Roanne Vistas Writing Portfolio

Hi! Thanks for taking some time to peruse my writing portfolio. Before you scroll down and review my past writing gigs, here is some info about myself. You can also skip this page and proceed to the next page to view some of my writing samples. My name is Ro-Ann Mae Vista, a Manila-born Filipino currently based in Bangkok, Thailand. You can call me Roanne for short. I have been writing professionally since I was in college. Presently, I am working as a Digital Marketing Professional in Vervata Co., Ltd. a next generation mobile security development company. My first assignments were usually features and a bit of legal and technical writing. To boot, I was the editor-in-chief of my college publication. There came a time when I was hooked into blogging, chronicling bits and pieces of my life as well as opining on some interesting topics on my personal blog. I also opened a niche blog, All The Vanity, which mainly talks about beauty and fashion. I was one of the top beauty bloggers back in Manila during my heydays. I did professional blogging on the side for nowdefunct Startupreporter.com. Apart from that, I wrote press releases for Fly Corporate Magazine, and feature articles for Clusterofthoughts.com. Others were more of ghost writing and online copy writing for several websites. I am the current news and editorial contributor for Toptenwholesale.com.

Please follow this link for my CV via Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/roannevista

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From Samui Tonggad Resort
http://www.samuitonggadresort.com/blog/

Garden & Poolside

Garden Samui Tonggad Resort boasts its beautiful landscape laden with its tropical trees and luscious botanical gardens. Feel free to take a tour and see what this resort has to offer. Appreciate nature at its finest with its colourful fauna and foliage. You can learn a thing or two about them to boot! Poolside The resort offers its in-house swimming pool, situated between Uncle Rang Restaurant and The Coral House (1 bedroom villa). Be captivated by the resorts gorgeous landscap es as well as its majestic beachfront whilst staying at the poolside and swimming! --

Getting Here
Looking for a perfect haven to stay in Koh Samui? Samui Tonggad Resort is the right place for you! Nestled between the peaceful shores and clear waters of Lamai Beach, Samui Tonggad Resort offers you the best tropical experience there is with its majestic rooms and villas, hospitable staff, and in-house restaurant all wonderfully packaged for your utmost pleasure and satisfaction without the hefty price tag! The resort is only 10 minutes from Lamai Shopping Area, 30 minutes from Chaweng Beach and 35 minutes from Koh Samui International Airport. From Chaweng, take the main road going south until you pass by the IT Complex building, turn left to the road where Family Mart is. If youre coming from somewhere south of Lamai, take the main road going north until you pass by Buddy Resort. As you approach Family Mart, turn right.
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Samui Tonggad Resort is situated between The Renaissance Hotel and Banyan Tree Resort. Youll get to pass by The Renaissance Hotel first until you reach the sign that takes you to Uncle Rang Restaurant (from the right) and to the Samui Tonggad Resort (from the left). For your convenience, the resort offers hotel service transfers to and from the airport, pier or city area, either by private car or van. You can also inquire for tour packages and motorbike rentals should you wish to go around the island and explore the rest of Koh Samui. Samui Tonggad Resort Address: 99 Moo 4, Lamai, Koh Samui, Surat Thani 84310 Thailand Contact numbers: Telephone: (+66) 077 231051 Fax: (+66) 077 458557 E-mail: samuitonggad@hotmail.com --

Uncle Rang Restaurant

One of the multitudes of fun and interesting activities to do in this island is, well, foodtripping! There are a lot of restaurants in Koh Samui, but finding a nice one may be quite challenging. Heres one place you can visit that will please your insatiable appetites and make your stomachs happy: Uncle Rang Restaurant. Tucked in the tranquil, rustic area of Lamai beach, this Koh Samui restaurant offers the finest ingredients its high-grade steak meat imported from Australia, freshly caught and carefully culled seafood directly from the clear waters of the island, fresh and crisp

