Explain why adaptability and interpersonal skills are important to an IT professional.

First of all adaptability means flexibility or adaptableness; in other words to be flexible and to adapt the things that are happening with you in your life in general and in your job especially.

Now we come to our specific question, why adaptability is important in IT professional? Just in simple words we need to be adaptable and flexible because of many reasons, first because the Information Technology itself; as we know that every day the technology is improving and so if we cannot adapt the new technology and go with it fast we won’t be professional and we will be at the end always. Another reason that we have to be flexible is one from the primary requirements in many organizations even it is more important sometimes from the job skills itself because the employ will not give their best if they could not adapt to the new environment of the work. According to the some references “Among the skills that employers are looking for in a potential employee, adaptability is ranked the highest along with communication, interpersonal skills and a strong work ethic. Every company looks for a candidate who fits within the existing work environment and is able to anticipate, respond to and manage change on a day-to-day basis.”

Moreover, in my opinion we need to be ready to uncertainty things that are happening, or for example I believe that sometimes we need to change the work or the company for better choice so we need to adapt the new environment.

Now if we come to another part of the question which is why interpersonal/social skills are important to an IT professional?

Also as we can see here that interpersonal is one from the primary requirements for the job these days. “Among the skills that employers are looking for in a potential employee, adaptability is ranked the highest along with communication, interpersonal skills and a strong work ethic. Every company looks for a candidate who fits within the existing work environment and is able to anticipate, respond to and manage change on a day-to-day basis.” In other words, we can say that inter personal skills are the social skills; the skills that the employ has to deal with the society and other workers and teammates, so just if we think about it simply. How can an employ will success and bring success to a company if he/she does not know how to deal with the people and with his teammates. and as we know as it is written in our Holy Quran to our prophet Mohammad peace be upon him, the meaning of it  “if you are not kind and don’t know how to treat well with people, the people will run away from you”. 

As a conclusion adaptability and interpersonal skills are very important to all employs, in our life and especially to IT professional 

Here are some references:

http://ohiocareers.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/adaptability/.

Look for the IT future trends in any ONE of the application domains discussed earlier. What is your view on the future trend described in no. 1?

IT and education:

Education is one from the important things in our life because it develops our life style and our society. Education was before in just sitting in the floor or on the desk and listen to what the teacher says or write on the board but day by day we can see how the technology affect the education field and improve it to better education and more effective and efficient one.

Information Technology has huge effects on the education side from many aspects and in all the levels, from the kindergarten level until PHD or even more than this level. For example the way that they are teach the children and entertain them all will give positive effect to the children brain. The big  effect is in the high school and in the university level because almost all their work and study related to it, for example, instead of sing the board they use the electronic board and the projector to present the information in a good way and including the visual aid; in a very simple example that we are facing and doing every day that we depend on the computer and machines more than papers and other hardcopy ones. For me personally I used the computer to study and to write assignments and everything related to study more than 7 to 8 hours per day.

Actually there are a lot of things that we can mention in this field, like in the computer studies, chemistry, physics, medication, learning and teaching and many others but I would like to mention a small research that they have done about (“Learning in Future Education" – The LIFE 1 Project Reveals the Impact of 3D on Pupil's Learning.)

A team of researchers led by Professor Dr Anne Bamford, Director of the International Research Agency undertook a comprehensive research investigation of the impact that stereoscopic 3D has on pupils’ learning. The goal of the LiFE 1 project, initiated and conducted by Texas Instruments DLP , was to identify the most effective way of 3D presentation in classrooms and to measure the effect and benefit of this experience to learning and achievement of the pupils.

The research was conducted between October and May 2011 in classrooms across seven European countries and involved 740 students, 47 teachers and 15 schools and has provided unique insights into the impact of an interactive learning experience.

Here some references for more information:

http://www.nec-display-solutions.com/p/w3d/en/Study3DLearning.xhtml

Give examples of B2B, B2C and C2C types of e-commerce.

Give examples of B2B, B2C and C2C types of e-commerce.

