S245354's Weblog

هل يمكن تجاهل التجارة الإلكترونية ؟؟

Ahmed — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:35:33 +0000

امام واقع ومفرزات عصر التقنية العالية ، ونماء استخدام وسائل التقنية ، وتزايد الاقتناع باعتمادها نمطا لتنفيذ الاعمال ومرتكزا ومحددا للتطور ، وفي ظل دخول غالبية الدول العربية منظمة التجارة الدولية ، وفي ظل متطلبات التجارة الدولية المتمثلة بتحرير التجارة في السلع والخدمات ، ودخول الشركات الاجنبية الاسواق العربية كجهات منافسة حقيقية ، ولما توفره التجارة الالكترونية من تسهيل عمليات التنافس اذا ما توفرت المكنة لتأديتها وتحققت متطلبات نجاح مشاريعها ، فان تجاهلها – عوضا عن انه تعبير عن عدم القدرة على امتلاك ادواتها والتعامل مع تحديات عصر المعلومات – يعدو مغالاة في المحافظة على الانماط التقليدية التي يرى الباحثون انها لن تصمد طويلا ، فالانماط التقليدية للتجارة وان كانت لا تزال هي القائمة ، فان بنية تنفيذها تحولت شيئا فشيئا نحو استخدام الوسائل الالكترونية ، فاذا كانت المصارف لا تزال في غالبيتها تعتمد الوسائل العادية في تنفيذ طلبات الزبائن ، فانها تعتمد على منظومة من تقنيات العمل المصرفي التي تحل فيها التكنولوجيا يوما بعد يوم في كافة مناحي النشاط المصرفي ، مما يجعل تجاهل التجارة الالكترونية في هذا المثال ، امتناعا عن التعامل مع الواقع الذي تعيشه فعلا هذه المؤسسات . ونفس القول يرد على كافة القطاعات ، اليس نشاط الشحن البحري مثلا ينفذ عبر سلسلة من الوسائط والوسائل التقنية ، هل بقي في ميدان النقل والسياحة موضع لم تتم اتمتته وتحوله الى الانماط التقنية .
ان العالم الذي يتجه الى احلال التقنية في كل ميدان من ميادين النشاط الانساني ، وبشكل رئيس ، الخدمات الحيوية والخدمات التي تقدمها الدولة ، سيضع التجارة الالكترونية موضوعا على رأس موضوعات اجندة التطور والتنمية ، لهذا كله ، يعدو تجاهل التجارة الالكترونية امرا غير متناسب مع رغبتنا في التعامل مع الافرازات الايجابية لعصر تقنية المعلومات وامتلاك وسائل مواجهة الاثار السلبية وإفرازات عصر العولمة .

The New E-Commerce Metrics

Ahmed — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:24:25 +0000

The New E-Commerce Metrics

By Keith Regan
E-Commerce Times
07/03/02 12:38 PM PT

Traffic still matters, because it is the single best way to determine how consumers are behaving online and whether marketing campaigns are working at the most basic levels.

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At first, traffic counts were all that mattered to e-commerce. The number of people visiting a site was the single best gauge of a site’s success in a new industry. But times have changed.

As e-commerce has grown more complex — becoming one of several channels through which consumers research, shop for and ultimately buy goods — measuring the impact of traffic has become increasingly difficult.

“Traffic is still important, but most everyone in the e-commerce space recognizes that’s just one piece of a much larger puzzle now,” Nielsen//NetRatings director and senior analyst Lisa Strand told the E-Commerce Times. “The questions we get now are about figuring out that whole mix.”

Maturity Factor

While measuring the value of e-commerce in a multichannel shopping environment is, by definition, more difficult, the industry’s maturity is helping.

“We’ve got a lot more experience to look back on,” Strand said.

“We have some history to compare behavior to, so we’re getting a better handle on why shoppers behave the way they do.”

Who What Where

Indeed, a new generation of Web analytics products is aimed at drilling much deeper into the data. Now, retailers want to figure out not just how many people are coming to their site, but what brought them there.

Most importantly, they want to know what prompts people either to leave empty-handed or to push their virtual carts through the checkout process.

“Companies want to understand consumer behavior, from what drives them to a site to what makes them decide to buy or not to buy,” Jon Heller, vice president for analytics at DoubleClick (Nasdaq: DCLK) , told the E-Commerce Times.

