Part (2)

What is cloud computing?

Basically, cloud computing is a place where you store and save your data. It is is not on your local hard drive, but you have access to it at any time from any device or any different location. To give an example for the cloud computing, any email you send or receive does not take space on your device, it is stored on the email savers or providers. As mentioned before, due to the cloud computing these emails can be accessed from any device: PC, smartphone, or laptop from any location and at any time. However, data still needs to be stored physically on a server or a device somewhere. Companies who offer you that kind of storage services owns huge warehouse servers that continue to work 24/7 in order to store your data, that is called server farms.

So where is my data going?? And who has access to it besides me??

Your data is safe and stored in places you will never know where precisely. It all depends on the company offering that storing service, some providers have servers in the US, others have it in Chine, the UK or any other location in the world to reduce the costs. To talk about who has access to your data, those companies have ensured that you are the only person having access to your data. However, each person should think more about security and safeguards around their data when it comes to storing important data even though it is still not 100% safe. After saying that, it is fair to say that even in these servers, your data has the chance of being destroyed, failed, deleted or hacked just like if it was stored on your own computer or hard drive.

Sources:

http://blog.krollontrack.co.uk/top-tips/where-on-earth-is-cloud-data-actually-stored/

How much data is created and perceived every day? Where is it saved and stored? Who owns all this data? And can we handle all this amount of big data?

 Part (1)

With each day goes by, digital interactions such as taking photos, sending texts or tweets and uploading videos with tremendous amounts are being perceived worldwide and that is leading to the explosion of data. According to IBM, 2.5 billion gigabytes was generated daily back in 2012. In 2013, it rose up to 4.4 zettabytes, and it is predicted that by 2020, data will increase massively to 44 zettabytes, which is equal to 44 trillion gigabytes. All this data is gathered and collected, by companies in order to understand the behavior of consumers and predict what they need in the future. Not just that, but governments collect data about reports of incidents in police departments. Imagine how much data rapidly grew since 2013!!

Where is all this data stored?

The US National Security Agency has built a huge data center in Bluffdale, Utah, which is capable of storing a yottabyte of data, that is one thousand trillion gigabytes. There are some open sourced platforms that had grown so quickly to be able to save huge data volume such as Hadoop. Large businesses store their data in a cloud-based data that provides data storage or keep their data on site in their own remote data center. For cloud computing, there are streaming applications like Google Drive, DropBox and iCloud.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26383058

http://www.northeastern.edu/levelblog/2016/05/13/how-much-data-produced-every-day/

How is Facebook Using Our Data? and Why Does It Track Users?

Whenever we get on a Facebook page or any other website and click the “like” button, the browsing activity of us is automatically gathered by a cookie tool, regardless of whether you are a member or a user of that site or not. It is believed that Facebook and other comparable sites achieve information via cookies which are small pieces of data sent from the website to track and record each activity the user takes on the internet and back to several months ago. Facebook, specifically, and after several problems with that case since they have been using it for five years, clarifies that expelling that tool off their site will decline the protection of its members and weaken the security. As soon as anyone gets on Facebook, even if not a member, that cookie which has a two-year lifespan gets called and installed on their browser. A spokeswoman said to BBC once "It is something which our security team believes is the best way to protect people's accounts,". The team of Facebook also says that this cookie assists in protecting the content of users from theft, restrain the creation of fake accounts, decrease the percentage of accounts being taken by other members or users, and lastly, stop distributed denial of service attacks. In addition to that, they claim that this cookie is not just associated with an individual or related to a specific person, it is associated only with browsers.  

So Why Does Facebook Track Us?

Like any other social website, Facebook’s biggest achieved goal is advertising revenue. It is in fact, their largest source of income increasing from 45% to 78% on mobile ad sales. So why is Facebook good in advertising? Because Facebook is able to know the path of users and track their web-browsing habits, and eventually provides better advertising to targeted audience. Facebook had the opportunity to learn several lessons from previous mistakes they had done and that allowed them to understand that privacy is a major issue to its members, but it still did not stop them from gathering all the information they can. For that reason, privacy campaigners discuss that Facebook might need to be more honest to their users and explain what they are tracking and collecting off their accounts, and these campaigners are getting louder and larger groups by the day.

Big Data in Facebook

            Due to the massive data Facebook is collecting, it has been one of the largest producers of big data, and it is continuing to grow day after day. Even though Facebook was created to keep the connection between people on social media and the internet so we can interact with friends, provide types of content and activities we enjoy the most, it still depends on famous algorithms to determine these relationships and predict which will be the most visible and shareable. So, how does it work? Facebook generally define the information of every member and tries to connect similar hobbies and interests to lead the group by presenting that information. It also tracks likes, shares, comments, your personal engagement and the time you usually spend on a single post. Other than individuals, Facebook also provides advertising services or sponsored posts that are based on features of user’s profiles. Besides that, it will probably try to gather your missing information on your profile such as the city you live in, your address and your education degree from your engagement activities. For example, if your friends live in New York City, and you attended several events in the city, it will try to confirm with you that you also live in the city.