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vegetables, and exotic spices, to name a few beautifully and delectably blended and combined altogether creating a culinary masterpiece. If youre new to the exotic world of Thai cuisine, then this restaurant is the ideal place for you. The local dishes will surely conquer your hearts and heighten your gastronomic senses, as Uncle Rang Restaurant serve them right with a signature, satisfying taste. You can also opt for Western dishes which are equally mouth-watering and delicious. Feel free to choose from our menu which includes a wide range of Thai and Western meals, and the restaurant staff will be happy to accommodate you. Since Thai dishes are known for its overt spiciness, you can simply request to tone down the spice and the restaurant chef will be glad to do it for you! Best of all, Uncle Rang Restaurant has made all of its scrumptious meals affordable for everyone to try! Eating a grand meal in Koh Samui has never been so pocket-friendly. Start your food-venture in Koh Samui by visiting Uncle Rang Restaurant today! --

Picks from the West: Chef Salad & T-bone Steak

Ah, life in the tropical nirvana is never complete without relishing a delicious, heavenly meal. Good news for you honeymooners and holiday settlers, as Uncle Rang Restaurant offers a wide array of hearty meals to choose from some coming from the Western side of the world. The mighty chef of Uncle Rang recommends a bevy of scrumptious dishes that will definitely eat your heart out (pun not intended)! Presenting you are two picks from the West: Chef Salad and Australian T-Bone steak. Chef Salad Salads are perfectly healthy entrees before jumping into the succulent (often calorie-laden) main course. Chef salad is a combination of mixed greens topped with ham, chicken, cheese
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and egg. Salivate with the freshest ingredients the restaurant has to offer. I bet youd ask for another platter of this irresistibly yummy foliage, dairy and meat combo. Australian T-bone Steak Craving for a slab of perfectly done steak? Uncle Rang has something in store for you! This T-bone steak is made of 100% Australian beef, freshly imported from the outbacks of the land down under. Savour the mouth-watering goodness of this juicy steak swimming in pepper sauce with the perfect doneness you prefer. This sumptuous main course meal is served with mashed or baked potatoes or french fries, mixed veggies and greens on the side to fully satisfy your big appetite! :) Feeling hungry? Visit the restaurant today! --

Savory Seafood Feast: Baked Mussels & Tiger Prawns with Tamarind Sauce
Feasting on seafood should be on the top of your to-do list whilst spending a gastronomic getaway here in this exotic island of Koh Samui,Thailand. Start your tropical holiday right by indulging on a lavish platter of mussels, oysters, crustaceans or fishes. One momentous evening, I myself resolved to order a plateful of Baked Oysters and Tiger Prawns with Tamarind Sauce for dinner. Baked Oysters This delicious platter of baked mussels is rich in decadent flavors and spices such as red and green bell pepper, white onion, pineapple and sweet basil sauteed altogether. After which, they sit atop of the fresh mussels coming from the shores of New Zealand prior to baking. The impeccable mixture of various ingredients gives this one-of-a-kind seafood treat a signature taste. Indeed, its not your ordinary baked mussels, and certainly a must-try! Tiger Prawns with Tamarind Sauce

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I felt like winning the grand prize when I got these 3 gigantic pieces of tiger prawns doused with tamarind sauce. Twas absolutely delicious! I love the sweet and sour blend of the flavorful sauce, not to mention the oh-so-softy and meaty feel of the tiger prawns. It surely whetted my appetite upon looking at the food presentation, and satisfied my fastidious taste buds after. --

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From Startupreporter.com
http://web.archive.org/web/20070910130616/http://www.startupreporter.com/

Socialbib cuts the cost of costly book expense

College students can now be free from expensive textbook buying with Socialbibs book swapping service. Its a social network specially made for tertiary students alone that gives them an opportunity to swap books and get what they really need sans shelling out unusually huge moolahs in return. The only thing that would cost you is the shipping fee (if youre the book owner-slash-shipper). To be a part of this service, you should have a valid .edu email address, and then you can begin searching books you need which are also listed by other student-members themselves. Socialbibs rating system will guide you along the way to find trustworthy or fraudulent users. Socialbibs goal is to help students save money. You can see the counter located at the upper-right hand corner of the site that displays the amount of money saved using this service. As of writing this post, it has already reached $2 million dollars, a hefty amount when it comes to savings. Socialbib is working on a proximity search to help you find your schoolmates in order to further nix the shipping expense. --

Find users with Zooomrs new People Search feature

Photo-sharing site Zooomr has just upgraded its service by including People Search feature. This makes searching for other users a whole lot easier, such as peeking at your friends public photos and profile. Simply click on the People Search tab (located just right after the Photo Search tab) to begin your search. You have an option to type in either the user name or the e-mail address of the person youre looking for, and then hit the search button. After

