E-COMMERCE BLOG << 2YCS >>

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

2009-07-10T04:10:00.001-07:00

e-Government (short for electronic government, also known as e-gov, digital government, online government or transformational government) is a diffused neologism used to refer to the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.

Our country,Malaysia is implementing electronic. The status of e-government implementation in Malaysia is widely discussed as to the potential of e-government implementation towards the public and businesses. The implementation of e-government started since the initiation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) by the Malaysian government.The e-government initiative launched the country into the Information Age. It will improve the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility, and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses. Simultaneously, it will improve information flow and processes within the government, improve the speed and quality of policy development, and improve coordination and enforcement. This enabled the government to be more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

Services provided by E-goverment Malaysia

E-filling

E-filling is a method of filing of all income documents of tax payer in Malaysia, that uses an electronic format rather than a traditional paper format, from office or home through Internet. To use this services, taxpayers need to make a tax registration. Malaysia's Inland Revenue Board (IRB) will send the PIN for online tax registration through mail to the taxpayers.

Renewing road tax & driving license

Tired of waiting in queues to renew road tax for your vehicle ? This is made possible with the launching of online road tax renewal services developed by MY E.G. Services Berhad (MyEG, the leading E-Government services concessionaire in Malaysia.
The new service does away with the need for the car registration card and the public can access the service through MyEG's interactive portal at www.myeg.com.my and the Road Transport Department's website at www.jpj.gov.my.
Users can opt to have the road tax disc delivered directly to their homes or office.

KWSP i-Akaun

KWSP i-Akaun is a online account for the Employees Povident Fund (KWSP/EPF).

E-perolehan

E-Perolehan is an govermant online procurement system that allows local entrepreneurs to register as suppliers for government offices. It also allows the government offices and agencies to procure products and services through a fast, web-based and electronic application.

Citizen’s adoption strategies

Higher quality of service will lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and thus can increase the use of e-government services.
Website personalization & customazation.
Providing a single shared platform for the delivery of government-originating information and news.
Simplifying the navigation of and search for information and online services through the provision of a single entry point.
Providing added convenience to the public in the usage of government services.
Provide higher level of customer satisfaction.

Review a local , transactional e -commerce site

2009-07-10T03:20:00.000-07:00

Beauty 360 ~ The source of Beauty

The Beauty 360 is the online shop that sell all the raw material of skincare, accessories and soap. It is very convenience for the people who do not have confident of the available skincare product in the market. It also allow the customer to customise their own skincare product based on own charactiristic.

The Beauty 360 not only sell the raw material of skincare product, it also provide recipes of making skincare product such as soap making with different essential oil will give what effect and suitable for which kind of skin.

When you log in to the Beauty 360 web page , the download speed is high and without lacking.the web page design and layout is simple and clearance. It give the visitor a comfortable experience when search their web page. It also contain two languages Mandarin and English allow the user to choose. The Beauty 360 has provides search engine allow the users have a quick find about their product.

The Beauty 360 provide detail information for each product its sells. For example if you want to buy a white Besswax, it will tells the user what heat the melting point is 61~65 degree. If the user want to purchase just click add to cart.

After confirm the purchase list, the Beauty 360 will provide a flow chart to let the buyers know how to make the payment . Beside that, the customer service provide by Beauty 360 are order FAQs, contact detail , library of all ingredients and 360 DIY center which provide the basic knowledge to make own skincare product.

references : http://www.beauty360degrees.com/

2009-07-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

Pro And Cons From The Student Perspective on E-learning Offered In Malaysian Universities

E-learning is a modern process of education which many local universities have been implemented it beside than offered the traditional ways of learning to their students. E-learning is supported by the computer technologies. This learning experience takes place without face to face communication between the lecturers and his or her students. It is also known as distance learning. Instead of attending lectures and tutorials, students can access to universiti intranet to get those materials provided by their respective lecturers and tutors as when as they are needed it. Hence, student able to get latest news and upcoming events by surf the E-learning portal. E-learning was begun in the late 1980's in Malaysia. MARA University of Technology (UTM) is one of the universities that offered distance learning in 1990.Since E-learning has become more and more popular but it still have some pros and cons on it form the students perspectives.

From the perspective of students, E-learning enable them to save cost because they no need to print out the notes and exercises and it also environmental friendly. They can access to the notes and done the tutorial online whenever and wherever they desired as long as they can access to the Internet. Other than that, they can also reduce the cost of travel to campus for attend the classes.

Furthermore, the students can also enjoy the time flexibility provided by the E-learning. They can 'attend' lectures at anytime, anywhere they want as long as they can access to Internet. The E-learning is available 24x7 so they no need to scare about missing part of the notes. Students can get information easily through the portal such as lectures notes, tutorial's questions. Beside that, they can also communicate with their lecturers through online.

On the other hand, there are some cons in using the E-learning portal too. The first disadvantage of E-learning is lack of face-to-face communication between the lecturers and students. E-learning which promotes home-study has reduced the opportunity of students to meet their lecturers. As when they have problems regarding their subjects, they might not get instant reply from their lecturers as well as their lecturers might not free at that moment.

By having the E-learning it tends to make the students become lazy and ineffective, due to spoon fed by the educational institutions. Since having the E-learning, most educational tasks are done either by the tutor or some sophisticated software, leaving students with the simple task of just downloading notes and reading them. It runs the risk of creating lazy and dependent students. In the future, students tend to expect all the information will be delivered to them and would not seek information on their own.

