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.