Reflection of Week 3

Week 3 was another enjoyable week for me because of the topics covered.  There aren’t many other areas in the IT field that I enjoy more than databases.  This is mostly because I love developing. Once you master developing static content you instantly want to dive into more dynamic projects, and there is no better way to make a website or application more dynamic than to add a database in the background which will allow users to view, add, update, and remove content at their will.

Most of the content covered was familiar to me except for the large scale topics such as data warehouses.  I have plenty of experience with databases for small scale projects from school, at home projects, and small contracts.  The contract I am working on right now for my personal business involves a small three tier application including an Oracle database.

I also like reading about examples of massive database implementations such as the Google search engine.

Reflection of Week 2

Week 2 was much more enjoyable than the previous week for me personally.  The reason why it was more enjoyable is that the material was much more familiar and easier to understand.  I’ve never been part of a hardware team, but I’ve always been fascinated by electronics since I was little, and I like to build my own computers.  I also have certifications such as the A+, MCTS, and Linux, which also helped me understand the material more.

This week was a good refresher of topics I have already studied.  It’s good to go over in depth information on hardware and software, because the information that was covered in chapters 4 and 5 doesn’t really stick unless you review it from time to time.

There isn't much hardware involved in my current position, but I will be able to apply the software knowledge since I am part of a team that works with administering and configuring many different operating systems.

Reflection of Week One

I learned a lot from Chapters 1 and 2, but I’m going to have to review it more to see how I can apply it in my own endeavors.  Chapter 1 was a summary of Information systems and their structure mostly so its purpose was mostly just informative and good to know.  Chapter 2 was mind boggling because up until now I was always just a technician.  I didn’t care about keeping a business competitive or the enterprise structure through the use of technology, because that was always an executive or manager duty.  But now as I have grown I can see that this information will be useful in the near future.

A great example of how IT technologies have affected my management is that my team is in the DC area on the east coast, where as another half of our team including our management is in San Diego on the west coast.  Our work is so closely connected that we need to communicate both through audio and visual means and share business related documents and files on a daily basis.  I’m sure this would have been inconceivable not too long ago.  We are able to do this through virtual conferences that allow us to share visuals, and we also make us of basic telecommunication technologies.  We are able to seamlessly act as one team on opposite coasts thanks to technology.

I will be able to apply the knowledge I learned from week one for my own personal business to help it become more competitive and to minimize the threat of losing business to other companies.