Other than non-technological problems, students may also faced technological problems while using the E-learning. Computer and Internet connection play an important roles in this distance learning. Sometimes the Internet connection may be interrupt and will cause to ineffectiveness of getting the information from the portal.

2009-07-06T04:29:00.000-07:00

Review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce Blog

After review on the Legal from e-commerce blog, I found that a lot of Internet users have unauthorized using their technical knowledge about technology and Internet to hack into the organization system to stole employees personal data and customers personal data. The potential risk of this action is the data could be used to apply loans or credit cards under false names. These hackers may abuse these confidential information for their personal purpose.

Online Fraud

On the other hand, some of the illegal company also using the Internet to cheat customer's money. Through review on the news that posted on the blog, I have been noticed that there are 66 people were cheated of their money after making Internet purchases of skincare products from someone named “Big Pussycat.”The victims made online transfers amounting to RM73,445.10 for the products which came under names such as “My Beauty” and “My Sherman Beauty” that had been advertised on “Big Pussycat's.” website.Since there are many victims cheated by online fraud, I would like to suggest several ways to prevent online fraud to all of you.

Ways to prevent online fraud:

1.Diversify your passwords. Many people use the same password for all their important internet access points. While this can make remembering the passwords easier, it also plays into the hands of internet crooks.

Tip: Use a different password at all sites to which you normally login. You can alter them by just a character or two if you want.

2. Never login to a site via an Email link. Reputable financial institutions or e-commerce sites will never send you an email which contains, in the body of the email message, the login and password fields.

Tip: Assume any unexpected email you get from a financial institution or other e-commerce site to be a scam unless you go directly to the site by typing in the URL into your browser and see the information verified there.

3.Know who you are doing business with. Whether you are purchasing items in an online auction or making a purchase from an online store, be sure to determine whether this business is reputable.

Tip: If you are making a large purchase, insist on having a phone number for the store and call it to confirm their identity. Check directory information for their city and make sure they exist. If the seller refuses to give you this information, do not do business with them.

SMS Spam

After review from the blog, I have found that there are some handphone users use the hanphone to do SMS spam.Some fraudster is trying to steal your personal information by tricking you with a text message or by getting you to go to a fake Web site and enter personal information, like your bank account login and password. SMS spamming is unwanted junk mail delivered as text messages to your cell phone. The Star newspaper has reported that after the recent SMS scam attack on Digi subscribers, now is the turn for Maxis subscribers to experience the similar SMS scam.

Subscribers will be informed through SMSes that they had won some cash worth a few thousands from Maxis. In order to withdraw the money, they were required to call a foreign 15 digits phone number to provide then with the bank account number.A Maxis spokeperson beside denying their involvement, also reminded the subscribers to ignore these types of SMSes. The SMS scams cases have increasing and cheated a lot of people. Those people who have received this type of SMS have to call back to the mobile services operators to make sure and check whether the SMS is really sent by the company.In addition, the government also should take action against those people who use SMS to cheat the customers.

2009-07-02T04:50:00.000-07:00

Corporate Blogging:A new marketig communication tool for the companies

Nowadays, corporate blogging is very famous and common. Many company are using corporate blog as a communication tool and marketing strategies for the company. Corporate blogging use by the company to promoting and marketing their product, improving and building corporate image and other activtities.Participating in a blogging world gives companies a competitive edge and differenitiate it from competitors.

The corporate blogs, most can be categorized into internal blogs or external blogs.

Internal Blogs

Internal blogs,is a weblog that any employee can view and generally can access through corporation's Intranet. Many blogs are also communal,allowing anyone to post to them.

External Blogs

An external blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services (or the end of old products), to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues. The corporate blog can interact with a target market on a more personal level while building link credibility that can ultimately be tied back to the corporate site.

On the other hand, the blogs are powerful tools of promoting business, it can help in interacting with the customers and display their feedback. Hence, the company can respond and react to their feedback quickly. When the other people view the comments of testimonials made by customers, they will aware about the company product. In addition, corporate blogging has became an advertising or marketing strategy because it provide a lot of information about the products and company. The customers can access to the blog anytime and at anywhere, and very convenience to them.

Corporate blogs have gain popularity globally.Acoording to market research done in the first half of 2006, indicated that 34% of large companies had established weblogs. Another 35% planned to do so by the end of 2006, thus bringing the total to nearly 70%.

There are some examples of corporate blogs that done successfully and have a very high numbersof suscribers. The official Google Blog is currently in the Technorati top 50 listing among all blogs worldwide.

Although there are many advantages of set up corporate blogs, there are also some disadvantages of create corporate blogs.

Pros of Corporate Blogs:

As a competitive advantage for the company.
Provide good customer service.
Help to enhance corporate image.

Cons of Corporate Blogs:

Time consuming to maintain.
Low reliability because everyone can post their comments and opinions.

Electronic currency

2009-07-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

Electronic Money (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency, digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers to money or scrip which is exchanged only electronically. Typically, this involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit are examples of electronic money. Also, it is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it.Electronic money also encompasses payment systems that are analogous to traditional credit cards and checks. Here, cryptography protects conventional transaction data such as an account number and amount; a digital signature can replace a handwritten signature or a credit-card authorization, and public-key encryption can provide confidentiality.

