Case Study, Tool man

Case Study 1 – Tool Man

How he is;

John is a sales representative selling tools to garden centres and DIY stores. He travels over 1000 miles a week to see new and existing clients. For the past 20 years he has carried round a large diary, address book, large road atlas and numerous A-Z’s, as well as numerous small coins for phones. He prides himself on punctuality, but even so he is occasionally late as struggles to find a new client or is delayed by traffic. He always takes along a calculator, and a bulky sales catalogue with the latest price lists and order forms. He is usually on the road four days a week, six hours a day and spends two further hours a day completing his administration. He spends every Friday in the office ensuring all his administration and sales are handled properly. He has always said he likes the time spent in his car between appointments, as it is his time when he can listen to his CD’s undisturbed.

How he could improve;

When he is late due to traffic and road issue, he could buy a modern sat nav or smart phone. I think this is a good idea as it would direct him exactly where he needs to be, as the smart phone can use Google maps (sat nav option) to take him, and if he is late he could ring his customer in advance. Also, the smart phone has a clock, so he knows when to set off and if he is going to be on time or late. Also, the smart phone has a calculator for working out sums and equations which he needs to carry out. He can use apps on an iPad or iPod to carry out many of the functions he needs to. He can also use the music app to listen to music, or use an iPod or mp3 player, as he will have more access to music.

Jobs in The Information Age

Jobs using The Information Age

Accountant

An accountant will use a computer to search the records when a customer requires a service. This method of searching for records is better than storing everything by paper as it saves room, time, and effort. This is because they can easily browse through the records by a name, age or address to instantly know who they are speaking to. They could also calculate amounts on a program instead of on a calculator, which is less stressful as it sometimes automatically does formulas and equations, instead of having to manually work out numbers.

Shop Assistant

A shop assistant may use something of the information age such as a computer and scanner, so that the item the customer wishes to buy can easily be scanned and the sum of money they need to pay, and the exact item is specified by quickly swiping it under a bar code scanner. They may also order more stock online, which is better than sending paper as they may make mistakes this way, whereas there may be ways to calculate precisely how much stock they need on a computer, and be able to pair this with how much they exactly they have in stock, making no mistakes.

Mechanic

Mechanics may use diagnostic kits to pinpoint the precise problem with a car, whether it is the engine or any faulty component. This is much easier and quicker than manually checking the whole car for faults; doing this could save time and mean they fix the car on time. They also use a computer program to pinpoint exact parts of a car they require, by searching for the Make, Model and Year. This means they make no mistakes and get the precise parts they require for the job.

Teachers

Teachers use registers which upon finishing, are sent to an admin and those who are marked in are established as present. This is much better than using a manual method as it saves making mistakes of judgement, and can also help if a fire occurs, as the school know exactly who is in school. Also, homework can be set for pupils online. This is an efficient method to keeping pupils up to scratch on their work, getting rid of many excuses they may use from using paper. Using this, the teacher can also track of who is doing their work and who is not. Making it clearer.

VLE (The School Portal)

The School Portal, VLE (Virtual Learning Environment)

The school portal is a feature many of the pupils of Armthorpe Academy use daily. I feel that it is not to a high standard, and that it could be easily made much better. The layout is terrible, using badly chosen colours and images. We also see poor quality from where images have been cropped badly, with the white background still around parts of it. The portal is also quite difficult to navigate through, which is not good as it is aimed at years 7-13’s. They could have used a more striking ‘nav bar’ at the top of the page to easily navigate through the different pages, instead of just the text at the side of the site.

The school portal can be useful at times, as it offers many features such as a timetable, your attendance, and a way to access your documents from anywhere.

The school portal could include many more features, such as; a notice board, displaying all events in the school and what is going on around the school. Better weblinks, to UCAS and careers websites, more relevant. More email access, for example, the careers adviser.

Similar to Frog, which supplied the school portal, there is moodle, which does the same.

Downloading.

Downloading

1; I would rather download than buy the physical copy as it is quicker, as to buy the physical copy you must wait or leave the house. Also, it may sometimes be cheaper, as there may be deals only available by download. Additionally, having a hard copy could mean that the CD could get scratched and may no longer be playable, whereas downloading an album would be safer as it can not get scratched as it is instantly safely stored in your computer.

2; Problems you could encounter from downloading could be that it would take a long time, as a strong, fast internet connection is required to download properly. Also, you may encounter viruses when downloading from ‘dodgy’ sites. Lastly, you may end up losing all of your data on your computer, meaning losing those downloaded albums, whereas if you’d have bought the CD you wouldn’t have had this problem.

3; Downloading fulfils it’s purpose as it is quick and easy to acquire. It is quick as you just pay online and the ‘album’ may be available to you instantly. Also it is easy as you just have to purchase online, instead of browsing through a store.

HSBC & Halifax

Comparing online banks

HSBC;
HSBC is a very secure online bank. The bank itself provides you with a keypad which has become part of the process for logging into your account. This is done by typing your pin into the keypad. This is very secure as this keypad is unique to you, meaning you are the only person able to get in, making it almost completely hack proof. This idea is completely unique to this bank, and makes it one of the most secure online banks in the world. It is also very easy to use and navigate through, despite the long log in process, which is completely worth it as it could just save your funds.

Halifax;

Halifax is fairly similar to HSBC, just less secure, as it does not include the extensive log ins or a keypad. It is however easy to use, and is a quick service which can be accessed anywhere. However, Halifax does include a system where the user must use a word, and type in certain letters of the word, making it very difficult for hackers to access your account.

Weather, 20th September

At it's peak, today's weather will reach 15 degrees celsius, and 11 degrees celsius at it's lowest. It will also rain from 3pm onwards. The wind speed is relatively going in the north-east direction. I have used www.bbc.co.uk/weather to find this out.

Weather, 19th September (validation)

As stated in my previous post, I checked the weather using bbc weather. It reported that at midday it would be 13 degrees celsius, and that it would rain at around 2-3 pm, this indeed was correct, so this is a valid source of weather-real time information.