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Business Intelligence in Marketing

Business Intelligence, or BI, are the set of applications used to convert a company’s massive amounts of data into knowledge which can then be used to improve operations and decision making capabilities of the company. One such method to accomplish this task is by predictive analysis. Predictive analysis can help a company maximize marketing campaigns.

To help keep pace with today’s consumers, many companies have implemented campaign management systems that enable them to generate many more campaigns than was previously possible. While these systems increase the number of campaigns that a company can run, they don’t necessarily improve campaign effectiveness. Then they realized that there is a need for them to find a way to help them analyze the data they generate from these campaigns and should allow them to make better campaigns in the future. Predictive analysis is the answer because it enables them to capture relationships between explanatory variables and the predicted variables from past occurrences, and exploiting it to predict future outcomes that is why BI apps are so hot these days just like Dennis Carey who has just been hired by Nortel Networks Corp.

Cell Blog

The author’s fascination about the cell has grown out of control that is why he decided to create a new blog dedicated to the cell. All new articles that has anything to do with cell from now on can be found on the said blog. The other main reason for the decision is with the new blog, a bigger number of audiences that share the same interest about the cell but are just restricted to entering keywords that has only related to cell can not find the article written on this blog since this blog is mostly dedicated to Accounting Software and the related technologies and issues.

The new cell blog articles are categorized into three namely (1) The Cell; (2) Cell Types; and (3) Cells in Computing. But would soon add new categories like (4) Cell Related Diseases and (5) Cell Communication.

So may I invite all the avid readers of this blog to please visit the site.


Cells and its different faces

Every living organism starts with just two cells the sperm and the egg cells. These two cells when combined together in the process called fertilization, leads to a start of chemical reaction that will last a lifetime. This chemical reaction is not driven by a random sequence of explosion that leads to the formation of one type of cell to another. It rather follows a sequence which is so intelligently designed. This information as we all know it is found in the DNA. And that is the real mystery until now. Who designed the DNA or where did it come from? Gee…it is so weird isn’t it?

That code in the DNA is a complex recipe that does not only contains the amount of chemicals needed to form different types of cells but the exact time and locations where this chemical reaction should take place as well. Each chemical reactions are executed and intelligently carried out with precision. But then it is not perfect. This imperfection gives rise to cancer diseases or sometimes leads to strange births like the famous snake with two heads. This explains why until now, there is no definite cure of cancer since its origin is from that imperfection. So probably, the creator can also be assumed that he is not perfect? Well, I don’t know the answer. But his creation already impressed me.

Cells: key to accelerating our Regenerative System

Cells as we know it is responsible for the formation of our body, our flesh, our tissues. Understanding it completely is still a major challenge even the smartest men that our race has produced still not able to decrypt the mysteries. How interesting really this area of science is and its discovery is perhaps the most important event in our civilization’s history. Understanding it completely can lead to a lot of major breakthroughs in science. Perhaps new breed of humans will rule the planet having special abilities that could make them invincible and indestructible just like Wolverine in X-Men.


 Wolverine

This is not a science fiction. This video of Alan Russell (he studies regenerative medicine — a breakthrough way of thinking about disease and injury, using a process that can signal the body to rebuild itself) just demonstrate how primitive our current understanding of the cell but I think it is a demonstration that our body needs some stimulant to accelerate its Regenerative System.



SocialSpark Helps Bloggers Make New Friends and Make Money at the same time

Social Spark 

SocialSpark is making big news in the bloggers community worldwide because of their revolutionary concepts of helping bloggers make more friends on the web and make money at the same time. It is another remarkable and very creative business that has been made possible by Information Technology(IT).

