Network Administrators

Network and computer systems administrators design, install, and support an organization’s computer systems. They are responsible for LANs, WANs, network segments, and Internet and intranet systems. They can be found in corporations, small businesses, and government organizations. They install and maintain network hardware and software, analyze problems, and monitor networks to ensure their availability to users. Some of the responsibilities include gathering data to evaluate a system’s performance, identifying user needs, and determining system and network requirements.

Network administrators are usually required to have a bachelor’s degree; however an associate degree or professional certification, with related work experience, may be adequate for some positions. "Overall employment of computer network, systems, and database administrators is projected to increase by 30 percent from 2008 to 2018, much faster than the average for all occupations. In addition, this occupation will add 286,600 new jobs over that period. Growth, however, will vary by specialty." (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos305.htm)

Source: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos305.htm
Photo by Tom Pollock

Secure Email Project

Article Summary

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/31/safe.passage.idg/index.html

Despite the fact that this article is dated it still represents what many businesses one would not generally associate with sensitive information. 7-11 began using email to negotiate with external vendors and needed a way to protect this sensitive corporate information from potential hackers. 7-11 made the decision to go with ZixIT which allows users to encrypt and digitally sign emails sent. The company made the decision based on several key factors. The first obviously being the need to secure email communications and the second was the low cost associated with the service. The ZixIT service only cost $1 per user per month. The article indicates that about 1,000 users would be using the service after full implementation which is a very low cost to a company as large as 7-11. The third reason for choosing ZixIT was because it "automatically compresses files so they fall under the size limit imposed by 7-Eleven's firewall, and it scan e-mail and attachments for viruses".

ZixIt provides a system that is not software intensive and much more cost effective than its alternatives back in 2000. Because of this and the growth in email communication with sensitive information the company expected to grow at a fast pace. Some of the companies that enacted programs such as this early on most likely saved large amounts of money that would have been lost to pirated information or lawsuits.

Merging Data from Access for Efficiency

If you have an Access Database and you would like to easily transition the information in a query to a form letter you can do this by using the Microsoft Word Mail Merge Wizard. It allows you to set up a mail merge from a t query in an Access database as the data source for form letters, e-mail messages, mailing labels, envelopes, or directories. I used our project database as an example.

Our members that have let their gym memberships expire need to be contacted. We might want to offer them a promotional rate to come back, or perhaps we might want to find out why they left us. This will help the gym keep track of attrition and why members are leaving as well as retention efforts. This process can be extremely time consuming if you did not use the mail merge feature. Once this is set up it will be quick and easy to go in and shoot an email or letter to our past customers that have let their membership expire.

First open the members database from our project, and in the Navigation Pane, select the members as the mail merge data source.

• On the External Data tab, in the Export group, click More, and then click Merge it with Microsoft Office Word.
• The Microsoft Word Mail Merge Wizard starts.
• Select that you want to create the link in a new document, and then click OK. Word starts and opens a new document.
• In the Mail Merge pane, under Select document type, click Letters and then click Next: Starting document to continue to step 2.
• In step 2, click Next: Select recipients.Under Select recipients, chose Use an existing list, and browse for the name of your data source.
• Once you select the correct file it should look like this:
  Please click the very small dot to he right because no matter how I tried this blog would not allow me to post my picture to the page.
  

  

• Click Edit recipient list if you want to customize the contents of the table or query.
• You can filter, sort, and validate the data. Click OK to continue.

• Click Next: Write your letter to continue. Follow the remaining instructions in the Mail Merge pane, and in step 5, click Next: Complete the merge.

Please click the very small dot to he right because no matter how I tried this blog would not allow me to post my picture to the page.

This is just one more way to save time and become more efficient by using all of the capabilities that come with the Microsoft Office software. The task of emailing or mailing all of these customers could have taken hours, but with this feature it can literally be reduced to minutes. I hope you have found this informative and I also hope you can put it to use to help you become more efficient.

