Tutorial 4: VPN (Virtual Private Network)

The topic of my final tutorial blog is Virtual Private Network, better known as VPN. I found this subject especially interesting because we use VPN at my office. My companies IT personnel have set up my business laptop computer to have VPN access. When I travel to conferences or other occasions when I need to work remotely, through VPN I can access the private computer files of our company, such as payroll information, membership files, etc. Prior to studying this section of the course, I realized that this was a special setup that only allowed certain key personnel to remotely access our private files, but I didn't know how, or why it had this ability.

As found in the webopedia dictionary http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/V/VPN.html, a virtual private network is "a network that is constructed by using public wires to connect nodes... These systems use encryption and other security mechanisms to ensure that only authorized users can access the network and that data cannot be intercepted."

Through VPN, when you use your special assigned code to access your companies computer system from a remote location, the message that you send to the home computer is encrypted and the home computer then decrypts the message when it receives it. Then the reverse works when the home computer sends you information. The file is again encrypted and when your remote computer receives it, it decrypts the information so you can read it.
Below is an image of VPN connecting a main office to different types of remote locations; a home office, a remote office and a mobile worker.


Image courtesy Cisco Systems, Inc.
Examples of the three types of VPN

There are also different types of encryptions that can be used. One example is the symmetric-key encryption. In this type, each computer has a secret key or code, so you must know which computers will be using this system so that they all have the code. With this secret code your computer can encrypt a packet of information before sending it across the Internet. Therefore, if it is intercepted, it is useless to anyone except someone who has the same secret code. When another computer, that has also been equipped with this code receives the message it can decode the information. A simpler way to describe this method is by using two friends who create some alphabet code between themselves so that they can pass secret notes back and forth (ie every "a" becomes a "c", every "c" becomes an "e", etc.). One friend writes a note in this agreed upon secret code and then when he passes the note to his friend, she can use their private code to understand what he is saying to her. The symmetric-key encryption works in much the same way, between computers.

To learn of other encryption methods or a more in depth description of how VPN works and what it can do for your company, please follow the below link to the website of Alliance Datacom L.P.

http://www.alliancedatacom.com/how-vpn-works.asp

Secure Email Project

In searching for an article about a business that uses or should have used secure email, I stumbled upon a use for secure email that I had not considered.  In Portland, Oregon there is a medical facility that is using secure email for patients to correspond with their doctors.

As may be expected, the doctors at first feared an overwhelming amount of email that they could not handle. However, it was found that most physicians received few emails throughout the day and were able to respond in a timely manner.

This practice was monitored from its onset in 2006 through 2008 and met with very positive results. They monitored patients who had diabetes, hypertension, or both. The findings showed that most correspondence involved a change in the patients health condition, laboratory results, a new condition, drug dosages, or the use of a new drug. The patients that used the email to correspond with their doctors showed improvement in controlling their health condition and stayed more engaged and took more responsibility for their health care.

The article speculated that the reasons for this is the email contact moves patients closer to performance goals by promoting continuity of care and encouraging patent self-management.

Please see below link to read the article in its entirety.

 http://www.theheart.org/article/1096687.do

Also, please see the following screen shot of my Thunderbird inbox.

Tutorial 3: Resistance to Change

My decision to create my third tutorial blog on change management, and more specifically resistance to change comes from my own work experience and the majority of the information in this blog is gleaned from that experience.

We have all been through change in our lives, and I'm sure everyone can think back on an experience that at the least caused a bit of anxiety and/or discomfort. That being said, it is safe to say that it is somewhat of a normal reaction to resist change to some degree. It is far easier, even if somewhat dull and boring, to stick with the familiar and keep rocking along. How often have you heard people say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". In other words, it's working fine, we've been doing it like this for years, we haven't had a problem with it, so lets keep on keeping on.

However, is this always the best business strategy? Of course not! In the business world, if we do not have the ability to embrace change and be on the cutting edge of the latest technological advances, or if we don't stay in tune with the customers ever changing wants and needs, we are setting ourselves up for failure. So as a business owner or manager, it is expected that we will have to make frequent changes in our processes and methods of doing things. As well as consider knew tools and equipment that, once learned, can enhance our production and ability.

Therefore, one of the most important things we can do to create success as we embark on changes is get our employees to "buy in" to the idea that these changes are not just good for the company but also for them.

According to information in the Change Management Learning Center - Resistance: understanding a phenoma that is natural to all of us http://www.change-management.com/tutorial-7-principles-mod3.htm resistance to change is normal and should be expected rather than take us by surprise.

The reasons we experience the anxiety and fear that change creates is unique to all of us and has to do with not only the change that is taking place in the work arena, but also things going on in our personal lives. Factors such as our level of education, our health status, family status, mobility, financial security, age, and many other things. The reasons for this could be pretty obvious if we think about it. For most of us, our job is the means that allows us to have a life. Without our livelihood, or with a lesser way to earn a living, all facets of our personal life will become different.

