Local Review, transcational e-commerce: HeartBeat.my

Do you ever think of buying or choosing a present for your dearest is the most vexing thing? Considering the cost? Location? OR the design?



Well, now you can do it all at an affordable price just at HeartBeat.com.my

HeartBeat.my is a Malaysia online personalized gifts store. It is dedicated to encouraging people to express their own artistic impulses in the website which HeartBeat pays a lot of attention to making sure that all the gifts are personalized and unique.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES AVAILABLE:
HeartBeat.my used referring directory to organize its products, basically it is classified into 14 categories namely T-shirt, mug, cushion, puzzle, crystal, photo card, ceramic tile, cosmetic mirror, mini tee, mouse pad, keychain, car sign, door hanger and plates. Even, every category itself has variety of patents or types. It’s like when you are interested in mugs, there are still choices for you to choose the kind of the mug, such as ceramic mug, ice mug, or magic mug. HeartBeat.my usually promotes products in package especially during the special occasions such as Valentine’s Day and Christmas. Most of the time, it gives a lot of promotions like mega sales, batch discounting etc. It is so special that HeartBeat provides services where buyer can customize the product by choosing the templates that are available. HeartBeat also encourages buyers to upload their own design or if you are not talented in designing, they will also provide the service of helping you to design in the way that you wanted. These services provided are free of charge.

PAYMENT METHODS:
There is 3 methods of doing the payment:
1. The most common one, online payment (e-banking) from most of the banks such as Public Bank, Maybank2u, PosPay, etc.
2. Cash deposit at bank ATM. However, any balances will not be refunded but can be deducted for the future orders.
3. Interbank Funds Transfer which can be made online through various banking facilities..
HeartBeat shows a systematic step-by-step payment method in its website, so it is very convenient and easy for those who are not familiar with those payment methods.

As like others, HeartBeat also provides shipping service but only within Malaysia area. Basically it takes around 5-7 working days to deliver within West Malaysia (RM 7 charges). Whereas, 7-9 working days to East Malaysia (RM 12). You can always check out the progress with the seller through msn, e-mailing or sms.

OTHER SERVICES:
Besides trading services, HeartBeat.my would like to share the gift ideas with others. They are always available to have a MSN Chat, HeartBeatStore@Hotmail.com or Skype Chat, heartbeatstore. At the same time, they encourage bloggers to post their blog into their website, as a return they will get a free gift below RM50 of their products. Of course, there are terms and condition.

So, Mr. and Ms Blogger, what are you waiting for? Blog here and bring back a free unique gift.


BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Nowadays, there are a lot of people looking for ways to supplement their incomes. HeartBeat.my has provided a good opportunity for those who are interested to invest. To invest, such as, affiliate program.
In e-commerce, reliable and trustworthy are the major concern of customers. HeartBeat.my is a well-known online personalized gifts store. More than that, it has physical locations, at:
L1-2-26B, Jln Pekan Baru 35, 41050 Klang, Selangor.(Besides Klang Parade, Same Row as Lian Bee Cafe)

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from the student perspective

With the explosive growth in online courses in recent years, Malaysia students have more educational choices now than ever before. E-learning, a modern process of education, has become a popular channel for many students. Technology gives students effective communication alternatives instead of learning in traditional method.

Pros

Provide flexible learning environment

With the internet, any student, anywhere in the country, is a possible to get the university information and increasing their opportunity of getting a better education.

Provide free accessing time

E-learning provides freedom than a traditional course of study that student can easily plan learning schedule with proper time management.

Effective distribution of educational information and additional support

Students enable to get the updated learning materials such as lecture notes from the course web page and discuss with lecturers via online forums,

discussion boards and even real-time chat such as WBLE. Besides, some universities provide online examinations to their students.

Alternative for those disabled or temporary unattended students

Students with physical disabilities and those are temporarily unable to attend classes due to critical illness will find e-learning very helpful. They may rest and learn through internet at home.

Cons

Lack of Human Interaction

Learning is traditionally a process of passing information from one human being to another. However, e-learning has been taken place without face to face communication between lecturer and students.

Abuse and Misuse of Technology

Technology is a nature of digital in format hence small mistakes can cause very big problems for the student body and the administration. There have been many cases of students who manage to break though online or intranet securities set by the university and change their results or get a preview of the final examination questions throughout Malaysia.

Lack of Motivation and Effort Among Students

E-learning may demotivate students to be lazy and ineffective since most educational task is done by the lectures and tutors. It is just like a spoon fed method.

Lead to students’ communication problems

Those students who have language problems or who are shy or have communication problems prefer e-learning instead of face to face with their tutors. Therefore, they have never learned to overcome their fear of communicating with other people by using e-learning.

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation and Citizen's Adoption Strategies

E-Government ( also known as e-gov, online government ) refer to the use of information and communication technologies to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.