B2B /business to business

Business to business mainly refers to commerce transactions between the businesses. The examples of this can be between manufacturers and wholesalers or between retailers and wholesalers. The most general examples of B2B markets are manufacturers, re sellers, non-profit institutions and government.

B2C /business to consumer

Business or transactions conducted directly between a company and consumers who are the end-users of its products or services. Business to consumer as a business model differs significantly from the business to business model, which refers to commerce between two or more businesses.

This website is an example about B2C

http://www.amazon.co.uk/

C2C /Consumer to consumer

C2C or Consumer – to – consumer is a business model where two individuals transact or conduct business with each other directly.

C2C can also take the form of virtual communities where people who share the same interests interact with each other and share ideas.

http://www.Mudah.com.my/

Here are some references :

http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/marketing-and-strategy-terms/1582-c2c-consumer-to-consumer.html

http://www.sqa.org.uk/e-learning/ECIntro01CD/page_03.htm

http://www.webdynamic.com.au/glossary/b/business-to-business-b2b.html

Explore traditional businesses that have moved to digital firm and how globalization has changed their way to do business.

Traditional business is any normal business that is running without the internet or the development of Information technology. An example about traditional business that it changed from traditional business to digital firm, actually there are many example especially about the sealing firms or the delivering companies; before they were working just to sell or deliver in the local area but later on with the development of the Information Technology is becoming digital and more developed. A simple example about a traditional business that change and developed with the Information Technology is Pizza Hut.

 Pizza Hut before was just as a small restaurant in a hometown in a USA and slowly it become more famous and has many restaurants in USA, As of 2012, there were more than 6,000 Pizza Hut restaurants in the United States, and more than 5,139 store locations in 94 other countries and territories around the world. And the biggest change is the online order and the online service that they offer nowadays according to one statistic that Pizza used My Hut ordering in early 2007 and began using mobile phone SMS technology at about the same time.

And it is clear that globalization change the way of their works, at the beginning they just have just one restaurant but later by the effect of the globalization as we saw in the statistic up how the number increased to 6.000 Pizza Hut in the USA and more than 5,100 in many other countries. So beside that because of the globalization and the development of the technology we can see that they are using it effectively such as sending SMS as an advertisement and the online delivery.

Nanotechnology, Grid computing, Quantum computing and Semantic web

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional system at the molecular scale.this covers both current work and concepts that are more advanced.

In its original sense, 'nanotechnology' refers to the projected ability to construct items from the bottom up, using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete, high performance products.in simple words, we can say that Nanotechnology is a group of emerging technologies in which the structure of matter is controlled at the nanometer scale, the scale of small numbers of atoms, to produce novel materials and devices that have useful and unique properties. Some of these technologies impose only limited control of structure at the nanometer scale, but they are already in use, producing useful products. They are also being further developed to produce even more sophisticated products in which the structure of matter is more precisely controlled. The Foresight Nanotechnology Challenges focus on applying these developing technologies to solving important world problems.

Grid Computing

A form of networking. Unlike conventional networks that focus on communication among devices, grid computing harnesses unused processing cycles of all computers in a network for solving problems too intensive for any stand-alone machine.

Grid computing (or the use of a computational grid) is applying the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at the same time - usually to a scientific or technical problem that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of data. A well-known example of grid computing in the public domain is the ongoing SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) at Home project in which thousands of people are sharing the unused processor cycles of their PCs in the vast search for signs of "rational" signals from outer space. According to John Patrick, IBM's vice-president for Internet strategies, "the next big thing will be grid computing."

Grid computing appears to be a promising trend for three reasons: (1) its ability to make more cost-effective use of a given amount of computer resources, (2) as a way to solve problems that can't be approached without an enormous amount of computing power, and (3) because it suggests that the resources of many computers can be and managed as a collaboration toward a common objective.

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/definition/grid-computing.

Quantum computing 

A quantum computer is a computation device that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), quantum computation uses quantum properties to represent data and perform operations on these data.

