Wednesday, 6 April 2011

Age and Web ability.

Various studies which investigated the effect of age toward computer and Web usage have increased significantly in the last decade because of the significant increase of older population. Forecasts projected that by the year 2030 people aged 65+ will represent 22% of the people living in the US (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999). At the same time computer and Web technology is rapidly being integrated into most aspects of life.  In other words, it is highly likely that, in one way or another, older people will interact with and benefit from computer and Web technology, such as for recreation in long term care settings (McConatha, McConatha, & Dermigny, 1994), for caregiver support (Smyth & Braudy-Harris, 1993), or in other elder interest groups (American Association of Retired Persons, 1998). Despite proven benefits and receptivity to relevant technology (Czaja, Guerrier, Nair, & Landauer, 1993), older adults remain underrepresented in the overall computer user population.  In fact, those aged 65+ constitute about 12% of the population, they only make up about 5% of the online user population
(Cortese, 1997).


Why are computers so important to business?

Computer has now become an integral part of corporate life. They can do business transactions very easily and accurately and keep the record of all the profit and loss. Today computers can be found in every store, supermarkets, restaurants, offices etc. special software is used in these computers to calculate the huge bills within seconds. One can buy and sell things online, bills and taxes can be paid online and can also predict the future of business using artificial intelligence software. It also plays a very important role in the stock markets.

The Future of E-commerce in Malaysia



E-commerce has evolved over the years from electronic funds transfers (EFT), comprising of online shopping and Internet banking, to electronic data interchange (EDI),  comprising companies' transfer of documents such as purchase orders or invoices. Recent studies foresee a massive growth of e-commerce in the Asian region especially in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Australia; possibly challenging Europe and United States.  

Malaysia was one of the pioneers amongst Asian countries to establish a new federal ministry, Ministry of Energy, Communications and Multimedia. The main function of this Ministry is to spearhead and promote the growth of information and communication technology (ICT) with the support of several agencies, including the Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems (MIMOS) established in 1984, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC) established in 1996, and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (or MCMC) established in 1998.

The future of e-commerce in Malaysia and the Asia region is bright. Governments and regulatory bodies are collaborating on a wider platform to ensure e-commerce law, policy and regulations are enforced to provide a guideline for traders to systematically utilize e-commerce and in tandem ensure protection for e-commerce users.

Dr. M Ghazie Ismail
Senior Vice President, Multimedia Development Corporation, Malaysia

Student and teenagers please READ this!!!!!



These communities are predicated on a certain level of trust.  Our students, though very knowledgeable about using technology, are often naive and easily manipulated (though they would hate to think so).  A simple example is a scam that hit Facebook users late last fall.  Many teens had their accounts phished and the phishers sent out posts from those accounts to their friends that said "OMG! There are some photos of you on this website", along with a link to the website.  The website showed hazy photos in the background that were hard to make out and appeared to be somewhat pornographic.  A popup told the visitor they would have to register for an account in order to view photos on the site.  We're certain that many kids were tricked into revealing a lot of personal information about themselves in this scam.  In another scam that targeted MySpace in the last couple of years, more than 14,000 users were tricked by fake MySpace pages into visiting music web sites to purchase music for $2-3 per album.  Instead of getting music, the site charged their credit cards $300-600.  Kids are easily fooled.  They want to believe what is said to them, especially when it appears that others believe.  Scammers use this trick against them by creating 1000's of fake pages on social networks that talk about bogus web sites to buy stuff, products that don't work (e.g. herbal meds) and cool pages that only result in drive-by spyware downloads.