THEODORE CACCIOLA InfoTechEssentials.

com

THE ESSENCE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AS A SURVIVAL TOOL

January 7, 2014

IT 210

http://InfoTechEssentials.com

Theodore@TheodoreCacciola.com

Work: (203) 296-3417

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Information Technology & Information Systems are changing the landscape of business as we know it. It is an outlet for the poor to acquire opportunity along with the emergence of Social Networking which amplifies news & creates in some cases uprisings. In regards to Social Networking. In the 21st Century humans have information at their fingertips & in 2014 even outlets like Google News are being transpired by Social Networks like Twitter. Where people have access to news as soon as it happens. Information Technology has created a world where whomever you work for, even yourself. Your Business landscape will be ever changing radically from Information Technology. Information Technology impacts businesses of all sizes. It gives opportunity to the small up-start along with creating jobs & more importantly visions.

Steve Jobs once said that, in tense, that he was not worried about Microsoft and what that multibillion dollar business was doing but more so what people interested in Information Technology were coming up with in their garages. In fact, this came to pass soon after with the uprising of Google in which the creators of Google, who attended Stamford only to crash the computer information technology systems at Stamford later went on to acquire a 100 thousand dollar investment from the founder of Sun Microsystems and as Jobs worried years prior established Google Headquarters in their garage.

The point is that in modern day technology the environment is extremely competitive and Information Systems have made technology a global competition with the vast majority of humans having information technology at their fingertips.

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Chapter 2: IT as a Survival Tool

In its simple definition, information technology, and here-on known as IT; relates to any computerbased tool that people use to work with information and information processing needs of an organization.

There are two aspects which come to mind within th is definition. Within ITs first sub-set within its definition, it is quite simple in which the field of IT has created accessible information to mankind. The creation of computer-based tools in terms of development tools which create the accessibility of information are becoming more-and-more complex while the end-user who engages in the front-end interface of those computer-based tools is experiencing greater and greater ease-of-use of the predefined tools.

Computer-based tools are becoming an encouraging aspect from the creator of the development tools for the end-user to engage within the aforementioned development tools themselves. Take Microsoft for example, Dream Spark from Microsoft is available to almost literally any student and Microsoft creates their development tools to be used by the developer while accompanying free software for their users so that the said users create, in as simplistic an environment as possible, with Free Application Licenses for the vast majority of students, so those students engage within the development of new technologies for Microsoft.

As was mentioned before, Microsoft is creating free software for their users to further expand their user-base accompanied with an expansion of Microsofts profits.

Further, the end-user within technology is becoming yet younger & younger. It is quite clear that a 2 year old can be yet entertained by their mothers iPad and the concept behind this is to create simplistic interfaces for the end-user or child which latter translate into interest in either the The Essence of Information Technology as a Survival Tool | Page 2 of 8

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products which they were introduced to in their youth or the development of the technologies which created their joy within their youth.

Things such as the iPad have not been around long enough for us yet to know exactly the o utcome of such a two year old playing a simple game on their tablet but what is very clear is that technology is being used as a survival tool so that the vast majority of humans frequent technology and use it to their advantage.

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Chapter 3: Information Systems as a Survival Tool

Information Systems, further known as IS, collects, processes, stores, analyzes, and disseminates information for a specific purpose. The definition does not define any specific purpose but is more so written to explain that Information Systems gather, analyze, and the like a purpose defined by the developer. Here in-lies the difference between IT and IS, IT clearly by definition is developed for the end-user while IS or Information Systems are subject to business entities within research or literally anyone conducting business for the purpose of research.

Information Systems are clearly a Survival tool for the developer or businessman but there is more to information systems than what Information Systems do but more so how they are used as a survival tool.

There are many Information Systems you may have heard of, something like Facebook Advertising where the purpose is to acquire clicks or likes to your webpage or Facebook page while the businessman, for lack of a better word uses his Facebook Insights to learn more about his business. For example Bobs Discount Furniture sets up 10 different ad campaigns on Facebook and manages the ad placements as a survival tool to see which is most cost-efficient in collecting insights and PPLs or Price Per Likes or viewing their conversion rate. Another very simple and commonly used Information System would be Google Analytics. Here, rather than (and much or at least some of what is seen within Google Analytics may be paid, but to point;) rather than paying for likes and insights like Facebook the entrepreneur is learning more about his demographic through having Google collect and disseminate information for the end-user to analyze.

That being said there are levels of insight within information systems and how they are such used as a tool and more importantly how they meet the entrepreneurs specific goal. As we had mentioned there are people like those on Facebook Advertising in which they are simply paying, and in some cases playing hit-or-miss to dissimilate information as a survival tool, to; in the case of the Facebook advertiser, or in some cases of which the Facebook advertiser is using predefined The Essence of Information Technology as a Survival Tool | Page 4 of 8

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Information Technology and collected data from Facebook to expand his or hers business purpose or objective while paying, then there are those who use information systems like Google Analytics to further establish their demographic and plausibly pay for Search Engine Optimization or Search Engine Marketing to naturally expand and enhance their demographics dissimilation of the information that the entrepreneur or businessman is providing on a landing page or such but the strongest mind within information systems is as such:

The weakest will pay for their Insights to analyze & survive, the average (such as, and just as an example the Analytics user) will analyze predefined information and dissimilate that information to then re-construct said information to then further their knowledge of their consumer base as a method of survival, but what does the leader in Information Systems do to enhance their understanding of their business objectives systems & operations?

The strongest, and most likely to survive will start by learning as much as they can about Information Systems and spend as little capital as possible to gather information to analyze said information and in the best cases market their idea in its IS form but the strongest yay the wisest will use database information and insights to meet the definition of Information Systems and how to use said IS within survival.

