Review a local e-commerce site

E-commerce had been practicing many years. During mid-nineties, many Malaysia’s industries involved in this practice. Nowadays people are prefer to purchase goods online because this can save their time to visit the physical store.

Below are some of the e-commerce sites:-
· http://www.lelong.com/ for consumers to purchase goods such clothes, watches and etc,
· http://www.gsc.com/ for customer to book movie ticket online as well as make payment,
· http://www.airasia.com/ which is an airline company provides online booking services to customers.

Besides, all fields mention above banking field also involve in e-commerce such as public bank (www.pbbank.com.my). Now let me introduce http://www.gsc.com/ in details.

Golden Screen Cinemas Sdn Bhd (GSC) is the leading film exhibitor and distributor in Malaysia. GSC is a click-and-mortar organization which conducting some e-commerce activities (E-payment ticketing and provide online advertising), but its primary business was done in the physical shop (cinemas).

Customers can purchase their tickets via GSC e-payment ticketing (online) and the public also enable to obtain most of the information of GSC through GSC website as well as the latest movies. http://www.gsc.com.my/ . In the GSC website, customers can select their own seats when they make booking. Apart from that, customers also enable to enjoy benefit while visit GSC website, there are many promotion such as free movie treat on member's birthday, load up on free complimentary movie passes, chance to get movie passes or vouchers to any movie related events at GSC cinemas, etc.

In conclusion, GSC is a good website which can save customers time to went to the counter to purchase tickets because it provide e-commerce facilities to consumers.

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies

E-Government is the use of information and communication technologies in public administration combined with organizational change and new skills to improve public services and democratic processes and to strengthen support to public policies.

The implementation E-Government in Malaysia such as:-
· e-Filling for Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri Malaysia (HASIL)
· E-Perolehan
· KWSP’s i-Akaun
· renewing road tax and driving license online

Lembaga Hasil Dalam Negeri Malaysia (HASIL) has introduced e-Filing. It is an application which enables taxpayers to submit their Tax Return Forms electronically-"Easy, Accurate & Safe".

Malaysian Inland Tax Office is planning to stop mailing out tax forms to all the tax payers to do their tax return. Now they are requiring everyone to download the tax filing form and submit their tax returns electronically. What is need is only a system that have Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and above, as well as Adobe Reader 7.0.5. Besides, the use of the Mycard with the 64K chip, devices like a Mycard electronic reader and electronic signature are also involved. A good printer plus a scanner are also required to complete the task. From a technological point of view, this plan is certainly a big challenge to be implemented successfully. From the perspective of the computer usage, online Internet is still yet to be widely adopted in this country. If implemented properly, this plan may help to spur the computer and online usage in Malaysia.

However, there are some of the problems that the citizens encounter through this e-filling. There are felling unsecured of their identity unprotected, the accuracy of the e-filling and some of the citizen do not have Technological knowledge to government application via internet.

On the other hand, there are various reasons that we encourage citizens to use the e- filling application such as can increase the office efficiency, convenience of filing via the Internet, save accounting time by paying fees online, nationwide network of Process Servers, court forms available online, reduces paperwork.




Other e-Government project implementation is Electronic Procurement (eP) Project (also known as ePerolehan). E-Perolehan is an electronic procurement system provided by the government to enable suppliers to sell their products or services in the internet. Through ePerolehan, suppliers and contractors can receive, manage, and process orders or payment from government agencies through transactions done electronically on the internet.

However, there are some problems facing by the user of e-Perolehan. The consumers’ may lack of online procurement knowledge. Furthermore, some consumer may felt lack of trustily and confidential of the system as the risk of losing information is higher in ePerolehan system. In addition, the challenge is even greater compared to paper environment, therefore change and risk management must be in place to ensure information available overtime.