Last month, DoubleClick released a new metrics product that uses a Web-based system to give retailers real-time information about shopper behavior.

And Why

Using data that most sites are already collecting, the new system can help retailers evaluate and update special offers and figure out what might be triggering shopper behavior.

A site might find that a high percentage of shoppers are clicking through to a certain product’s detail page, but not buying. The site’s operators could then adjust the information on that page — lowering the price, for instance — and quickly determine whether that solves the problem.

Heller said the product, known as SiteAdvance, is designed to help merchants determine the effectiveness of their e-mail and online marketing campaigns, as well as what shoppers do once they get to the site.

“There’s a real need in the marketplace to know not just what is happening on a site, but why,” Heller said.

One reason that traffic still matters, Heller said, is because it is the single best way to determine how consumers are behaving online and whether marketing campaigns — offline or online — are working at the most basic levels.

Buy or Sell

The overall e-commerce trend toward using data to sell more effectively is reflected in the rise of specific analytics products aimed at eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) users.

Last week, software firm and longtime eBay partner Andale launched a new family of products aimed at helping eBay sellers better understand why auction users do what they do.

“Right now, auction management is similar to how stocks were traded in the 1920s: a heavy reliance on innuendo, instinct and rumor,” Andale CEO Munjal Shah told the E-Commerce Times. “We’re trying to bring the equivalent of real-time quotes and analysis to this marketplace.”

Using access to information provided by eBay, Andale’s products will track the selling price and volume of thousands of products to help sellers determine the value of investing in features like boldface type or placement in special eBay sections.

“People have been operating in the dark, to a large extent,” Shah said. “This sheds some light on what’s “happening with other auctions, and why.”

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/18485.html?welcome=1209242724

Income Generation Series: Full E-Commerce Websites

Ahmed — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:21:16 +0000

Overview

Full e-commerce websites are focused on promoting a website to generate sales of physical goods. Once a sale is made, goods are then packaged and shipped to the customer. These websites can range from simple part-time operations to huge virtual mega stores. These require much more energy to promote, establish and maintain, but the profit margins can be significantly higher.

Many of these websites have a potential to be optimized. Procedures such as shipping, accounting, and customer contact should be examined to look for opportunities. The goal in running these websites is to streamline operations and increase sales. Sales could potentially be increase by seeking out new untapped sales channels, such as eBay, Craigslist, Froogle, etc.

Analysis

Time: There is significant time requirements to run an e-commerce website. Time must be allocated towards marketing, e-mails, shipping, inventory, accounting, and website maintenance.
Capital: There can be significant capital expenditure required to acquire inventory. Additionally business overhead increases to accommodate inventory storage. There can also be cashflow issues associated with storing inventory, as well as inherent risk of inventory loss.
Scaling: These websites are very difficult to scale. As sales increase, the work associated also increases almost proportionally. Economies of scale can create efficiencies as the websites grow. Although additional employees need to be brought in at a certain growth level, which increases overhead and decreases margins. Significant capital expenditure is often required to properly scale up these types of websites.
Outsourcing: These types of websites are not conducive to virtual outsourcing. Hiring employees to work in-house is needed, due inventory issues. Some of the marketing may be a candidate to outsource to virtual assistants.
ROI: Typical ROI is expected to be 50-100%, although factors such as employee overhead, storage rental fees, transaction fees, and marketing costs can significantly impact profit margins.

Recommendation

There are opportunities in running full e-commerce websites. However, due to the time commitments, lack of scale, and capital requirements, these types of websites will not be a priority in my business plan. The opportunity cost of time is significant with these sites, and my time will be better utilized in other websites that can potentially produce passive income.

http://stubborncapitalist.com/2008/04/14/income-generation-series-full-e-commerce-websites/

E-Commerce applications

Ahmed — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:18:33 +0000

E-Commerce is a massive growth area, were colossal sums of money are being made
and spent every day. This is largely to do with the hype of the Internet and on-line
shopping. The Internet is growing exponentially, and will continue to grow for some time
to come. This, coupled with good advertising, can provide a solid foundation from which
to launch a stake in the Internet and e-commerce boom.

E-commerce is big business. The fact that people want it is probably the biggest lure for
companies to jump onto the bandwagon, but there are other factors, making e-
commerce a good sense solution.

- Lower transaction costs. If the site is implemented well, the web can significantly lower
order taking costs and customer service costs after the sale by automated processes.

- Variety for shoppers: It gives people the opportunity to shop in different ways.

