Mobile Computing and Social Networks - Essay Example

Mobile Computing and Social Networks Introduction Demand for advanced technological application and instrument has significantly increased among thepeople around the globe. The emergence of advanced technology has been taken place right after the Second World War due to globalization. Now-a-days, people can get access to several advanced information technological applications due to this significant technological revolution. This essay has highlighted the work function of social networks and mobile computing. The efficiency and effectiveness of mobile based applications generally helps to capture consumer data and geo-location data. In addition to this, these applications effectively upload to a specific processing server without the use of any desktop system and application. These applications have several benefits realized by the users due to the ability to get access to the individual data and information through mobile applications. There are several challenges too that have been addressed in this essay. Run of mobile applications in small screen-sized mobile can be considered as real challenge. There are several mobile platforms, such as iPhone, Windows Phone, Android and iPad. This essay has described useful methods, which can be utilized to decide that which of these platforms are supportable. It is true that mobile application generally requires high availability aspect as the users significantly need to have continuous conflict free access to IS and IT systems. Therefore, it is important to identify and implement the ways of ensuring high availability aspect. It is true that, hacking of mobile devices has become a significant challenge. Therefore, the essay has described the methods to make the existing mobile devices more secure. Discussion Effectiveness and Efficiency of Mobile-Based Applications Geo-location technology can be considered as one of the most significant trends in the field of social networking. It helps an individual to address the location of other intended individuals. It also helps people to locate popular places or institutions close to the physical location of an individual. Now-a-days, people are able to rebuke the locations on their mobile devices and Smartphone without the help of a desktop system or application to pull up Google maps or MapQuest in order to get directions to required addresses or places. People generally find addresses through the use of these apps on desktop and print outs. But, now these can be avoided due to availability of Smartphone, which can help individuals to find exact location and people can carry this Smartphone with them. Geo-location data also reveals important information about family members, friends and relatives with the help of social networks. Mobile phones have developed massive increase in inimitably identifiable data, which can be utilized for tracking people present in social network. A steady flow of geo-location data has been generated by one individual, which is gathered by mobile carriers. The information and data are generated from geo-located IP addresses, integrated GPS units and cellular triangulation. These data and information can be delivered accurately within 10 meters. People generally do not like how individual information can be used for commercial uses. Moreover, it seems that it is dangerous and an incursion of privacy. Geo-location mobile-based application is excellent for addressing the nearest restaurants, book stores and shopping malls (Purvis, 2009). These applications are build in mobile and it can travel along with the users; where desktop and personal computers are enclosed to that particular place of business, home or office. Most importantly, the data and information cannot change as the individuals change locations. But, people can change this with the use of mobile devices. Evaluation of Benefits It is highly important to give the consumers fundamental rights to access individual transaction data. It can offer huge opportunity for both business units and consumers. Mi-data can be considered as an important technological application that can help the consumers to realize their lifestyle habits and everyday consumption activities. This application generally helps to empower consumers to secure effective deals and chose beneficial spending choices. Global information service market is achieving significant growth rate and UK is achieving huge benefit from this growth as the organizations in UK is trying to engage consumers and business together, which is a crucial move. Having a mobile phone that an individual can access to personal data and information is amazing. This specific aspect has increased the sales growth rate of Smartphone and several advanced mobile devices. Consumption of Smartphone can be considered as a good investment, but there are several challenges too. If somebody loses his or her Smartphone, then important personal data and information might get theft by the thieves. However, access to social news, economic news and other forms of current affairs can be considered as the major advantages of these mobile devices. It is good for personal use as well as businesses. Video business conference and executive communication process can be enhanced through the use of Smartphone and important mobile devices quite effectively (Wang, 2014). Examination of Challenges Limited and small screen size can be considered as the major salient usability challenge for the mobile webs. Researchers are constantly trying to develop effective methods to manufacture web-friendly mobiles or Smartphone. Lac of scanning ability of full information while opening a particular web-page due to small and limited screen size can be considered as another challenge for these