In line with its Easy to book, easy to pay, easy to fly, no frills and  ticketless concept, Air Asia was the first airline company in Malaysia to introduce online air-ticket reservation through its website www.airasia.com in 2002.

Air Asia is a click-and mortar (click and brick) organization involving in business to consumer and business to business e-commerce activities, selling through the internet but providing its airline services in the physical world.

After years of modification and alterations, airasia.com is what it is today, offering convenience to users who visited the website to plan for holiday, purchase flight ticket, online check-in and other travelling facilities.

Airasia.com has sufficient components of electronic storefront to facilitate as a website convenient for users to navigate.

Search engine

There are two search engines in airasia.com. The primary search engine, located on the left side of the website, is used to search for the availability of air-flight ticket on a particular date. Another search engine searches for any information related to the words users type in the box.

Electronic catalog

When users search for flight ticket on a certain date, airasia.com uses static catalog display to list the flights available along with their price, departure and arrival time, and flight number.

Payment gateway

Airasia.com’s payment gateway may not be as convenient as they only accept payment through credit and debit card, American express and direct debit transfer. These payment methods may have some risk on buyers in exposing the credit and debit card code number than using electronic currency programs such as Paypal and NetPay.

Shipment court

For buyers who purchase merchandises from airasia.com, Air Asia provides its own courier, Redbox, powered by DHL, which offers a 50% cheaper rate of package delivery service and ensure buyers purchases reach them in time.

Pros & Cons of E-Learning in Malaysian Universities from the students perspective

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Wikipedia defines Electronic learning (or E-Learning or eLearning) as a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), where technology is used to support the learning process. Basically, e-learning is education via the Internet, network, or standalone computer where network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge occurs. It also refers to employing electronic applications and processes (Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual classrooms and digital collaboration) to learn. Currently, E-learning is adopted by almost every single university in our country, Malaysia.

Undeniably, E-learning has brought along many advantages for us universities’ students here. Firstly, it provides time flexibility where we can access information or communicate with friends and lecturers anytime there is an internet connection. This immensely benefits part-time students as they could have a more flexible time management while balancing between work and study. Moreover, cost of studying could also be greatly reduced as we do not have to travel or make phone calls as much anymore. Besides, as vast information can be retrieved from the internet, students can also cut down on buying books.

Unfortunately, E-learning decreases face-to-face contact as well. Without clear communication with lecturers and assignment group members, high level of understanding could not be achieved. Likewise, students’ skill of interaction with others deteriorates as well. Furthermore, E-learning is also a bad idea for students that lack discipline and lazy as they might not even play their part at all.

Although E-learning has its disadvantages, students nowadays depend on it very much in their studying process. Thus, E-learning is still good news to students as it definitely eases the learning development. Nevertheless, it should be utilized appropriately and students should not fully depend on it in order to avoid its disadvantages.

E-Government can be defined as the use of the information technology to free movement of information to overcome the physical bound of traditional paper and physical based system.

Services that MyEG offered : online driving license renewal, auto insurance renewal, road tax renewal, LDL applications, PDRM summons alert and payment services.

Objectives : provides a convenient and safety way to complete the renewal of road tax comfortably at home by using internet.

Services: filing the tax paid and tax return online,

Obejectives: provides a convenient way to the tax payers to file their income tax returns on order to save on time and improve efficiency.

Services:act as an online government supplier exchange for the purchase of goods and services by government through internet.

Citizen’s Adoption Strategies

In order to attract more users to use E-Government, it must fulfill the customer satisfaction. A higher level of customer satisfaction may increase the rate of E-Government adoption. Moreover, quality of the service that provided may be one of the considerations as a user. The services must be performed effectively and efficiently. In line, the users are satisfied with the services and they will keep on using the services. The appearance of the website might be an impact. Users will concern about the personalization of the websites, customization of the products offerings as well as the self-care. Besides that, detailed guidance and instructions such as Frequently-Asked Question section must be available to aid the citizens in using the E-Government services effectively and smoothly.

In conclusion, the implementation of E-Government in Malaysia has brought Malaysian citizens to the Information Age. Citizens can enjoy the benefits of governmental services. However, there are lots of strategies needed to develop its fullest capacity as well as citizens’ adoption strategy to make more and more citizens beneficial through using E-Government services.

Corporate Blogging: A New Marketing Communication Tool for Companies.

A new Weapon of Mass Communication- Corporate Blog, is a widely online activities used by most companies as momentous tool of communication in today’s world.

Corporate blogging is an access into great minds, a medium to transfer one’s telling and thoughts into an open book. This is the reason for it to be recognized as a new marketing communication tool for companies to discovering the needs and wants of customers.

Corporate Blog is designed to achieve organization’s goals and it is categorized into two types. Internal blog can be accessed through intranet where everyone within the organization can view and post comments or contributes well versed suggestion. External blog, however, is publicly procurable which allows employees, teams, customers, suppliers and others to share opinions and ideas.

