Center for E-Commerce and Business Analytics (CEBA) - Blog Posts

And then there were none…

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Sat, 07 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

The semester started with the class being divided into three major groups handling Shingo, Huntsman, and Display. Starting off with I was placed with the display team working on CSS and formatting for a marquee type display that users could select what they wanted. Later on in the semester the display team was broken up and placed with the Huntsman project in order to meet some very important deadlines and help alleviate some of the pressure they were under.

The only really consistent thing working with both projects had for me (aside from my CSS stuff) was that most of the semester was spent working in small groups bouncing ideas around off of each other. This small dynamic worked very well for our teams as we all had different points of view and differing opinions on what needed to happen. I felt that these brainstorming sessions while we worked lead to us making better choices. For example, while we were working questions came up about were certain things we were working on actually important? Would they every really be used? Why were we doing them if we couldn’t answer those questions? This saved us time and effort and in my opinion kept us from being side tracked and spending valuable time and resources on unnecessary information.

This small group dynamic kept us focused on our tasks, where as if we tried the same style with a large group we would have been bogged down in arguments and opinions. With a small tightly knit group ideas seemed to pop up and the discussion flowed from item to item getting us further along more quickly than if we didn’t have this synergy.

CSS the continuing adventures…

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Sat, 07 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

Eric and I were transferred groups from Display to Huntsman, lot of catch up to do there and a ton of new code to start learning.

While working on the interface for Huntsman, I’m once again playing with CSS. I’m told no CSS3 this time which isn’t nearly as fun; I like the different design options that CSS3 allows. So it’s just back to the plain old CSS style sheets that we’ve all come to know and semi-hate. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still better than having nothing but plain backgrounds and boring text but when you get used to one it’s very hard going back.

There’s some good data over at W3schools here: http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp. That talk about basic starter level CSS which is always good to review (especially when you’re used to something a bit different).

The biggest difference on this project is that we’re using Telrik (http://www.telerik.com/) controls here where I’ve never used them before. They have their own layout, design, and CSS. So making everything cohesive is a major concern. Which on the plus side is exactly what CSS is intended to do. The biggest problem that I’ve run across so far is that finding where the Telrik CSS is isn’t that easy.

One of the ways around that problem was to build a generic style sheet and then load up a page that had the Telrik controls on it. Then to get the CSS information from it I had to inspect elements to find the styling (not the location, but the actual styling displayed on the page). Then take that information and put it in the generic style sheet I created earlier. After that I could apply the styling based on classes or other elements used on the screen.

The next problem that we ran into was the styling of the model popups. As they were, they kept coming up as orange on a page that was primarily light blues. This was a bigger problem as we had to track backwards through the code to even find where the model was being pulled from.

Project Management Tools

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

We all believe that there is some tool out there that will solve all of our problems. We’re always searching for that magic bullet. If we can’t find it, we think we can make it. The ironic thing I have discovered this semester is that amidst all of those great tools available (more each day), that in the end, they are only tools. We implemented a project management tool called Teambox this semester. Teambox “is online collaboration project software that combines the best practices in productivity with tools from social networking.” What more could you ask for, right? We needed “productivity”, and “social networking” is the rage. With Teambox we could create Task Lists, Upload Files, Create Pages for documentation, eliminate email by using Conversation. So we couldn’t go wrong with this great tool. So how did it go? Initially things went well. It took everyone a while to figure out the little nuances of the software. We did honestly eliminate email and within Teambox, we had a complete history of all of our conversations. Everything was documented. We created and assigned tasks. We even uploaded .pptx and .docx files that had documentation. Things could be going any better.

Then we decided we didn’t necessarily need to meet as often. We didn’t have status meetings because everything was on Teambox. We knew it was “on Teambox” so we didn’t talk to each other as much, and the technology began to kind of get in the way.

One of the things we learned was no matter how good the tools were, if the team didn’t work as a team we lost momentum and missed our objectives.

(More to come…. this post is not done yet)

“Becoming”

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

The MIS department’s website in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business states, “the Department of MIS has created a hands-on learning environment to allow students access to the latest hardware and software tools which provide them with a state of the art education.” CEBA is visible evidence that the MIS faculty and staff here at Utah State are dedicated to making that statement a reality. It is also evidence that the students in the MIS program are becoming the individuals they need to be in order to compete with college graduates from all over the country.

A recent article published by Ken Laudon of New York University’s Stern School of business said, “Changes in consumer demand, improvements in technology, the rise and fall of industries and entire sectors of the economy, and many other factors, will contribute to the changing employment structure of the U.S. economy. Employment growth in IS/MIS jobs will be about 50% greater than average job growth in other fields.” With that career outlook, it is vital that a program provides the resources necessary for students to become professionals. The Center for Electronic Commerce and Business Analytics does just that. Students in the MIS department in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business are becoming students who have skills superior to those of their peers.

