Week 11

This is week 11 which is the final exam. The final exam was tough because it incorporated a lot of information about various topics. Some of the questions were tricky in that you had to really read what the professor was looking for. My fingers are tired from all of the typing that I had to perform during the final. All in all it has been an interesting class and I think it has prepared me for the classes to come in grad school.

Week 10

                This week everyone gave their presentation for their individual project. I was surprised about how nervous people get when standing in front of an audience. It has never seemed to bother me put there are a lot of people whom have an issue with this and it really sprung home to me. My favorite presentation in which I believe I learned the most about was Quantum computing. I know that Quantum computing is real and has been out on the market for a couple of years but did not know a lot of information about it. Chuck went into great detail about Quantum computing and really made me realize what the next and emerging technology system will be.

Week 9

This week of class was very interesting and reminded me of a lot of the vulnerabilities out there. The teacher went into some history about cryptographs as well as preventive methods from being breached. He went of WPA encryption and made sure that everyone in the class understood that WEP is not a good method for encrypting your wireless network.  The teacher also went into great details on all of the types of attacks and what they meant. I thought that dumpster diving and social engineering where interesting attacks. I believe there is a lot of social engineering that goes on but many people do not realize that they are doing this. I see this happening at work all of the time and spreading information that everyone does not need to know can create a real issue when it comes to proprietary or secure information.

Week 8

This week was very interesting and I learned a lot of information. I learn a lot of information about SWOT analysis and really understood how this could practically be applied to my company. The Strengths and weaknesses are important to determine where you can shift your focus from and what elements you should switch your focus too. The opportunities are important to zero in on in that the information found could be valuable to future business. Last but not least it is important to know your threats. You should know which companies are competitive and which ones might be trying to figure out proprietary information about your company to gain an upper hand.

I also learned a lot about Enterprise Architecture and the structure of this model. Enterprise Architecture has four main components that all have to do with the structure of the technical enterprise. Real life examples helped me understand all components of the lessons taught during this session.

Week 7

I thought this class was very informative and made me really wonder what a lot of companies are doing when it comes to aligning their company. The in class lesson where we acted like the individuals characteristics that we were given really helped me understand how each employee should work together to reach a common goal. A business is more than just an enterprise that makes money there are a lot of things that have to be balanced and the businesses that don’t balance will go under. Information technology and business go hand and hand but you don’t want to have too much power in either portion. Businesses should also make quality products but have to decide how they can cut cost and which suppliers offer a competitive price and a quality product.

Week 6

            This week was the midterm exam. There was no real content that was learned during this class. The exam was challenging in that you had to write alot but it covered all of the main concepts that we went over.

Week 5

This week there was a large amount of information about ecommerce and the applications that are put in place to make a company organized. Companies today are very large and communicate through phone and email. There has to be regulations and life cycles set up to ensure that every customer has the same experience when calling the company for any product or service. ERP`s are not the easiest systems to implement and most of the time will fail due to the complexity in these systems. It takes time to train individuals on new systems and make them understand the true ethics of your organizations information systems.

Week 4

This week I took a lot of information home with me and really started to look at different internet websites to see what there weaknesses and strengths were. There are a large number of websites that are published on the web and have terrible designs for end users. Many websites that have bad designs are due to the lack of funding or creativity needed in order to please an end user that has no experience with a website. I also learned that just because you can create strong website with good features it does not mean that it is a good website. A good website is one that any person no matter what their skill set is can jump onto and are able to navigate without any issues. The webpage should be logical and have a flow with their fonts and colors.

Week 3

The information that I took in during the third session was on networked databases. Most of the databases that I have dealt with in the past were relational databases. Network databases are a neat concept and popping up everywhere because many companies and organizations are migrating there existing databases and linking them to one central database. Databases are very powerful and many software packages depend on some type of database so that information is logically stored. Databases are also important in the commercial world because they keep companies organized as well as allow them to better support their customers.

Week 2

This week I obtained knowledge of various technologies and the advancements of those technologies. I really enjoyed learning about cloud computing and can relate a lot of industry experience with cloud computing. Many companies are going towards the cloud computing design in hopes of using resources that are located centrally and having end users use these resources rather than providing each users their own resources. It is also a lot easier to manager from an IT stance. We also talked about main frames in which I also have experience with through my career with IBM`s blade centers. IBM blade centers are very powerful and pack the amount of power as many old main frames in less than half of the space.

Biography

Hello, my name is Sebastian Lyons and I am a 23 year old male whom is heavily integrated into the Information technology field. I received my high school diploma in 2006. Following my high school graduation I went to Allegany College of Maryland to play soccer. After two short years at Allegany College of Maryland I received two associates’ degrees. One of my associate’s degrees is in General Studies and my other associate's degree is in Applied Technology. At Allegany college of Maryland I also received a certificate in Master Web Page Design. While at Allegany I also received four state awards for my contributions to my soccer team. In December 2010 I finished my BS in Information System Management. I am currently pursuing a Masters degree in Information Systems Management with an interest is Information Assurance. I currently work as a Computer Engineer/Linux Systems Administrator for SAIC.