E-government forms an emerging field, which is rapidly gaining attention and importance. Citizens expect and demand governmental services with a high degree of quality, quantity, and availability in a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, and 365 days a year. Governments all over the world are developing information systems and electronic services that have the capacity to meet these emerging service needs and demands of citizens. Success in delivering electronic services depends upon the capability and self-confidence of citizens in performing e-transactions, as well as their trust and confidence in the protection of their personal data within an open and accountable government. The ease of use, compatibility, and trustworthiness are significant predictors of citizens’ intention to use e-Services and that perceived reactive advantage, perceived image, perceived compatibility, perceived usefulness, and relative advantage are significant elements of e-Government adoption.

Things to take note to prevent E-auction fraud when a consumer is participating in an E-auction

Nowadays, using internet to do the online banking, shopping or any other bid activities has become more convenience for people. Therefore, E-auction has become popular through online where not face-to-face auction. Furthermore, the incident of E-auction fraud may arise. When comes to e-auction transactions, who can you trust? Since you do not know the people or products you're dealing with, conducting e-auction transactions over the Internet is risky.

An auction is a market mechanism by which buyers make bids and sellers place offers. Electronic auctions (e-auctions), auctions conducted online.

E-auction fraud may include:

~ bid shielding: The practice of placing a low bid in an auction online and having a second person enter a bid that is high enough to get other bidders to drop out or not even bid. Then at the last second, the high bid is retracted and the low bid wins.
~ shilling: placing fake bids on auction items to artificially jack up the bidding price

~ fake photos and misleading descriptions

~ failure to ship merchandise and make payments

~ loss and damage claims~ switch and return

~ high shipping costs and handling fees

In order for consumers in preventing E-auction fraud, there are few things that may want to take note on (these note provided is base on the effort done by eBay in order to reduce fraud) such as;

· User identity verification is a voluntary program encourages users to supply eBay with information for online verification to qualifies them for highest level of verification.

· Authentication service is to determine whether an item is genuine and described appropriately.

· Grading services is to determine physical condition of an item or the goods.· Feedback forum is provides for the users with ability to comment on their experiences with other individuals.

· Insurance policy is offers by eBay underwritten by Lloyd’s of London at no cost to eBay users.

· Escrow services are if items valued at more than $200, eBay recommends escrow services for free. It is a licensed and regulated company that collects, holds, and sends a buyer's money to a seller according to instructions agreed on by both the buyer and seller. Typically, once the buyer receives and approves the item from the seller within an agreed time frame, the escrow service then sends the payment to the seller.

· Appraisal services is use a variety of methods to appraise items.

~Assessment of authenticity and condition,

~Review of what comparable items have sold for in recent months.

· Verifications are a way of confirming the identity and evaluating the condition of an item.

From more information on step or ways in preventing E-auction fraud you can visit,

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/260/267260/online_appendices/Turban-Appendix2A.pdf

http://www.spamlaws.com/internet-auction-fraud.html

Corporate Blogging: A New Marketing Communication Tool for Companies

A corporate blog is a tool and weblog published that can used by the all types of business to reach their goals as well as to extend their image in the marketplace. Corporate blogs have become an easy-to-access window for most companies to communicate with their customers. Besides, it also helps the organizations have an opportunity to open a two-way channel between employees and customers. Examples of reasons to start a corporate blog would include: Employment Branding, Product Launch, Public Relations, Marketing Campaigns, Consulting Services, Vendor Relations, Media Relations, and Innovative Ideas used to establish Industry Expertise.

There are 2 major categories of corporate blogs which are Internal Blogs and External Blogs.

The Internal Blogs divide into:
1) Knowledge Blogs: give employees information relating to their work assignments.

2) Collaboration Blogs: provide a working team with a tool for research, collaboration and discussion.

3) Culture Blogs: strengthen organizational culture.

It is generally accessed through the company intranet. Therefore, any employee can receive the latest information and news through this intranet. The informal nature of blogs may encourage employees’ participation, free discussion of issues, collective intelligence, direct communication between various layers of an organization and a sense of community.

The External Blogs include:
1) Sales Blogs: provide updated information from time to time to the customers related to new launched products or any others promotion products.