The Electronic Government was launched to lead the country into the Information Age. It will improve both how the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses; simultaneously, it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

The 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as follows:

1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II)

2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)

3. Generic Office Environment (GOE)

4. Electronic Procurement (EP)

5. Electronic Services (E-Services)

6. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

7. E-Syariah

Major Issues & Challenges for Malaysia’s eGovernment

Despite early leadership, Malaysia’s e-Government initiatives face major challenges in moving to higher level of maturity and impact. Major factors include:

• Lack of broadband infrastructure hindered rollout

• Low usage of MyKad beyond identity functions

• Slow adoption of E-Government applications due to lack of integration and insufficient engagement of key stakeholders (especially users and citizens)

Citizen’s adoption strategies

The government should put more attention from citizens in the existing of their services provided in e-Government. E-Government adoption should requires that citizens show higher levels of satisfaction and security with the online service provided by the government. Government adopted an e-Government Policy and Implementation Strategy to ensure access to information, active citizen participation, transparent administration and simplified access to government services by making e-government services available to citizens on a 24 hour basis, seven-days-a-week, and year-round fashion. And also, the government should also concern with the accuracy, relevancy and completeness information that provided to the citizens as the successful to implement the E-Government in Malaysia. Beside that, government should provide e-citizen education; skills and training to every citizen so that they are able to adopt online government services.

References:

• http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/12073046901815
• http://www.eivc.org/uni/Uploads/Admin/Mr.%20Mohd%20Suhaimi%20Mohd%20Tahir.pdf
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-government
  

Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies

First of all, the blogs can be defined as web pages that serve as publicly accessible personal journals have been attracting media and public eye for the last few years. Nowadays, the amount of blogs is huge and still increasing which popularized by many internet users as innovative communication tool for business. That is why
the new term has been coined – corporate blog.




A corporate blog is a weblog published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals which is another communications and marketing channel. The
purposes of blog usage can be grouped in three fields – brand building (leadership), customer service (.product development) and promotion (sponsorship and advertising). Currently, all the major browser are Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer 7 enable readers to read the recent posts easily without truly visit the blog through supporter of RSS technology.

There are many types of corporate blogs, but usually can be categorized as internal blogs and external blogs. Internal blog is a weblog which the employees can view through the corporation’s intranet. It is very useful when involve people from different location that used in lieu of meetings and e-mail discussions. Therefore, blogs allows all individuals can participate in the discussion to contribute their expertise. External blog is a publicly available weblog where company employees, teams, or spokespersons share their views. It can also offer a more honest and direct view than traditional communication channels that used to announce new products and services, to explain and clarify policies or to react on public criticism on certain issues.

Corporate blogs has a lot of advantages that used as a communication tool mainly the basic e-marketing benefits. Corporate blogging can use in many ways such as provide information, on-line brand image creating, customer service, valuable information feedback from the readers or improvement of media relations on-line. Besides that, a search able archive of thoughts and ideas can be created and jotting down within an hour through corporate blogging that cost more cheaply than other ways. However, corporate blogs also have potential risk with disclosure of important, secret information from the company to the public. In addition, some company’s organization culture which doesn’t accept such tools because it is an informal way of communication.

Here are some references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.proceedings2008.imcsit.org/pliks/127.pdf
http://www.leadsunited.com/page/CorporateblogsarestilloutsidersinBelgium.htm

The application of prepaid cash card for consumers

A prepaid cash card is a new idea that looks similar like debit or credit card. This card is very useful which can be used to make payment for goods and services and even to withdraw money. When the consumers want to use the prepaid cash card, they need to preloaded money onto the card. So, before they start to use the prepaid cash card, they can preload at Post Office, at Payzone or PayPoint terminals, bank transfer and etc. It is benefit for all the consumers because can have better control over their finance and reduce the risk running into debits.

There are a lot of advantages of prepaid cash card which consumers no need carry large amount of cash and targeted by criminals when they travel from place to place. Prepaid cash card can be replace the new one and prevent the consumer from unauthorized transaction even when it was stolen or lost. Besides that, it is also very convenient that people no need to have a credit check or ChexSystems check to secure a card. It allows these people to be able to have more versatility with their spending. The best benefit is consumer don’t have to worry about the extra charge over their card because preload sum of money is the maximum amount that can be charge to the card. People can apply for prepaid cash card, so they will become easier and safer when making payment such like the following:
i) Shopping online
ii) Paying bills online or over the phone,
iii) Reserving a hotel
iv) Topping up mobile phone
v) Buying groceries and petrol
vi) Traveling abroad
vii) Withdrawing cash from an ATM

Here are the several types of prepaid cash card that usually use by the consumers.


One of the prepaid cards available in Malaysia is the Touch-n-Go card which offered by Rangkaian Segar which is a private company. Originally, the Touch ‘n Go cards were intended to use for toll payments along the Malaysia highways. Now, the Touch-n-Go is most commonly used pay highway tolls, public bus and trains fares, selected parking sires and theme park.
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Octopus is one of the most successful “prepaid card" system. It is started from a transit payment system, and it has become a widely used electronic cash system. It was launched in Hong Kong in Steptember, 2007 which widely used in payment system for transportation, supermarkets, fast food restaurant, car parks and other pint of sale application such as service station s and vending machines that have achieved good outcomes.