- The ability to build an order over several days

- The ability to configure products and see actual prices

- The ability to compare prices between multiple vendors

- The ability to search large catalogues easily

- Larger catalogues: On the web, a company can display their entire range. If they were
to print a glossy catalogue to do the same job, it would be too big. E.G. Amazon sells 3
million books. Imagine trying to fit all their available books into a paper catalogue. The
Web cuts out printing cost and distribution.

- Global availability: Anyone with an Internet connection, in any part of the world can
access online services, without costing the company a penny, over and above the
marketing costs. This ubiquitous presence is far greater reaching than a catalogue drop.

- New business model: E-commerce allows people to create completely new business
models. A mail order company has high costs for staff and catalogue printing &
distribution. However in e-commerce these costs fall practically to zero.

There are several ways in which to implement an e-commerce application. Consider the
following.

Out of the Box / Server-Based
Out-of-the-box is an ideal that eliminates, or at least reduces time consuming and
complex e-commerce site building, by providing all of the various functions of an e-
commerce solution from one source. Out-of-the-box is an “instant” low price solution
requiring minimal IT recourses for implementation and operation. It is has a “Lego”
mentality by shielding the user from heavily involved technical programming and
scripting etc, simply by assembling the various software components into an established
framework. This is done using a GUI interface, where the developer moves the software
objects around analogous to the child with Lego bricks, snapping them into place, and
building a functional entity.

Microsoft’s Commerce Server 2000 provides a comprehensive set of features to let
developers quickly build scalable, user-centric, business-to-consumer and business-to-
business e-commerce sites. Commerce Server 2000 offers robust and easy-to-
implement functionality that makes it the ideal solution for building e-commerce
applications. Its features include the following:

Development Tools – Commerce Server 2000 gives developers the power to quickly build
and deploy effective e-commerce sites. Developers get a fast start with a choice of two
starter applications that provide comprehensive e-commerce functionality. -
Personalisation, merchandising, catalogue search, customer service, and business
analytics. – Secure user authentication and group access permissions, purchase order
and requisition handling. – Built-in, online auction capabilities. – Speed up and simplify
development efforts with code samples and in-depth documentation.

Administrative Tools – simplify and centralise administrative tasks such as site
configuration, deployment, operations and maintenance, reducing cost of ownership, and
increasing application availability.

Partners – Microsoft in partnership with independent software vendors, ensure the
highest availability and quality possible for solutions, including credit card validation,
taxation, shipping and handling and content management.

Profile System – helps you manage information about millions of users and groups of
users. In addition, it establishes secure authentication of site to ensure users have
access to authorised areas of your site. You also serve users custom content, such as
special pricing or products, based on the user’s profile.

Targeting System – enables one-to-one marketing, determining the most appropriate
content (ads, discounts, up-sells, cross-sells, catalogue data, and more) to provide to a
given user in a given context, based on explicit user preferences. There are many more
features in Commerce Server 2000. For more information, visit Microsoft’s web site at
http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/default.asp The price of this solution is
around £6000 with the same being paid again for each licence required. Licensing is
calculated on a per per-CPU basis. In other words, if the server machine running
Commerce 2000 has 4 CPUs, then expect to pay £24000 for your solution!
source :http://ecommercetechnology.org/english/data/69.htm

2nd Major exam material

Ahmed — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:17:42 +0000

What is ubuntu , css, Dreamweaver CS3? è2^nd Major exam material

Ubuntu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ubuntu (IPA: [uːˈbuːntuː] in English,^[3] [ùbúntú] in Zulu) is a Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, and servers. It has consistently been rated among the most popular of the many Linux distributions.^[4][5][6][7] Ubuntu’s goals include providing an up-to-date yet stable operating system for the average user and having a strong focus on usability and ease of installation. It is a derivative of Debian. Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd, owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. The name of the distribution comes from the African concept of ubuntu which may be rendered roughly as “humanity toward others”, “we are people because of other people”, or “I am who I am because of who we all are”, though other meanings have been suggested.^[8] This Linux distribution is named Ubuntu as it is expected to bring the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world. Ubuntu is free software and can be shared by any number of users.

