The Evolution

“In A Bind” is an interactive site that searches the web for the cheapest prices on your textbooks based on the information that you give it about your classes. Once you've picked everything you need, you can purchase or rent the books and we'll ship them right to your doorstep.

Where I Started

My idea began as a simple textbook service with a simple idea behind it. I wanted to find the best way to get college students the books that they need at the lowest cost possible; all while maintaining high customer service standards and causing the least amount of hassle for our customers. Throughout the entire project, I have been discussing different aspects of the company and figuring out what it would take to really get “In A Bind” up and running. After doing some research into different products and services as well as taking into consideration the feedback I have received via comments on my blog posts, I have been able to carefully dissect some of the main aspects of my project and work on them. From social media use to internet security, I have been able to put together some ideas that will become really beneficial for the outcome of my idea. So where do the chips fall as of right now? Well….  

Puzzle Pieces

One of the first things that I would have to do in order to make “In A Bind” into a reputable company is to have a detailed outline of what I want to do and how long it will take me complete that task. This will become my greatest asset throughout the process of starting “In A Bind” because it will keep me on track as well as allow me to make sure that things are going according to plan. The next think I will need to do is make sure that I have a detailed list of everything that I will need to make this happen. From web developers to textbook vendors and storage place, I want to make sure that I have all of the necessary tools and resources available to me before I make any decision. Once I have all of this information, then the real fun can begin.

From The Ground Up

After my plans are officially written up and I am able to access all that I will need for the business, then I will need to find one of the most important parts of any small business; a team. As I began to write more about my idea, I kept coming up with new facets that could be added to the company, and as I did this, I began to realize that I would definitely need some major help. I will want to hire a small team to help me start up and maintain “In A Bind” as well as help spread the word about it. The team will start small and I will hire a few people per department based on the amount of work that each department will take. For instance, the main part of our ONLINE service is the website. The website is where everything is going to take place. From housing our customers’ personal information to containing continually updated material regarding what we have in stock, the website is housing a lot of important components of the business; so making sure it is always in tip top shape is one of our main concerns. I will hire a few web developers as well as information security experts to make sure that everything runs smoothly in the IT department. Once a team has been hired and well integrated into the company, it’s time to seek outside help.

Good Connections

Once the team is up and running, then we’re going to go out and look for the best textbook vendors that we can find. We want to make sure that no matter what; we give our customers the best product with the lowest price possible. We’re going to take as much time as needed to find great partners to work with who have the same goal in mind. We will look at direct distributors of the textbooks as well as 3^rd parties in order to rind the right price for us. We’re going to need not only textbook vendors but shipping companies as well to make sure they can give a nice flat that will not put our customers at much of a financial inconvenience. We are also going to need to form a good relationship with the company who is in charge of Blackboard. Blackboard will be a very important part of the website because this is what students are going to use to enter their schedule into the website and find out what books they need for each class, so it will be very important for us to make sure that we develop a good professional relationship. That way we can come up with a service that will both provide our customers with an optimal experience as well as make both parties happy. Once this step is completed, the final thing to do is make our presence known.  

Spread the Word

Advertising for “In A Bind” and really getting our name out there is going to be a process in which our most creative ideas are going to have to take place. There are a ton of textbook sales companies out there that have their name plastered all over college campuses and are constantly emailing students about deals that they’re having. I would want to use different tools that could reach a wide ranged audience; specifically social media. I would love to get the news out there in the most convenient way for people. A lot of people, especially those who are my age or a few years older, are constantly looking at things like Facebook, Twitter, etc. on their laptops, iPads, or phones; so why not make getting news and things to them easier. We will tweet about specials as well as add them to our Facebook page, just to keep people updated and in the loop. I also think it would be great if we could find campus ambassadors who are willing to go out onto their campus and talk to their fellow students about all that we do at “In A Bind”.

In the End…..

