Review on a post on Legal

From The Star paper, it indicated that at least 66 people were cheated around RM73,445.10 after purchased skincare products which include facial and eye masks. These products are come under names such as “My Beauty” and “My Sherman Beauty” being advertised on “Big Pussycat’s” website. They were attracted by cheaper price compared to those off the shelf.

A victim, Chong, had purchased this product for his girlfriend but the products never arrived. Another victim realized that she has been ripped off after her friends told her to check on the advertisement. She found out that the website warns people that the skincare is not genuine.

Datuk Michael Chong, head of MCA Public Services and Complaints Department advised public to be more aware of skincare sold on the Internet. Public must have to make sure that the site is and established or a known site before making purchase.

There are few tips to prevent fraud when purchasing online, which are:

1. Know who you are doing business with. Before making any purchase, be sure that the website that you are engaged in is reputable. Check out the website's feedback and responses.

2. If you worry about entering your bank details online, perhaps you may try Paypal, Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. They help you to shop on Internet without sharing your banking information and you may cover any fraud occurred.

3. Check with the websites. Web addresses which begin with "https" instead of "http" are protected by Secure Sockets Layer Security. It may help to encrypt the data.

For more information, please refer to

http://www.ip97.com/new_years_resolution_three_simple_ways_to_prevent_online_cdi.aspx

http://www.dna-web-design.com/dna/dna_tips/tips_to_prevent_online-fraud.html

http://www.fpaforfinancialplanning.org/ToolsResources/Articles/EightWaystoDetectandPreventIdentityTheft/

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

Corporate blog is a tool published and used by company for communication purposes with the internal and external users. Besides using traditional approaches, they able to achieve organizational goals by create blog.

(i) Internal blog: it is a web blog that enable employee access through the firm’s intranet to get information such as lieu of meetings. Due to this reason, this had increase employee participation to have discussion (e.g. email discussion) on any issues and direct communication with all layers of an organization.

(ii) External blog: it is a web blog that is publicly available among employees, suppliers and customers to share their views. Normally, company used this to publish information about new products and services, objectives and policies and others.

Advantages of corporate blogging:

• It can connect with all the users who are customers, shareholders, investors, suppliers, customers all over the world. They can share the latest news, opinions or anything else easily though blogs.

• Its cost less expensive compared to traditional method to make announcements such as printed memo for all employees.

• It serves as an effective marketing tool by advertise products with animated pictures and do more detailed explanation on each product.

• Blog can be used as recruitment tool that can save expenses from hiring consultants. Firm can advertise vacancies and inform the current employees about there is job opening and encourage them to apply if believe they posses required qualifications.

• Receive feedback from internal and external users by collecting different views and thinking about the products and services. For employer, blog is able to capture employees’ feeling about company’s policies and working culture.

As a conclusion, blogging had make a lot of changes especially in the business world and it had beneficial to corporation who apply it. It has become the most effective communication tool for companies to catch up with employees and the society.

references:
http://www.enterpriseblogs.info/corporate-blogging/advantages

E- Goverment in Malaysia: Implementation and Citizen's Adoption Strategies

E-government refers to the use of information and communication technology to provide and improve convenience, accessibility, and quality of government services and policies, etc. The implementation of e-government in Malaysia started since the establishment of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).http://www.mscmalaysia.my/

Seven projects have been carrying out to identify the heart of e-government applications, and there are all listed as follow.

1. Generic Office Environment (GOE)
Use of multimedia information technology to improve the communication between workers and departments and improve the efficiency of work within the government.

2. Electronic Procurement (EP) project
To cover central contract, tender and direct purchase, the use of this project will increase transparency, saving in time and money.

3. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
To manage human resource, this system will record all information about workers including other services like leave application, loan processing, selection etc.

4. Electronic Services Directory
To engage transactions with government and we are allowed to make payment such as electricity, telephone bill and even police summons.

5. Project Monitoring System
For project monitoring running by government, and citizen are allow to provide any ideas or comments.

6. Electronic Labor Exchange
To improve the mobilization of human resource and optimize workforce utilization through systematic matching of job seekers of job vacancies.