ClickandBuy

ClickandBuy is one of the leading payment systems on the internet. More than 14,000 merchants benefit from this complete service in 26 countries, which includes 126 different currencies and 46 different payment methods. ClickandBuy is used by Apple iTunes, Skype, msn, T-Online, Electronic Arts, Meetic, Playboy, SanDisk, Yamaha, UNICEF and many more.

Payloadz

Payloadz offers secure digital goods e-commerce service for anyone who sell downloadable goods online. It provides a service to sell downloadable items such as:
Software, eBooks, music, movies, digital art, manuals, articles, certificates, forms, files, and anything else that can be downloaded.
Paystone Technologies Corporation is a private Internet payment and money transfer company dedicated to providing secure, easy and real time Internet transactions. It is founded in year 2001; Paystone has operations in the United States, Canada and the Philippines with International cash out capabilities in many other countries.

Paystone

Paystone provides an inexpensive online payment method without the risk of chargeback from fraudulent credit card use. Paystone can handle small financial transactions which we called micropayments as low as $0.25. The ability to process micropayments opens a whole new world for entrepreneurs of all sizes. Nowadays, a small business or an individual has a chance to generate revenue from their website quickly, easily and inexpensively. This makes a whole new range of content available to personal account holders. The large online merchant can also realize the full benefits of the Paystone in order to expand and increase the profitability of their business.

Digicash

Digicash’s mission is to create a new personalized dimension to the shopping experience. It transform online incentives into powerful new tools, establishing a strong, high-value connection between consumers and ecommerce companies. The Digicash Wallet, gives merchants a revolutionary new approach for initiating real-time, value-creating coupons and promotions to increase sales, margins, and customer loyalty.Consumers are embracing the Digicash Wallet because it’s fun, easy, convenient and personalized to their shopping needs. Capture the benefit of rising coupon usage without sacrificing profits.

Peppercoin

Peppercoin is a cryptographic system for processing micropayments. Peppercoin Inc. was a company that offers services based on the peppercoin method.
The peppercoin system was developed by Silvio Micali and Ron Rivest and first presented at the RSA Conference in 2002 (although it had not yet been named.) The core idea is to bill one randomly selected transaction a lump sum of money rather than bill each transaction a small amount. It uses "universal aggregation", which means that it aggregates transactions over users, merchants as well as payment service providers. The random selection is cryptographically secure -- it cannot be influenced by any of the parties. It is claimed to reduce the transaction cost per dollar from 27 cents to "well below 10 cents."
Peppercoin, Inc. was a privately held company founded in late 2001 by Micali and Rivest based in Waltham, MA. It has secured about $15M in venture capital in two rounds of funding.Its services have seen modest adoption.Peppercoin collects 5-9% of transaction cost from the merchant.Peppercoin, Inc. was bought out in 2007 by Chockstone for an undisclosed amount.

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potentials and consumer adoption strategies

2009-07-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

Malaysians now can make a wide range of purchase without cash, credit card and cheque.

Hong Leong bank Team Up with the Mobile Money to create Innovation to payment industry

Where the consumer required a mobile phone and can make any purchase in any where any time , whether in car, office and home.

Hong Leong Bank will team up with local Mobile Money international to introduce this innovative mobile payment which allow the consumer tp pay goods and services via SMS.

Maxis and MayBank testing Mobile phone payment

Maxis Communication Berhad is currently trialling a mobile phone multi payment service incorporating credit card and prepaid transit payments with maybank, Visa International and Tounch n Go.

Maxis touch n pay used Near field Communication (NFC) technology with short range wireless connectivity in mobile phone and this mobile phone current available om Nokia 6131 NFC phones.

Low transaction and maintance costs

Low startup or sign up fees

No minumum monthly transaction, No rental fees

No merchants account required
Selling and buying to anyone , anywhere, & anytime

Get paid fast and faster turnover in T= 2 days

Flexible method to Request for Payment:Fixed line, SmS
Good audit trail and secure tivketing

Marketing & point system opportunity using mobile payment

____________________v_____________________

Benefit of Mobile PHONE

references : http://www.neowave.com.my/0doc/mobilemoneypaymentsystem.html

2009-07-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card For Consumers

Nowadays, there are many types of prepaid cash cards had been offered to the consumers. One of the most successful pre-paid cash card is the Touch 'n Go card. It can be considered as a electronic purse that can be used at all highways in Malaysia, major public transports in Klang Valley, selected parking sites and Bukit Merah Lake Town resort. The card looks similar to a credit card and users can use it as long as it is pre-loaded with electronic cash. Since the card is using the contactless smartcard technology so it can enhances the speed of paying the transactions. The users no need to wait in queue at the cash lane to complete the transaction.

Touch 'n Go Sdn Bhd (formerly known as Rangkaian Segar Sdn Bhd), the operator of this Electronic Payment System has offered several range of Touch 'n Go cards to suit different market needs. Fleet Xs is specially designed to meet the demanding needs of today's business. it is a post-paid corporate Touch 'n Go card that is preloaded with electronic cash. It can only be used at several highways. Fleet Xs require an annual fee of RM30 per card and minimum ten cards per application. Each Fleet Xs is individualised to indicate optional details such as driver's name, company names, vehicles classifications and registration number. Biz Xs is a upgrade version of Fleet Xs which similar to it but it have additional function from the Fleet Xs which it can be used at the selected parking lots at business and shopping complexes that are equipped with Touch 'n Go parking system.

