Final Post

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

Throughout the semester, I have learned a lot goes in to actually developing an app, knowledge that expands outside of this course. One of the most important things I learned was the how computer codes are in binary. Although this seems like the hardest part of developing an application, the techniques we went over in class to learn how to use binary was beneficial.

I also learned the importance of Twitter when marketing a product like mine. Although I used Twitter prior to this class to communicate with people, it is also a way to see what people are saying about you or your product. Twitter would help my South Campus Congestion app in terms of marketing; the word simply spreads faster over this network. Through Microsoft Excel, my idea had room to develop in terms of tracking users. I would be able to develop a spread to keep track of how many people use the app daily. Knowing Excel is important because it shortens many of your tasks that you will otherwise have to do manually. It speeds up the process of computing data.

Outside of marketing an idea, security is very important. I did not realize how vulnerable many internet users are to having their information stolen, or worst their identity. For my application, it is restricted to Syracuse university personnel, but that can actually make them more vulnerable to identity theft. I say this because in order to access the application you have to have an SU id and a password. Since we learned in class that the most identity theft prone people are college students, because they do not frequently check their credit reports. If the application was hacked, then hackers have access not only to the South Campus Congestion application but student’s Myslice, email blackboard etc. This is worrisome to me because it is a plausible scenario.

To avoid security threats I researched other schools that have similar applications available to students and viewed the precautions they took when it came to technology. Many of the campuses like Stanford just make their application for public use. If I had to alter one thing about my application it would be making it a public application. I would make it public because many people outside of the SU campus access these bus line, like the Connective Corridor.  

To make my plan reality, I need to have a concrete idea of what I am producing.

1.     GPS installed on all buses

2.     Develop the Application for all Markets (Android and Apple)

3.     Install Security tactics

4.     Test effectiveness 

Operating Systems

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

There are many different popular operating systems like Microsoft by Bill Gates, Apple by Steve Jobs and Unix created by Kent Thompson. In my experience with information technology thus far, I found Microsoft to be the best operating systems for many of the programs we have to use. For my app, South Campus Congestion this stand alone operating system would be great because it works well on desktops, laptops computers and mobile computing devices. This will allow users to access the application on any computing device they prefer.

However, I realize that the popularity of the iPhone has skyrocketed and many people, even on our own campus owns one. It now directly competes with the Android. When developing this application I would feel safer as a developer that it is on the Apple network because I know its safe for my users. If I was to expose the app to the Droid market, it can be altered and it will not determine how effective it is due to lack of security. The other problem that Apple has is it does no use Flash like Droid, the most common program people know.

As far as loading my application to the Internet as an open source, I would not do this either for the simple fact it is restricted to the SU community. If I was to load it to the Internet as an open source this means the source code is open for everyone to use, modify, and redistribute. I do not want to subject my users to the vulnerability of others finding out their information, so this would not work for my app. 

Blogger Review

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

Blogger’s URL: http://techcrunch.com/

Tech Crunch is a blog I stumbled upon that was recommended to me by a fellow friend in the IT field. Although I do not follow technology blogs habitually, this one peaked my interest based on the vast amount of content it has. Although I am not sure who the domain user it, Tech Crunch has many different writers that report on the blog. One of my favorite writers would have to be Ingrid Lunden. The content of her writing is easy to understand and it is about the technology I am interested in. One of here recent articles included an interview with Dennis Crowley talking about how half of FourSquare users are outside the US!

The blog tends to focus a lot on Apple products and their latest innovations, but they are very timely in comparison to some of the other blogs I found. The blog also talks about the latest additions, subtractions and changes to social media networks. The blog also talk about technology innovations that are taking place around the world, not just America. This brings a dynamic difference to the blog, that not many other blogs can compare with, at least not at the same time Tech Crunch puts their information out.

I like the blogging style because it is very easy to access what I want to know about. The blog is user friendly with nice typology, a search box, and an accessible navigation bar. Too many times I do not even bother with blog because they look cluttered. The only thing that is  distracting on this blog is all the advertisements, but at the same time I know this bog generates a lot of traffic so it’s a money making endeavor. Overall, this is a good blog!

Bits/Bytes Photoshop and More

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

To secure my application, I would not put anything in the cloud. Although it is a backup Internet service, it is also not very secure, if someone breaks into the cloud then thousand of my customers information could be accessed. Essentially, if someone breaks into the cloud they will have the ability to steal my customer’s identity, because they will have access to all their Syracuse accounts. This is what happened to millions of Zappos customers. Zappos was a part of the cloud, it was hacked, and 24 million users information was stolen. To back up my information I would simply put it on a hard drive, until cloud computing is safer.

