the only way we can stop it is to ask the hackers for their help? Come on now. If I were you, I would stick to shopping in stores and keeping your information as private as humanly possible before you're the one getting hacked.

We're not top dog anymore!

It is amazing how much the internet influences our lives. I was shocked when I saw there are 1.7 billion users on the internet. Professor Drake had the link in his power point to Internet World Stats and what was even more shocking was how much internet usage there was in Asia. When I think of the internet, I would of definitely thought the United States would have been the leader in usage. Not surprisingly, China is the largest country in Asia for internet usage counting for almost half of Asia. China is also the largest country in the world for internet usage, and in turn has the largest telecom market in the world.

Even though China has the largest internet usage, only 26.9% of the population have access. Just imagine how many more people would be on the internet if the Chinese had the same market as the United States. That would put the Chinese internet to almost one billion users just in that country. Since the Chinese government has such an influence on the internet, the Chinese telecom market has fallen behind. However, in recent years, the Chinese government is allowing the market to flourish and many economists see China to dominate the 21st century.