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which, a page will appear displaying a list of results which includes the user name, the users image thumbnail, and links to his/her images and profile. The interface reminds me of Friendster though, except that results (in Zooomr) are displayed in rows. --

SayNow keeps celebrity-fan bonding more alive

SayNow is a new startup that keeps celebrities and their fans in touch. You may wonder what sets it apart from the rest of the social networking and social marketing troop in form of MySpace profiles, personal websites, blogs and the like that celebrities use to reach their audience online. However, SayNow adds another form of communicationvoice messaging. The medium may sound ancient, but most fans prefer their idols voices to be heard. With this service, users can use their phones, not just their computers. This is how SayNow works: Celebrities get a local phone number, text-in code and flash badge for their personal website to reach new subscribers, wherever they are, in no time. Voice messages are disseminated by recording through phone, uploading an MP3, or linking to an audio RSS feed. They can also reach their fans via text messaging using the computer. Theres also an available feature where they can reply to selected individuals. SayNow also helps celebrities in creating a mobile channel that lets fans listen and record messages, participate in polls and buy mobile content directly from their phone. It also provides full, detailed reporting which includes the number of fans/subscribers, frequency of message being played, landline and mobile usage, etc. It will officially launch next month and available only in the US. --

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Dump nasty comments in the Douche Bag
It is common for us to read optimistic and uplifting comments or testimonials anywhere on the Web. But, whats more interesting and at the same time appalling are th ese caustic and destructive criticisms sprouting here and there for the purpose of loathing, humiliating or making fiendish fun at someone elses profile, blog or web site. While you dont usually catch these people in real life, many of them who dont have a single gall to have their face shown tend to hide under the guise of anonymity, spreading the flame of their love hatred. Younggogetter comes to the picture by launching its first official Wordpress plugin called douchebag. Its a fun and simple way of getting even at mean comments thrown by douchebags themselves. It works by putting a paper bag icon with the word Douche Bag on it at the right side of the comment as a form of mockery (see image below). To do this, simply edit the comment and put the douche bag tag before the statement. Instructions for installation can be found on YGGs website. I personally find the plugin intriguing, although it doesnt generally have much sense. Its typically absurd for a formal, corporate blog to insert douche bags on negative comments. I notice the absence of douche tag button on the formatting toolbar. Unlike the more tag, theres a need to type the douche tag (denoted as <!douche>) manually on each comments. Why not resort to delete these comments instead of labeling them one by one? The latter is less arduous, IMO. I also expected the douche bag icon appear just how a douche bag really should, rather than a piece of tacky brown paper bag. Funny thing is, even commenters can freely use the tag and label themselves as a douchebag. Silly, eh? This may be perfect for those who happen to own a personal Wordpress blog and wish to make nasty comments look like a silly bluff, although it may not promise such comments to cease and desist. --

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From Honey Glaze Cakes
http://www.honeyglazecakes.com.ph

About the Chef

Honey Glaze Cakes provides freshly baked customized cakes for weddings, birthdays, and other special occasions. Owner, cake artist and pastry chef Aileen Torres-Conde believes that a cake should not only capture the essence of the celebration, it should also taste as sumptuous as it looks. We only use the finest ingredients. Our cakes should taste delectable to the last crumb. She is best known for her premium signature cakes, the Belgian Chocolate Cake with Dark Ganache Filling and the Moist and Rich Carrot Walnut Cake. Aileens passion for baking started in childhood. I was inspired by my grandmother who also loved to bake, she recalls. This passion has meant seeking training in the best culinary schools in the Philippines and abroad. She recently took advanced courses in cake decorating at the iconic Wilton School of Cake Decorating & Confectionary Art in Illinois, U.S.A. and at the International Sugar Art Collection under celebrity pastry Chef Nicholas Lodge in Georgia, U.S.A. We invite everyone interested in making their dream cake a reality to sit down with us. We strive to create cakes that make lifes precious moments even more memorable and that taste luscious to the last bite, Aileen says. --

Contact Us
Wed love to hear from you! For orders and inquiries, you may reach us at the following numbers:

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Telephone: +632 703-2414 +632 346-7336 Mobile: +63922 8279848 + 63920 9525166

E-mail us at: honeyglazecakes@yahoo.com

Or visit us at: 114 Ocampo St., Don Jose heights commonwealth avenue, QC

For actual orders, please allow 3 days for small cakes and 2 weeks for large cakes prior to the delivery date, as the duration may vary depending upon the quantity and complexity of the cake.