2) Relationship Blogs: create, uphold or strengthen relationships with customers, suppliers and so on.

3) Branding Blogs: strengthen the brand, the profile of the publishing organization or individuals within it.

It is a publicly available weblog where employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It is often used to announce new products and services (or the end of old products), to explain and clarify policies, or to react on public criticism on certain issues in honest and direct view.

Apart from that, corporate blogs have both advantages and disadvantages.




Advantages of Corporate Blogging
1. Help the organization develop stronger relationships and brand loyalty with their customers, as they interact with the ‘human face’ of the organization through blogs.

2. Help employees to keep themselves informed on all the current happenings in the organization.

3. In an intranet environment, can be an excellent way of sharing knowledge within the organization. E.g. allow employees to display their expertise on a particular topic, thereby becoming a recognized industry.

4. Can be a positive way of getting feedback, and keeping a finger on the pulse, as readers react to certain pieces, suggest story ideas.

5. Can build the profile of the writer, showcasing the organization as having talent and expertise.


Disadvantages of Corporate Blogging
1. Some employees may use blogs to write negatively about the company which can lead to bad publicity.

2. Most people do not have very much to say that is interesting, and/or are unable to write down their ideas in a compelling and clear manner.

3. If organizations do not make sure that a blog complies with all applicable local, national and foreign requirements for doing business, it can lead to legal liabilities.

4. Like practically everything else on the Web, blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain. Writing coherently is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks for a human being to undertake. So, far from blogs being a cheap strategy, they are a very expensive one, in that they eat up time. As a result, many blogs are not updated, thus damaging rather than enhancing the reputation of the organization.

As a conclusion, blogging encourages communication and allows businesses more easily to reach their customers. If used properly, corporate blogging will enhance customer loyalty, and can make the business more successful.

Electronic Currency

Nowadays, many people are consuming product such as mp3, eBooks and other product through internet. As a result, there appears a growing demand for electronic currency (e-currency) payment technologies that enable the purchase their desired items.

What is Electronic currency?

Electronic currency (also known as e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency, digital money, digital cash or digital currency) refers money which is exchanged only electronically. This process involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems. The examples of e-money are the electronic funds transfer (EFT) and direct deposit.
The following are companies using electronic currency system:

1. PayLoadz (payloadz.com)

2. BitPass (bitpass.com)
3. Paystone (paystone.com)
4. Peppercoin (peppercoin.com)


Examples of e-currency

PayLoadz, Inc. is a web development company which was founded in 1996. The privately-held company has over 60,000 registered users selling over 280,000 downloadable goods. PayLoadz is a service that sells intangible products such as softwares, e-books, digital art, manuals, articles and anything else that can be downloaded. It is an automated delivery service. This means that seller can go travelling without worrying about sending download links to the consumers every time a payment is made. These files can be either downloaded via hyperlink or sent via e-mail based upon seller’s product.
PayLoadz operates using PayPal's online payment system and Google Checkout. It offers two types of pricing: flat monthly fee (based on the size of sellers’ files) and another one is a fee that is a percentage of sellers’ sales, typically 15 percent. PayLoadz is a member of the PayPal Developer Advisory Board. As such, one of the requirements to use PayLoadz is that sellers need to have a Paypal Merchant Account which is free.


There are benefits given Payloadz:
Secure file storage on our servers
Automated delivery of your digital goods immediately after payment
Sell anywhere online: your own site, our Store, eBay and more.
Affiliate Builder, a fully-functioning affiliate tracking and payment system
Supports Downloads and CD fulfillment

Bitpass was another example of the online payment system for digital content and services. It was founded by Kurt Huang in December, 2002. It also partnered with major technology and financial services companies such as Microsoft, PayPal, the Royal Bank of Scotland and First Data.It works similarly to a pre-paid telephone card. What you need to do is you need to sign up for the service and top up into your account using a credit card or PayPal. Then the money then will credit towards your purchase.
However, on January 19th, 2007, CEO Matthew Graves make an announcement through an e-mail to customers that Bitpass will shut down due to circumstances beyond their control. On January 26th, 2007, the operations officially closed.