Kubuntu and Xubuntu are official subprojects of the Ubuntu project, aiming to bring the KDE and Xfce desktop environments, respectively, to the Ubuntu core (by default Ubuntu uses GNOME for its desktop environment). Edubuntu is an official subproject designed for school environments, and should be equally suitable for children to use at home.^[9] Gobuntu is an official subproject that is aimed at adhering strictly to the Free Software Foundation‘s Four Freedoms.^[10] The newest official subproject is JeOS. Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced “Juice”) is a concept for what an operating system should look like in the context of a virtual appliance.^[11]

Ubuntu releases new versions every six months, and supports those releases for 18 months with daily security fixes and patches to critical bugs. LTS (Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years for desktops and 5 years for servers. The most recent version, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron), was released on 24 April 2008. The next major version will be 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), scheduled for release in October 2008.

Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Retail box

Adobe Dreamweaver is a web development application originally created by Macromedia and now owned by Adobe Systems, which acquired Macromedia in 2005.

Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems. Recent versions have incorporated support for web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, and various server-side scripting languages and frameworks including ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages, and PHP.

Introduction to CSS

from “http: //www.w3schools.com/css/css_intro.asp

What You Should Already Know

Before you continue you should have some basic understanding of the following:

HTML / XHTML

If you want to study this subject first, find the tutorials on our Home page.

What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets
Styles define how to display HTML elements
Styles are normally stored in Style Sheets
Styles were added to HTML 4.0 to solve a problem
External Style Sheets can save you a lot of work
External Style Sheets are stored in CSS files
Multiple style definitions will cascade into one

CSS Demo

With CSS, your HTML documents can be displayed using different output styles:

See how it works

Styles Solve a Common Problem

HTML tags were originally designed to define the content of a document. They were supposed to say “This is a header”, “This is a paragraph”, “This is a table”, by using tags like

, and so on. The layout of the document was supposed to be taken care of by the browser, without using any formatting tags.

As the two major browsers – Netscape and Internet Explorer – continued to add new HTML tags and attributes (like the tag and the color attribute) to the original HTML specification, it became more and more difficult to create Web sites where the content of HTML documents was clearly separated from the document’s presentation layout.

To solve this problem, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – the non profit, standard setting consortium, responsible for standardizing HTML – created STYLES in addition to HTML 4.0.

All major browsers support Cascading Style Sheets.

Style Sheets Can Save a Lot of Work

Styles sheets define HOW HTML elements are to be displayed, just like the font tag and the color attribute in HTML 3.2. Styles are normally saved in external .css files. External style sheets enable you to change the appearance and layout of all the pages in your Web, just by editing one single CSS document!

CSS is a breakthrough in Web design because it allows developers to control the style and layout of multiple Web pages all at once. As a Web developer you can define a style for each HTML element and apply it to as many Web pages as you want. To make a global change, simply change the style, and all elements in the Web are updated automatically.

Multiple Styles Will Cascade Into One

Style sheets allow style information to be specified in many ways. Styles can be specified inside a single HTML element, inside the element of an HTML page, or in an external CSS file. Even multiple external style sheets can be referenced inside a single HTML document.

Cascading Order

What style will be used when there is more than one style specified for an HTML element?

Generally speaking we can say that all the styles will “cascade” into a new “virtual” style sheet by the following rules, where number four has the highest priority:

Browser default

External style sheet

Internal style sheet (inside the tag)

Inline style (inside an HTML element)

So, an inline style (inside an HTML element) has the highest priority, which means that it will override a style declared inside the tag, in an external style sheet, or in a browser (a default value).

Getting married

Ahmed — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:26:52 +0000

Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with

friends. You order what you want, then when you see what the

other person has, you wish you had ordered that.

Man: Is there any way for long life?

Dr: Get married.

Man: Will it help?

Dr: No, but the thought of long life will never come.

Why do couples hold hands during their wedding?

It’s a formality just like two boxers shaking hands before the

fight begins!

Wife: Darling today is our anniversary, what should we do?

Husband: Let us stand in silence for 2 minutes.

It’s funny when people discuss Love Marriage vs Arranged.

It’s like asking someone, if suicide is better or being murdered

If u r married please ignore this MSG,

For everyone else: “ Happy Independence Day “

Before marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about

something you say.

After marriage, he’ll fall asleep before you finish.

Man receives telegram: Wife dead should be buried or

cremated?

Man: Don’t take any chances. Burn the body and bury the ash.

Prospective husband: Do you have a book called ‘Man, The

Master of Women’?

Salesgirl: The fiction department is on the other side, sir.

There was this guy who told his woman that he loved her so

much that he would go through hell for her. They got married

and now he is going thru hell.