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Premium Flavors
Belgian Chocolate Nothing beats the good ol chocolate as the cult favourite when it comes to cake flavours. A trip to Brussels wont be complete sans taking a bite of the worlds bestthe famous Belgian Chocolate. This is why our Belgian Chocolate cake never fails to be the top-selling cake flavour! Its made of deliciously rich Belgian chocolate fudge thickly covered with Belgian chocolate ganache.

Carrot Walnut Theres something about Carrot Walnut Cakes that is there to love, given that its also our top-selling flavour. This lightweight, subtly flavoured cake has been a choice of many who are easily intimidated over saccharine sweet tastes. Take a bite of our moist Carrot Walnut cake covered with rich frosted icing; both of which spell delicious.

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From Fly-Corporate.com (MachMedia)

FlightSafety to Offer King Air 350 Training in Australia

FlightSafety International will offer Beechcraft King Air 350 training in Australia. The Full Flight Simulator is scheduled to be installed at the Ansett Aviation Training Facility in Melbourne, Australia by the end of 2011. We are pleased to support Hawker Beechcraft and our mutual Customers in Australia and the surrounding region by providing local access to King Air training programs, said Eric Hinson, Executive Vice President of FlightSafety International. Moreover, the King Air 350 simulator will feature the Rockwell Collins Pro Line 21 Integrated Avionics System, and will be available to King Air 200 aircraft operators for differences training. It will also be equipped with FlightSafetys VITAL Visual System and electric motion and control loading technology. --

UTair Aviation Signs Contract with Eurocopter Vostok

Russian-based UTair Aviation will acquire 20 AS350/AS355 light helicopters in a contractual agreement with Eurocopter. The acquisition contract was signed by UTair Director Andrey Martirosov and Eurocopter Vostok CEO Laurence Rigolini, in the presence of Christian Gras, Euro copters Executive Vice President - Customers. It covers the deliveries of 20 single-engine AS350 B3 and twin-engine AS355 NP versions of Eurocopters Ecureuil lightweight helicopter family beginning in the summer of 2011 and continuing through the spring of 2013. UTair has been operating Eurocopter helicopters since 2006. Its fleet currently includes the following Eurocopter typesAS350B3, AS355N and BO105which are flown in a wide variety of missions, ranging from VIP services and oil/gas industry support to medical
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missions. The company also is a launch customer for Eurocopters EC175, with the intention to order 15 of these medium-weight twin-engine helicopters, plus 15 options. --

LBAS Opens New Line Maintenance Station in Riga

Berlin-based Lufthansa Bombardier Aviation Services has opened a line maintenance station in Riga, Latvia. The station is officially approved and ready to serve customer aircraft after a two-day audit by the German Airworthiness Authority acting on behalf of the European Air Safety Agency (EASA). Together with its local partner, Baltic Business Aviation Centre/FBO Riga, LBAS now offers comprehensive line maintenance support for corporate aircraft. This includes Bombardier Learjet 40, Learjet 45 and Learjet 60, Challenger 601, Challenger 604 and Challenger 605, as well as Global 5000 and Global Express XRS business jets. The first contract was signed by the Austrian company International Jet Management (IJM) to support a Global Express jet home based in Riga, as soon as the approval for the line station was given. The addition of the Challenger 850 jet capability to the existing services offered at the line maintenance station in Riga is scheduled for later this year. Warranty work on the approved aircraft type is also scheduled to be offered at a later date. Services for Boeing Business Jets and Airbus Corporate Jets will also be provided in collaboration with Lufthansa Technik. --