Octopus card was launched in Hong Kong in September, 1997. It is a rechargeable contactless stored value smart card. It is widely used in payment system for transportation, supermarket, fast food restaurant, car parks and other point of sales. There are two types of Octopus which are Sold Octopus and On-Loan Octopus. Sold Octopus are available in a range of collectible designs and are ideal as souvenier. While On-Loan Octopus have 4 categories such as child, adult, elder and personalised.

Other than making payment by using the Octopus card, the users can also used the card as the access card to gain access into a residential area or a building. As each Octopus has a unique ID number, cardholders only need to register their Octopus at the management office, and the ID will stored in the central security system. Many residential estates and commercial offices have adopted Octopus as a security access system, providing added convenience for over 100,000 residents and employees. furthermore, Octopus has been introduced into the school environment with the ultimate aim of making school life easier. Students can now use Octopus to buy foods, make miscellaneous school payments library loan and etc.

EAZYCARD, is the first 'touch and go' IC card for mass transport in Taiwan. Transaction on EAZYCARD are executed by wireless signal transmission through memory IC chips and induction circuits implanted onto the card. Passengers no longer need carrying coins or repetitive ticket purchases. The current scope of applications of EAZYCARD system is on public transport, transport-related services, access control and school campus. It, thus, ehances citizens' convenience in their daily life.

ItzCash card is India's first multi purpose prepaid card. It is a smart option for all, and the safest online and on-mobile transaction instrument that allows you to be in control on your spent. It facilitates online and on-mobile payment for a host of services. ItzCash enables users to perform a variety of transaction like shopping, travel booking, utility bill payment, donation and charity and etc.

2009-06-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

Review on e-Tailing post

After reviewed the posts on the e-commerze blog i found that e-Tailing actually can be used by many industries and its provide convenience for the company and the users. For example, the ecommerce king, Amazon.com had move a step further in their online retailing by launching the text-message shopping (SMS Shopping) on 1st April 2008 which named TextBuyIt. Through this application, customer can buy the things they desired without using the computer. Customer just need to send the name of the product with its description or ID to 262966 using SMS. The confirmation will sent trough text messages and e-mail.

Other than purchasing items online, Opentable.com which dominat service is manage the reservation and improve customer services for over 7000 high-end restaurants which mostly located in New York and San Francisco. With this, reservation become very convenience for customers because it can be conducted on the non business hour beside it was being free. it also provide one click cancellation of the reservation.

The e-Tailing in Malaysia such as the Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank) was the first local bank in Malaysia that introduce online banking. It has 3.6 million registered users of which 830,000 were active user. It also offered the online stock trading at its Maybank2U internet portal. This online trading portal was launched in 2000 has about 10,000 users. Customer who invest through can save up to 63% on their trading fees which enable them to breakeven their investment faster.

Furthermore, Malaysia's government also encourage the agriculture and handicraft industry to venture into online business to market their products and at the same time helps the industries become more competitive. For example, www.right.sarawak.gov.my/Rightmart which set up by the Sarawak Craft Council for the handicraft player to showcase their products and designs online. beside that, the fisherman in Tanjung Dawai also gone the internet way and auctioning their catches via e-mail. It was open to the bidders from all over the world to place their bids from 3pm to 7pm malaysian time everyday. This system was introduced in April with the help of the Malaysia Fisheries Development Board. This system benefited the fisherman as they could get the best deal through the auction.

Since e-Tailing can provide convenience for us but it also have a weak side on some industries. For example, Dell is famous for selling it PC and Laptop directly to their customer through the direct sales online which proved to be very successful business model. But recently, Dell had opened up their retail store in several countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and etc. This maybe because of the growth of PC sales had slowed down.

2009-06-30T22:28:00.000-07:00

Credit Card Debt: The Causes and Prevention

What is credit card? Credit card is a card that provides holder with credit to make purchases up top a limit fixed by card issuer( Eg: Visa and Master card).I believe this word or term is very common to all to all of us. Do you have credit card debt? This is something that can very easy get out of hand and credit card reduction should be something that you are always try to accomplish. There are some credit card causes and several suggested ways to prevent you overspend and get your debt under control:

Causes of Credit Card Debt:

1)Poor finance management: This is the most common reason why many people have accumulated credit card debt. This is because people are unaware to conduct a monthly spending plan and do not keep track of their monthly bills. Thus, they will not realize that they overspend snd lead to a rising in debt.

2) Unexpected unemployment and salary deduction: Due to the economy crisis and financial hit that happend around the world, many people are unemployed due to organizational downsizing. Moreover,some of the company have to deduct the employees salary to decrase the organization expenses. Households are forced to use the credit card for groceries, utilities and other expenses purpose to maintain their current lifestyle and some of them can't find the job in short period. Thus, this may cause rise in debt.

3) Gambling: Nowadays, gambling has become an entertainment activites in our daily life. It is hard to stop when it becomes addictive. Thus it will surely lead to a finacial disaster if boorowing money through creditcard for gambling.

4)Habit of purchasing branded goods: Some people are like to purchase the branded goods because they think that the branded goods will represent richness and status. Generally,most of the branded goods are very costly or expensive. Hence, it will lead to overspend.

Ways to Prevent Credit Card Debt:

1) Have a saving plan: This is key to help you to protect yourself from getting into debt. It is important to set a certain amount each month into a saving account. It can just be for general savings or you could set a goal to save up for a big purchase. Saving with a goal in mind motivates many people to stick to their saving plan. Then, at the end you will be able to purchase the desired object without going into debt.