“In A Bind” has gone from a simple textbooks sales company to an interactive website where students can log on, purchase textbooks, and communicate with other students. The site makes buying the books that they need very easy while also incorporating some different tools that can help our customers out with preparing for classes (like online tutors that are available 24/7). The main aspects that I think sets this service apart from most other services is:

1.     The incorporation of Blackboard which makes finding books a lot easier

2.     The guaranteed low prices

3.     The ability to sell the books back with 50% of the price of the book returned, guarantee

In the end, with these constant blog posts that we were assigned, I was able to learn more about what it would take to start up this business using IT tools which is a very important thing to about when it comes to starting a web-based company like “In A Bind”.

Security Detail

“In A Bind” is an interactive site that searches the web for the cheapest prices on your textbooks based on the information that you give it about your classes. Once you've picked everything you need, you can purchase or rent the books and we'll ship them right to your doorstep.

Risky Business

In this day and age I think there are a few facts that we can all agree on: (1) Charlie Sheen is a nut, (2) Apple is slowly taking over the phone universe and (3) Our society runs on computers. Computers can be found in almost every corner of our planet from Texas to Tokyo and everywhere in between. They have brought people together and revolutionized the way that we on a personal and professional level. But, with the good, comes the bad. Between security breaches and threats of cyber terrorism, it’s no surprise that computer security has become a growing area of information science. Computer security has to do with the different ways that you protect your computer from any type of threat; whether the threat is hacking, viruses, or vandalism. There are many different types of security risks, like hackers, crackers, cyber-extortionists, cyber-terrorists, and script kiddies (just to name a few). Computer security can protect you from many different types of risks like internet and network attacks, unauthorized access and use, information theft, and system failure.  With all of these threats and hazards running around, I want to make sure that my company has the best of the best in terms of security, so that we as well as our customers are safe no matter what.

Who Goes There?

“In A Bind” is an internet business, so protecting our customers as well as ourselves from any outside threats is our number one concern. Between all of the different things that can make their way into your system these days (viruses, Trojans, worms, etc.), it can be very difficult to keep up with all of the things going on; which is why I want to have a computer security team. This group of individuals will be in charge of protecting our networks and website from any and all types of threats. There are three basic tools that I want our system to have as our main defense mechanism which will help us block and prevent most threats:

·         Antivirus application: This is going to be one of our biggest security tools. Antivirus applications are used to find and get rid of malware on your computer (things like viruses and worms) as well as make sure that they never come back.

·         Firewalls: Firewalls are a great tool to make sure that all outside threats are thoroughly scanned. This will block all of our networks from outside transmissions and will not let any of it in unless it is programmed to.

·         Quarantines: Unfortunately for us, no matter how much software we have, there is still a chance that a virus or Trojan may sneak in under the radar. If it does, this is where we will need the help of quarantines. Quarantines will isolate any files or programs in our system that doesn’t seem to belong there and warn us of its presence. That way we can decide whether or not it is something that we need or need to remove.

Our computer security team will be able to use these tools as well as their knowledge of computer science to keep us protected from anything that will come our way.

Two-Player Game

We can set up as many firewalls and security checkpoints as the internet will allow us, but when it comes to protecting our customers, we can’t do it alone. Identity theft is unfortunately becoming more and more common now-a-days, so in order to make sure that our customers are prepared, we’re going to ask our customers to enter 2 very important pieces of information when they log onto our website. They are going to need their password which must consist of numbers, letters, and at least one punctuation mark as well as a 6 digit personal identification number (PIN). When most people pick a PIN, they tend to choose numbers that are significant to them, like a birthday or part of their social security number. Instead of having people use their personal information, which will make it a lot easier for someone to steal their identity; we will assign them a random PIN number with no significance to it. This will also help when someone forgets their password. Rather than someone just sending us their email address and then sending them their password, we’re going to add an extra step to that. If someone forgets their password, they can click on a link that will take them to a page where they have to answer a security question as well as enter their email address that is attached to their account. We will then send them a link that is active for only 48 hours where they will have to enter their 6 digit as well as answer a second security question in order to be able to change their password. If someone receives an email that says that their password is being changed and they didn’t authorize it, their profile will be frozen, put into quarantine, and thoroughly scanned. Once we have located the threat and gotten rid of it, the control will be returned to the original owner.