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NBAA 2010 to Honour Business Aviation Community to Haiti Relief
The National Business Aviations 2010 Annual Meeting and Convention will include an event to recognise the business aviation community for its laudable response to Haiti earthquake. "The business aviation community's response to the Haiti crisis represents the best in all of us," said NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen. "As the world began to understand the magnitude of the tragedy, our industry mobilised. Almost immediately, airplanes and aviation expertise were volunteered, supplies were donated, ramp and hangar space was made available, fuel discounts were offered, and charts were provided. As a result of this remarkable outpouring of time, expertise and resources, countless lives were not only touched but in many cases saved. We want to recognise this historic airlift with our event." The tribute to those involved in the Haiti relief effort will take place as part of a first-ever general session on the convention's second day, 20th of October 2010 at 11 oclock in the morning (ET). Both the new second-day session and the convention's traditional opening general session will take place on the event's exhibit floor. The Haiti tribute will include a video telling the story of the industry's response to the Haiti crisis, as told through the firsthand perspectives of several individuals who were directly involved in the effort. The industry's response to the Haiti crisis was recognised earlier this year in a joint HouseSenate resolution that noted "business aircraft alone conducted more than 700 flights, transporting 3,500 passengers, and over 1,000,000 pounds of cargo and supplies." "NBAA is enormously grateful to everyone in business aviation who was willing to help in the relief effort, and we look forward to expressing our gratitude in a very meaningful way directly from the floor of the convention," Bolen concluded. --

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DC Aviations CFO Michael Kuhn Promoted to CEO
Former CFO Michael Kuhn will assume the post of Chief Executive Officer and head of operations for DC Aviation, a provider of business jets based in Germany. Kuhn has been in charge of the companys commercial operations since April 2009. After two years of successful leadership, previous CEO Steffen Fries and the company have mutually agreed to part ways. The engagement showed by Steffen Fries allowed us to successfully steer the company through two years that were especially turbulent economically for the business aviation branch, says Dr. Lutz Helmig, owner of DC Aviation. Kuhn has been an expert on mobility and transport issues for more than 20 years. Prior to his stint at the company, he held management positions for several years within the Goodyear corporate group. Hes also an MBA graduate, with previous experience as a marketing manager in the automobile industry. I am confident that Michael Kuhn, with his knowledge of the company and proven management experience in leadership positions, will successfully develop and lead DC Aviation, continues Dr. Helmig. --

Legacy Executive Jets Win IDEA/Brasil 2010 Design Award

Two of Embrarers jets won the IDEA/Brasil design award for this year. The new executive jets, the mid-light Legacy 450 and the midsize Legacy 500 took the award, following the Phenom 100, Phenom 300 and Lineage 1000 jets which won in 2008. The IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) programme is the premier international competition honouring design excellence in products, eco-design, interaction design, packaging, strategy, research and concepts. The importance of design to executive aviation must never be underestimated, an d for this reason we, at Embraer, are especially honoured by the IDEA/Brasil award and the

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accompanying recognition by the design industry, said Humberto Pereira, Embraer Vice President, Engineering Executive Jets. The IDEA/Brasil is the stage that comes before the US edition of the IDEA Award, and is regarded as one of the important design competitions in the world. Thus, this competition is considered to be the gateway of Brazilian design to the international market. The North American award was created in 1980 by the Industrial Designers Society of Ameica (IDSA) to recognise and award the best products, packaging and industrial concepts created by students and professionals.

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From EMC Cluster of Thoughts website (Across Technology)

Defining New Realities of IT Investment

With the recession hitting the economy at present, the rules of IT investment have dramatically changed. In the recent Gartner Symposium IT Expo, Barbara Gomolski discussed the New Realities of Investment, which focuses on how leaders, particularly the top management, should focus on and adopt these changes or adjustments in terms of Information Technology in their business. Gartners 2010 CIO survey showed that, in absolute dollars, most organizations spend le ss today than they did in 2008. Such investments are mostly funded from cost savings, as Gartner predicted that through 2015, a recession-era mentally among CEOs will ensure a policy of paying for future investments from the cost savings obtained from existing IT operations. IT is a fast-paced and an ever-changing world. For instance, todays focus is more on social. Innovation requires IT leaders to change the way they think from time to time. Thats why, it is important to coincide business growth with progressive change in order to meet the goals of the organization. However, Gomolski pointed out that innovation must address not just growth but also transformational change in how organizations drive productivity, reduce costs and spend differently. Enterprises will be weighing the risk more than the return of investment (ROI) as they develop a balanced portfolio of IT investments. On the other hand, expect business leaders to demand more transparency in terms of business risks associated. Gomolski suggested that IT leaders should work with business leaders to better understand IT and business risks, as well as the risks of doing nothing. Divestment matters as much as investment. Expect bloated application portfolios, aging assets and disparate data sources as a result of poor divestment planning.