Q: Why doesn’t law permit a man to marry a second woman?

A: Because as per law you cannot be punished twice for the

same offense!

Half of Saudi internet users embrace e-commerce

Ahmed — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:18:48 +0000

by Quintin Smith on Thursday, 17 April 2008

The Arab Advisors Group has released the results of a survey showing that e-commerce has achieved noteworthy popularity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The survey showed that 48.36% of internet users in the Kingdom had purchased products online or using their mobile phones in the last twelve months. That represents more than 3.5 million e-commerce customers, or 14.26% of the Kingdom’s total population.

The Arab Advisors Group has estimated that these transactions totalled $3.28 billion, and says the survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a 2% margin of error.

Facebook Mobile

Ahmed — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:42:06 +0000

You can access Facebook features using a mobile device like a cell phone in three ways: mobile text messages, mobile uploads and mobile Web browsing. Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

Text messages use a standardized mobile text transfer method called Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). SMS allows you to send and receive text messages to services like Web sites, voice-mail systems and e-mail servers. An SMS message can only be up to 160 characters long. The MMS standard is an improvement on SMS, with no size limit to messages (though very large messages require an advanced 3G phone network to transfer through the system). Not all phones have SMS or MMS capabilities.

SMS MadnessFacebook isn’t the only social networking service that takes advantage of SMS text transfers. Twitter, a micro-blogging service, uses SMS to let members send messages called Tweets to a network of friends at the same time. Several people have developed applications that integrate SMS with services like LiveJournal, Blogger and MySpace, among others.

When you send a text message from your phone to Facebook, the message transmits to a mobile switching center (MSC), which sends the signal to a signal transfer point (STP). From there, the message goes to a short message service center (SMSC), which then sends the text to Facebook. When Facebook sends a message to your phone, the process is reversed. Using text messages, you can look up basic member profile information, send messages (including pokes and wall posts), add friends to your network and interact with some Facebook applications.

Mobile uploads work in a similar way to text messages, but must use MMS. MMS allows you to send not only text, but also sound files, video and images. The transfer method is similar to SMS, but it requires a handheld device compatible with the MMS standard. Because some devices aren’t MMS compatible, service providers sometimes build in a feature that alerts a user when he or she has received a multimedia message. The message usually tells the user to visit a Web page link to view the message.

With MMS messages sent from your phone, you can upload photos to your profile — they’ll appear in a special uploaded photos section. You can also upload notes or videos from your phone to your profile. In either case, you must create your multimedia message first, then send it to the appropriate e-mail address.

Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Facebook has become the second most visited social networking site on the Internet and the sixth most visited site in the United States. Users can access the popular site from the comfort of home and from their mobile devices.

Your phone must have Web browsing capabilities in order for you to visit Facebook from it. You’ll need to direct your phone’s browser to m.facebook.com, Facebook’s site designed specifically for mobile browsing. To upload notes to Facebook, you send the message to notes@facebook.com. For photos or videos, you send the message to mobile@facebook.com.

Unlike typical Facebook pages, the mobile counterpart’s code is in Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML). XHTML is a more restricted language than standard HTML. One of the reasons for this is that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international organization that develops interoperable technologies for the Web, recognized the need for a Web language that mobile devices could easily interpret. Computers have more resources than mobile devices, and can interpret much more complex Web pages than a cell phone or similar gadget. XHTML helps to level the playing field.

for more information visit

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/facebook4.htm

Saudi Arabia Embraces E-Commerce

Ahmed — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:30:27 +0000

JANUARY 28, 2008

Saudi Arabian consumers spent $3.28 billion online in 2007, according to the report “Saudi Arabia Internet Users and E-Commerce Survey 2008″ conducted by the Arab Advisors Group.

“Saudi Arabia’s large population, its booming economy and increased Internet adoption provide an ideal context for a thriving e-commerce scene,” said Jawad Abbassi, general manager of Arab Advisors Group.

“Our major survey of Internet users in Saudi Arabia revealed a massive size for B2C e-commerce in the country which presents opportunities for global and regional e-commerce players to tap into this growing market,” Mr. Abassi said.

The report found that 42% of e-commerce purchases were made through a credit card. An additional 11.5% of purchases were made using an Internet shopping card.

The survey report was conducted via e-mail and included 1,919 respondents.

from http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005866

Hello world!

Ahmed — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:07:12 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!