As time goes on, we will constantly be checking our system for threats as well as searching for new and effective ways to keep our information as well as our customers’ safe and sound.

Hello, Operator?

“In A Bind” is an interactive site that searches the web for the cheapest prices on your textbooks based on the information that you give it about your classes. Once you've picked everything you need, you can purchase or rent the books and we'll ship them right to your doorstep.

Smooth Operator

An operating system (OS), according to the book, is a set of programs containing instructions that work together to coordinate all the activities among computer hardware resources. In lamens terms, the operating system is like the backbone of your computer. It controls many different functions on a computer like:

• Starting and shutting down a computer
• Providing user interface
• Managing programs
• Coordinating tasks
• Configuring devices
• Establishing an internet connection
• Managing performance
• Providing file management and other utilities
• Automatically updating itself and certain utility programs

The great part of an operating system is that it is very versatile. There are systems that support a single user and a single task operating system, which allows one user to run one program at a time, but there are also systems that support a single user using two or more programs at one time, which is what most personal computers have today. Most operating systems on computers today are also device-independent which means that they can run on computers made by different manufacturers; as opposed to the first operating systems which only ran on a specific type of computer (aka device dependent). There are three main categories of operating systems which are:

• Stand-alone OS: a system that works on a desktop computer, notebook computer, or mobile computing device
• Ex. Windows 7, Mac OS X, UNIX, and Linux
•  Server OS: a system that is designed specifically to support a network
• Ex. Windows Server 2008, UNIX, Linux, Solaris, and NetWare
• Embedded OS: a system found on mobile devices and many consumer electronics
• Ex. Windows Embedded CE, Windows Phone 7, Palm OS, iPhone OS, BlackBerry, Google Android, embedded Linux, and Symbian OS

And The Winner Is...

In order to manage our systems at "In A Bind", we are going to need an operating system that is not only device independent, but can also support multiple programs running at the same time and being used by multiple people. The perfect is difficult to determine. The operating system for us would have to be a system that can work as a server OS, like Windows Server 2008. The server OS would hold all of the main resources that our employees could utilize to serve our clients in the best way possible. The server OS can also handle all sizes of networks which will definitely be beneficial as our business begins to expand and we gain more customers along with having networking capabilities. However, there are also qualities that a stand alone OS that I believe would be perfect for our company as well. Stand alone OS's can work from a desktop computer, notebook computer, or a mobile device; which means that no matter where out employees are, they would be able to tap into our resources that are contained on a small network and access what they need. We might start out with a stand alone OS and move to a server OS as our company expands.

A Little Help from Our Friends

One of the great features of an operating system would be the utility programs. A utility program is a system software that performs maintence-type tasks on a computer or mobile device. This can be anything from searching for and managing files, uninstalling files, cleaning and defragmenting disks, setting up screen savers and so on. Two programs that I think will be really beneficial for our company would be the disk defragmenter and disk cleanup. As a company begins to grow, it's very common that things will become a little disorganized, especially on a computer. The disk defragmenter will reorganize all of the files we have on our hard disks thus creating more space and making it easier for the operating system to access data. The disk cleanup will remove unnecessary items on the hard disk. This can be things like temporary internet files and unused program files. We would also need other utilities like a file manager which will sort through files and create shortcuts, a personal firewall that will protect our data and a spyware and adware remover that will help us maintain our privacy.

All in all, our operating system will be the foundation of computer activity, so picking the right one would be imperative. But, with the right one and properly trained employees who know the ins and outs of the system, our activities using the computer can go off without a hitch. In theory, that is.

 

On "The Verge" of Greatness

Who is "The Verge"?