Social Media for Business

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

When I go to study in the library I see students with their laptops open. I would like to say that I only see them typing away and working diligently to complete their homework, but from my informal visual surveys I’ve noticed that approximately half of them are actually on Facebook. That seems to be the trend around the world! Take these statistics for an example found at Facebook.

More than 500 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook
There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

So what does this mean for businesses. According to socialnomics.com 25% of the searches for the worlds top 20 brands are links to user generated content. 34% of bloggers post their opinions about products and brands. Only 18% of T.V. ads generate a positive ROI, and 90% of people that can TIVO ads… do. Twenty-four of twenty-five of the worlds largest newspapers are experiencing record declines. Could it be that we no longer search for the news… but that the news actually finds us? Could it be that we don’t have to find the news about products but that they will find us via social media in the near future? Could it be that social media isn’t a fad, but a fundamental shift in the way we communicate with each other?

From what i have experienced successful companies who use social media act more like party planners, gatherers, and contest generators than traditional advertisers. It is not a question of whether businesses do it or not.. but a question of how well they do it! CEBA has given me the freedom to explore some social media concepts and work with real businesses. The experience has been remarkable.

The World of WordPress

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

I have recently been spending a large amount of my time uncovering what was to me an unknown world called wordpress. The more time I spend learning about it, its’ plugins, wigdets, themes, and settings I get more excited about the possibility for me to create useful websites in a matter of hours or even minutes. For example, in about 10 minutes I could have a classifieds website up that is fully functioning and allows users to pay for featured ads through paypal, rate the seller, and much more. I recently put some time into a website called appliancewise.org. This was the purpose I began to explore wordpress so it took me a while to get it to how it looks today. Another site, nampaappliance.winsweepstakes.org is one that I made in about 20 minutes because of how much I learned my first time through. I talked to my stakeholder and told her I would have something up soon. She was astonished when I contacted her 20 minutes later and told me how much she liked it. The only thing she wanted to change was the white image of the background of the Monkey I-pod. There are thousands of plugins, which allow various functionality to installed and active on the site by a few clicks on the mouse. Sidebar widgets that bring additional functionality and and style and can be activated and deactivated by a dragging and dropping boxes in a certain area.

Of course wordpress has limitations and cannot be used for many projects, but for others, it is the perfect opportunity to make some awesome websites with a easy to use admin panel for clients of all skill levels to use. I would suggest to anyone to look at wordpress before starting any basic or intermediate website.

Diverse Things to Learn

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

The beginning stage of my involvement with CeBA’s projects was related to Scandia amusement park’s web page (web page design from scratch using HTML and CSS programming languages). However, the project fell through and we had to continue our independent learning on other assignments or tasks.

Learning process was very diverse. We started from the definition of HTML to the creation of tables and web sites. We learned how to design the web page and how to check for failures. Moreover, our independent learning that was facilitated and supervised by Jason Baddley, was not limited only to HTML and CSS coding but rather expanded to new technologies and all sorts tools and skills for technical manipulations. Meanwhile working on web page creation, we were even creating our own images through Photoshop editing and color styling through Adobe Kuler.

Like I said during my part of the final presentation, for CeBA’s sake I would suggest a set of programming prerequisites for students who want to be involved with the Center. However, from my own experience, I am grateful that I had the chance to participate in CeBA and learn so much more than the people who joined with at least a minimum base of knowledge to invest. I consider myself to be the luckiest participant in CeBA’s first semester since even though my investment in the Center’s projects was scarce but considering the goal of the Center (to prepare student to immediately step into highly competitive careers based on the knowledge and real life experience gained with CeBA), I believe I had my investment in its achievement.

Huntsman HTML/CSS

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

With Huntsman CeBA project I have been assigned to do the HTML/CSS work: add styles to Folder inner section, do CSS styling for MBA Folder etc. For instance, my last assignment was to do the HTML/CSS styling for few Student Folder Controls such as Entrance Exam, Languages and Notes & Interactions.

This was by far the most productive assignment since I finally got to invest my knowledge into a real life project, got to see the drawbacks of just theoretical learning or one way HTML/CSS solutions. Jason, the program manager, and I went through several design options for the Notes & Interactions Control. Depending on the rest of the Controls and the type/quantity of the information, the decision of using tables over divs changed as well as changed the decision of styling come of the parts within HTML or taking everything out into Cascading Style Sheet. Eventually, the space dedicated for this control played role too and the overall page design, color selection put some limitations in its turn.

Below is the screen shot of “Notes & Interactions” Control from the Student Folder:

The Ways Passing Values between Different Web Pages Using C#

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 MST

In the web application, pages often need the information from the previous pages. Here, I summarized the various ways that can be used to pass values between different web pages by giving the following source example.

