Momma's Makeover

Mom's Hangover Helper will be relaunching on January 16, 2012 at full-speed, ready to provide advice and entertainment! Send your stories or get advice from Momma and her helpers by emailing momshangoverhelper@gmail.com. Also you can tweet at Momma @MommaWontTell. Go crazy!

Week 8 - Blog Project Summary

This concludes my 8 Week IST 195 Entrepreneurship Project, but this is not the end of Momma or Mom's Hangover Helper. When first assigned the project, I had no idea what to do, but knew I had to come up with something. Later that night, I was passing time on the internet looking at sites like FML and Texts From Last Night, and thought to myself, "What if there was someone or somewhere these people could go to for advice. It was at that moment I knew I had my idea and knew I would want to carry this project on well past the 8 weeks.


At first, the project was somewhat easy in relating my site to the information learned in lecture, like social media. However, as we moved farther into more technical and  hardware-oriented subjects, it became harder to relate helping college students with things like domain names and bytes/bits. I managed to do so and actually enjoyed the challenge because it expanded my thinking and thought of different ways to use this technology that could benefit my target audience as well as myself.

From here, I plan on expanding Mom's Hangover Helper and working on reaching out to the public, mainly college students. In order for Mom's Hangover Helper to take off, we need to gather followers and get people to send in their questions to Momma or tweet @MommaWontTell. From there, the site can continue to grow and be the next great site, like FML, where people can go to read some funny stories but at the same time, offer more because personal advice is given for each story. There is also a chance for the readers to give their own advice by commenting on the posts.

Now, Momma needs your help to get this site going! Email and tweet to Momma with your stories and questions and have your friends do the same. Everything remains anonymous and the reader is anonymous. What you tell Momma, stays with momma because @MommaWontTell.

Happy Partying!
Momma's Little Helper


Other blogs I commented on:
Hi My Name is Justin Law - Commented under: "IST195 Entrepreneurial Idea" (Lok Hei Justin Law)
heART - Commented under the post: "entrepreneurial idea(1st week)" (Xuenin Chen)
KnowYourSnow - Commented under the post: "Week 1: Topic/Social Media" (Lisa Weissman)

Week 7 - A Not-So-Easy Solution for the Starving College Student

What's a problem that all college students encounter quite a lot? The answer is having no money. It's not easy to hold a job while balancing school work at the same time. You have to have money, but at the same time you have to have good grades. What are you going to do? For those college students who are technologically advanced, the answer can be found in networking. How does networking work?

How the Internet Works

Every node on the internet needs an IP address to communicate. An IP address (IPv4) is a set of four bytes, of four 8 bit numbers, for example 128.230.84.49.  The first 2 sets of #’s is the network address (Exp: 128.230 = SU), the 3^rd number is a Sub-net (Exp: 84 = hinds hall), and the last number is the actual host (system). The internet is running out of IP addresses so they have to add some, creating a new form of IP address known as the IPv6. What we see when we type in a website is known as a domain name, an alias for an IP address. ICANN.org (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the governing body that manages domain names including the suffixes whether they are restricted (,gov, .edu, .mil, etc.) or unrestricted (.com, .net, .org, etc.). 

Domain Names

Can you buy and sell any domain? This is where the money lies and where you can make a nice investment if you play your cards right. Domains can be bought for $10 if they have not been claimed and if that domain name becomes popular then one can sell it for much, much more. For example, in 2007 porn.com was sold for $9.5 million and in 2010 sex.com was sold for $13 million. A more common example is a SU professor, Jeff Rubin, bought the domain yaz.info for baseball player Carl Yastrzemski and sold it for $5,000 to Bayer for their morning-after pill Yaz. 

Domain Disputes

One thing you have to worry about when investing in domain names is to not "steal" a domain name from someone or a company then later try to sell it to them because they could file a complaint and the domain would be automatically become theirs. All domain name disputes go through WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization)

Examples of Disputes:

   1) Your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complaint has rights

   2) You have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name

   3) Your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith

When filing a dispute, it costs $1,500 for a single panelist to review the dispute and $4,000 for three panelists.

Where the Money Is At

Like mentioned before, this is not necessarily easy to succeed on and also may take a while for the domain you choose to actually gather some worth. For those more technologically advanced, and with more time, one could create a domain and then actually do something with it rather than just waiting for the domain to gather worth. You can create a website with information that people would be interested, gather traffic, and gain worth that way then gain advertisers to make the money. However, this is much more complicated and time consuming so you may just want to stick with a simple part-time, typical college job.

Week 6 - Professional Blogger Review

Being a new blogger, I do not know exactly what does and doesn't work in order for my blog to be successful so I did some looking around and checked out what successful bloggers are doing right and how I can apply those to my own blog. One blog that stuck out to me was The College Crush, a how-to site on surviving college relationships and give advice. The first thing i noticed when I opened the site was its style, layout, and all of the pictures. The site has a sort of vintage and handmade kind of feel that is carried through every page, article, and picture. This is a great choice and done really well as it appeals to the people that they are trying to attract as their audience. They have branded themselves with this style and made an appropriate logo to go with it. A couple ways I could incorporate what I observed on this site was the use of images. Im trying to to attract college students and if there is one thing these students don't like its reading endlessly for homework so when they take breaks, they don't want to do more reading. What draws them into the articles on  The College Crush site are the interesting and artistic pictures that depict in a way what the article is about. When they see a picture they like, they select the picture and read that article because it appeals to them. Another way I could improve my blog is if I branded the site, and Momma herself, more by working on a logo, creating a final theme and design for the site, and put the site out there by reaching out to my target audience through social media and just spreading the word around of Momma and her advice. Thanks College Crush and great site!