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Enterprises that do not divest wisely will be left behind by their competitors who divest well. It is now the high time for everyone within the organization to effectively communicate risks and returns in terms of business outcome and business performance. When assessing risks, Gomolski said that a deeper and common understanding of how risk events affect business performance is needed, so that risks may be appropriately weighed in the context of investment and divestment decisions. Most business leaders, say the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for example, may be oblivious in terms of how the whole IT organization works in detail. This calls for the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to provide the COOs with credible insight as to how and where IT budgets are spent, as pointed out by Gomolski. IT leaders must decide on the structure of the financial framework they wish to use to track and manage IT costs. Business leaders also lack the awareness of the real impact that IT performance has. According to Gomolski , The new realities of IT investment require IT leaders to draw a clearer picture about the relationship between IT funding (and, ultimately, IT performance) and business impact. Instead of reporting copious details on the amount of work done in IT to executives, CIOs should focus on relating core IT services to business key performance indicators, such as forecast accuracy, order fill rate, online delivery, etc. A strong partnership between IT leaders and Finance leaders leads to effectively driving business value, particularly in creating an adequate and reasonable budget that the IT organization needs. When it comes to creation of adaptive budgets and strategies, Gomolski suggested that static budgets must evolve into rolling forecasts, updated on an ongoing basis, rather than quarterly or semiannually. These rolling forecasts are inherently more accurate and require less time to update than a traditional budget or fixed forecast planning model. In retrospect, business investment projects require the coordination and collaboration of all business functions at the appropriate level of authority. To be optimally successful, the overall planning for these projects should be integrated across all the functional and process oriented management and operational areas of the enterprise, said Gomolski. Reinforcing
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the fact that there are no IT projects, only business projects with a high dependence on IT by redefining "IT projects" as "business projects" helps ensure that these initiatives are viewed holistically. It also requires a sense of transparency among them, particularly in understanding the whole concept of such investmentits risks and its possible returns. It should be based on how the business works in general and whether it is applicable or not to the business. --

Justifying Your Cloud Investment: Test and Development

We can say that infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals need to invest on infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud computing, but justifying the financial and resource commitments involved is a different story. Cloud computing can be justified by validating the investment on grounds of business empowerment, cost savings, or opportunity cost advantage. Since benefits from cloud computing are based on its application and use, a positive ROI cant be achieved merely as a blanket business case. Thus, the following examines the case for testing and developing new applications for the cloud. Cloud ROI depends on the use of the application. The only way to determine its costeffectiveness is by understanding what the application is all about, and how to make good use of the cloud. Cloud services are metered, and the only way to derive significant savings is through own proactive efforts to reduce or minimize consumption. Applications vary in such a way that some may require a dedicated hardware (usually for those that require a long-term period), while others may rather be virtualized if they do not consume the full capacity of a hardware. If such application has a lifespan of less than 12 months and its nature is flexible, then thats the best time to make use of cloud services. This way, you can save money than pay more in order to have them waiting in reserve. For applications with a life expectancy of 1-5 years, it is best to get them outsourced. With the use of cloud services to your application, testing and developing is fundamentally necessary. This is where test lab managers and developers come in the picture. Empower
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developers and testers by incorporating cloud labs into your test portfolio. Endorse the use of cloud platforms yet with outmost caution, so that it is properly used without risking the integrity of the business. Make policies and guidelines for your people to follow accordingly. You may also select a small number of approved platforms, and nix those that are no longer being used by your testers and developers. In sifting platforms that are being used, set up a central resource request tool that automates the approval of platform requests should they fit into the applications needs. Amid establishing cloud platforms to your application, make sure to adapt to the cloud. Do not expect these platforms adapt to you, since they most likely have limited functions and capabilities that your application requires. For instance, if you need OS monitoring, higher degrees of network security, or storage services they dont provide, youll have to bring them to the deployment. Determine exactly what fits best in the cloud by testing deployments that can be accommodated on a standard virtual environment as well as environments that are standalone; and make sure that products have a lifespan of less than a year, do not expose the company to compliance or regulatory risk, and have multi-VM (virtual machine) applications that utilize Web services. As you evolve your cloud use policy and deployment procedures, be sure to incorporate the adaptations your company requires for secure, manageable use of the cloud. Test-and-development use of cloud varies with the stage. The following are cases where testing and development fits in the cloud: Design and function validation testing. Developers need infrastructure resources to ensure the accuracy and efficiency of the programs they make. Validating functions usually require minimal resources for short periods of time. Scalability testing. This is where cloud platforms deliver clear value add. These efforts can lock up a significant number of test resources for long periods of time. Every time the test fails, developers have to reserve resources again for another test run. And often, due to capital constraints, only limited scalability testing can be performed in your environment. While no cloud has infinite resources, nearly all are likely to have more caapcity than your internal test lab.
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Quality assurance (QA) testing. As an application gets closer to production, its functions should be tested in varying use circumstances to guarantee quality and accuracy. --