Joining SocialSpark is quite easy. Bloggers just have to register and they instantly become member of the SocialSpark community and can immediately gain friends. Once they gain friends, they may share tips and techniques about blogging and other interesting subjects with their friends and they can even exchange links which is great for seo’ing their blog. Then they register their blogs and install some codes onto their blog. The next step is to wait for sometime before their blog gets approved.  Once their blog gets approved, then that is the time for them to join the marketplace and start making money. No worry about SocialSpark. By they way, all the paid posts require nofollow, something different from all the companies out there. It is:

-100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure
-100% Transparency
-100% Real Opinions
-100% Search Engine Friendly

Blogs must have original content, a sizable daily visitors and of best quality in order to qualify. SocialSpark pays by Paypal and payments are sent out 30 days after the post was approved. Social Spark is really cool. So join them now and make lots of friends and best of all, make lots of money. I already joined them and instantly I earned $5.5 just by making this post, no sweat.

Sponsored by SocialSpark

The Nannies at Accentuation

Joke #8:

Day 1:

Nanny(aka The Client): Very good, you have done well. And surprisingly you have done it without my help. Excellent. I have been trying to break it but all attempts are failures. Excellent, it is highly recommended that the program be transported to production.

Abaper: Thank you for the compliment.

Day 2:

Nanny(aka The Client) was so angry upon learning that Abaper’s work failed in production.

Nanny(aka The Client): Your work failed! I am going to file an incidence report to HR.

Gardener(The Boss of Nanny): From now on, we shall be putting you under probational status.

Joke #9:

Abaper: I would suggest that the entire program be replaced with a new program because of the faulty design and it has become very slow. One exceptional example is the table BSEG was accessed 20 times when it could have been read just once. Another remarkable observation is the determination of a paid invoice. I have worked on a similar program before and believe me it is not that simple.

Nanny(aka The Client): Oh, no no no… you just do not understand the situation…and please respect my 18 years of SAP experience. You still need to learn a lot from this project.

Abaper: With all due respect, it is more advisable to inform them(Nanny’s Clients) of the severity of the situation so that they can alot more time and budget for the program before it is too late. This is never meant to be of disrespect to you, it is about the program itself…it is really needed and besides, my task cannot be done without these changes.

Nanny(aka The Client): I created the program myself and I have 18 years experience, what are you talking about?

Joke #10:

Day 1:

Abaper is an experienced new hire at Accenttuate but was not oriented about the specific procedures or protocols in the project. Nanny(The Team Lead) was an awardee of Woman of Integrity.

Abaper: Hi Enduser, Nanny(The Cleint). The revision of the program is done and you may now test it in Dev.

Enduser: What? I do not have access in Dev.

Nanny(The Client): Abaper, we do not let Enduser test the program in Dev. I should be the one to inform them? Hadn’t anyone  told you that before?

Abaper: I am so sorry, I am not aware of such procedure.

Nanny(The Client): Nanny(The Team Lead) should have told you this. but any that’s ok, next time, do not do it again ok?

Nanny(The Team Lead): Oh I forgot to tell you, but anyway, now, you know. The rule is we do not have the authority to let the Enduser do the testing in Dev.

Abaper: Got it!

Day 2:

Abaper:  Hi Nanny(The Client), the revision of the program is finish and is ready for your testing.

Nanny(aka The Client): Hi Abaper, this is  not what I want. Nanny(The Team Lead) should have test it first. Haven’t she told you that?

 Abaper: She only told me that I should not let Enduser test it in Dev. I am so sorry.

Nanny(The Team Lead): So now you know, from now on, I should test your program first before you let Nanny(The Client) know about it. Ok?

The Nanny Invasion of IT Part 2

Joke #7: 

Day 1:

Nanny 1(aka FI Consultant): The program is working fine except that the document type ‘DA’ was not considered that is why there are some discrepancies in the Aging of AR Report.

Abaper: I am so sorry but I have worked on this kinds of programs and I could tell at this stage, your analysis is very incomplete, so I am giving this task back to you for furhter analysis.

Nanny 2(aka Project Manager): Do you have extensive testing result? Can you show it to us?

Nanny 1(aka FI Consultant): Believe me, that is the only problem that causes the minor error. I don’t understand why Abaper would give it back for further analysis. So may I request that Nanny 3(aka Abaper) to do the task instead?

Nanny 2(aka Project Manager): Your request has been granted, so Abaper I will be asking you to work with Gardener(PP Consultant) for the maintime.