As a new technology fan and lover of interesting online content, I must say that "The Verge" (http://www.theverge.com/) may be one of my new favorite technology blogs. It was founded in 2011 by Joshua Topolsky and Marty Moe (in partnership with Vox Media) and has made it main goal to "offer breaking news coverage and in-depth reporting, product information, and community content via a unified, modern platform." With new articles being published by staff writers about everything ranging from the iPad 3 to social media trends, it is no surprise that The Verge has quickly become one of the leading sources for breaking news in the technology world. Even though it is a fairly new publication, it has delivered some really interesting and thought provoking content about not only the current state of technology but the future of innovation and creativity. I was really surprised by the amount of writers and interns that they have on staff and how experiences they actually were. From experts in computer and electrical engineering like Thomas Ricker to politics fans and ramen noodle connoisseur like David Pierce, the team working for the blog comes from so many different places with different perspectives that are apparent in their wide array of articles.

So What's It All About?

"The Verge" delivers its content using 5 main categories: products, reviews, features, show, and podcast. The "Product" section is pretty self explanatory. It offers different details about different types of technology. They literally talk about everything from phones to laptops, tablets, television, gaming, etc. The "Reviews" section goes into detail about each individual product. It gives you the in-and-out of each product (from the software to the camera power) and then gives you an overall rating of the product with a detailed breakdown of how the score was distributed. The "Features" section is where the personality of the website really comes out. They have different articles about up and coming technological geniuses like Kieron-Scott Woodhouse (head designer at ADzero) to special articles about the publications current playlist or what's in the co-founders bag. Articles like these give the publication a personality and shows people a little sneak peek of what the people behind the magic are like. One thing that I think makes them stand out from the blogger crowd is the fact that they have their own show. Web show, that is. They've created a show that talks about different trends in the technology world as well as new ideas and products that are on the rise in terms of popularity. They've only done 3 episodes so far but they are becoming more and more popular so I wouldn't be surprised if there were many more to come. Along with the show, The Verge also produces a podcast about once a week and talks about interesting things going on in the technology world.

Their Electronic Signature

Blogging style is one of the most important parts of a blogging website. In my opinion, you could have some of the best information about your topic that he world has ever seen, but if you present it to me in a very mundane with no form of interesting appearance, I probably won't read it all. I am very easily bored by something that isn't visually appealing, so the blogging style is one of the main reasons that I continue to read a blog. This blog, in my mind, has one of the most dynamic layouts that I've seen on a blog. The homepage alone catches your eye as soon I visit the page. The different tabs on the homepage are not just typical links that take you to the article. They have text and a picture of the product or service that they're talking about so that you have a little visual sneak peek about what you're going to read about. I also really like the way that they set up their review section. Let's say that you're looking for a specific product and you know what it looks like but you don't know the name of it. This website shows you the pictures of each product rather than the name which makes it a lot easier to find what you're looking for. Not to mention, the information that they provide about each product is a lot more relevant that I thought it would be. Instead of using a lot of tech-y terms that I wouldn't be able to understand, they give you information about the different aspects of the item in terms that everyone can understand. There is a ton more features that I could go on and on about but I think that the best thing that this site has to offer is the fact that it's user-friendly. Even though it talks about technology, the site isn't geared towards just tech nerds. It can be read and enjoyed by anyone who has even the faintest interest in technology which is why it is one of my favorites. So whether you want to be the next Steve Jobs or just really like learning about what new technologies are out there, log onto http://www.theverge.com/, and check out "The Verge". I promise you won't regret it.

Leave It In The Clouds

“In A Bind” is an interactive site that searches the web for the cheapest prices on your textbooks based on the information that you give it about your classes. Once you've picked everything you need, you can purchase or rent the books and we'll ship them right to your doorstep.

