Week 11: Muddy

This week, I’m having a hard time grasping the concept of Queries in Access. The lecture briefly describes queries as how you interact with data from a database. It also explains how they support four basic data operations. I’m still a little confused. After researching, I found a more detailed definition at wikianswers.com as my reference.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_query_in_access

A query is a way of extracting information from a database in Microsoft Access. It’s one of the most important things in a database to get information from your database or manipulate data. It usually involves certain criteria or requesting certain data. You can use queries to extract data to a separate table or delete data, change data and many other things.

Excel Project

This week, we were assigned a project in Excel working on a spreadsheet for a large fitness company. The owner collected data from 500 subjects, measuring their heart rate every minute for 20 minutes.
From this data given, I was able to format the spreadsheet making it more organized and easier to analyze. I created formulas to calculate the Maximum Heart Rate based on each subjects age, the Target Heart Rate for maximum cardiovascular benefit for each subject, and show the Highest Heart Rate Achieved. This new data is able to tell the owner whether or not the subject achieved their target and if the exercise program was sufficient.

I have taken a computer class prior to this course, making me somewhat familiar with Excel and was able to navigate around. This course has taught me a tremendous amount of new tools like the IF, Max MIN formulas. I absolutely love how you can enter in one formula and apply it to all of your data instead of entering it in individually. I’ve learned that you can use Excel to store, manipulate, and graph data with different tables like the pivot table. Most importantly, I’ve learned that you can incorporate Excel in just about any project to organize data and make fast calculations. Excel makes life a whole lot easier in the business world! =)

This is my screen capture of the “AvgIncrease” Pivot Table.

Week 10: Clear

A firewall is a great device that is designed to block any unauthorized access entering a computer system. It acts as a boundary between networks to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing a private network. Firewalls are also used to examine all messages coming in or out and blocks any that doesn’t meet the security criteria. According to the lecture, they are the FIRST line of defense in protecting your network from viruses, DOS (Denial of Service) attacks, hacking, and worms. Most importantly, firewalls will help protect your identity as an individual or business.

Firewalls are extremely important in the business environment. Businesses need to protect their computers from danger with a firewall because most rely on their computer system on a daily basis. The internet is a large network of computers, making it easy for virus to spread. If your computer is connected to the internet, you are at risk and need the right security software. Also, if your computer is not connected to a firewall, hackers can gain access to personal information and destroy all your businesses important files. I’d rather be safe than sorry.

A great computer source where I got my information is SpamLaws.com. They explain thoroughly and share the benefits of using firewalls.
http://www.spamlaws.com/firewall-importance.html
I also found the illustration of how a firewall works at Wikipedia.com.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firewall.png

Week 9: Muddy

This weeks lecture, I’m a little confused about Pivot Tables. Since the lecture was only a few minutes long, I searched Wikipedia and found a lot of great information to help better understand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pivot_table
I found that a pivot table is a data summarization tool used for spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel. They are used to automatically sort, count, and total the data stored in one table to create a second table (pivot table) which will display the summarized data.
They usually consist of a row, column, and data fields which allow several kinds of aggregations like sum, average, etc.
Pivot Tables benefit in the business world because unlike a typical data entry where the data is stored only in columns and rows, a pivot table can help summarize the flat data, giving it depth, and highlighting the desired information. Pivot tables are better if you have a lot of information that needs to be summarized and they are now considered an important part of a spreadsheet application.

**(photo) Trainsignal Training a free computer training site.
http://www.trainsignaltraining.com/wpnew/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/Kasia_Pivot/1.jpg