Quantum computing is the area of study focused on developing computer technology based on the principles of quantum theory, which explains the nature and behavior of energy and matter on the quantum (atomic and subatomic) level.

Quantum Theory

Quantum theory's development began in 1900 with a presentation by Max Planck to the German Physical Society, in which he introduced the idea that energy exists in individual units (which he called "quanta"), as does matter. Further developments by a number of scientists over the following thirty years led to the modern understanding of quantum theory.

The Essential Elements of Quantum Theory:

•          Energy, like matter, consists of discrete units, rather than solely as a continuous wave.

•          Elementary particles of both energy and matter, depending on the conditions, may behave like either particles or waves.

•          The movement of elementary particles is inherently random, and, thus, unpredictable.

•          The simultaneous measurement of two complementary values, such as the position and momentum of an elementary particle, is inescapably flawed; the more precisely one value is measured, the more flawed will be the measurement of the other value.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/quantum-computing

Semantic web

The Semantic Web is the extension of the World Wide Web that enables people to share content beyond the boundaries of applications and websites. It has been described in rather different ways: as a utopic vision, as a web of data, or merely as anatural paradigm shift in our daily use of the Web. Most of all, the Semantic Web has inspired and engaged many people to create innovative semantic technologies and applications.

An extension of the current Web that provides an easier way to find, share, reuse and combine information. It is based on machine-readable information and builds on XML technology's capability to define customized tagging schemes and RDF's (Resource Description Framework) flexible approach to representing data. The Semantic Web provides common formats for the interchange of data (where on the Web there is only an interchange of documents). It also provides a common language for recording how data relates to real world objects, allowing a person or a machine to start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same thing.

                                                                                     

A form of networking. Unlike conventional networks that focus on communication among devices, grid computing harnesses unused processing cycles of all computers in a network for solving problems too intensive for any stand-alone machine.

Grid computing (or the use of a computational grid) is applying the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at the same time - usually to a scientific or technical problem that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of data. A well-known example of grid computing in the public domain is the ongoing SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) @Home project in which thousands of people are sharing the unused processor cycles of their PCs in the vast search for signs of "rational" signals from outer space. According to John Patrick, IBM's vice-president for Internet strategies, "the next big thing will be grid computing."

Grid computing appears to be a promising trend for three reasons: (1) its ability to make more cost-effective use of a given amount of computer resources, (2) as a way to solve problems that can't be approached without an enormous amount of computing power, and (3) because it suggests that the resources of many computers can be and managed as a collaboration toward a common objective.

For CEOs and their organizations, avoiding complexity is not an option — the choice comes in how they respond to it. Will they allow complexity to become a stifling force that slows responsiveness, overwhelms employees and customers, or threatens profits? How do you respond to these statements? 2010 IBM Global CEO Study

How do you respond to these statements?

(For CEOs and their organizations, avoiding complexity is not an option — the choice comes in how they respond to it. Will they allow complexity to become a stifling force that slows responsiveness, overwhelms employees and customers, or threatens profits?

(2010 IBM Global CEO Study).

As we know that the technology every day is improving and even the small company is becoming a huge one and international one t maximize the profit.

 Complexity has three aspects which are technological, organizational and societal. So day by day with the improvement the company faces some problems and the person who receives most of them is CEO because he/she is the one who is responsible in the company and has to solve the problems including the complexity. Not all the complexity is bad for the company; complexity is the development of the technology and here the CEOs will face the problem of managing and dividing the jobs among the employs. So the good CEO is the one who knows how to manage the complexity and try to take the advantages from it to improve their company and achieve their goals.

What is usability ? & Why there is a need for user centered design in software or web application?

Usability is a measure of how easy it is to use a product to perform prescribed tasks.

Why there is a need for user centered design in software or web application?