Day 2:

Nanny 3(aka Abaper): The revision that Nanny 1 requested has been implemented as per her requirement.

Nanny 1: That’s wonderful and I have just tested it and the results were excellent. My test data is as follows:

Date: 01/01/2008 to 01/31/2008
Customer: 1000
Company Code: 10

Result: $1000.00

The result is verified using transaction code FD10N for month of January.

Nanny 2: Congratulations to both of you for a job well done and I saw how excellent team work can successfully overcome even the most difficult challenges. Abaper, I hope you learned something from this situation.

Abaper: Have you checked using the date range 01/01/2008 to 01/15/2008? The result is 0(zero)? There is no transaction within that period so the output should be equal to the beginning balance for January which is $1050.00 There is payment received on 01/20/2008 for $50 that is why the AR Balance as of January 31 is $1000.

The revision was implemented again by Nanny 3 immediately.

Day 3:

Nanny 1: Testing was done. My test data is as follows:

Date: 01/01/2008 to 01/15/2008
Customer: 1000
Company Code: 10

Result: $1050.00

Abaper: I have reversed one of the payments made for Dec 20,2007 which is $50. Therefore the beginning balance for January should be $1100.

The testings and revisions went on for two years until finally, all business scenarios was considered. Nanny 1, 2 & 3 became very wealthy.

Project Accounting

Project accounting (sometimes referred to as job cost accounting) is the practice of creating financial reports specifically designed to track the financial progress of projects, which can then be used by managers to aid project management.

Standard accounting is primarily aimed at monitoring financial progress of organizational elements (geographical or functional departments, divisions and the enterprise as a whole) over defined time periods (typically weeks, months, quarters and years).

Projects differ in that they frequently cross organizational boundaries, may last for anything from a few days or weeks to a number of years, during which time budgets may also be revised many times. They may also be one of a number of projects that make up a larger overall project or program.

Consequently, in a project management environment costs (both direct and overhead) and revenues are also allocated to projects, which may be subdivided into a work breakdown structure, and grouped together into project hierarchies. Project accounting permits reporting at any such level that has been defined, and often allows comparison with historical as well as current budgets.

Project accounting is commonly use at government contractors, where the ability to account for costs by contract (and sometimes contract line item, or CLIN) is usually a requirement for interim payments.

Percentage-of-completion is frequently independently assessed by a project manager. Funding advances and actual-to-budget cost variances are calculated using the project budget adjusted to percent-of-completion.

Where labor costs are a significant portion of overall project cost, it is usually necessary for employees to fill out a timesheet in order to generate the data to allocate project costs.

The capital budget processes of corporations and governments are chiefly concerned with major investment projects that typically have upfront costs and longer term benefits. Investment go / no-go decisions are largely based on net present value assessments. Project accounting of the costs and benefits can provide crucially important feedback on the quality of these important decisions.

An interesting specialized form of project accounting is production accounting, which tracks the costs of individual movie and television episode film production costs. A movie studio will employ production accounting to track the costs of its many separate projects.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_accounting

Budget and Sales Forecast Report

A programmer will never start to create a program without a well-defined requirement. The same thing as what most business owners usually does, having a business plan before they actually start their business. A clear and concise business plan would take their business where they want it to. And of course the enabler of getting there more efficiently and a lot faster is by creating a budget and sales forecast report.

The preparation of the report should not be time consuming. Make it as simple as possible. The figures must always be conservative and yet reasonable and should not deprive you of what you want. It is also very advisable to use accounting software right from the very start of your business. Accounting PRO V1.0 has a very nice feature that should allow business owners create these reports. The Budget and Sales Forecast Report in Accounting PRO V1.0 allows users to analyze at an early stage the share of the market a company’s product can attain. With their proprietary algorithm, the result can be attain at optimal level with very small margin of error.

Can we reverse engineer our brain?

Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. With this in mind, if we are able to reverse engineer the cell, can we reverse engineer the brain? The answer probable is yes if we are lucky. But I doubt if the human race can do this in our lifetime given the fact that we hardly know how the cell works. I hope I am wrong, Ray Kurzweil seems to be very optimistic. Watch his video below.