I personally did not know that Instagram was owned by the same company of Facebook, so imagine that every photo you upload to your Instagram account or view through your profile will provide information to your Facebook account as well. It is creepy how all social media channels are now related somehow to get more and more data. Being aware of what we upload and post on social media is necessary for the sake of our privacy.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34776191

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/facebook-your-data/

What are the Top Tools for Data Analysis?

To solve data analysis problems, you need to have powerful tools that are easy to use and preferably free, in order to assist you in analyzing and visualizing the data. Fortunately, there is a number of significantly powerful tools in analytics that are open sources and free to help improve the work in business and develop proficiency in your future career. Due to the high price of the well-known tool SAS in data analytics, some small and medium corporations cannot afford it. That’s why they use other free tools and programs to analyze their data instead of investing in a tool that does not match their analysis needs. Here are some open source analytics tools:

·      Hive and PIG: both languages are SQL and are integral tools that helps decrease the complications of writing a map queries. A huge number of companies use these tools.

·      R : the most popular tool in the analytics industry because it deals with large data much better than it used to do in the past. It surprisingly exceeded SAS in the usage of data and became the choice for companies due to the higher price of SAS. In addition to that, this tool also merge with big data platforms very well and that participated in its success.

·      Python: the favorite tool for data scientists and programmers is python due to its simplicity, easy language, and it is also fast. Recently, it also became capable of covering mathematical and statistical functions.

·      Apache Storm: this is the suitable and perfect tool when using moving data that continues to come like a streaming process.

·      Apache Spark: this tool is used for the tremendous volume of data, and it has its own machine learning library for analytics.

And now, here are some commercial analytics tools: these tools are paid not free.

·      SAS: it is the most tool used in analytics. It added a lot of new modules and made it easier to learn such as SAS Analytics Pro for Midsize Business, SAS Anti-Money Laundering and SAS for IOT. The high price of SAS is being reduced for more flexibility.

·      Tableau: it is an easy tool to learn in order to analyze the data and demonstrate visualization and dashboards in a simple way. It handles much more data than Excel and creates visualizations better as well. Even though there are better alternatives, Tableau is distinguished by offering a free trail.

·      Excel: it is the most tool used worldwide. All data scientists have to use this tool whether a professional or a beginner. Most non-professional will not necessary use SAS but everyone does excel.

·      Google Search Operators: this tool authorizes you to filter Google results and allocate the most beneficial result that is relevant.  

·      Qlik View: similar to Tableau, this tool is one of the top tools for data visualization. However, it is more flexible and slightly faster than Tableau but on the other hand, Tableau is easier to learn.

·      Solver: an optimization tool that also offers linear programming in excel that helps put bands. It solves a problem in a short time compared to others.

·      wolframAlpha: it is a search engine that is hidden and helps to support Apple’s Siri. It illustrates graphs and charts with detailed information and responses.

·      NodeXL: it is an analysis and visualization software that consists of relationships and network. NodeXL takes the large friendship map located on Facebook and LinkedIn, and explains it better by providing perfect calculations.  

Those open sourced and commercial analytics tools are a group of a bigger collection. It is a big challenge to gather big data and analyze it, but with these different tools, most businesses are capable of handling an enormous amount of data.
Check more information on this topic on my classmates page, https://carlofiore.blogspot.com/2017/05/excelling-headaches.html#comment-form

Resources:

http://www.kdnuggets.com/2014/06/top-10-data-analysis-tools-business.html

http://analyticstraining.com/2011/10-most-popular-analytic-tools-in-business/

What is Search Engine Optimization? Part (2)

SEO is a machine that provides the searcher with answers when searching online. It basically collects all related information and facts to the search topic that are useful and most popular online. The search engines anticipate algorithms and mathematical equations to determine which information are the most relevant and popular. There are some tips to have better rankings in search engine machines, here are some recommended by Google:

1.     Use keywords to create your URL.

2.     Make pages to users not engines.

3.     Create useful titles to describe your content.

4.     Write clear text links.

In addition to that, some say that having a great HTML, but a low-quality content does not help. Your content should always have satisfied and positive information to rise the ranking, so using an amazing title to attract your audience is never going to work. As long as your content is marvelous, and you are using keywords for the search engine to find, your page will achieve higher rankings and eventually, be a triumph. Keeping your page updated is another remarkable reason for better rankings. If you post regularly, search engines will find your page faster, but try to make it useful rather than just posting for reaching search engines. In conclusion, there are various methods on how to make your page get higher rankings but these previously written are the main simple ones.  

For more information, visit: http://walaaabudiyyah.blogspot.com

Resources:

1      https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/how-search-engines-operate

http://searchengineland.com/1      10-fundamental-tips-to-improve-your-seo-14024