All this being said, how do we go about the process of handling this resistance to change when we find change to be a necessary next step in our business? Suggestions from the above website are as follows:

• Involve employees with designing the change
• Inform them as to why the change is taking place
• Help them to understand why the need to change is valid
• Make sure they trust the person(s) relaying the change message
• School them on how the change will impact them and their personal situation

From my experience I have found that of all these important issues, the most effective for creating manager and employee buy-in is to involve them in the designing of the change and where possible allow them to have input on the issues that will directly effect where they are in the organization. I have found that not only does it help to mitigate some of the anxiety, but it actually gets people excited about the change when they are part of creating the project and can claim some ownership to what's going on, rather than it being created by others and "pushed" on them.   

                                                

     






To do this you must create a team of employees pulling a cross section from as many departments as possible that will be affected by the change. Your first instinct may be to choose your star performers from each area. Though you will need some of those, don't overlook your ringleaders in any group which may very well be you biggest resisters or "troublemakers". If that is the case, all the more reason to work at bringing them on board with the new project, because if you can turn around your most negative employee (especially one that has alot of influence on a given group) your battle becomes much easier. Also, this employee could have valid arguments that many employees are feeling and this person just happens to be the one bold enough to openly voice the concern.  

Along the same thought is your front line managers. They have the ability to make or break the project, depending on how they relay the information to their subordinates. It is critical to give them the ability to claim ownership to the project because if they roll out the changes as "we are doing this because management said so" rather than something like "this change is not only great for the company, it is going to make our jobs so much easier!" Front line managers and supervisors usually have a closer relationship and are more trusted by their direct reports than a higher level manager. So their opinion much more strongly affects the average worker.

Lastly, just as it is important for managers to understand that it is normal to resist change and it should be expected, this is also something that most people probably don't even understand about themselves. Just knowing that the way you feel is probably the same way most everyone is feeling, helps to get through alot of situations. This is a message that should be strongly reinforced from the top down in an organization. If employees understand that what they are feeling is "normal and expected" and that managers and supervisors at all levels are there to encourage them, train them, and help them through, the end result will be a successful change that will enhance the organization AND be good for employees at all levels.

All clipart used from Microsoft Word

Access Project

I had a brief overview of Access in another class a couple of years ago. It was so brief, that I was of the opinion this was just another spreadsheet program that was a little more complicated to work with than excel. However, this project taught me the true value of a database and how I can use it on my job to make my life much easier. I work in HR and waste alot of time duplicating information in different spread sheets. I was very excited to find that in a database you can, for example, change an address in one place and it changes the address everywhere it is listed throughout the database.

Another way you could enhance this particular database project would be in the query section. You could sort by gender to find out if the facility was attracting more men or women, or the same way with family or individuals. You could also query the average length of time a member stayed with the club. With this type of information a business could change marketing tactics, or services offered to attract a certain set of individuals that weren't currently using their facility. Or find ways to keep members longer.

Although I found this to be an awesome tool, I have to agree with the posting of many other students. This section lacked alot in clarity. I basically completed the project, as well as the Access Scavenger Hunt through trial and error... lots of error.

Presentation & Web 2.0 Project

This project is possibly one of the most challenging things I have done lately. That being said, because of being pushed to my technologically challenged limits, I have learned more than I thought imagineable about creating a simple powerpoint presentation.  I use powerpoint on occassion to do presentation at my office, however, I had no idea that there was so much more to offer in the way of different media types, adding sound and narration or transforming your presentation to a video that can be viewed and shared on the web. These are definitely tools I will be able to use in the future to make presentations more engaging and interesting for my viewers.

It is hard to critique myself, because I know what I was trying to say and do, as opposed to what may have actually came across to the viewer. Therefore I will be anxious to hear what others have to say about my presentation. But I can tell you that after laboring over this project for days, I was not about to be overly critical of another students presentation, because I know what it took to just get it out there!

I critiqued Dustin Hughes presentation and found it to be very informative, great opening, and great ending. The thing that helped me most with watching his was the point that was made in class about not putting too many words on the slides so that the viewer spends more time reading and trying to get what the slide is saying than listening to the presentation. He had alot of great information and it was obvious he put alot of time into the project, but less words on the slide would have been good.

Now I will critique mine the best that I can:

I believe there was a very logical flow and seqence of content starting with questions that start you thinking, answering the questions and giving examples. Maybe one of the weakest points for me was grabbing the attention in the first 30-60 seconds. I guess it just depends on the viewer. I made statements and posed questions right off that may spark interest in some, but my opening could have been more catchy or intriguing. I think I was clear throughout my presentation as to the points I was making and getting across to the viewer. My presentation was free from typos, inconsistencies and unbelieveable claims. My presentation was also clutter free, not too much action going on at any one time, great use of white space, and nice readable font without too many words on each slide. I think I did a good job with saying it or asking it and then showing it.

Overall, I am satisfied with the outcome of my presentation and take great pride in what I accomplished having never attempted anything like this before. I hope my viewers feel the same, enjoy my presentation, and gain some information they may not have known before.