-Momma's Little Helper

Week 5 - Mixing It Up

There are three things that make or break a party: the people, the music, and, of course, the drinks, but people don't always realize that what really makes or breaks the party is the music. Without the right music, the alcohol and people go to waste. If there is no music, or it isn't good, then no one wants to dance with anyone and so you stuck standing there just talking while the alcohol goes to waste. This is why it is important to know how to mix music, so you can have a successful party. A free, simple program that has everything you need to make you mixes is Audacity, but before mixing the music, you have to know the logistics.

There are 2 common types of formats: WAV and MP3. There is no difference in sound between these two, but the difference is a WAV file is uncompressed audio and MP3 is compressed audio. Lossy Compression: CD’s contain uncompressed audio although your brain cannot process all of the different sounds so MP3 compresses the audio by taking the frequencies from the song and throwing away the frequencies the average human can’t hear so there is no difference in the sound, to humans.

Another important thing to know is how to figure out the file size to ensure your files are not to big for the cd or other storage device. Here is how you figure it out: 

1) Convert the minutes to seconds. Exp: 8 minutes and 42 seconds à 522 seconds

Note: Stereo sound uses 2 channels or 16 bit DAC (Digital Audio Conversion

2) Figure out the 16-bit number. Exp: Total 16-bit sampled: 522*44100*2=46,040,400

3) Now figure out the 8-bit by multiplying it by 2. Exp: Total 8-bit bytes = 92,080,800 (87.8 MB)

For more information about Audacity or how to use it check out some videos. I recommend beginning here:

Happy Partying and Stay Safe!
Momma

Week 4 - Keep it in Your Pants

As mentioned in my previous blogs, college students are huge targets, especially with theft. College students are very vulnerable, especially when they go out, and often fall victim to crimes from criminals or even their peers. So how does one avoid being mugged and keep their valuables in their pants? With an advancement in technology, plus just using common sense, you can lower your chances of becoming a victim.

A new mobile app was released recently that will cut down what you have to carry in your pockets, known as Google Wallet. Using NFC Technology (Near Field Communication), you can enter your credit card information into the app so when you pay for something you just enter a pin, hold your phone to the sensor, and then you're done. Combine this with a phone case that can hold your ID card, and you will only need one thing on you when you go out. This way girls won't have a need to carry purses with them and both girls and guys can keep just their phone with their ID and Goggle Wallet in their front pocket which greatly reduces the risk of becoming a victim of "pick-pocketing."

Google Wallet is currently only available for the Nexus S 4G from Sprint because it has the NFC chip where the encrypted data is stored on. This is an up and coming product so there is still work to be done on it, especially with security. People question how secure this will be and if people could easily scan your phone with some device when they walk by. It is actually more secure than it seems, more secure than RFID and Bluetooth. The two biggest security features in Google Wallet are the pin code you have to enter whenever you want to make a transaction and in order for the sensor to pick up on the NFC chip the phone must be within 4 centimeters of it. Remember when you go out to only take the things you need and not to keep your things out in the open or unattended so someone can easily take it.

Happy Partying!
Momma

Remember to email Momma or tweet @MommaWontTell when you need advice!

Week 3 - College Students Being Targeted

Are you completely protected from identity theft? Most likely not. Have you or someone you known fallen victim to identity theft? It doesn't take long for your identity to be stolen, but it takes months to recover from and often you can never fully recover from it. People 18-29 years old, especially college students, are most at risk of having their identity stolen. There are many ways to stop this from happening, but there are ways they can steal your identity that you can't always prevent. This is why it's always good to take precautions and check regularly to make sure there is no suspicious activity.

Ways to minimize your chances of having your identity stolen:
1) Do not use debit cards. Alternatives are to use the debit card as a credit card in which you give them your signature rather than you PIN or a better idea is to use credit cards.
2) Never Disclose SSN.
3) Don't provide bank account or credit info unless you made the call.
4) Check your monthly statements. Make sure there is no suspicious activity on your accounts, if there is you should call your bank or the credit card company immediately.
5) Minimize what's in you wallet. Never carry your SSN number with you.
6) Don't write down passwords and especially don't carry them in your wallet.
7) Shred all discarded paper that contains account numbers. People will go through your trash, make sure you SHRED all of your papers, not just throw them out.
8) Don't show personal info on webpages.
9) Monitor your credit. Everyone is entitled to a free annual credit report from Equifax, Transunion, and Experian at www.annualcreditreport.com. Go through your report and look for suspicious activity.
10) Destroy your hard drive, computers, printers, etc., don't sell them. All of these devices store the data and leave footprints that cannot be deleted even when you think you delete the files from your computer. Destroy by the DoD Standard - disintegrate, incinerate, pulverize, shred, or melt.