Advantages and disadvantages of e-currency
E-currency increases the process of transactions by provides the individual with lots of convenience. It also having a lower transaction fees as well as providing more business opportunities with the expansion of economic activities by globalization.
However, there are some drawbacks in using e-currency. Some of the disadvantages are how to levy taxes and the possible ease of money laundering. There are effects on macroeconomic such as exchange rate instabilities and shortage of money supplies (total amount of digital cash versus total amount of real cash available, basically the possibility that digital cash could exceed the real cash available).

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention

Credit Cards usage for nowadays are commonly apply by all Malaysian workers, households and students. This wonderful plastic card makes purchasing items so simple and easy. In this economic recession, with prices of goods and services going up while income remains unchanged, more and more Malaysians are expense beyond their earnings. Credit card debt is perhaps the most visible symptom of a bigger problem. Are you one of the Credit Card debts’ victims? Are you can manage your credit card properly?

Below are the causes of credit card debts;

1) Less Income and expense more
As we know that there are an increasing number of households using credit cards and some of the breadwinner of the household may use this credit card to pay their monthly expenses. If the breadwinner of the household loss his/her job, the monthly expenses will not cut down while reduction in income. This obviously leads to a rise in debt of credit cards for buying their needs.

2) Poor Money Management
Planning for monthly expenses is vital for everyone. Without planning, you may surprising there is an accumulated lots of debts and have no idea where the money is going. Besides, you may buy unnecessarily items which accumulated to the high cost and you have a mind set that credit cards payment is unlimited while you go to shopping. Therefore, you need to pay the interest for that unnecessarily items purchased every month as well as the accumulated debts.

3) Weak in self control and self determine
Besides, from the poor money management, a person self determine, attitude, personality will affect their expenses of the month. For example, a person may influence or approach by a promoter in the supermarket to buy a new product or promotion product. Therefore, personality and self determine of individual will affect them to buy the product or not. If they are weak in self determine may cause them to buy an unnecessarily items, this will increase the expenses and also debt amount as well as interest need to pay.

Below are some suggestions to prevent credit card debts;

1) Earn More, Spend Less
We must ensure to cut all unnecessary spending. Saving can come from changing in few habits, e.g. buy a pair of shoes when it is necessarily, buying supermarket branded grocery instead of regular brands. These may reduce the debts from our monthly budget by earning more and spending less.

2) Establish a budget and then follow that budget exactly
In other words, which mean that strengthen the money management. For example, do not buy new furniture using the credit card on a whim when have no budgeted for that month. Besides, a budget must suit for own capability. Such as monthly income is RM2000; therefore a budget for that month does not access RM2000.

3) Get a low interest credit card if your credit card's interest rate is excessive.
Before applying the new credit card, you must understand and find out what is the interest rate will be charged. Besides, you must understand the terms and conditions of applying credit card to avoid any unfair charges. Therefore, the better your credit, the lower the rate for which you will qualify.

4) Avoid bringing credit card go to shopping
If you think you are the squander while go for shopping, the most effective way is do not bring your credit card out for shopping and only bring cash, which the amount that you can spend according to your budget. This can help you save a lot of money.

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: its potentials and consumers’ adoption strategies.

In Malaysia, most of the transaction is being done by cash payment. Mobile payment is a facility that enables the consumer’s mobile phone to pay for wide range of services and digital or hard goods. With the advantages of this technology, it has eased our daily life. According to a research, there will be 1.4 billion people who use mobile payment by 2015. Mobile payment is a point-of-sale payment made through a mobile device, such as a cellular telephone, a smart phone, or a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

Consumer’s adoption strategies:

The example of mobile payment system in Malaysia is MOBILE MONEY. It is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd to address the limitations created by cash, cheque and credit cards. It allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere by using mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). This gives the freedom to shoppers to buy products online and pay the merchant using mobile phone without being physically present at the store.