2) Making a budget: You have to create a clear budget and stick on it that includes monthly bills, foods, clothes, entertainment and miscellaneous expenses will prevent from overspending and fall under deeper debt load.

3) Self control and discipline: One of the best practices is to have a direct set up so that able to pay back the full amount each month and use in emergencies. Hence, self control and discipline to keep these cards in wallet and would not overspend. Prevention is aware of the causes of credit card debt and start to spend less in order to stay with well in financial situation.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data

2009-06-27T01:20:00.000-07:00

The topic we would like to discuss today is how to safeguard our personal and financial data?Nowadays, due to the technology advancement many people like to shopping and purchasing online,doing payment through e-banking and saving personal data in blog and website. They like to doing all the activities through online because it is convenient and time-saving. However, there will be some diadvantages of doing the transaction online such as the important or confidential information will be steal and unauthorized access by the other party. Therefore, we will suggest some ways to safeguard our personal and finacial data.

Ways to Safeguard our Personal and Financial Data:

1.Always using antivirus and antispyware software to protect your computer system-The users can using the antivirus software such as AVG and Avira antivirus software to scan and prevent,detect and remove malware, including Trojan horse,worm and virus

2.Create strong passwords- Do not create passwords that are weak or easy to guess such as your birthday or handphone numbers as passwords. You can create password that contain 12 characters that is hard to guess.

3.Do not disclose or reveal any personal or financial data to anyone- Avoid logging to your financial account in the public place such as Internet Cafe of coffeeshop that offer wireless because maybe the firewall do not strong enough.

4.Encrypt your important and sensitive files- Encryption is a process of scrambling a message or file in a way that difficuly for the unauthorized person to unscramble or read it.

5.Avoid open unknown or mystery files- Never open an attachment or click on a link that sent to us by unknown party. These attachments can contain virus that harmful to your computer system.

A review on a post on Internet Security from My E-Commerce blog

2009-06-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

According to "My E-Commerce" Blog, the post of favourite password used online research done by Information Week on an analysis of 28,000 passwords from a popular website:

16% uses name (yes, your own name, spouse or children)
14% likes "1234" or "12345678" (easy and nice)
4% uses "password" or "password1" (password = password)

Some other common passwords includes:

qwerty (English keyboard letters below the numeric keys)
hannah, pokemon, matrix, ironman (popular tv show stars)
iloveyou, ihateyou

In our opinion, a password is like a key to our home. If someone steals it, there are chances he/she will use it to steal something else. We use passwords everywhere in our life, but the life of an Internet user is absolutely impossible without passwords: e-mail, online discussion groups, e-bank, commercial websites - all of them use password-based authentication.

Create a Strong PASSWORD !

Do's:

Combine letters, symbols, and numbers that are easy for you to remember and hard for someone else to guess.
Create pronounceable passwords (even if they are not words) that are easier to remember, reducing the temptation to write down your password.
Try out using the initial letters of a phrase you love, especially if a number or special character is included.
Take two familiar things, and then wrap them around a number or special character. Alternatively, change the spelling to include a special character. In this manner, you get one unfamiliar thing (which makes a good password because it is easy for you and you alone to remember, but hard for anyone else to discover).

Examples:

"Phone + 4 + you" = "Phone4you" or "Fone4y0u"
"cat + * + Mouse" = "cat*Mouse" or "cat*Mou$e"

Don'ts:

Don't use personal information such as derivatives of your user ID, names of family members, maiden names, cars, license tags, telephone numbers, pets, birthdays, social security numbers, addresses, or hobbies.
Don't use any word in any language spelled forward or backward.
Don't tie passwords to the month, for example, don't use "Mayday" in May.
Don't create new passwords that are substantially similar to ones you've previously used.

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

2009-06-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

There have two major types of attacks- nontechnical and technical.

Nontechnical attack is an attack that uses chicanery to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing action that compromise the security of a network. Example of nontechnical attacks are pretexting, social engineering.

Social engineering that uses some ruse to trick users into revealing information or performing an action that compromises a computer or network. For example, they will persuade employee to get passwords to access the company internal information.

At a high level, social engineering attacks are Web 2.o. As more users take adventage of Web 2.0 application like social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and other crinimals are going to exploit them.

Phisihing is a broadly launched social engineering attack in which an electronic identity is misrepresented is an attempt to trick individuals into revealing credentials.

Prevention of social engineering

In order to stop social engineering attacks is depends on the victims. Certain positions within an organisation are clearly vulnerable , such as those has private access and confidential information. The company can provide training that all users should learn how to avoid becoming a victim of manipulation. Other ways to prevent is to develop specific policies and procedures.

Education and training

Policies and procedures

Penetration testing

Technical Attacks- An attack perpetrated using software and sysem knowledge or expertise.

1. Denial of service ( DOS) attacks

--- attacker gains illegal administrative access to as many computer on the internet as possible and uses these multiple computer to send a flood of data packets to the target computer.

2. Virus
-- A piece of software cade that inserts itself into a host, including the operating system, to propagate, it requires that its host program be run to activate it.

3. Worm

--A computer worm is a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computers on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention. Worms almost always cause at least some harm to the network, if only by consuming bandwidth, whereas viruses almost always corrupt or devour files on a targeted computer.