The strongest within Information Systems understand database management and use insights from their SQL or Microsoft Database to gather as much information as possible on their end-users while using the Information Technology that the strongest have created to gather, as said as much information as possible about their consumer or end-user.

But how is this done?

Personally, I see a rise in the use of Microsoft Servers and Action Script or Microsofts go-to programming language but in a similar fashion all developers of Information Systems are different and this developer uses the programming language of PHP and either a MySQL or MySQL Lite Database to gather as much information as possible about the user. Sure, Google Analytics will in fact give some information to the average IS entrepreneur but forms and trends in the creation of Information Systems on the front-end development side create the highest-level of understanding including the aforementioned Databases own Analytics platform such as a CentOS or a Ubuntu Operating System gathering information on Plesk, Linux, and the like to, without even leaving the interface of the Information Technology that the Strongest Developers created themselves.

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For example, the strong developer creates a Signup form on his or her web-based interface which includes a Captcha, put in place to ease-out the bots auto-generating what are called Back-Links by trying to surpass the sign-up process and acquire their own authority and increase their own chances of survival, also included would be a date of birth, first name, last name, password & such, but there are many Information Systems which are not visible to the end-user signing up for the leader-of-ISs website or application. So many things can be used to acquire even more information on the end-user which enhances each developers chance of survival.

Everything is database or programmatically driven. What the end-user sees is only the front-end interface. For example, the leader of IS quite easily gathers your home IP address but how many times have you, as a front-end web user signed up for the leader of ISs site using a social network? If the user, who is enticed to sign up using Facebook for example bites this leading developer acquires access to almost everything about his demographic & end-user. This game of survival is not only just acquiring basics such as name, DOB, and IP address but what if, for example you applied for a job using LinkedIn and the Human Resources Department of the company you are interested in working for, as the end user can find out the phone numbers of all your bosses; even the ones you wish that these leaders of information systems couldnt reach out to?

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CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION
There are a plethora of survival strategies within both Information Systems and Information Technology. Some may say that Information Systems and IT are Strategic Weapons but more-so theyre survival tools as 90% of businesses eventually fail and that number is higher among businesses within their first 5 years of business so very clearly survival is the most critical aspect within Information Technology. As we started this short pamphlet, even Steve Jobs was always working in survival mode and when he claimed that he was most afraid of 2 nerds in their garage building Information Systems he was clearly right in that Google became Apples biggest competitor and was literally started in a garage having become the leader within the Smartphone market & constantly innovating.

Microsoft is also clearly within their own survival mode. Microsoft may now be just slightly smaller in net worth than Google or Apple but Microsoft is clearly becoming very intellectual within the parameters of their own survival mode. When Windows 8 was released almost quite literally all of the Microsoft Technicians, Investors and the like called Windows 8 Worse than (the failed) Windows Vista but soon-after the flop of Windows 8 Microsoft unveiled 2 products in their own survival mode which transformed $MSFTs business seemingly overnight.

The first release for Microsoft was Windows 8.1 which was leaps & bounds beyond the basic and cumbersome Windows 8. It added functionality, the Developers that we toted Windows held dearly could now easily incorporate 2nd and even 3rd monitors for their own development. I myself was an innovator for Windows 8. I bought a Dell Inspiron Desktop almost as soon as Windows 8 was released but the app store listed categories instead of a search and I could only connect one monitor when Dell told me Windows 8 doesnt support multiple monitors. Microsoft adapted and quickly and within the next paragraph we will explain why Microsoft is the next up-and-coming sensation in Information Technology.

The second product which transformed Microsofts ability to beat out competitors is c learly Microsoft Office 2013. This was clearly a move by Microsoft to take the sole product every teacher, businessman, mother, child, father, and student used on a daily basis and transform the income potential of Microsoft itself. Within Microsoft Office 2013, especially the Professional Version the features are enormous. We earlier in this text spoke about the developers who create the software of information technology and how their main objective is to create ease-of-use for the end-user. This is blatantly apparent with two pieces of software in particular. Microsoft purposely integrated a SkyDrive Pro application with 25 gigabytes of storage if you purchase Office Professional Plus 2013 which literally auto-syncs your files and within recent use of Google Drive, to which I pay 10 dollars per month for so I can have all my files backed up. Drive Sync, the Google Drive File Syncing background process cannot handle large files & crashes while SkyDrive files sync immediately. SkyDrive will surely beat-out both Box and Google Drive within just several months. The Essence of Information Technology as a Survival Tool | Page 7 of 8

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The second piece of extraordinary software that is perfectly assembled for the end-user that Microsoft Incorporated within Office 2013 is OneNote. OneNote is a similar program to the popular Evernote along with Googles Keep which is barely Keeping in the picture. OneNote will 100% outtake Evernote and has already beat Google Keep and has much more functionality than either Keep or Evernote. OneNote gives the end-user the ability to create almost presentation-like notes and store them in the cloud. Particularly fascinating for $MSFT was their ability to incorporate the design elements so many people have been waiting for along with tens of thousands of different Word, Excel & PowerPoint templates which creates a user experience in which the end-user does not need to leave Word, for example to design something or create a fancy layout. Not only do these templates give the user full design control but they also help layout typical sought-out documents like Resumes, Projects, Business Plans, and the like.

That being said, the way that Microsoft acted in survival mode in expanding the ever-popular office suite Microsoft created applications for both SkyDrive along with OneNote for not only Windows Phone, but for iOS and even Android. Microsoft now knows that they will never be a big-time player within the Smartphone Market but they are working in survival mode to expand their gross margins and revenue streams & $MSFT has one of the best Information Systems, right now; of each and every company attempting to use Survival Tools to their advantage.

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