Although mobile payment is convenient to users, it not giving the confidence to the users. They feel unsecured and inconvenient when they are using the mobile payment because the afraid their personal information may be use by others people. If the mobile payment wants to be succeeding in Malaysia, there is a need to strengthen consumers in sense of the safety, security and the reliability of its networks. There also a need to educate consumers through seminar or advertisement about the function and the usage of mobile payment system. Furthermore, it should increase the number of company that can accept mobile payment system..

The Application of Pre-Paid Cash Card for Consumers

The concept of prepaid cash card is similar with credit card or debit card. It gives users the ability to buy goods and services without paying by cash. Users can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto the card. At last, users will not run into debt like over used the credit card.

Example:

The most common one of prepaid cash card in Malaysia is Touch ‘n Go. It is easy and convenient for people bring to anywhere. Before this, we know that Touch ‘n Go not only for toll fares but also theme park, parking services and common ticket system (CTS) for rail transit system. Nowadays, Touch ‘n Go also applicable for retail payments. Six retail merchants comprising fast food chain A&W, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Caltex Starmat, Cathay Cineplexes and 7-Eleven together make up a total 15 outlets for payment purpose. In addition, Touch ‘n Go application also applicable for payments at outlets with drive-thru lanes. The purposes for the company continue come out these applications is to increase awareness of customer figure out a cashless society. The benefits of using Touch ‘n Go are increasing the speed of paying, eliminating debt risk with no chance to spend too much as the balance is limited to reloaded amount and the card can be used and top up in most of the places in Malaysia.

Another example of Prepaid Cash Card:

In Hong Kong, there are a lot of prepaid cash cards is provided, and one of the most common cards is the Octopus card. It is a credit card sized rechargeable payment card used for a variety of things but is primarily used for public transport such as Star Ferry, Buses, some minibuses, convenience stores such as 7-11, supermarkets, fast food outlets, or public telephone booths. The users just need to bring the Octopus card and no need to carry coins when making the payment. It launched in September 1997 to collect fares for the city's mass transit system. The Octopus card system has since grown into a widely used payment system for virtually all public transport in Hong Kong.


In foreign countries like Singapore, they have developed the performance of pre-paid cash card since a few years ago. The pre-paid cash card in Singapore like POSB MasterCard Debit. POSB MasterCard Debit card is the all-in-one payment card for everything you want to make such as the users can use this card for shopping with friends, treating friends to dinner or enjoying a holiday in overseas. In addition, the users also can enjoy instant access to their money anytime and anywhere.

Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods.

Day after day, computer users are bomb with an increasing number of phishing-based emails and attacks.

WHAT ARE “PHISHING’?

Phishing is a high technology and criminal process of attempting to acquire people personal information such as information of the credit card, user name and password of ATM Card or personal sensitive or financial data. Once the thieves have the information’s, they may use it for the following things:-

1. opening credit lines using your name and use it to buy expensive item such as gold, jewelry;
2. applying loans form unauthorized financial institution;
3. declaring bankruptcy using your name; or
4. using your name commit criminal

Phishing is usually carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often makes the users to enter details at a website without any doubt. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques which takes advantage between people and technology. People often trust information they receive via e-mail or from a website.

EXAMPLES OF PHISHING

An example of a phishing e-mail, from an official e-mail of a (fictional) bank. The sender is tried to trick the recipient into revealing secure information by “confirming” it at the phisher’s website. Note the misspelling of the words received and discrepancy.



Example PayPal Scam Email:

You've added an additional email address to your PayPal account.

If you don.t agree with this email philip@adelphi.net and if you need assistance with your account, please click here to login to your account.

To make sure you can use your PayPal account the next time you make a purchase, all you need to do is confirm or not your email address. If your email program has problems with hypertext links, you may also confirm your email address by logging in to your account.

Thank you for using PayPal!