1. Sources Files

1.1 Prevous page:

Previouspage.aspx

Previouspage.aspx.cs

1.2 Current page

Currentpage.aspx

Currentpage.aspx.cs

2. Source

2.1 PreviousPage.aspx

<%@ Page Language=”C#” AutoEventWireup=”true” CodeBehind=”PreviousPage.aspx.cs” Inherits=”ValuePassing.PreviousPage” %>

<title>Previous Page</title>

</head>

<body>

<div>

<table>

<tr><td>Query String Item : </td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”QueryStringItem” runat=”server” Text=”Query String Passed”></asp:TextBox><br /></td></tr>

<tr><td>Post Information: </td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”PostInformation” runat=”server” Text=”Post Information Passed”></asp:TextBox><br /></td></tr>

<tr><td>Session Object: </td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”SessionObject” runat=”server” Text=”Session Value Passed”></asp:TextBox><br /></td></tr>

<tr><td>Public Property: </td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”PublicProperty” runat=”server” Text=”Public Value Passed”></asp:TextBox><br /></td></tr>

<tr><td>Text Control: </td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”TextControl” runat=”server” Text=”Text Control Value Passed”></asp:TextBox><br /></td></tr>

</table>

</div>

</form>

</body>

</html>

2.2 PreviousPage.aspx.cs

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

namespace ValuePassing

{

public partial class PreviousPage : System.Web.UI.Page

{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

}

protected void Submit_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

//Passing value to another page through Session

Session["SessionObject"] = SessionObject.Text;

//Passing value to next page through adding query string at the end of URL

Server.Transfer(“CurrentPage.aspx?QueryStringItem=” + QueryStringItem.Text);

}

//Passing value to next page through Public Property

public String CurrePublicProperty

{

get

{

return PublicProperty.Text;

}

2.3 CurrentPage.aspx

<%@ Page Language=”C#” AutoEventWireup=”true” CodeBehind=”CurrentPage.aspx.cs” Inherits=”ValuePassing.CurrentPage” %>

<%@ PreviousPageType VirtualPath=”~/PreviousPage.aspx” %>

<title>Current Page</title>

</head>

<body>

<div>

<table>

<tr><td>Previous Query String Item :</td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”QueryStringItem” name=”PreviousQueryStringItem: ” runat=”server” Text=”"></asp:TextBox> </td></tr>

<tr><td>Previous Post Information :</td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”PostInformation” name=”PreviousPostInformation: ” runat=”server” Text=”"></asp:TextBox> </td></tr>

<tr><td>Previous Session Object :</td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”SessionObject” name=”PreviousSessionObject: ” runat=”server” Text=”"></asp:TextBox> </td></tr>

<tr><td>Previous Public Property :</td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”PublicProperty” name=”PreviousPublicProperty: ” runat=”server” Text=”"></asp:TextBox> </td></tr>

<tr><td>Previous Text Control :</td><td><asp:TextBox ID=”TextControl” name=”PreviousTextControl: ” runat=”server” Text=”"></asp:TextBox> </td></tr>

</table>

</div>

</form>

</body>

</html>

2.4 CurrentPage.aspx.cs

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

namespace ValuePassing

{

public partial class CurrentPage : System.Web.UI.Page

{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

//Getting query string value from previous page

QueryStringItem.Text = Request.QueryString["QueryStringItem"];

//Getting post information value from previous page

PostInformation.Text = Request.Form["PostInformation"];

//Getting session value value from previous page

SessionObject.Text = (string)(Session["SessionObject"]);

//Getting public property value from previous page

PublicProperty.Text = PreviousPage.CurrePublicProperty;

//Getting control value from previous page

TextBox txtBox = (TextBox)PreviousPage.FindControl(“TextControl”);

if (txtBox != null)

{

TextControl.Text = txtBox.Text;

}

3. Pages

3.1 Previous Page

3.2 Current Page

Learning little tricks

brent.meacham@aggiemail.usu.edu (Brent Meacham) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 MST

I have never been a web designer. I have avoided doing anything more than a “this is my web page” web page. I didn’t want to have to deal with making something pretty, as well as functional. Pretty has never really been my thing. So when I started in the class to learn simple css and html, I started at the beginning. For example, one of my first questions was, “What is a <div>?” since then I have learned some cool tricks, not necessarily to code, but to debug. There is this really cool thing in Chrome where you can inspect the element you are on.

It is pretty cool because you can find what is making the item look or act that way at run time. Often that changes depending on user input, so seeing what it looks like at any given time is pretty nice. Then you can copy that code and make other elements the same. (thank you Tiffany)

There is also a cool thing in visual studio where you can insert the namespace of an element by simply pressing control + period then enter, while on the name of the element. I cannot tell you how much time I have spent looking for the namespace of something. I would find some example code and it did exactly what I wanted, but when I put it in my code, it didn’t have the namespace. And there isn’t a nice easy place to find them that I could find. This trick makes me happy. (thank you Jason)

Other tricks I learned aren’t so much tricks, as they are how you do things, like center a div. So I will not go into detail. But lets just say that my previous attempt was to press space 20 times till my text was in the right place.