Secure Email Project

 This secure e-mail project has been very interesting.  Before this assignment, I never realized how important that it is to send emails that have been digitally signed and/encrypted.  It is a sure way to ensure that hackers cannot access viable information. 

    Below is a link of an article that discusses the hacking of Sarah Palin's email during the Presidential race.  Because she was using her personal email, and not the secure email of her state, her information had been compromised.  No one should have their email compromised, but being in the very public eye, left her susceptible to would-be hackers.  The article also discusses that even if she didn't know better, the political big-wigs of McCain's campaign should have ensured the utmost security.  Her personal information was all over the internet, which posted possible damage to the McCain campaign. 

http://www.politicususa.com/en/Palin-email-hacked

Database Project

   This was a pretty difficult project.  I had a hard time relating the video lesson material to the actual practical application.  A lot of it was trial and error, but in the end it did work.  I took a Microsoft Office class when I got my AA at FSCJ and the material in that class was pretty straight forward.  There was a small section on access, but it was an online class and all of the instructions were printed.  I did get more familiar with a lot of the different aspects of access, i.e. reports, queries and forms.  So I do feel confident that in the future were I to need to create a database, that I would be able to figure most of it out. 
  As far as enhancing the functionality of an access database, I think the availability of an access "wizard" would be very helpful.  The individual "wizards" helped tremendously, but having one "wizard" that was able to take you from the beginning to the end would be great.  There would be no guessing as to what type of information that you needed to create, i.e. report,  or form, because the wizard would be able to do that for you. 

Presentation Project

Link: www.slideboom.com/presentations/315770/Donate-to-the-Muscular-Dytrophy-Association

   As hard as it may be to conduct a self- critique, I think I can find a few things that I did well or could have improved on. As usual, I will start with what I could have done better. I did not ask questions in my presentation. I found myself often wondering how to put that in the presentation. I was asking for donations to MDA so I gave out more information and did not spark enough interest by asking questions. Reflecting on it now, I could have stated a sentence in a question form and then answered it in my presentation.
  Since I failed on asking the questions, I most certainly did not answer them in the right place. I did however try to avoid any questions being presented from the viewer. I tried to make sure the presentation had enough information in it to avoid the viewer from wanting to ask questions in the middle of my presentation.
   Lastly, I did not validate claims until the end. I viewed several presentations where the presenter stated where they got the information from and then went on to explain. I thought this was something I could of done in the course of my presentation. I did acknowledge my sources at the end, but a better way would have been to incorporate them into the presentation.
   One of my greatest learnings was how to place audio into the powerpoint. I honestly did not realize how easy that could be. All that I had to do was click on slide show and then record narration. Timing the video to match the narration was a bit tricky, but well worth it. Having narration in a presentation for business will let the viewer hear how knowledgeable your are about a topic. I believe this also helps the viewer and the presenter connect even when they are miles apart.

Excel Project

   During my time at FSCJ I had to take a computer class that taught me the basic functions of Microsoft Office. As we all know, Excel was one of those interesting pieces in the computer class. I have learned the basics about Excel mainly through trial and error in the workplace over the last few years, but none of it compares to what I have learned in the Fitness Project.
   Completing the Fitness Center Project tested my knowledge, or lack thereof, of Excel. I started out the project thinking that this was going to be easy. I soon realized, halfway through, that making the most minor mistake could take you all the way back to the beginning. Yes, I accidentally opened the project twice and saved the wrong one! After repeating the steps, I thought I was on a smooth course once again, until the pivot table was asked to be created.
   Although the creation of the pivot table was frustrating at first, I ended up learning the most from that part of the project. I have never really experimented with that part of Excel before now. I learned how to organize my data and make it look more presentable. I must admit that I was not a believer in really having to organize my data in this form, but I have now been convinced of its importance in business.