Sincerely,

PayPal Customer Service

----------------------------------------------------------------

Here is what PayPal suggests:

Look for a PayPal Greeting
PayPal will never send an email with the greeting "Dear PayPal User" or "Dear PayPal Member." Real PayPal emails will address you by your first name and the last name or the business name associated with your PayPal account.

Don't share personal information via email
We will never ask you to enter your password or financial information in an email or send such information in an email. You should only share information about your account once you have logged in to https://www.paypal.com/.

Don't download attachments
PayPal will never send you an attachment or software update to install on your computer.


PREVENTION METHODS
1. Be aware of any email requesting personal information. Don't reply to any suspicious looking emails or click on any links that you're unsure of.

Always ensure that you are on a secure connection to a web server when submitting personal information across the Internet. This is determined by:
· Seeing an https:// appear in the URL instead of http://
· Seeing a picture of a locked padlock in the lower right-hand corner of the BROWSER WINDOW, not the page itself. (Before careful, sometimes phishers display this icon on their website to trick users into thinking they have a secure connection!)


2. Be suspicious of any email with urgent requests personal information.

Phishers have been known to include upsetting statements in their emails to get people to react immediately. Some of them toned down their language as e-mail recipients in order to attract you to believe. Either way, the e-mail typically asks for information such as usernames, passwords, credit card numbers and social security numbers.

3. Be careful of emails that are not personalized and or contain spelling errors

Many phishing emails are sent in great bulk and, therefore are not personalized. If you are suspicious of email claiming to be from your institution that is not personalized, call your institution before responding to the email to confirm the validity.

4. Be careful of personalized emails that ask for personal financial information.

Be suspicious of any email that contains some personal financial information such as a bank account number, and ask for other information such as a PIN. Your bank will never ask for or send you financial information by email.

5. Do not use links in an email to get to a banks webpage.

Call the bank via telephone to confirm the address. You may also log onto the banks website directly by typing in the web address in your browser.

6. Do not complete forms in email messages that ask for personal information.

Your bank would never ask you to complete such a form within the body of an email message.
Regularly log on to your online accounts and check your bank, credit and debit card statements to ensure that all transactions are legitimate.
The advantage of banking online is enabling you to regularly review your account for unauthorized or unusual activity. If anything is suspicious, contact your bank and appropriate card issuers immediately.
Ensure that your internet browser program is up to date and that the most recent security updates have been applied.
Always visit your browser provides homepage to download the latest security patches even if they don’t alert you to do so.

The Application of 3rd Party Certification Program in Malaysia

3rd party certification program plays a significant role in boosting our confidence when dealing with online transactions. With a trusted online environment, you did not fear of having your personal data be stolen, information contaminated by third parties, and transacting party denying any commercial commitment with you. Furthermore, it assists in the development of greater Internet based activities.

The most famous application of 3rd party certification program in Malaysia is provided by the MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd. It was incorporated in year 1999. It is under a Licensed Certification Authority (CA) of the Multimedia Super Corridor. Certification Authority is the body that given the license to operate as a trusted third party in the issuance of digital certificates.

The objective of MSC Trustgate is to secure the open network communications from both locally and across the ASEAN region. Trustgate provides digital certification services such as digital certificates, cryptographic products and software development. The products and services of Trustgate are SSL Certificate, Managed PKI, Personal ID, MyTRUST, MyKAD ID, SSL VPN, Managed Security Services, VeriSign Certified Training and Application Development.

The vision of MSC Trustgate is to enable an organizations to conduct their business securely over the internet, as much as what they have been enjoying in the physical world.

VeriSign is one of the most recognized trust marks on the Internet. It not only builds confidence in one's brand with online customers, its comprehensive approach to securing networks and Web sites. Besides that, VeriSign is the leading Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Authority which also enabling the security of e-commerce, communications, and interactions for websites, intranets, and extranets. It provides security solutions to protect an organization’s consumers, brand, website, and network.

Why is the 3rd party certification needed?