It is clear that the user centred design is something very important in the designing stage. Just to show simple example about this, just if we have a look to the applications, machines and many other things, we can see that if the producer considers the user needs and opinions about the application or the produced thing we can see that this thing is popular and all the people like it because it is easy like FACEBOOK , on the other hand if we look to a complicated website like self-service we can see that there are many problems and the students don’t like it because it is difficult to deal with it.

which application system has the best user centered design and why do you say so?

User centered design:

Actually from what I understand in this class that user central designed is to make user issues central in the design process by carrying out early testing and evaluation with users and the design takes place iteratively, in simple words means that when we designed anything we should take the attention about the customer and the user and how they will use this product, so here as a producer we need to think about YOU as a user and not just ME,ME,ME and how I am going to gain more and more.

There are many examples about good user centered design, but one from the n=most popular and easy application for the user is FACEBOOK.

FACEBOOK is considered as one from the best user centered design because many reasons. I will mention here some of the reasons. First, the FACEBOOK is very clear and easy to use even if the user does not know much about computer and internet, everywhere in Facebook page is guided so any one can follow the guidance to do what he wish to do, beside that Facebook has many advantages such as sharing information; it allow to us to share what we desire to share beside asking questions about other’s opinion and sharing pictures and videos.

 Another advantages is chatting and find new friends because Facebook is a social network so we can know more friends either from local areas or from outside our area and a simple example that it happened with me is find old friends, after I leaved my country Syria and I came here to study so I lost the connect with all my old friends but later on because of the Facebook I found many of them. Also one from the biggest advantages that I find in FACEBOOK is following the news; as we know that there are many pages for news in FACEBOOK in all the aspects, political, advertisements and news about education, last on I will mention it here is the video call, the FACEBOOK is not just for chatting no also we can make a call and we can see the person that we are talking with.

 

Compare the topics and methods of the computing disciplines? (Similarities) What are the differences among these disciplines? (Differences)

Computer disciplines is the scientific and practical approach to computation and its applications and it has five parts which are Computer Science (CS), Software Engineering (SE), Information Systems (IS), Cognitive Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE).

First of all, all of these disciplines actually related to each other and there are some mutual and common things among them and on the other hand each one has something specific by its own.

First discipline is (CS) Computer Science: CS is the mother of all computer disciplines because it studies the theory of computation and the creating a system, a computer scientist specializes in the theory of computation and the design of computational systems and he try to develop news idea about the system according to the mathematical concepts.
CS has strong connection with other disciplines because the CS develop the system and create new ideas to make the system easy to the users and CS differ from other discipline that CS studies and concern on the theory and on the mathematical (software) part rather than hardware.

Next is (SE) Software Engineering, after Computer Science directly come Software Engineering because SE applies the principles and the theory of Computer science to find good solutions for software problems. SE is the application of systematic, disciplined to maintenance of it and develop software. The differences between SE and others disciplines is that Software Engineering is focus on the software and how to develop it by applying the concept of Computer Science.

Then we have Information System IS, Information System is the combination of information technology and people's activities that support operations, management and decision making. The difference between information technology (IT)and information systems (IS) is that IS focus on the applications and implications of computing in the business domain, however, IT does not focus on a single domain in which IT is practiced, but instead focuses on the integration and deployment of computing technology. But the  similarities between them is Organizational management and IT infrastucture.

After IS there is Cognitive Science (CS), Cognitive Science is the study of the mind and its processes. It includes research on intelligence and behaviour and especially focusing on the information and how we present and transform it in the system and machine for example, language. There are many topics related to the CS, such as psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy and linguistics. So as we can see here that the Cognitive Science focuses on the understanding the nature of the human mind rather than on software or hardware like other disciplines

Finally, is Computer Engineering (CE), Compute Engineering is the most general discipline in all discipline computers because CE is the combination of two fields: computer science and electrical engineering. CE also is the process of analyzing and designing all hardware, software, and operating systems for a computer.

CE called the body and the mind because it needs to understand both the hardware and the software of computers.

Actually Computer Engineering has many similarities to all computer disciplines due to it study the hardware and the software. For example, IT and computer engineering have similarities because IT focuses more on the hardware on the other hand CE also study the hardware beside the software.