The Cloud

Cloud computing, also known as cloud storage, is an internet service that provides storage to computer users. The difference between this service and using a different type of storage like a hard drive is that all of the storage is floating on the internet and will never have a physical presence. It has many great aspects to it like allowing users access to their information from any computer and having large amounts of storage space. There are different types of cloud computing that serve different purposes. If you want to store pictures online, you can use services like Picasa or Flikr or YouTube for digital videos. There are also general online services that let you store whatever you want like Box.net or Windows Live. It's a really convenient way for businesses to give their clients access to their information from any computer with access to the internet. Let's say that a customer has a problem with a service or product that you're providing and you're not in the office at the time that you're contacted about the issue. With cloud computing, you can get a hold of your customer's information no matter where you are and fix the problem as quick as possible. So, how will "In a Bind" use cloud computing? Well.....

The Central Hub

"In A Bind" is a great idea as a company, but there is no guarantee that it will take off and soar as soon as we officially launch our website; which means that business is going to be running a little slow for a while. We won't have all the man power that we want at first which means that people are definitely going to have to double up on tasks; so any tools that can make things a lot easier and more organized for us will be great. This is where cloud computing comes in handy. When it comes to keeping track of our expenses and customers information, Google Docs is going to be our go-to tool. We'll be able to make spreadsheets with our customers' information in it so that no matter where we are, we have what we need. If one of our employees needs to contact a customer about an issue with their order, all they have to do is log on to our Google Docs account, look at our customer information spreadsheet, and get whatever they need. If there is a presentation that has to be made, we can create the entire online and save it to our Google Docs account. That way, we can get the presentation wherever it has to be without any hassle of having to save it to an outside source and if we ever need to refer back to it, we know exactly where it is.

 You've Got Mail

Our customers will be able to send email us about any concerns and issues that they may have. Whether it be about not receiving a textbook that they ordered or if there is a problem with a money transaction, once they send in an email letting us know what the issue is, we will make sure that we get back to them within 24 hours with the best solution. One great thing about this is that any employee of the company will have access to the email account which means that if one person doesn't know the right way to go about handling a situation, but someone else within the company does. The person with the most knowledge about the issue can be contacted about the problem, read the email for themselves (no matter where they are), and be able to respond to the customer with a resolution to their problem. For example, let's say that someone working for us (we'll call him Bob, the intern) receives an email from a customer about a transaction and Bob can't find any information about the transaction in our records. Bob can then call Susie in the finance department, even though she's out of the office, and Susie can look through our records in our Google Docs account, find the information that Bob is looking for, and send it to Bob. Bob can then take all the necessary steps to help our customer out with whatever they need, and everyone ends up happy.

The cloud will definitely be an essential part of our company. It will hold all of our customer information and company records in one convenient place. Thus, making is easier for people to find what they're looking for and help everything run a lot more smoothly.

Us Against The World

“In A Bind” is an interactive site that searches the web for the cheapest prices on your textbooks based on the information that you give it about your classes. Once you've picked everything you need, you can purchase or rent the books and we'll ship them right to your doorstep.
Where Do I Begin?

When I came up with the idea of creating a textbook selling website, I immediately thought of my competition. I wanted to make my company something that people had never seen before but I realized that with sites like Amazon and Chegg, that would be impossible. So instead, I decided to figure out what exactly they were missing and what were some of the complaints that people had with these services. After a little bit of research on both of these sites as well as on some online forums where you can comment on the different services you've used, I realized what I needed to do in order to make this company stand out. So how do we compare to these other services? Well . . . .

Amazon.com
URL: Amazon Link

Amazon.com is definitely one of my top competitors. They're known for their low prices and their ability to get books to you in a small amount of time. One of their features that I also found to be really helpful would be their discounts for college students. They have a deal where you can get a certain percentage off of your textbook purchase if you use your school email address. Even though they have all of these great features there are some flaws. The first would be when you buy a book from amazon but it's technically from a 3rd party, they cannot guarantee that your book will get to you in a timely fashion. I've actually had experience with this. I ordered a programming book from an outside party in last month and it was supposed to be here within 3 to 5 days. It's now February and I still haven't received it or a refund. One thing I want to do to prevent this from happening is make sure that I keep a close eye on the third parties that we work with to make sure that they don't just take the money and never send our customers the product. I would also put a cap on the amount of time that a seller has to get back to the customer. I would probably give them 2 or 3 business days after they receive payment to either ship out their product or contact us so that we can keep our customer in the loop throughout the process.