7. Internal Revenue Department (IRD)
By using My Key digital signature, companies are able to digitally sign and pay their tax by using this system.http://www.hasil.org.my/english/eng_NO5_1.asp

E-government adoption is heavily depending on the design of the website; it has been divided into different section to indicate the quality of the e-government.

1. Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is the basis therefore most important; a higher level of the satisfaction will gradually increase the rate of e-government adoption.

2. Service Quality
Time taken to response to the citizens concern. Problem solving by government will directly impact on the service quality and satisfaction of the citizen.

3. Website Design
Personalization websites, customization of product offerings, and self-care are the three key features, these features give visitors a sense of control and participation and could potentially enhance their adoption

4. User Characteristic
User characteristics such as perceived risk, perceived control, and internet experience can have a direct impact on internet adoption. For example, perceived risk could leads to a security and privacy issues which could make users unwilling to use e-government.

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian Universities: Pros and Cons from the students perspective

E-learning is where technology is used to support the learning process. It involves the use the use of digital technology such as computer to provide education or leaning material. Students access the learning materials through Learning Management System (LMS). They can access it any time and anywhere as long as they have a computer and internet access. Examples of e-learning universities include Multimedia University (MMU), University Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).

Pros:

Time flexibility- students can access the learning material at any time they want and they can study at their own pace. The learning sessions are available 24/7.

Cost savings- students need not travel to college/university, they can just study at home. This can help them to save their travelling cost and time.

Effectiveness and efficiency in communication- students can share and manage knowledge and skills among each individual. This enables active participation. Students’ interactions will become much easier than face-to-face communication.

Cons:

Technological- students need necessary hardware such as desktop or laptop and printer and they need to be familiar with those hardware.

Design of the system- poor design of the system causes users to feel frustrated and they might stop learning. The design should be easy for students to use.

Connecivity- if the bandwidth is low, downloading the content will be slow because the content requires a rich combination of multimedia components. This can affect students’ patience.

References:

http://www.utem.edu.my/elearning/about.htm

http://asiapacific-odl2.oum.edu.my/C33/F80.pdf

http://www.elearning-avenue.com/pros-and-cons-pros-and-cons-of-e-learning/

http://www.ucsi.edu.my/jasa/2/papers/08H.pdf

Credit Card Debts : Causes and Prevention

The above statistic is get from Malay Mail. (read more)

Credit card services are intended to make our life easier; however it had misuse by public and causes them facing a lot of credit card debt. The following is the causes and prevention on credit card debts.

1. Lack of financial management
This is the most common mistakes done by credit card holders. Financial management can let you determine how much you can spend such as prepare a budget for bill payment. However, due to poor financial management (i.e. lack of cash) had delayed their monthly payment and been charged a high late fee at higher rates.

To ensure you won’t be missing any payment, you can set up an automatic bill pay transfer to settle your monthly bill. As a holder, you can always remind yourself for each payment due by keeping a calendar in your mobile phone.

2. Excessive spending
Most of the time, you might attracted by some items and will just take out the credit card and swipe it without considering whether is it needed. This is very dangerous if you keep buy something beyond your means because this will make you become a credit card slave.

Again, please always make a budget on what actually is your necessary expense for each month and stick to it. Always ask yourself, “is this price is within my budget? Or do I really need it?”

3. Income level had been reduced
Before this, you might be a top salesperson who is earned a high commission. However, due to recession, you are unable to gain as much income as before. If you do not trim excess expenses to match with your new income, you might in trouble to settle your monthly charges.

Therefore, you are advised to create a new budget according to your new income and cut down any unnecessary expenses to get your spending under control.

4. Rely too much on using credit card
You might think that the easy way to make payment for the expensive stuffs is just pull out a credit card and swipe the payment rather than pay cash. But if you do not have much money in your wallet, it indicates that you do not have much money to settle your debt later too.

This behavior will make you trap into debt, therefore, always think twice before purchase and be aware that cash in wallet indicate how much you are able to pay for the bills when it comes to due.

reference: http://www.3debtconsolidation.com/creditcardmistakes.html

Review on a post on e-tailing from My E-Commerce blog

The article titled “OpenTable.com - Online restaurant reservations” on http://ecommerze.blogspot.com/search/label/e-Tailing is one of the examples of e-tailing.