4. Trojan horse

--A Trojan horse, or trojan for short, is a term used to describe malware that appears, to the user, to perform a desirable function but, in fact, facilitates unauthorized access to the user's computer system.

How computer viruses work

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

2009-06-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

What is PHISHING ?

Phishing is act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.
One example would be if you received an e-mail that appears to be from your bank requesting you click a hyperlink in the e-mail and verify your online banking information. Usually there will be a repercussion stated in the e-mail for not following the link, such as "your account will be closed or suspended". The goal of the sender is for you to disclose personal and (or) account related information. This type of e-mail scam is also called Phishing.

How to Spot A PHISHING Scam ?

Phishing e-mails will contain some of these common elements: (view screen capture above from Eudora)

1. The "From Field" appears to be from the legitimate company mentioned in the e-mail. It is important to note, however, that it is very simple to change the "from" information in any e-mail client. While we're not going to tell you how, rest assured it can be done in a matter of seconds!

2. The e-mail will usually contain logos or images that have been taken from the Web site of the company mentioned in the scam e-mail.

3. The e-mail will contain a clickable link with text suggesting you use the inserted link to validate your information. In the image you will see that once the hyperlink is highlighted, the bottom left of the screen shows the real Web site address to which you will go. Note that the hyperlink does NOT point to the legitimate Citibank Web site URL.
In this instance, the text you click is "here", However, this may also state something like "Log-in to Citibank" or "www.citibank.com/secure" to be even more misleading. This clickable area is only text and can be changed to anything the sender wants it to read.

Additionally, you may spot some of these elements that did not appear in this particular scam:
Logos that are not an exact match to the company's logo, spelling errors, percentage signs followed by numbers or @ signs within the hyperlink, random names or e-mail addresses in the body of the text, or even e-mail headers which have nothing to do with the company mentioned in the e-mail.

Example of PHISHING

An example of a phishing e-mail, disguised as an official e-mail from a (fictional) bank. The sender is attempting to trick the recipient into revealing confidential information by "confirming" it at the phisher's website. Note the misspelling of the words received and discrepancy. Such mistakes are common in most phishing emails. Also note that although the URL of the bank's webpage appears to be true, it actually links to a phisher's webpage

Prevention of PHISHING

The golden rule to avoid being phished is to never ever click the links within the text of the e-mail. Always delete the e-mail immediately. Once you have deleted the e-mail then empty the trash box in your e-mail client as well. This will prevent "accidental" clicks from happening as well. If, for some really odd reason you have this nagging feeling that this could just possibly be a legitimate e-mail and nothing can convince you otherwise, you still need to adhere to the golden rule and not click the link in the message. For those truly worried that an account may be in jeopardy if you do not verify your information, you need to open your Web browser program of choice and type the URL to the Web site in the address field of your browser and log on to the Web site as you normally would (without going through the e-mail link as a quick route). This will provide you with accurate information about your account and allow you to completely avoid the possibility of landing on a spoof Web site and giving your information to someone you shouldn't.

Video: Identify Theft Phishing

2009-06-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

The Application of 3rd Party Certification Programme In Malaysia

MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is a licensed Certification Authority (CA) operating within the Multimedia Super Corridor. MSC Trustgate was incorporated in1999 and is licensed under the Digital Signature Act 1997 (DSA), to meet the growing need for secure open network communication and become the catalyst for the growth of e-commerce, both locally and across the ASEAN region. Trustgate's core business is to provide complete security solutions and leading trust services such as digital certification services, including digital certificates, cryptographic products, and software development which are needed by individuals, enterprises, government, and e-commerce service providers.

Nowadays we are living in a world which moving towards more and more virtual. Through the Internet people can do almost everything they wish such as online shopping, pay bills, online reservation, banking and so on which make our life easier. But there still have many people feel unsecured to sending or receiving sensitive information through online due to the increasing numbers of phishing cases. Thus, Secured Socket Layer(SSL) is the best solution to build user's trust through getting an SSL certificates for the relative website. Verisign is the leading SSL Certificate Authority.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is a technology developed by Netscape and adopted by all vendors who are offer the product that are related to web software for the exchanges between client and server. The essential functions of SSL is mutual authentication, data encryption, and data integrity for secure transactions. SSL certificate is an electronic file that enable secure confidential communications and identifies indivviduals and websites on the internet uniquely by serving as sort of a digital passport. It is possible to verify someone's claim that they have the right to use the key in order to prevent other people form using the keys to impersonate others users and ensure the involvement of all parties in a transaction with a complete security solution.

Certification Authority (CA) is a trusted third party. It must take steps to establish the identity of the people or organization to whom they issue the ID. Authentication is ensured when certificate is issued once establish with its organization's public keys and signs with Certification Authority's private key. Verisign SSL Certificates is the public encrypted key that Webmaster sends to CA which is a standard part of most web server and web browser packages when works in conjunction with the SSL technology. Verisign will review the credentials and check through all the background of organization to ensure that the claim of organization before issuing any server certificate. The browser will verify its business purpose through ID automatically when browser connects to a legitimate site with Verisign SSL Certificates. After that, information received by Web visitor is identical to encryption between browser and server and no modification is taken place.

Thus,the certification from 3rd party is needed to ensure the user's information traveled over the internet and reach to their destination safely. It can avoid our sent information being spammed, hacked and attacked by the macilious software such as virus, worms and trojan horse. In addition, the confidentiallity of customers towards the internet activities will be enhanced so that the implementation of 3rd party certification can improve customer's trust.