Payperpost: the Best Example of a Successful Business

Information Technology(IT) has helped create new business ideas and has made possible for companies to reach out to audience worldwide with the presence of the internet. PayPerPost has taken this one step further with their solutions to provide advertisers with a vehicle to promote their Web Site, product, service or company through the PayPerPost network of over 50,000 independent bloggers(including me). Advertisers will be able to connect to their network of bloggers to create buzz, build traffic, get product feedback, gain links, syndicate content and much more.

Payperpost has also helped these 50,000 independent bloggers(including me) earn from their blogs. Bloggers have to sign up as a member which is not easy. My blog took a while before it got accepted which means, they really mean business. They only accept blogs that have exceptional quality. Once the blog gets accepted, search through a list of opportunities, make a blog posting, get the content approved, and get paid. It’s that simple. Bloggers can easily make $500 a month or more! So what are you waiting for join the Payperpost to make your business on the top of competition and get paid to blog.

The best thing I really liked about Payperpost is that I was able to earn $20 upon signing up just by posting this post. That’s earning cash while enjoying the thing that made by IT possible and that’s “Blogging”.



The Nanny Invasion of IT

These are jokes compiled by several IT Professionals originally for mom experts:

Joke #1:

Abaper: Can you tell me the business process?

Nanny: Customer Place and Order, we ship the product, we process payment, then issue invoice, then issue delivery note and then goods issuance.

Joke #2:

CEO: You don’t deserve a Secretary, I’ll just hire EcoQuest Intl if I want to. I am going to place you in IT as a Manager because I saw that you have a very good track record in IT. Can you tell me your skills in IT?

Nanny: I know how to remove dust on the PC, read “Nanny” on the tv, I know emails, I see videos with my boyfriend, and read Miami Art and Social Coverage because I am so sociable and of course persiankitty.com because I love cats especially persians.

CEO: Really? How interesting, can you lock the door please…

Joke #3:

Nanny: The authorizations in R/3 is very erroneous. Users has a lot of complaints.

Basis: We are doing our best to resolve all issues being raised.

Nanny: I have an idea…anyway you know how to create authorizations right? And since all authorizations are currently created by SAP, we should just delete all these standard authorizations and replace it with our own authorizations.

Joke #4:

Day 1:

Nanny: The program is almost ok except for the scenario where I have to process one payment for several envoices.

Abaper: Ok, I’ll include that scenario.

Day 2:(Nanny was upset)

Nanny: Why am I encountering a lot of errors, I told you to include the scenario, but the programs generates a lot of errors.

Abaper: I have no idea, I only did what you ask me to do.

Nanny: I ask you to include the scenario where I need to process 1 payment transaction for serveral invoices.

Abaper: Yes, that’s what I did.

Nanny: How did this invoice shows up as fully paid, I only entered it to be partially paid?

Joke #5:

Day 1:

Abaper: I have already finished the part of the Stock Requirement where we have to trace the Finish Goods. Please do not check the the Document Types coz I need some clarification.

Nanny: Ok, I’ll check it later.

Day 2:(Nanny was angry)

Nanny: Your program is infested with bugs, all the Document Types being shown is wrong.

Joke #6:

Nanny(a.k.a. Sr Abaper): What is an Idoc?

Abaper: I don’t know yet.

Nanny(a.k.a. Sr Abaper) :(( : You should know, you just don’t want to tell me…huhuhu…waahhhh…I’ll tell my boyfriend who just happens to be the Technical Manager to prepare an Incidence Report about this….wwaaahhhh…huhuuuhhhuuu….(She continued to cry).

Accounting Software Efficiency

Accounting Software Efficiency is a measure on how the software performs and meets the expectation of the client. Several Factors should be considered in calculating the efficiency of the software and these are as follows:

  1. Ease of Use
  2. Number of Downtimes in a particular period
  3. What other users has to say about the software
  4. Cost of post implementation maintenance
  5. Availability of not only competent but professional and honest consultants

I’ve read the news recently and I am not surprise to see how contoversial this software is in the industry. Read the news here. Well, it could be the start of the downfall of the giant. Which is very eminent.