Corporate blog opens a great opportunity for both companies and their customers. The good side of this blogging activity is it has built an online community of people who are fascinated in an organization’s products and services, and how their views towards these products, for instance, whatever customers passionate about. Therefore, customers may have better understanding as well as information about that particular products or services whereas companies able to know their demands as well as requirements.

Moreover, it provides mechanism for customers’ feedback and ideas. Dialogue session, idea sharing corner and revelation of true insights without corporate filtering is available for them too. Customers will fell satisfied as they are free to speak out their thoughts.

In conclusion, corporation blog has its own essential to act as a tool of communication. Companies exercising this corporate blogging benefits from many perspective, especially in marketing.

Electronic currency

a.k.a. e-currency, electronic cash, electronic money, digital money, digital cash or digital currency.

as we can see directly in its name, is actually currency or money used on the internet related field.

E-currency are often used in online trading and investing which involves use of computer networks, the internet and digital stored value systems.

E-currency provides a new payment method on the internet so as avoid using credit card, whereby users risk exposing their credit card information to unknown merchants.

Technically, e-currency is a representation, or a system of debits and credits used to exchange value, within another system or itself as a stand alone system, online or offline.

There are two major types of e-currency in the world. The major different is their backed base.

• One is backed by precious metal, is backed by gold. Digital Gold Currencies (DGCs), such as e-gold or c-gold, is a form of Internet money denominated in gold weight.
• Another type of e-currency is Digital Currency backed by hard currency such as Paypal, NetPay and StormPay in the form of USD and EURO. Another popular form of e-currency sell through third party digital currency exchange, such as London Gold Exchange, is Liberty Reserve.   

How e-currency works

An individual opens an account with an online e-currency company and “deposits” money in the account. The e-currency company then converts the account holders’ deposits into gold or silver bullion, or whatever e-currency used, stored in the bank. Via the Internet, the account holder can transfer ownership the e-gold or other e-currency into someone else’s e-currency account or used for online trading. 

The Application of Prepaid Cash Card for Consumers.

Do you ever hear Prepaid Cash Card? If not, you are no longer follows the trend of this era of technology. Prepaid cash cards have come to the financial rescue for millions of people who do not have a checking or saving accounts.

Prepaid cash card is a payment system using a tiny portable card where users can use it to purchase goods and services. It differs from credit card or debit card, but has a same concept. It functions like a stored value card that acts like debit card attached to a checking account. One example of it is EZ-Link card.

EZ-Link card, a contactless smart card used for the payment of public transportation fares in Singapore. This card is generally acts as smart card to pay transportation fees in the city states’ Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), Light Rail Transit (LRT), and also public bus services.

Moreover, EZ-Link card serves a supplementary identification card for students in nationally recognized institutions, national service personnel in Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore Defense Civil Forces, Singapore Police Forces as well as senior citizen over 60 years old.

Furthermore, the application of EZ-Link has been expanded to fast food payments, for instance McDonald in Singapore. Also, some schools in Singapore adopting this card system to mark attendances and payment for foods in the canteen. This benefits students by not carrying cash and parents able to control their kids spending.

In conclusion, prepaid cash card is an alternative to cash which ease today’s life.

Credit card debt is accumulated via the interest charged and penalties when the customer does not make payment to the credit card company. There are many causes for the credit card debt, such as:

≈ Spend expenses more than income.

• Due to the attractive advertisement published, people are hardly to control themselves from spending. During economic downturn, unemployment rate is increasing, this will be a huge impact to the household as they are forced to use their credit card for groceries and other utilities.

≈ Lack of finance management plan

• Educations like saving or investing personal finances should be taught in school since it is important for everyone to know that having enough savings for a rainy day is always a worthwhile investment.

≈ Hold too many credit card

• Many people believe that having more credit cards in the wallet is an essential sign of prosperity.

≈ Attraction from credit card companies

• Credit card companies have encouraged customer to spend more money by giving them rewards or privileges.

Tips to take those crucial steps to financial freedom:

√ Reduce spending.

• If the credit card that you holding is charging a high interest, transfer the balance to ones with a lower annual percentage rate.

√  Increase your income

• If your current salary is not enough to cover the payments on your debt, get a second job. Even a few hours a week can make a huge difference.

√  Debt counseling.

• Go through a counseling session with financial experts before you choose to go for any particular kind of credit card debt service.

Mobile Payment Systems’ Potentials & Consumers’ Adoption Strategies in Malaysia

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Mobile payment system is a kind of E-commerce payment system which is very new in Malaysia. Instead of making payment in cash, cheque or credit cards, consumers could use a mobile phone to pay for a wide variety of services and digital or physical goods.

According to Bank Negara Malaysia Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz here, there is a huge prospect in mobile telecommunication networks as an electronic payment channel in Malaysia. This is due to the high number of mobile phone subscribers, currently reaching an astonishing percentage of 88%, in this country. Thus, Malaysia presently has all the important pre-conditions for the significant use of the mobile phone as an ideal platform for personal payments.