Chegg.com
URL: Chegg Link

Chegg is one of my main competitors for 3 important reasons:

1. They also allow you to look up courses at the university that you're attending and find reviews and information about the class.
2. They have a social media type of network aspect that comes with your account that you create on the website
3. They have really impressive study tools attached to the website like a flashcard app and online tutoring

Now, even though all of these ideas are really cool and would definitely appeal to college students, there is a tiny problem with each of them. I like that they let you look up your courses and see what other students that have taken the course say about it, but it doesn't tell you what textbooks you need for each specific course. This part of the site is also maintained by the people who have accounts with the site. So, if no one takes the time to add the information, then you won't find any. Their homework help aspect is also a good idea but it doesn't guarantee that your questions will get answered. Not to mention, the help that you're getting is not from trained educators who know a lot about the field. The information comes from other students and members of the website; so there's no guarantee that the information is accurate. I do think that the social media aspect of the site is one aspect that could definitely give "In A Bind" a run for its money, but who's to say that we can't incorporate that as well. We would just need to figure out how to make it so that it's not just another account that people have to maintain.

All in all, both of these sites do have really good services. It would definitely be a challenge to make sure that not only do we provide innovative services for people that guarantees quality products but we also have to make sure that we don't become just another textbook site. That's where looking at our competitors will benefit us. We can see what they need to improve and let that inspire us to improve ourselves.

Fort Knox Security

Recap...

“In A Bind” is an interactive site that searches the web for the cheapest prices on your textbooks based on the information that you give it about your classes. Once you've picked everything you need, you can purchase or rent the books and we'll ship them right to your doorstep.

The Bare Minimum

Whenever I put my information on the Internet, I am always a little bit apprehensive. In today's day and age, it's very easy for someone to steal your information from a website that you've ordered from and once they have it, who knows what they'll do with it. So one policy that I would put into effect is the Bare Minimum Policy. It basically means that for the sake of our customers, if we don't need the information, we won't ask you for it. We won't ask for your telephone number, SSN, or anything that could lead someone directly to your personal information. We know that there will be some people who, after they sell back a textbook, might want us to use direct deposit to pay them, but we will not accept anyone’s' personal account numbers. Instead, we'll partner up with a service like Pay Pal so that our customers can receive their money in a timely manner without having to sign their life away.

M.I.B

One thing that I want to have in my company is a special team that works solely on computer forensics. With spam popping up in the most unpredictable places and people creating countless amounts of fake profiles, I want to make sure that my customers are as secure as possible. The main job of this team would be to constantly monitor the actions of profiles to see if they are actually active or not. There will be a feature where my members can message each other through the website to talk about classes they've taken and to discuss whether or not you actually need the book. So if someone receives some spam in their mailbox thinking that it's a message from an actual person, all they have to do is hit a button the message page that will say report it as spam and the forensics team will dismantle the profile that sent out the message. The team will also do routine security sweeps at least once a week just to make sure that everything is in tip top shape.

Security Breach

In mid-January, Zappos.com was hacked and the information of over 24 million of their customers was taken. In order to combat the problem, Zappos asked its users to change their password information and teaching their customer service representatives how to deal with the slew of inquiries they were going to receive via phone and email. This attack on Zappos gave me the idea to have a password update made mandatory for all of my customers. I will have them update their password at the end of every academic semester to make it a little bit harder for hackers to be able to steal any information. If for some reason there is still a security breach and information is taken like there was a few weeks ago on Zappos.com, our site is willing to take no chances with our customer’s information. Our site will shut down for a few days (maybe even a week) until we can figure out what happened. The forensics team will check every single profile to find the source of the stolen information (if possible) and then do everything possible to get the site running. Once the site is up and running again, we will ask our customers to verify who they are through a series of security questions and then to change their password immediately.