Can I live without Internet connection for a day, a week, a month, a year?

Actually this is somehow difficult question, in my opinion, it depends on the situation because sometimes we go camping or we go a trip,there we don’t have an internet and we stay there few days or a week,  but generally I think I cannot because for me I depend on the internet in many things in my life such as my studies, following the news, contact with my friends and families, increase my knowledge about many things beside that the internet is a huge references for me because as a student I don’t have many references.

How does Internet affect my life as a student?

First of all, internet in simple terms is a network that linked computer networking worldwide, which is accessible to the general public and these computers work by transmitting data through the internet.

The internet almost affects all the people and almost everything. However, the effects of the internet are more on the adult and on the students.

As a student the internet affects me in many ways. First, it affects me in the way of leaning, by the internet I can learn more like from the videos and by joining to some online courses besides sometimes it is an effective way because we have to practice and solve problems according to what you learned. Second, it affects the way of studying, for example; my studying nowadays is more arranged besides if I did not get a full understanding form the lecture, easily I can go and search for more information in the internet, beside that nowadays we can make a meeting with a group or a conference on the internet. 

Third effect is following the news, as we know that the students must follow the news to know what is going on in all the world, in my opinion to know what is happing in the world is related to our studies if it is not a main part of it, so with the internet it is so easy and fast to follow the news. Forth is the research, one of the biggest advantages of the internet is that it is access to information, such as online references, books and dictionaries besides its more fast and effective because for example the voice almost in all the dictionaries to teach you how to pronounce correctly.

Fifth, internet opened the way for many jobs such as online jobs or advertisement about jobs so by the internet the student can work a part time job while he/she is studying. Sixth effect is the entertainment, students nowadays play online game somehow the entertainment side is good because there are some good games like thinking games that make our brain improve by thinking how to solve problems like puzzle and so on. All these are advantages of the internet.

On the other hand, the internet affects the students in a negative way especially about the online games and social website, many students addicted to them and even they leave their studies just for chatting or game because they couldn’t manage their time or control their selves.

Finally, the internet has negative and positive effects on the student’s life but the positive is more than the negative if we know how to use it wisely.

The vision of one laptop per child, what is your opinion on this?

Actually it is a good idea that each child has a laptop. First, to make the country developed and to improve student’s studies and skills. However, in my opinion I think they have to put some conditions about age and others because we can see that the children use the computer to play game and they didn’t take many benefits from it, and for example here in Malaysia I heard that each student in high school will get a small laptop; notebook and i saw some of my friends got it, that’s very good and suits thing at this age.

In my opinion it is a good idea but not for the children but for the adult or when the student become aware of the life. 

How has the development of information technology influenced the common traditions of a society?

First of all, I think we should define what is information technology?

Information technology deals with the use of the electronic computers and computer's software to store, convert process and transmit the information and data.

As we know that the development of the technology and information technology is dynamic and it continues day by day, actually the (IT) and the development of it  affect the people and their traditions, for example, before we brought a computer to our home all my family was thinking that the computer has a lot of disadvantages and it is something bad and it is wasting of money, so I was secretly going to my friend’s house and to internet café to use it. At that time just the rich people have it.

However, after that the people become aware of the development of (IT) and how it affects on their life so they understand the importance of it and almost all the people try to have a computer in a house, for example of the impacts on the society is the video call; in past when the people want to contact with their relatives and family members in other countries, they need to paid a lot of money just to speak few minutes on the phone, comparing with the present time we can see how cheap it is besides they can call a video call, now my family saying that to have internet in our home is something necessary, comparing with before I was telling them to have a computer just but thy were against me .            

Another example of how the traditions influenced by the information technology and the development of it is the education, before the studying of IT and computer was rarely and the way of teaching was developed like now somehow it was writing on the wall by special kind of stone, in the other hand we can see in the present time almost in all countries the development of the education because of the development of (IT) such as the research. There are many example of the impact of (IT) in our society like in trading, business field and others.