With 25 million mobile phone subscribers in Malaysia, there are immense opportunities to deliver innovative mobile payment products that offer speed, simplicity and convenience at minimal cost for the public, as well as to provide an efficient and cost-effective method of delivering financial services even in the remote areas.

There is great chance that mobile payment methods such as mobile web payments (WAP) and Direct Mobile Billing will soon take over Transactional methods as Transactional methods has:

To attain the full potential on this new mobile technology as well as encourage consumers’ usage, it is crucial to recognize the gaps in the service offerings and perform strategies to overcome them. A few of the strategies are:

1. Providers of mobile payment systems should link between what consumers expect and what is being offered. Openness and inter-connectivity are also vital in the mobile payment initiatives.
2. New and innovative mobile payment products and services should be offered to bring convenience to consumers at reasonable costs with efficiency.
3. Consumer confidence in the safety, security and reliability of mobile networks should be strengthened to promote its usage.

Constant improvements should be carried out on mobile payments systems for the benefits of consumers. With the current vast potential of this field in Malaysia, I believe that in no time mobile payment systems would be employed by almost everyone in this country.

With the advancement of technology today and the existence of the global-connector, THE INTERNET, cyber-criminals are getting more and more horrendous. Thus, it is very important for users and corporate to safeguard their digital data.

For our daily lives, the most common and basic protections provided to protect our personal and financial data are:

(1) Firewalls

(2) Antivirus

(3) Authentication systems

Firewall 

plays an important role in safeguarding the computer system from external threat. Comes with the computer operating system, Firewalls are a part of computer system which filters the data and information that flows into a computer system or a private network. It limits which software applications to have access into a computer operating system services, and consequently to the internal hardware resources in a computer

Antivirus

 is another security tool used to protect data and information in a computer. Antivirus is a software application that detects and removes malicious programs such as spyware, trojan horses, virus, worms, etc that slips through the computer system firewall.

These malicious programs does not only damage computer system, more harmfully, they steal data such as credit card numbers, passwords, computer identification number, etc. 

The ranking of various products of antivirus can be review in http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Authentication system

Another way to safeguard our personal and financial data is using authentication system. Authentication system is a system that identifies the authorized parties, whether an individual or a program, to access into a computer system or a network.

It is a method of preventing unauthorized access from pilfering the personal or financial data from a computer system.

Authentication is the most commonly used and effective in safeguarding our personal and financial data. A common example of using authentication system in our daily life is the double authentication used in ATM machine. ATM card and pin number are means of authentication system  used to safeguard our financial data.

To safeguard our personal data, we also set user ID and password in our computers and thumb drives

Apart from blocking unauthorized access into a computer system, authentication system also limits the activities a user is allowed to do in a computer system or a private network.   

These are the most basic and common security measures to safeguard personal and financial data.  There are more advance technologies used by governments and corporate to safeguard their highly confidential information.

Phishing

is a fraudulent attempt, usually made through email, with the intention to steal your personal & valuable information.

Scammers usually send mass emails to many addresses and typically, it will appear to come from a financial institution or an e-commerce provider. Commonly, the email will request that you update your information for one reason or another, and they usually provide a link that you can click on in order to do so.

Look below, the following email pretends to be from Citibank:

When proposed link is clicked, the user is taken to the following authentic-looking page:

Once on the website, which generally looks and feels much like the valid eCommerce/banking site, the victim is instructed to login to their account and enter sensitive information such as their bank PIN number, their Social Security number, mother’s maiden name, etc.

Here, the scam is proven when the address bar is turned back on using View, Toolbars, Address Bar where the proper address is revealed

Below is another example, where this attack tries to draw a box over the address bar to hide the real address:

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No doubt, the best way to protect you from phishing is by learning how to recognize a phish. When you could recognize them, you would not  get trapped by them!

These are the few characteristics of phishing:

Generic greeting

If you don’t see your name, be suspicious.

Forged link

Websites where it is safe to enter personal information begin with “https” — the “s” stands for secure. If you don’t see “https” do not proceed.

Requests personal information

If you receive an email requesting your personal information, it is probably a phishing attempt.

Sense of urgency

Internet criminals want you to provide your personal information NOW. They do this by making you think something has happened that requires you to act fast.

To read more details, visit this

Of course, the easier way would be by installing addons that can help detect phishing scam or  by simply turning on the phishing filter of your browser.

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As we could all see, phishing scams have increased alarmingly day by day. In my opinion, we shouldn’t only stop at preventing phishing scams. Instead, we should all cooperate to take the initiative to report phishing scams so that there wouldn’t be another victim after you. If you received a suspicious email, report it, as an example, by clicking on the “Report as Junk” (or similar) button on your email program.

Always be aware and keep in mind that

Let’s together make the eCommerce world a better place!