Since everything for computer is written in bits (1’s and 0’s) it is important that I know this information. Also, knowing the size of my application in Bytes determines how much computer storage I would need, not only to build the app but to back it up on a hard drive. Although hard drives use the decimal number system determining binary is important too because all data in modern technology is stored in a series of bits. It is also important that the people that work for me are familiar with binary because as we make modifications to the apps each semester when the bus schedules change, they need to know how to do this on their own.

As for Photoshop, this does not apply to app, unless I want to exaggerate the number of people that are passed at a bus stop, but I do not feel inclined to do that because everyone on South Campus knows the bus passes many people without me having to exaggerate it. However, the photos that I take on my own, if I want to copyright them I can include my company’s logo on them before they are published.  Otherwise, Photoshop is 

Competitive Analysis

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

Stanford University has implemented the new technology to determine where buses are for students that want to go to the mall or just commuting to around campus. All busses operating on the campus have global positioning satellites installed but to take their entrepreneurial idea a step further by placing the things called NFC’s around the campus (Near Field Communications). You simply place your smart phone against the NFC and information of where the bus is will pop up on your phone. It will tell you it its delayed, left already or in route. The only downside of this technology is it is not compatible for iPhone users, thus far only the Android phone.

As for my entrepreneurial idea I think the idea of having NFC’s around the campus is great but if they are not compatible with a growing species of phones then this does not help all of the SU population. I think sending alerts would be the best thing to do for Syracuse University students because it is the most accessible. It is an application that can be accessed on any market as long as you have a NetID and password.

The two ideas however are very similar, the Stanford app I can see expanding now that Apple has QR codes. Its just a matter of placing these QR codes on all bus stops, and if they want to different access points or want to build an app for all cell phones users.

Boston College also has an application called TransLoc Transit Virtualization that allows students to receive their desired bus schedules on their phones. It is compatible with all Droid and iPhone users. The application provides you with a map and a blue dot that lets you know where the bus is at all times. Students find this particularly useful because they do not have to have text alerts of where the bus is, with a simple click they can see if they missed the bus.

I like the BC app better because its user friendly. Besides adding the aspect of determining if a bus is full or not on my South Campus Congestion app I would want my app to emulate this design. 

Computer Forensics for App Protection

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

From my understanding, computer forensics is computer investigation and analysis techniques used to gather evidence. For my South Campus Congestions app, I do not believe computer forensics would be necessary but it is vital for the kind of app business I want to run. In terms of hackers logging into student accounts from the application it would benefit my team and I to find out whom this person is, how many people they have affected and I could take it forward to the court of law if need be. Cases like this can simply happen from someone losing their phone and leaving all their information logged in.

This is not only limited to criminal hackers but if someone inside my business were to do something unethical like, snooping in students or professors personal business. I plan to expand my application for other universities once it reached maximum success at Syracuse But, when you are hiring employees, you never know a person’s true intentions. Some people hack things for the thrill, while other’s truly have a motive. They could use Wireshark, to find out student passwords which then gives them access to all of the clients information on Myslice, including but not limited to their on campus and permanent housing address, phone numbers, parents names, and social security number. Then I will have a classic case of identity theft on my hands. 

Twitter and Excel Builders to a Better Ap

I am creating an app called South Campus Congestion—where GPS’s will be installed on all busses. The app will generate the best times for students to take the bus to and from campus to avoid congestion. Every time a student takes the bus, they will essentially “check in” thus alerting other students when a bus is at capacity.

In terms of what we learned in lecture this past week, I can apply the Social Media and Excel principles to my app. Social media can be the biggest aspect of my application in terms of promoting the app and letting Syracuse University students know that it exist. Many people do not live on South Campus because of the commuting situation and typically, most people vent about their issues on media outlets like Twitter.

However, if students using the apps see this and are satisfied with how helpful it is, they can pass the app along and maybe change their minds about living on South. I can use the search box to determine what people are talking about in terms of the commuting to main and south. Twitter is a great network to help the to marketing aspect of the app.

For excel, I can generate charts, and data that determines how effective the app is for every user. Collecting these numbers will be easy based on building charts and determining the average amount of downloads a month.

In terms of privacy, the app is only for Syracuse University students. In order to download the app you will need a Syracuse net id and password. I hope that students feel secure when checking in.