phones (Phan, 2010). It is highly important for the manufacturers and the organizations to prepare apps in such a way so that these could fit with small screen sizes. Possible issues can range from the several input methods, such as varying phone capabilities, methods of scrolling, different keypads, varying screen sizes, varying user behavior, influencing in-built hardware, different mobile phone features and vary user expectations. A mobile app or device developer needs to cut off the common devices to use their apps or sites, designs for target audience and utilize that device while choosing best possible design. A developer needs to look at the expectations of people, who tend to use designs and applications or sites. Therefore, it is highly important for the developers to consider the issue of small screen size focusing on the needs of target customers. Methods to decide which platform to support It is highly important for the users to pick up platforms considering the user-friendly aspect. Users always need to load opinions by conducting some research on several popular mobile platforms available in market place. Moreover, the users need to determine that the developers are familiar which platform. Functions and features of the applications can play a major role in the decision making aspect. It is true that Windows Phone, iPhone, iPad and Android are the major platforms (Barker, 2012). If these platforms can fit with all the above mentioned points, then it is up to the user to decide which platform is to use or which mobile device is to consume. It is highly important for the consumers to conduct research on device, product or platform before going to the consumption point. There are five important questions that need to be considered by the consumers before picking up a mobile device or platform to support. Has the user invested in the Google applications? Has the user invested in Mac or Windows applications? Do the most of the friend of a user have iOS and iPhones devices, or do they avail Android Smartphone? What is the user’s experience with viruses, malware and spam? Does a user plan to use these as BYOD in corporate network in order to access organization’s email and other important resources? Each of these mentioned questions can help an individual to buy specific mobile devices or Smartphone. Windows familiar individual should buy Windows phone. Google familiar individuals should buy Android phone. iOS familiar individuals should buy iPad and iPhone. Therefore, it can be stated that individuals should buy Smartphone based on the needs of applications and familiarities. Requirement of high availability and access to IS and IT systems Common people and business units effectively depend upon the reliable mobile devices and applications that need high availability as down time generally breaks off important business activities as well as daily life activities. Each and every individual wants reliable, easy and fast access to emails, business applications as well as other important phone applications. Business units utilizing mobile applications can lose profits, time and money due to service failures. When an organization suffers from service failures and unplanned downtimes, it can hamper public and financial relation aspect. According to Microsoft, it will be effective to use only proven and tested processes both people-based and automated in order to support the mobile applications throughout the lifecycle. Clustering can be considered as one of the important methods to offer constant availability for servers and applications. It has been done through a large computer network connected with cluster software. There are several benefits of using clustering, such as limited downtime as the servers constantly switch over other applications in case of failure of a specific application. People also can gain constant health monitoring aspect along with the fall of unplanned and planned downtimes. According to Microsoft, there are other methods too that can ensure high availability and constant mobile applications’ access. NLB automatically and effectively detects server failures (Wu, 2014). Moreover, it redirects important client traffic to other valuable servers, offering unbroken and uninterrupted services right after any fault. Ways to provide high availability NLB stands for network load balancing. Most importantly, this NLB is beneficial for the e-commerce applications, which links back-end data sources with the external clients during transactions. Additional servers can be included as the number of client traffic increases. Therefore, it can be stated that NLB is an important technological application for high availability. Designing for availability is all about detecting, anticipating and automatically addressing software or hardware failures before that can result in event faults, service errors or data corruption while minimizing downtime. Availability-engineering should begin with reliable and proven foundation, rigorous testing, good application design, and certification. Developers should also focus on the important requirements as far as proven and tested lifecycle processes, well-trained staffs and precise commitment to availability (Basagni, 2013). Utilization of multiple CPUs can be considered as a traditional method to offer high-availability application. In several cases, some CPU severe application and multiple processors provide increased performance and availability. Users generally need to avoid these traditional approaches due to several drawbacks of these methods. Therefore, consideration of NLB should be effective in this case as a high availability technological application cannot risk contagion by other existing and running applications. Methods to secure devices Consideration of