Gavin

=Set 1 questions/answers November 19th 2011=

//Flat file database system; A database system in which each database contains only one file, which is not linked to any other file.// //Relational database system; A relational database is a software system which holds data in fields in a set of tables which are linked together. Every table shares at least one field with another table. This relationship allows the database user to access the data in almost an unlimited number of ways, and to combine the tables to create complex and very large databases.//
 * 1. Identify and describe the 2 database type system. //[4marks]//**

//Advantages:// //Disadvantages://
 * 2. (a) Since there is no electronic connection to the office network, all sales and customer data is transferred to the office network using a USB stick. Give and explain 2 positive and 2 negative impacts to the group by using a standalone central computer. //[8 marks]//**
 * //Secure from outside unauthorized access; since there is no connection from and to the standalone computer there will be no transfer of data, even though hackers planted malware software and were installed correctly in the computer it still cannot send data to the outside world (internet). It is much less likely to be infected by a virus. There is no way it is going to be hacked remotely.//
 * //It costs less to run a standalone computer; as opposed to a LAN or WAN which would cost more because of paying for the internet from ISPs, setting up the networks, routers etc.//
 * //Users are restricted to a single computer; on a network, users can access their files from any connected computer thus in standalone computers users will have to spend more time on transferring data between computers.//
 * //Standalone computers are harder to monitor; on a network, certain software can be used to simultaneously view each user's activity.//


 * (b) With reference to //lines 75-78,// discuss the use of new technologies such as smartphones, //Twitter// and social websites as a promotional tools in the future by MTG. //[8 marks]//**

//Keeping in contacts with customers and potential customers via email has been a major strength and has developed a strong community support for the MTG. But nowadays, relying only on email will only have an insignificant increase of the amount of customers booking and purchasing a ticket. People nowadays are migrating to popular media sites such as Facebook and Twitter from old fashioned way of communicating, the email. Almost everyone who has access to the internet have at least one social media website account. Even complicated webpages with no-ordinary HTML codes have their own mobile versions which are made specifically for users who access the site using a smartphone device so that users can access the site "on the go". By using this opportunity to use this type of new technology, they might get an increase in sales since advertising using social media sites are becoming cheap these days and it is the most efficient and fast way to get across a message in a large scale of audience. For example Twitter, during my investigation, I found out that companies/individuals can pay less than $5 to broadcast a 140 characters tweet to, using a famous twitter account let say who has at least 600.000 followers. It can reach a wider audience in seconds than sending emails to 600.000 email addresses which might not be even possible to do. For Facebook, as of July 2011, it has more than 800 million active users and for the most usual form is banner advertising, where the cost can range from £1 to £20 per thousand impressions depending on the level of targeting. Facebook has advertising throughout their website and have introduced a pay per click advertising programme. It does tend to cost a minimum of £0.20 per click, but there are also general awareness effects to also factor in. The down side of advertising and promoting using social media sites is that users might miss the info such as in twitter where it comes only for once and will be replaced by other tweets as time goes on. Nevertheless, it is a great way of building stronger with the customers and it is an easy way of advertising in just a few seconds.//


 * 3. Discuss and evaluate the use of multimedia content and friendly interface on the website.**
 * Use information from the case study and give examples of other companies that you have investigated. //[12 marks]//**

=Set 2 questions/answers November 29th 2011=

Action of a computer system that makes a record that is being processed by one user unavailable to other users, to prevent more than one user from attempting to update the same information simultaneously.
 * 1. (a) Define record-locking //[2marks]//**


 * (b) Define client-side software //[2marks]//**

Centralized database is a database located and maintained in one location whereas distributed database is a database that consists of two or more data files stored at different sites on a computer network and because the database is distributed, different users can access it without interfering with one another but they have to update their data one by one as in centralized database system they only need to update their data in one go.
 * 2. (a) Distinguish between centralized database system and distributed database system //[6 marks]//**


 * (b) With reference to //lines 75-78,// discuss the use of new technologies such as smartphones, //Twitter// and social websites as a promotional tools in the future by MTG. //[8 marks]//**


 * 3. The PTC is planning on adding non-Latin language such as Russian and Arabic in their website (line 120-125) . Discuss and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using other language than their main 4 language.**
 * Use information from the case study and give examples of other companies that you have investigated. //[12 marks]//**