The history and evolution of E- Commerce

2009-06-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

What is E-commerce?

E-commerce(EC) is the process of buying , selling , transfering , or exchange product, services, information via computer networks, including the internet.

The Evolution of E-Commerce

E-Commerce were first developed in the early 1970s with innovations like:

Electronic funds transfer (EFT) - funds can be routed electronically from one organization to another.

Electronic data interchange (EDI) – used to electronically transfer routine documents, which expanded electronic transfers from financial transactions to other types of transaction processing.

Interorganizational system (IOS) – a system which allows the flow of information to be automated between organizations in order to reach a desired supply-chain management system, which enables the development of competitive organisations.

Evolution event of EC

1984
EDI, or electronic data interchange, was standardized through ASC X12. This guaranteed that companies would be able to complete transactions with one another reliably.

1992
Compuserve offers online retail products to its customers. This gives people the first chance to buy things off their computer.

1994
Netscape arrived. Providing users a simple browser to surf the Internet and a safe online transaction technology called Secure Sockets Layer.

1995
Two of the biggest names in e-commerce are launched: Amazon.com and eBay.com.

1998
DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line, provides fast, always-on Internet service to subscribers across California. This prompts people to spend more time, and money, online.

1999
Retail spending over the Internet reaches $20 billion, according to Business.com.

2000
The U.S government extended the moratorium on Internet taxes until at least 2005.

2004
Web 2.0 was coined by O'Reilly Media to a supposed second generation of Internet based services that let people to collaborate and share information online in perceived new ways- such as social networking, wikis, communication tools and folksonomies.

Video : Evolution of E-commerce

An example of an E-commerce failure

2009-06-19T01:24:00.000-07:00

A failure E-commerce Business- kozmo.com

Nowadays, many company and businessmen have conducting businesses through e-commerce. There are many successful company that generate profit and receive recognition through e-commerce such as e-bay,Amazon and Dell Corporation. Although there are many company that success through doing business online, there are some example of failure such as e-toy.com and kozmo.com.

Kozmo.com was a venture-capital driven online company that provide free one hour delivery of anything from DVD rentals to Starbucks coffee in United States. The founders of Kozmo.com were young investment bankers Joseph Park and Yong Kang in New York City.

Kozmo.com had a business model that promised to deliver small goods free of charge, typically by using bicycle messengers. Its headquarters were located in New York City. The company raised about $250million, including $60 million from Amazon.com and $28 million from a group of investors which included Flatiron Partners, Oak Investment Partners and Chase Capital Partners.

Factors of Failure:

Kozmo.com had raised more than $250million, but the company was unable to generate enough revenue to cover its costs. In 1999, the company had $3.5million revenue, compare to $26.4 million losses. The problem occurred when its business model included offering a costly delivery home delivery service for free. This offer covered a very small order such as DVD and pack of gum which it was impossible to turn a profit. As a result, it made the customer satisfied and excited, but it drew losses to the company. Although Kozmo.com was profitable in four cities, there were seven more cities that made losses.

Real world case: Google is changing everything

2009-06-19T00:02:00.000-07:00

Google has created services and tools for the general public and business environment alike; including Web applications, advertising networks and solutions for businesses.Google is known primarily for its search engine and its related targeted advertising tools. In my opinion, Google had make our life and work become more easier and we can accomplish our tasks in more effective and efficient ways. Nowadays, Google had organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful to the users.

Google had offered several free Web-based application that enable people to organize their own information and make it more easily accessible to others via the Web. Users can sort data and take advantage from those applications. Google also had entered the enterprise market by providing search technology to larger organizations. An enterprise search software had launched to enables the enterprise specific content across the enterprise to be indexed, searched, and displayed to authorized users. This technologies had solved the crucial problems of many large enterprise which is wish to improve their filling system and contact with their business partners.

In my opinion, Google still can work hardly and try to expand their services more widely in order to fulfill the needs of different levels of target markets. By keep on being innovative and creative can make Google become a more well known and successful

An example of an E-Commerce success and its causes

2009-06-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

Amazon.com

Jeffrey Preston Bezos (born January 12, 1964) - the American founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com

Amazon.com has a leading edge in the e-commerce world. It has a strong customer base, name recognition, quality assurance, and immense inventory. The ease of use over the Internet has been an important facet Amazon has focused on; more specifically their "1-Click" feature of their web-design allows quick and easy use of their services.

What are the critical success factors of Amazon.com?

Differentiation

Amazon.com is more than just a bookstore. It delivers author interviews,
customer book reviews, pre-release information and out-of-print books by special order. Back office systems and cookies deliver personalized book recommendations to shoppers who have purchased books from Amazon.com. A book recommendation agent tells the prospective buyer "Customers who bought this book also bought:". In all these cases information about the customer and information technology are being used to enhance the customer experience.

Price Differentiation

Amazon differentiates itself mainly on the basis of price and by making sure that it offers the same quality products as any other company with a noticeably lower price. In addition, sellers do not pay any fees for product listing and it cost nothing until the product is sold.

Personalizing Website

Amazon greets customers personally when they open the sites and gives them a choice of products that matches their personal preferences.

Video : Amazon.com 's Warehouse

Identify and compare the revenue model for Google, Amazon.com and ebay

2009-06-18T02:16:00.000-07:00

Google revenue model mainly is based on advertising. For year 2006, google generated US$ 10,492 billions in advertising and US$112 millions in licensing and others. One of the google revenue model is from Google AdWords.