Have you ever reserve movie tickets online? If yes, online restaurant reservation also works similar with that. OpenTable.com is the most popular website for public to make restaurant reservation online. It is joined by more than 10,000 restaurants from more than 50 countries and trusted by 100 million diners around the world.

OpenTable.com transforms pens and papers into a dynamic reservation. The reservation online costs the diner nothing and OpenTable.com will give you the same result as you placing through a phone call but it is processed with just a click. Now that a question arises, how the customers know whether their reservations will receive by the restaurant? Customers’ reservation will immediately record in restaurant’s computerized reservation book which has live internet connections into the restaurant once the reservation is made.

No doubt that making restaurant reservation through OpenTable.com is beneficial. Guess what? OpenTable.com is so attentive that it can track customers’ special occasion such as anniversary and birthday. Tired of waiting with your lovers to get a romantic dinner in a crowded restaurant? Perhaps you might try OpenTable.com

For more information, you can click the link below to view OpenTable.com's video.
http://www.opentable.com/info/video.aspx

Mobile Payment System in Malaysia: Its potential and customers' adoption strategies

Mobile payment (m-payment) system is an alternative payment method. M-payment is the collection of money from a consumer via mobile dive such as mobile phone, Smartphone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or other devices. It is a new and rapidly adopting strategy for consumer make payment. It is broadly wide use in Asia and Europe especially in Filipina, because consumers can easily use a mobile phone to pay any fee instead of paying with cash, check or credit card.

In year 2001, this technology finally reached and launched in Malaysia. The success of this technology is hugely based on the number of mobile devices users. As mobile device is popular, m-payment system released to meet the tidal current. The use of m-payment not only convenient to those who live in city, on the other hand it has more impact to people live in rural places compare to city, because rural places is difficult to make any payment or shop, m-payment will fit perfectly in this situation. For an example, Citibank mobile payment allowed customers to use their mobile payment to pay bills by deducting the amount from their credit card. http://www.cbronline.com/news/citibank_malaysia_launches_mobile_bill_payment_service

As m-payment system released, a lot of companies have released shopping through mobile services such as ticket purchases, digital goods and will increase through time. We can even use m-payment to pay bills, such as water and electric bills as well. We could easily done those thing by using a single mobile device, instead of queuing and spend a lot of time. It is a potential system and it will develop successfully with no doubts. Maxis, Maybank and Nokia have teamed with Visa to offer Visa payWave on mobile payment. http://marketing-interactive.com/news/12091

In order to make use of this system widely, lot more services must be provided. So users got the opportunity to use this system more frequently, for example shop for fashion with m-payment. Benefit offer when using this system will help a lot too, like telecommunication company offer gifts to those who call or received call with mobile device by giving free sms or call time. Most importantly, this system will need to provide good security, in order to built up users confidents, simplified the processes and lower the charging cost when using the system.

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumer

Pre-paid cash card is a card that consumers load money in before they pay. It looks like credit and debit cards and can be use the same way as credit or debit card. Consumers can only spend the balance that has been preloaded onto the card.

Some provider will charge consumers for application fees but there are some free of charge if you top them up with a minimum amount of money. Consumers will have to pay annual fees of RM 9.90, but there are no interest and late charges.

An example of pre-paid cash card is Tune Prepaid Visa Card.

• Pre-paid card is easy to use and can be use anywhere visa is accepted.

• It is easily available to consumers because there is no credit check which means you can get a card without worrying about your credit history.

• With a pre-paid cash card consumers will have no chance of spending too much as they are limited to the amount that is in their card.

• Consumers can withdraw money from the pre-paid card worldwide. It is globally accepted.

• The card can be use to purchase airline ticket and reload mobile phone.

• Pre-paid cash card will be useful if consumers are going to oversea for holiday. It offers a better exchange rate than foreign exchange providers.

References:

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/prepaid-cards/guide/3/

http://www.creditcard2u.net/paypal/choosing-a-right-prepaid-visa-card-paypal-withdrawal-debit-card