The major reason is the threats of internet security spreading over the network nowadays. For example, with the increase of phishing on the internet, customers want to make sure that whether they are dealing business with a trusted party. They are afraid of their personal information such as ID number, passwords, credit card numbers and so on will be sent to those companies which do not exist in this real world. Thus, the certification from 3rd party is needed to ensure their information traveled over the Internet reaches the intended recipients and is safe.

~ End of Post~

How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

In our digital age, it is commonly use computer to save personal data and use internet to do the financial transaction such as transfer money, checking account balance, pay monthly expenses and so on because it enable to save time from queue up and waiting up to an hour at eg. Post Office. But, are you sure all of the personal and financial data are secure from it. Besides, data can be classified into few categories, such as personal, public, confidential, top-secret or other categories. Therefore, the privacy data need to be protected to avoid ourselves becomes the next victim. Below is the ways should be taken in order to safeguard our personal and financial data.

1. Keep the personal, financial and sensitive data off from the computer
It is just simple and very effective way where keep bank account numbers, passwords, user name off your computer. It can save into Pendrive or CD Rom in a document form and keep it in a safe place. When data is needed we just plug in the drive to the computer. Besides, if do not want save into external hardware, try to stand by or turn off the computer when leave the computer for long time periods. It can avoid anyone to steal the data when not around but make sure there is password protected for your computer as well as encryption for the documents.

2. Clear your browser’s cache after an online transaction
Sometimes browser will save certain information, user name, passwords that we typed into forms, example for online banking in public bank website which I have learned. That is after all transactions had made, make sure to clear off all the browsing history. It is because to avoid next person easily to track our private user name and passwords. It just an easy way where click ‘tool’ on the web page, ‘internet option’, ‘browsing history’, then click ‘delete’ and ‘yes’. Then, it is successfully to clear browser history.


3. Turn your computer off or on standby when you are not using it
It is really an effective and easy way. If your computer is not turning on, then a hacker, virus, or anything else is can not do anything. For anyone has a desktop at home, make sure turn it off or put your laptop into sleep mode when you are not there. It is because some people have this habit to turn on their desktop 24 hours per day for their convenience. Therefore, why open it to get attack if you are not even using the computer.


4. Make sure your computer installed antivirus software and firewall
Antivirus software such as Avast, Kaspersky, BitDefender and others are use to protect the computer to against phishing, malware in order to protect personal and financial data from hacker and intention party. Beside that, make sure the antivirus software up-to-date as well as regularly scan the computer to remove any critical files which will affect the overall performance of computer and allow easily access to the private data without any notice to an individual. Apart from that, firewall helps protect the computer by preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to it through a network or the Internet. It also helps to protect computer against viruses and other security threats. In addition, both of the antivirus software and firewall are work together to help protect the computer.

The threats of online security: How safe is our data?

Due to the advance of technology and development of e-commerce, online security is a major issue and concern by the customers when make any transaction through online. Therefore, we need to consider about the security for our personal or private data as threats can come in from any direction.

There are few common threats of online security that we need to be aware such as spam mail, viruses, phishing attacks, social engineering, spyware attack and etc.

Spam mail

Spam mails sent without the alert of the recipients. According to survey, security-related threats and attack incident in year 2007, Malaysia, total 38601 emails is spam. Nowadays, the quality of spam has improved. It can be sent out together with attach of images, PDFs, documents, spreadsheets or videos which may links to malicious sites or malware.

virus
Computer virus is a dangerous virus and with the feature of able to generate and copies itself. In addition, it causes changes in the computer settings as well as slows down the performance of the computer. The most damaging viruses are the ones that are simply designed to cause as much destruction as possible, such as deleting important files.

Phishing attacks

A popular method of phishing is to steal consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials through fake websites. Phishing messages pretend to be from eBay, PayPal and etc. The scams sent out e-mails to recipients by asking them log in to the fake websites in order to disclose their private information such as financial accounts number. If the private information entered, they will steal the username and passwords that you are sunk.

Spyware attack

Spyware is one of the online threats that is designed to steal the information from computer without your authorization. Spyware is dangerous in that it can steal your personal information, such as documents, passwords, credit card numbers, bank accounts numbers, for the sole benefit of the people behind the spyware.