PB Utar Debit Mastercard is another example of a prepaid cash card. All Utar students can withdraw money from any Mastercard ATM worldwide. It is very useful that can control the student spending habits and others.

For further information, please refer to:
http://www.onedebit.com/PrepaidDebitCardsOD.pdf
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/c/prepaid-cards/guide/1/

Credit Card Debts: Causes and Prevention

Credit Cards
A credit card is part of a system of payments named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system.,which helps to purchase the things with no requirement of cash in pocket. The issuer of the card grants a line of credit to the consumer (or the user) from which the user can borrow money for payment to a merchant or as a cash advance to the user.

Credit cards are so much more convenient and safer than carrying cash, it's hard to imagine life without them. As the credit card industry has evolved, new products and features make using credit cards even more appealing. Credit card debt is an example of unsecured consumer debt, accessed through credit cards. Debt results when a client of a credit card company purchases an item or service through the card system. Debt accumulates and increases via interest and penalties when the consumer does not pay the company for the money he or she has spent.

What Can Lead to Credit Card Debt?

Poor Money Management
Poor money management is one of the best reasons why so many families accumulate lots of debt. Not having a monthly spending plan and not keeping track of monthly bills makes consumer unaware of theirs money is going. Consumers might be spending hundreds of dollars every month towards items that are useless and have no value in your life, yet they do not realize it.

Underemployment
Due to bad economies, many people lost their job and unable to maintain their living expenses, this makes people using the credit card to cover their future living expenses. For households, they need cover many expenses purposes to maintain their current lifestyle by over using the credit card. This may lead to a rise in debt.

Financial Ignorance
Important topics such as saving and investing personal finances are not taught in school. Consumers lack of detail information about credit cards. They just know that it is convenient and easy to use. The credit cards holders will keep on using, without limiting themselves, and this causes debts.

Facts
It is that credit card holders do not know how to spend wisely. In other words they would have budget prepared in their life for spending.

Gambling
Many people put not only their own disposable income on the line when gambling, they also borrow loans to gamble.

Prevention method:

Manage finances well
First, is to determine monthly income and needed expenses. If there is some savings, then avoid having putting large amounts of debt on a credit card in times of a crisis. Next, set up a budget. People have to create clear budget and stick on it that includes monthly bills, food, clothes, entertainment and miscellaneous expenses will prevent from overspending.

Choose the Right Card
This is one of the most important initial steps regarding credit card use. Cards that have low or no fees at all and have interests that are low also, are the ones that are preferably appropriate especially to those who are only beginning to use credit cards.

Reduce the number of cards
We don’t really need handfuls of credit cards. It is wise to pick credit cards that are most important to us. Each financial institution has its own set of policy, transaction fee structure, processing fee etc. So we should be careful before owning it.

Always Pay on Time
And lastly, one of the most crucial factors of credit card debt prevention, paying on time is one of the best solutions to shun away from debt. People who can control their finances and manage their card payment schedules are the ones who rarely acquire credit card debt.

references:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card
• http://www.mozdex.com/prevent-credit-card-debt/
• http://www.cardratings.com/howtoavoidcreditcarddebt.html
  

Electonic Currency

Electronic Currency refers to electronically exchange of money or scrip, which also known as electronic money (e-money). It involves use of computer networks, internet and digital stored value systems, such as Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and direct deposit.
E-money is a collective term for financial cryptography and technologies enabling it. Public-key cryptography and digital signatures make e-money possible. Public-key encryption keys are widely disseminated, usually owned by the banks and customers. Whereas, private-key known only to the owner. Whatever the private key encrypts, the public key can decrypt, and vice verse. Banks and customers use their keys to encrypt (for security) and sign (for identification) blocks of digital data that represent money orders. It works like this, when bank signs money orders with a private key, customers verify the signed money orders using bank’s widely published public key; on the other hand, when customers sign deposits using their private key, then the bank will use the customer’s public key to verify the signed deposits.

There are 2 types of e-money: identified e-money and anonymous e-money. Identified e-money contains information revealing the identity of the person who withdrew the money from the bank, which enables the bank to track the money as it moves through the economy. Anonymous e-money does not leave a transaction trail once it is withdrawn from an account.

Besides, e-money has 2 varieties: online e-money and offline e-money. Online means a need to interact with a bank, via modem or network, to conduct a transaction with a third party. Offline is where a transaction conducted without having to directly involve a bank.

E-money must be able to prevent double spending. Under online e-money systems, the bank computer maintains a database of all the spent pieces of e-money and easily indicates to the merchant if a given piece of e-money is still spendable. Whereas offline e-money systems detect double spending in different ways. One way is to create a special smart card, known as Observer, which keeps a mini database of all the pieces of e-money spent. It would detect the attempt of double spending and would not allow the transaction. Another way is to structure the e-money and cryptographic protocols to reveal the identity of the double spender by the time the piece of e-money makes it back to bank. With identified e-money, both offline or online, the bank can always reconstruct the path the e-money took through the economy. The bank will know what everyone bought, where they bought it, when they bought it, and how much they paid.

E-money depends a lot on technology. Hence, power failure, unavailability of internet connection, undependable software and loss of records could be a hindrance.