Google AdWords is a pay per click advertising program of Google designed to allow the advertisers to present advertisements to people at the instant the people are looking for information related to what the advertiser has to offer.

For example:

A ma zon.com also is one of the most successful e-commerce providers in which its revenue model are mostly generated from transaction fees, affiliate fees and subscription fees. Amazon started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified its product lines from DVD to food.
They also have to rate the product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Moreover, the users are allows to comment on reviews. The key successful of Amazon.com is online shopping. This is the example of Amazon.com homepage.

For eBay, is an online auction and shopping Web site in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. Ebay allow people to bid any time any where, this convenience has increase the number of bidders. It also owns PayPal, Skype, StubHub, and other business. Thus, it has various types of revenue models included advertising fees, affiliate fees and other revenue sources but it main revenue model is from online auction and online shopping.

Refences :

E- commerce site : Revenue model of Google, Amazon and eBay

E- divas : Revenue model of Google, Amazon and eBay

About Me...Sh@ron tan

2009-06-12T23:34:00.000-07:00

hi everyone, here I am gonna introduce me myself to you all. First of all, I am Tan Shell Peng or you can also call me sharon. I was born in a sweet family which consist of my parents, two brothers and one sister. i am the third child in my family. I'm from Klang, Selangor which is place consist a lot delicious foods. One of the most famous is the Bak Kut Teh.

The activities that i do during my freetime is online and reading novels or magazines. Besides that, I'm also like shopping like the other girls do. The sports activity i love the most is swimming and playing badminton. Usually i will go swimming with my classmate and it will help me to relax my mind and reduce my stress. The top website that i visited almost everyday are Facebook.com, hotmail.com, youtube.com, google.com and sinchew.com.my. Through facebook I can keep in touch with my friends who are study in different states or in foreign countries because it is free and borderless. All the search engines had helped me a lot in my education or in my daily life. There are lot of information available in the World Wide Web and enable me learn many new things and terms. Besides that i can also get the latest news through the online newspapers. By reading news online help me save money and make a little contribution to the environment.

Happy day...@,@

Rachel's Profile

2009-06-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone…it’s a pleasure meeting you in our “2YCS” blog. Since we are amateurs in writing blog, any flaws in this blog hope to be forgiven.

Well, Yap Yin Xin is my full name, or you can call me as Rachel. I was born on 26 of April, a “Romanticism” Taurus girl who loves to teach and be taught, always having abstract thoughts in my mind (sometimes just want to make sense of this complicated world), loves to dream and travelling, loves natural, peace, and freedom.

I have been devoting the majority of my free time to do what I interest the most: browsing through the World Wide Web. Browsing the Internet is simply great way to unwind at the end of a tired or stressful day. I’ve discovered that the amazing benefits that come along with the World Wide Web. Not only are you able to access information from, well, basically anywhere but you can also makes friends from across the globe, which makes the world become much more”smaller and compacted” on my laptop screen.

Google.com is my current default homepage; simply due to this is the no.1 most powerful search engine in the Internet nowadays. I like its “Google “logo is always changing according some special events, such as Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, April fool’s Day, and etc. The second that

I visit the most will be the Facebook.com, a free-access social networking website, followed by Hotmail.com, Cari.com.my, and Utar.edu.my.

The very wisdom saying that guiding my life is: "Where there's a will, there's a way" The meaning is: if you have the determination to do something, then you will find somehow or some way to achieve it. I always believe that nothing is impossible in this world, if something is truly wanted, it can be achieved or worked out!

Have a brilliant day ~

^^ Crystal's Hobbies ^^

2009-06-12T07:22:00.000-07:00

Hai, everyone,welcoming and thank you for visiting our blog. I am Crystal Wong Li Ching and is one of the members of 2YCS. I would like to share some of the information regarding myself with all of you. The most favorite activities that I doing when I am free are window shopping and watching movie. I like to watch comedy movie and enjoy it very much because it make me feel happy and can help me to reduce stress. I also feel excited when watching horror movie although it quite scary.Besides that, my hobby also include reading magazines such as "CLEO" and "ifeel" because through this I can learn and get many new fashion information. The top 5 websites that I visited the most are MSN, google,yahoo,facebook and youtube. Through facebook, I can always contact and know all the latest news of my friends although we are not see each other often. In addition,I get a lot of knowledge from yahoo and google. The top 5 Internet activities that I do the most are chatting with friends,checking mail,surfing the web for information,watching drama or TV shows and playing games.

<< Celyn's Self Introduction >>

2009-06-11T00:58:00.000-07:00

My name is Celyn Ho Yan Ling is one of the group member of 2YCS . I am study in UTAR Sungai Long , taking business administration entrepreneurship course.

Actually i don't have specifically hobby, every activities i also want to try it. But the activitity I often do is watching movie. I love watching movie in cinema with my friends, so i have well known knowledge about the pricing in each period . For example which time can use student card or which day is the most chepest day. Other activities may go to Green Box in Cheras Selatan, singing in the ice glass. I will used J card to get free half an hour singing in the ice glass, although may feel shame ,who cares . My classmate and i always go out Yam Cha in Mama restourant.

The top 5 website i visit mostly are facebook , tgv cinema , MSN, Google and PPS online tv. student life is almost like that, the cheapest way to entertain is watching movie online althought most of the website is ilegal but who cares. Haha......