Ten Tech-Enabled Business Trends to Watch

Around a couple of years ago, McKinsey conducted a study on Eight technology -enabled business trends to watch, and showed how the combined effects of emerging Internet technologies, increased computing power, and fast, pervasive digital communications were spawning new ways to manage talent ,assets and organizational structures. The technology landscape has continued to evolve rapidly since then. With the fast-paced change, the original 8 trends, which have continued to spread (much faster than anticipated), has grown as McKinsey recently released the reportClouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch. The ability to organize communities of Web participants to co-create products and services has moved from the margins of business practice to the mainstream. McKinsey noted in the earlier research that the Web was starting to force open the boundaries of organizations, allowing nonemployees to offer their expertise in novel ways. We called this phenomenon tapping into a world of talent. Today, many companies are pushing beyond that starting point, as they build and manage flexible networks that extend across internal and even external borders. The number of people who undertake knowledge work has grown significantly. As a result, this builds a higher demand for collaboration technologies that promise to improve these workers efficiency and effectiveness. Since then, a number of companies have conducted experiments on these. The rapid growth of video and Web conferencing was seen by McKinsey, as it is expected to top 20 percent annually during the next few years. With the development of the information system that is able to capture, compute, communicate, and collaborate around information; sensors or actuators anything with
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communication capabilitieswill further be developed. This will soon be able to absorb and transmit information on a massive scale and, in some cases, to adapt and react to changes in the environment automatically. Data are flooding in at rates never seen beforedoubling every 18 monthsas a result of greater access to customer data from public, proprietary, and purchased sources, as well as new information gathered from Web communities and newly deployed smart assets, according to McKinsey. Utilizing such big data in terms of testing and experimentation becomes crucial to companies. This guides them in decision-making, testing new products and services as well as innovating customer experience. Companies are now taking the first steps to reduce the environme ntal impact of their IT. For instance, businesses are adopting green data center technologies to reduce sharply the energy demand of the ever-multiplying numbers of servers needed to cope with data generated by trends. Technology now enables companies to monitor, measure, customize and bill for asset use at a much more detailed level than before. A number of companies are employing technology to market services from business capabilities they first developed for their own purposes. Thats a trend McKinsey previously described as unbundled production. Advertising has also spread on the web with the use of online services such as search and email. It is now spreading to new markets like enterprise software. McKinsey states that as more people migrate to online activities, network effects can magnify the value of multisided business models. The freemium model is a case in point: a group of customers gets free services supported by those who pay a premium for special use. Technology will also be an important factor in the creation of new types of public goods. Take the challenges of the rising urbanization, for example. According to McKinsey, about half of the worlds people now live in urban areas, and that share is projected to rise to 70 percent by 2050. The pace of technology and business change will continue to accelerate. It may either be advantageous for other companies, or challenging to some. The reports broad message is

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that organizations should incorporate an understanding of the trends into their strategic thinking to help identify new market opportunities, invent new ways of doing business, and compete with an ever-growing number of innovative rivals. --

For references and other enquiries, please e-mail me at: roannevista@gmail.com or imroanne@icloud.com. I look forward to hear from you soon!

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