Please view my presentation at the below YouTube link.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL2PHCjkAXM

Tutorial 2: Creating Charts & Graphs in Excel

I decided to do my second tutorial blog on excel because I felt I could benefit from learning about more of the functions that were offered while creating spreadsheets. Excel is probably one of the most used tools in my business so I wanted this learning experience for myself as much as for anyone else. However, I hope the following steps for creating an exploding pie chart will be helpful to anyone who reads this blog. All information in this tutorial was learned from the "Microsoft Excel 2010 Bible" and much trial and error on my part.

To begin, you will of course bring up a new excel worksheet and enter the desired data in each cell. My data is fictional and is depicting the different sources used to generate power at a hypothetical power plant. After entering the data you will of course want to format it to look appealing, for example, adding color to the headings to make them stand out, using different fonts, etc. I am not going in to detail on how to perform these functions because this particular blog is to explain how to add charts or graphs to your sheet. Once your data is complete you can begin the steps to add your chart or graph by doing the following:

Step 1:  Click on the "insert" tab at the top left of your computer screen and you will see the options of charts and graphs.

                                   
Step 2:  Select which type of graph or chart you would like to use to give the best visual of the data you are presenting. I selected the "Pie" chart and upon clicking I got a drop down box that further allowed me to select from several different pie charts. I selected the 3-D exploding pie chart.

Step 3:  After selecting your chart type you will have a new box open on your worksheet. Right click in this box and click on the "select data" option.

                                  

       
                                  
Step 4:  Another set of options will appear and you will click on "select data source".  As you can see in this screen shot, you will enter your data range by either typing it in the box or you can highlight the area of data on your worksheet and it will automatically fill it in.

Step 5:  Once you have filled in your data, click OK, and Excel will automatically design and draw out the beautiful chart or graph you have requested. As you see in my next screen shot.

I was thrilled to see how a mere novice that has never tried to create anything like this before was able to easily, in just a few simple steps, create a beautiful, professional looking worksheet that could be proudly presented in any boardroom.

Excel Project

Although I was somewhat familiar with Excel before beginning this project, I found it to be a huge learning experience for me. I frequently create spreadsheets at my office, however, I rarely use formulas and I have never created a pivot table. Becoming familiar with the use of these two items alone will greatly increase my productivity at work, and I will be able to do advanced calculations that would have taken me forever to do individually with a calculator.

 I also enjoyed listening to the lectures, and thought the Excel Scavenger Hunt was a great idea to help me focus on the critical aspects of the lectures and to create a good reference sheet to aid in the completion of my project.

Besides the above mentioned calculations that I will definitely take advantage of, another aspect that will contribute to my ease of use was the "Workbook Structure" lecture. The keyboard shortcuts and keystrokes that move you quickly and with ease from one area of your spreadsheet to another will be particularly useful when dealing with very large sheets of data.

Even though I found myself frustrated and hung up on a couple of the steps in the project, it was overall an enjoyable assignment, and possibly one of the most useful sections that we will study. I definitely learned the value of the F1 (help) key!

Hopefully I didn't miss any steps, and my calculations are correct. Please see below the required "screen capture" of my "Avgincrease" pivot table.

Tutorial 1: How To Add RAM To Your Desktop Computer

While watching the first few class videos I learned so much about the workings of a computer and how it all comes together. I found RAM of special interest because I have a very sluggish computer system which appears to become more so as time goes on. I assumed the only solution would be to soon put out big bucks for an entire new computer system. But as I researched more about RAM, I found that this is a fairly simple, and in comparison, inexpensive way to upgrade and possibly make my system run faster.

When I accessed the Indiana University Knowledge Base website I learned the following about RAM. These memory chips provide space for your computer to read and write data to be accessed by the central processing unit (CPU). Memory stored in RAM can be accessed much more rapidly than when the computer has to go to the hard drive to find it and sort it out. The programs you are working on at the time are brought from the hard drive to the RAM chips. As you open more applications or programs the RAM memory will become full and the computer will then have to go to the hard drive to access the program you are requesting. This slows your system down. So, obviously, the more RAM you have available, the faster your computer should run.

Also of interest, I learned that data stored in RAM stays there only as long as your computer is running. As soon as you turn the computer off, the data stored in RAM disappears. When your computer reboots, it accesses the read only memory (ROM) chips and loads the more recent information back into your RAM.

Please watch this brief video to learn how simple it is to add RAM to your desk top computer.

Avatar (surely worth more than 10 points)

Well this was quite a challenge for a technologically challenged woman! Creating an avatar was no issue whatsoever. However, the fun began when I had to figure out how to get her from where she was created to my blog! I began on "TizMe" and created a really cute me. So I saved her to my documents which it saved in jpeg format. This would not allow me to simply copy and paste so I decided to try another site. I saw several blogs that stated "Face Your Manga" was really simple, so I figured that was definitely my speed. I created another, not so cute me, on Face My Manga, and at the end it says she will be emailed to you. After waiting an hour, and checking my email every 5 minutes during that hour, and still no avatar, I went back to TizMe. The cute me, was still patiently waiting for me to figure this whole thing out. Finally, there it was, the symbol which represented "Blogger" and then I knew I was home free. And now you have the rest of the story and my avatar!