The instructional information contained in this Blog posting was found on the Microsoft website, URL below. The instructions were changed to fit the circumstance described and the use of this information is strictly for educational use only. The images were screen shots I took while executing the demonstration.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access-help/use-a-table-or-query-as-a-mail-merge-data-source-HA001233657.aspx

Database Project - Microsoft Access

This project was a great learning experience for me. In the past I have only used Microsoft Access during another course, and I have not had the opportunity to use it in the business world. The opportunities seem to be endless and only limited by the user’s imagination. I especially like the ability to create a form and protect it so that end users cannot alter it. I found the query function to be the most useful tool and the ability to sort results made dealing with large amounts of data very easy.

I think one way to enhance the functionality of this database is to link the information of those with expired memberships to a form letter in Microsoft Word or outlook via a merge. This will enable you to easily contact these members and entice them to return with some type of promotion. More importantly it may be a way for you to learn more detail about your attrition. Perhaps you will learn that members are leaving due to rates, or better programs at a competing gym.

EMERGE Lakeland

I believe that there are two main things I could have done better in my presentation. First I scrambled to find a way to post my presentation directly to my Blog and I was finally able to do so by using screencast-o-matic.com which I highly recommend. Because I had already recorded my audio on the initial PowerPoint presentation I simply played it while it was recording. This created some feedback which I find quite annoying.

Secondly, I would do a better job communicating my message. In some areas I feel that I was not concise and was a little long-winded. Some areas could be cleaned up and the presentation could be more powerful if some erroneous information were purged. I also would have asked more questions to the audience to get them more involved and thinking about the topic at hand.

In looking at a few other presentations I found some of them to be extremely powerful because they were concise and the presenter hit the bullet points hard and convincingly. The speakers that I listened to were very clear, powerful, and to the point. These are wonderful qualities to have in a short presentation and it will certainly help me in the future.

I learned that I ramble too much from this project and that great presentations are clear, concise, and to the point. In the future I will be sure to double and triple check my speech prior to execution to cut the fat, so to speak. Using screencast-o-matic.com for the first time was great. I am glad I found this excellent tool because it provides 15 minutes of screen capture video that can be uploaded to YouTube or saved as a video file on your hard drive.

How to embed a YouTube Video in you Power Point Presentation

Embedding a a YouTube video in a my PowerPoint presentation always gives me a problem because I can never remember exactly how to do it. Many of the videos I watched on YouTube had many redundant steps that were frustrating! I hope many of you find this video to be easy to follow, and useful. Please comment should you have any questions or praise but any complaints should be reconsidered by the offering party.
Click here for a ------> STEP BY STEP VIDEO!

Excel Project

In execution of the Excel Project for ISM 3004 I have learned many exciting tactics that have expanded my knowledge of Microsoft Excel. Basic functions such as the use of "freeze panes", formatting data, and using formulae are necessary skills for anyone to understand. One of the most useful features I have learned is formatting worksheets to print properly or to a custom setting the user desires. Despite extensive use of Excel in my profession I have never learned hot to construct a Pivot Table until taking this course.

Basic Excel skills are necessary for anyone in the working world no matter your profession. The use of "freeze panes" are very important because this function will allow you to display headers as you scroll down the page looking at what sometimes will be thousand of rows of data. To add a "freeze frame" simply go to view on you ribbon bar, look in the window, bar and click on “Freeze Panes" from there you can select which frames you might like to freeze or unfreeze. Inserting formulae in Excel is quite easy once you have used it a few times. I especially find the auto fill feature to be helpful.

Formatting your worksheet to print properly and legibly was very enlightening. In the past this has been an area that has caused much heartburn in my office. The best part is that this is a very easy fix. In the ribbon bar simply select Page Layout, then in the Page Setup Bar click the arrow in the bottom right corner to expand the window. Wow! I never knew that was there! Now you can select how many rows or columns should appear on every page or how many pages your report should fit into. By using this window and the Print Preview window you can now format your report to look perfect.

A pivot table is an incredible way to display large amounts of data in a concise manner. Learning to format a pivot table takes some work, and in my case trial and error, but in the end I believe it to be the most useful tool I have learned to use. To insert a pivot table in Excel go to Inset on the ribbon bar, and then click on Pivot Table in the upper left corner. From there the program should automatically pick up the data in the worksheet you were presently on and you can select to have the table be placed on a new worksheet. Depending on your data set you can now customize a table that will display results in a manageable fashion.