1) Describe some reasons why Linux is installed on only a very small fraction of desktop computers. Are there particular categories of products or users who might see Linux as more appealing than conventional operating systems? Do you think Linux's share of the desktop market will increase? Why or why not? Linux is used proportionally due to the fact that we live in a Windows world. All of the name brand software applications like Office, Peachtree and QuickBooks are Windows based. I couldn’t imagine playing Call of Duty on Linux. Not saying it couldn’t happen. Without being said there is a huge demand to make Windows applications. The overall installation process for Linux is different. I won’t say difficult but different. Linux overall doesn’t have the virus issues that Windows tends to obtain. I know there are a ton of LIVE CD’s out there that is used for forensics, firewalls, backup and recovery. I have used a few of them in the past to recover partitions on hard drives unattainable by windows. I see windows becoming more and more of an online service in the future. If Microsoft goes this route, I can see users adapting to Linux just to avoid a big brother conspiracy. One thing that could also increase the usage of Linux might be those entities that are trying to implement technology with a tight budget.

2) What are some of the benefits of cloud computing? What are some of the drawbacks? Find an article about cloud computing online. Summarize and critique the article in your own words. Be sure to include the url of the article. Well, one could say that the backup of files, whatever they maybe are backed up. The redundancy then becomes part of the provider of the service. So whenever there is a data loss, then you just grab them out of the cloud. The other part of this is the technology fees are reduced by using a service as such. The reduction of personnel and technology, like servers are reduced due to the usage of a cloud. A drawback could be bandwidth charges due to unnecessary traffic. Policies regarding to security and or privacy would be questionable if not previously defined. In the article I found online, Binning describes five cloud computing issues and goes overall some best practices in regards to security in the cloud and to use a third part security audit on the host routinely. Companies go to cloud computing due to the cost, I can only imagine that this would be questionable if the costs to ensure audits are done is expensive, in my opinion.
Reference
Binning, D. (2009, April 24). Computer weekly. Retrieved from http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240089111/Top-five-cloud-computing-security-issues

3) Describe the impact that your chosen information system has on your organization. Be sure to consider both the positive and negative impacts. Over-dependence on an information system can be a negative impact, so also discuss whether your organization has any contingency plans for business continuity during system outages. The Performance Center has become a quite important piece of data. It gives us a ton of information in order to run our business more efficiently. The positives are that it gives us mission critical information in regards to sales, profit and payroll information as well as many others. The negative side is that it requires some serious chair time in order to take it all in. That in retail, is pretty much impossible. As far as the contingency plan due to outages, The Performance Center itself does not need to be up and running for us to continue our business. With that being said there are other systems like POS, registers, etc that are critical and there is no plan other than covering up the fresh areas and getting the customers out of the store safely. Might I add to ensure that all doors securing data and that sort are secured?