Cell: the Ultimate Basic Machine that Incomprehensible to Humans

Cells as we all know is the most basic biological machine that enables life to thrive in our world. And yet until today, just like what I have been mentioning over and over, we still know so little about it. It is in our modern time that we are slowly beginning to tinker with it in order for us to understand the complex processes that I believe is still so incomprehensible that it performs. Some people that used to be atheiest like Antony Flew has turned away from Atheism upon learning about the latest findings about how and what informations contained within these cells. It must have made them believe that this information with the cells is to impossible that it was created by chance, it is just way too impossible, is it? To give you more insights, this website about Information and Natural Processes will explain further about what I am talking about and watch this video to know more about our DNA:


Translating English into First-Order Logic

The translation of English to First-Order Logic is also a major development effort in the creation of Intelligent Systems. The first requirement in order to carry out this task efficiently is that one must be an expert in this domain(First-Order Logic). Secondly, one must be good at formulating Logic. It is not really a skill it is a gift so there could be few who can do this efficiently.

I’ve searched on the internet and found this website by Peter Suber to be very informative and gives a lot of tips on how to translate English to First-Order Logic. But to understand this properly, one must need to understand the notations used which can be found in  C. R. Dyer website. But her failed to discuss about uncertainty and ambiguity. To compensate for this incompleteness, I found a sample discussion about ambiguity at this  website but not very sufficient but informative.

There are several software available that uses FOL to search for proof of a theorem. Prover9 is an example. Another great application is the PVS.  PVS is a verification system: that is, a specification language integrated with support tools and a theorem prover. It is intended to capture the state-of-the-art in mechanized formal methods and to be sufficiently rugged that it can be used for significant applications. PVS is a research prototype: it evolves and improves as we develop or apply new capabilities, and as the stress of real use exposes new requirements.

Spell Checker by Edit Distance Method

Edit Distance is another popular method to check the spelling of a word. Edit Distance is defined as the number of operations required to transform one string into another string. This is basis of why the other previous spell checking algorithm that I mentioned in my previous post came into existent.

The operations could be an insertion, deletion, or substitution of a single character in a string.

There are several different algorithms to define or calculate this metric and one of them is the Levenshtein distance. In this method, we simply count the number of operations needed to transform one string to another string.

For example, the Levenshtein distance between “bitten” and “beating” is 4, since the following four edits change one into the other, and there is no way to do it with fewer than three edits:

  1. bitten  -> betten (substitution of ‘i’ for ‘e’)
  2. betten  -> beaten (substitution of ‘t’ for ‘a’)
  3. beaten  -> beatin (substitution of ‘e’ for ‘i’)
  4. beatin  -> beating (insert ‘g’ at the end)

Longest Common Subsequence

One of the most common problems in a Sentence Analyzer Software which is a part of the Intelligent System is the misspelled word in a sentence. As mentioned in my previous post, there are 2 methods to correct the error. These are the Longest Common Subsequence(LCS)  and the Error-tolerant Finite-state Recognition. Let us focus now on the LCS method because I have already given the previous with much exposure just like what the miami art and social coverage did to make George Lindemann Jr really famous in Miami.

The longest-common subsequence is an efficient method of finding the closest match to an unknown word. It orders and selects candidates based on the common subsequence of characters that they share with the unknown word.

From my previous example, a word in that sentence was misspelled : “The color of a roses has a maening.” Of course, we could evidently identify the word “maening” as the one that was misspelled. So, how does LCS detect the right word in this scenario? The following procedure is performed:

  1. “maening” is not found in the dictionary, so we have to search for words in the dictionary that rhymes with that word as starting point. These words are initially meaning, mening-, manning, meningi-, meningo-, moaning, manini, mining, mooning, morning. We could eliminate mening-, meningi- and meningo-, because these are prefixes not a complete word
  2. Apply LCS for each of the remaining words against “maening”.  The following is the result:
  3. The LCS of maening and meaning is “maning”.