getting some free of cost security applications in mobile devices and Smartphone can be considered as an effective way to secure mobile devices and Smartphone and protecting them from the risk of spyware, malware, data theft and spam. Some developers have come up with several special features, such as phone location, remote access lock, privacy report, call filtering, SMS filtering and data wipe out in order to secure Smartphone and mobile devices. Each and every Smartphone has individual security system that can help the users to keep their phones and applications secured and safe. Several anti-virus protections are available for Smartphone platforms. Avast has been utilized for Android users, Blackberry Protection has been utilized for Blackberry Phones, Kaspersky and Windows Protection System are utilized for Windows phones and iCloud account has been utilized for iPhone or iPads. Bluetooth can be considered as an important mobile device that generally helps the users to transfer files from one device to another. It is true that, hackers can hack personal information and data through the Bluetooth connection. Therefore, it is highly important for the users to switch it off after using it. Users can only secure and configure mobile devices and Smartphone with trusted, tested and proven applications and devices. Changing passwords frequently can help the users to protect Smartphone and mobile devices. This manual strategy can be considered as an important method to keep mobile devices safe and secured. Modern and advanced two layers password consideration can help the users to protect their mobile devices and Smartphone quite significantly. This process can be completed with the availability of password protected SIM card. If in any case the phone got stolen by the thieves, then also they cannot do anything as the protected password will make it difficult for the hackers or thieves to use the stolen phone. Therefore, it is highly important for the users to never share the password with other individuals and change them on frequent basis to ensure safety and security aspect of the mobile devices and Smartphone. In case of password settings, it is highly important to use complex characters in passwords to make it difficult for other individuals to break the password. Users always need to use secured connections (Hwang, 2013). In addition to this, users should keep apps, operating system and security software updated periodically. This process will safeguard the devices and applications from newly developed variants of viruses and spyware. Security is all about ensuring that the application services are accessible and available only to the qualified and justified users. Security also stands for securing distributed resources and components that the applications use. Moreover, security implementation should account for secured and safe communication between anonymous uses, individuals’ application, web-sites of business partners and validated users in case of critical internet applications. Security for a particular web-application may have several serious obligations. Device vendors must develop effective and stronger PIN or keying mechanism with the combination of specific biometrics, such as facial pattern scan, voice recognition or finger prints. Several users generally like this idea as nobody would be able to control and access the phone secured with fingerprint password. Conclusion It is clear from above discussion that technological emergence has increased the level of demand and needs of consumers. Mobile based applications generally help people to capture consumer and geo-location data. It generally reduces the efforts and times of common people to locate an address. Mobile applications have helped people to guide towards an intended address or place. Now-a-days, people can get information about nearby restaurants, shopping malls or book stores through these mobile applications. The users only need to have Smartphone and internet connection to find these locations. Despite the benefits, there are several challenges that can hamper the operation process of these mobile applications. Generally, it can be identified that majority of the Smartphone’s screens are small in size. Therefore, it creates difficulty for the users to read the information transparently and clearly at a stress. However, the developers need to consider this issue while developing mobile devices. They need to develop the apps and devices in such a way so that these apps and devices should effectively fit with the sites. Privacy issues and hacking of important personal data and information can be considered as a serious challenge for the Smartphone users. It is highly important for the users to get aware of these issues. First of all, the users need to consume user-friendly mobile devices and phones in order to control the phone. Secondly, it is also important to consider the safety and security factor while transferring data and info0rmation. The possibility of data hacking can hamper the privacy aspect of the users. Last but not the least; it is highly important for the users to change the password of devices and SIM cards on a frequent basis to strengthen the security aspect of Smartphone. References Barker, M. (2012). Social media marketing. New Jersey: Pearson. Basagni, S. (2013). Mobile ad hoc networking. London: Routledge. Hwang, K. (2013). Distributed and Cloud Computing. New York: Springer. Phan, T. (2010). Mobile computing, applications and services. New York: Springer. Purvis, M. (2009). Computer-mediated social networking. New York: Springer. Wang, Y. (2014). Mobile social networking and computing. London: Routledge. Wu, J. (2014). Opportunistic mobile social networks. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Read More