In conclusion, online security should be pay attention by online users since threats will not say “hello” to you when it is come unless there are some prevention action such as using anti-virus programmed. It helps to detect viruses which contain in the file received and scanned it to ensure it is safe before open it.

Discuss how e-commerce can reduce cycle time, improve employees’ empowerment and facilitate customer support.

With the advance of technologies now a day, e-commerce is widely being use by most of the organization no matter profit or non profit organization as well as individual. With the existing of e-commerce, it enables to reduce cycle time, improve employee empowerment and facilitates customer support.

Reduce cycle time
Before the turn up of e-commerce, traditional approach commerce required middleman to transfer the goods from producers to the customers and this process is time consuming and even worse some of the goods are not delivered on time. Beside that, e-commerce may help to reduce cycle time by eliminate those middleman and the sellers can directly trade with customers and it enable to shorten the supply chain process. Apart from that, it provides 24 hours store services such as make orders anytime at any regions with difference time zone. This will expand their business to World Wide Web.

Improve employee empowerment
Employees are important resources to organization because they can help organization handling daily transactions as well as problems. With the advancement of technologies such as computerized decision aids enable employees to make decision by improving their empowerment. This can enable them to manage and edit critical details about e-commerce activities. Apart from that, it gives authority to the employees. In addition, it will increase the efficiency and the productivity of organization due to perspective of respect. Thus, it improves employees’ morale and loyalty.

Facilitate customer services
E-commerce provides convenience to customer and facilitates customer services such as receive complaints, question and answer session and user guideline of product to customers. The customer services provided by the e-commerce organization are 24 hours basis which mean customer can e-mail or log in to their web site anytime at anywhere. Beside that, customers also can voice out their opinion and idea via online. This enables the organization to know more about customer preferences in order to improve their services and satisfied the customers’ needs.

An Example of an E-Commerce Failure and its Causes

There are extremely successful virtual e-commerce companies such as eBay, Google, or Yahoo! in recent years. However, there are large numbers of e-commerce companies that are unable to maintain their profit through e-commerce. Some well-known business-to-consumers (B2C) failures include Pets.com, Xpeditor, Chemdex.com, Webvan.com, Boo.com, Furniture.com, Bid.com, Petstore.com and so on.

eToys.com is one of the top 10 dot-com flops. Etoys.com was launched in 1997, and it was founded by the CEO, who name Toby Lenk, COO Frank Han and Idealab Founder Bill Gross. eToys filed for an initial public offering (IPO) valued at $115 million in February 1999. However, eToys delayed the IPO due to the acquisition of BabyCenter Inc., announced in April 1999. EToys seem like the best idea for those busy parents; it offered them a chance to order thousands of toys in every category from the comfort of their homes. Beside that, the site also had fun features, the features including gift recommendations by age and information about popular characters, from Madeline to Barney.

On May 20, 1999, eToys opened the sale of stock to the public. This helped generate praise for the online toy category. Despite the positives, eToys suffered a black eye after it failed to deliver some orders in time for Christmas 1999. eToys’ lead was put in jeopardy after major competitive of eToys; Toys “R” Us and Amazon.com formed a partnership in August 2000.

The cause of failure is competitive environment. The eToys was competing with the companies such as Toys R’ Us that had not only an online presence, but also the perceived stable infrastructure of bricks and mortal. eToys.com strategy to offer more diverse products conflicted with the strong “toy store” branding they had created. The price wars and high customer acquisition costs also caused problem for this e-tailer.

Another cause of eToys.com failure in e-commerce is because of ineffective customer service or misinformation about products and services, such as failed to deliver the order on time would destroy the image of the company, and the first impression of new customers. In addition, the negative response from customers is also another cause which will lead the dot-com filed into bankruptcy in E-business.

However, e-Toys. com was reborn in October 2001 as a subsidiary of KB Toys. In 2004, eToys separated form KB Toys