    The LCS of maening and moaning is “maning” .

    The LCS of maening and manning is “maning”.

    The LCS of maening and manini is “manin”.

    The LCS of maening and mining is “mning”.

    The LCS of maening and mooning is “mning”.

    The LCS of maening and morning is “mning”.

    We have now norrowed down our choices to three having to choose meaning, moaning and manning.

  4. To choose between the three words, a logic analyzer will check whether it is proper that a color of a rose can utter moan or can be supplied with men which obviously does not so, the most logical choice would be the word “meaning”.

Evolution of thought

It is curious to note how inventors, scientists, mathematicians, and others applaud those few and deservedly renowned persons who have “truly original thoughts.” Note the emphasis is on “truly original” thoughts.

We begin life imitating our caretakers, subsequently going through the educational system and dependent upon our interests and intellectual development, learn more or less from those who have gone on before us. We feed on their knowledge and interact with our environment. I’ve noticed, too, how that very often the actual pioneers in a particular field are not the ones publicly credited for knowledge. Rather, it is someone who has refined the “original” idea.

“Breakthroughs” are borne of a great deal of study, thought, and exploration in a particular endeavor. But, the irony lies in the fact that “originality” comes in rare moments of extreme lucidity, when independent of its surroundings, such a mind suddenly “sees” the answer.

When this occurs, such individuals have an overwhelming sense of elation and beauty and are convinced of the sanctity and validity of this “awakening.” How the mind does this is remarkable, to think consciously about its surroundings, yet on another level be subconsciously resolving a complex problem. This “originality” of thought is true creativity.

Case in point…in learning more about AI, I have given more thought to the concepts of mind and thought. But the more I read about noted physicists and the like, it becomes clear that truly “original” thought, in the sense of genius, is rare.

We, like the bots we train, have received input all our lives to arrive at a present montage of images, memories, vocabulary, and conditioning (all learned) from which we respond. We think and speak and act the way we have been trained or conditioned to do so, whether we are cognizant of it or not.

Consequently, my understanding of “original” thought has changed. I now feel it is rare. We simply rearrange the facts, the structure, the presentation…and it appears original.



More about Cells

Our fascination about cells and how important cells are to us and the whole civilization has been visualize. David Bolinsky prepared an animated video that explains how cells work from inside and out based on how they currently understand it.

I also enjoyed the video although I am so sad that I may never ever get to see our civilization harness the real power of this minute but ultimately so very important as it is the basic building blocks of our physical existence. For example, if we will be able to manufacture stem cells then perhaps we can solve how to stop the aging process since stem cells are characterized by the ability to renew themselves through mitotic cell division and differentiating into a diverse range of specialized cell types. Stem cells can be found in many living multi cellular organisms.

Information Technology

IT products and related services are constantly reshaping not only the way we do business but our lifestyles as well. The modern world is simply a world that requires information to become available and accessible anywhere, anytime no matter what the conditions were. We can not live without it. The competition nowadays is how one acquires, retains, uses and shares information. That is why the IT sector facilitates or makes it easier for us to access this information in the form of a system. A system is a group of processes that functions differently from each other but whose inputs/outputs are inter-related which means that the output of one process will be the input of another process. These systems either automate processes that could not be performed by humans and/or repetitive and require a speed never been imagined before. Computerized Systems are so important in every business. It is the best way to increase productivity and operational efficiency, conserve resources, manage change, maintain competitive advantage and ensure survival. Computer Software which is part of this system enables an artist’s visions presented in a way that it becomes so powerful, powerful enough to influence our civilization’s direction and destiny. The Entertainment industry has benefited so much from this technology. Movie makers can produce spectacular computer generated visual effects which fascinates the audience and proves to be an excellent money-making venture. The Scientific Community has been producing breakthroughs almost everyday because some of the calculations that would usually take several years to perform can now be done in seconds with the aid of computer software. With the internet around, even small business are able to reach out to international clients at minimal cost just like what EcoQuest Intl is currently doing. These are just examples of how IT products affect our world. They have become an indispensable tool in every aspect of the world economy.