The ExporTech Experience-Part 1: The Recruitment

Prior to last December, I have never heard of “ExporTech”.  Chances are, neither have you.  I first heard about ExporTech when UNR‘s College of Business sent me their monthly newsletter.  In the newsletter, the college announced there was an internship available for interested students.  Since I was close to graduating and I still did not have any internship experience under my belt, I was desperate to apply to any internships I could get my hands on.  Before I let anyone know about my interest, I made a quick Google search on “ExporTech”.

From the NIST page, ExporTech is an entity that helps companies enter or expand into global markets.  At the time, I did not know how ExporTech helped these companies.  Did ExporTech own its own distribution network across the world and used this to help companies?  Or where they the middleman who helped American companies to contact trustworthy agents in other countries?

Whatever ExporTech is, I knew just one thing.  This internship helps companies with exports, meaning its a pure international business internship which is extremely hard to find in Reno.  I was ecstatic.  I quickly contacted Professor Stedham, who was in charge of the intern recruitment through a series of e-mail exchanges.  Through the exchanges, I learned more details of the internship such as that it is part-time, it would be at my own pace, and I could conduct the work anywhere I have internet access.  One thing that was not explained in the e-mails is whether the internship was paid or not.  The little voice inside my head told me it was not paid but I wouldn’t know until I attended the first meeting with the interns on February 1st.  Rhea Gustafson, the Nevada Industry Excellence representative, was scheduled to be at the February 1st meeting and answer all other questions we had about the ExporTech program.

And it was through this series of events that I was recruited to join the ExporTech experience.

The ExporTech Experience-Part 0: A Preview of What is to Come

For the few of you who will read till the end of the post, why did you visit?  Something brought you here to my domain.  Maybe it was a well time tweet or perhaps a shared link on Facebook from one of my friends.  You might have purposefully sifted through hundreds of hyperlinks for that one blog mentioning the keyword “ExporTech“.

Regardless of the how, I will tell you of the what.  This post as well as the more to come will tell you about my experience in the ExporTech Internship partnered with the University of Reno Nevada, the Nevada Industry Excellence team, and the small business involved in the program.  I will not write about the details of the small companies involved in the program due to a non disclosure agreement everyone in the program signed.  I will focus on explaining my experience as intern in the program including what research resources worked the best for myself during the market research portion of the program.  I will also write about what I experienced in the ExporTech meetings with the interns, small company representatives, and Nevada Industry of Excellence staff.

So who benefits from reading these posts?  If you yourself are going to become an ExporTech Intern, then by reading my future posts you will learn from my tips and mistakes; thus, making your life easier.  If you are thinking of becoming an ExporTech participant through your small business, then you will get a quick preview through my posts about what ExporTech can do for your export needs.  For now, make sure you add my blog to your RSS Reader to ensure you don’t miss out on my experience as an ExporTech Intern.

A Change for the Better

It feels like forever since I sat down in front of a computer screen and furiously smashed down the keys only to experience writers block seconds later. Well, I call it writers block but it is really known as procrastination.  Regardless, I feel as if my extended break from reality is reaching its last breath, as such, I am determined to continue writing.  I am a bit sad to say that the focus of my writing will shift from technology to international business/management topics.

Recently, I finished all my classes for my degree at the University of Reno, Nevada.  Hooray!  Alright, enough celebrating.  Since the amount of classes I have been taking has been reduced to zero, I have found myself with a lot of time on my hands.

Currently, I am participating in an international business related internship with ExporTech, a company funded by the government to help small businesses export their products/services outside of the United States border.  It is quite an exciting opportunity (and  one that would look really good on my résumé).

In the internship, I am in charge of developing marketing research for the company I will be assisting in their international endeavors.  I do not believe I can divulge much information about the company, so I will not be giving out specifics about my work.  I will however note down my experiences with the internship and all the research steps I take during this fantastic experience.  Who knows, perhaps my experience with the internship would prove valuable for others out there.

I won’t completely abandon technology/gadgets posts, they will just take the backseat compared to post dealing with business/management.  Although change can sometimes be painful, it is necessary for companies and people if they want to survive in the long run.

App of the Week-1Mobile

Friends, Romans, countrymen, I was wrong.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m wrong almost everyday but on this one occasion, I was definitely wrong.  In what occasion was I wrong?  Recall a few months ago when I first started out my blog by reviewing one of my new toys, the Kindle Fire HD.  In this review, I mentioned one of the dislikes I had for the tablet was the fact that I could not download an app from a different app market than the Amazon App store.  I was under the impression that any app I tried downloading from the Google Play store or Apple App Store would be unsuccessful due to incompatibility in the software.  Boy was I wrong.

I’m a regular reader of Andrys Basten’s blog entitle A Kindle World Blog and when I came across her blog post that told the world how to access third-party apps on the Kindle Fire models, I just had to drop what I was doing and try out her advice on my Kindle Fire HD.  Unfortunately, I was using my tablet to read her post so in the midst of things I accidentally bumped my HD with the ground though it is still working fabulously (Amazon really knows how to build their stuff!).

The particular advise I followed from Andrys basten’s blog was the portion where I went into my settings, tap the more button, then tap the device button, and finally checked the box that said Allow Installation of Applications from unknown sources.  From then on, my Kindle no longer held a 3rd party download app restriction.  This meant that if I had the right program/app, I can download the wonderful apps already available on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store but sadly not available on the Amazon App Store.

1Mobile App store

I decided to use 1mobile to download third-party apps.  It is very easy to use.  First thing you do would be to go to the 1mobile website and download the app to download the app (Yo Dawg).  Once it shows up in your app selection screen, open it up and take a minute to explore the wonderful ease of the app.  The layout is very similar to the Google Play Store in that you search through categories, view the feature apps or top rated, and even search the app if you already know the name.  First app I downloaded on 1mobile was the Curiosity Game app I wrote about earlier (so addicting).  I then opened the app and guess what, it worked perfectly.  In fact, it worked better than the app installed on my Android device due to the fact that my HTC Thunderbolt has a habit of shutting down the app after a few seconds.

Have any other ways of downloading 3rd-party apps on to your mobile device?  Teach us your tricks by commenting below.

In AVG We Trust

If you are a user of a PC like myself, sooner or later you will need to purchase some form of Antivirus software.  Even if you are a pro at using the internet, at one point in your life you had to learn the evils of the internet through experience and then you had to fix those experiences via an antivirus program.  Depending on the size of your problem, antivirus software can get expensive.  Despite the initial cost of security software, the potential problems resulting from the lack of it is much worse.  I accidentally let a virus on my computer from trying to view a meme website (it was not 4chan) and it left my laptop in a crippled state.  I ended up having to buy various computer parts to build a gaming PC (worth the investment BTW), the damage was around $500.

For those who don’t have the money to spend in new computer parts or some antivirus software there are other options.  There exists free antivirus protection you can download.  Disclaimer: Not all free antivirus software available on the internet is safe, some might be scams trying to get into your computer and cripple your computer, thus, they force you to buy their “antivirus” solution.

For those in a similar situation like myself, there exists AVG antivirus software.  AVG is a company who consistently produces software that protects your computer from internet threats.  The best protection for a single user would be the Premium security software available for $69.99 at the moment.  Don’t have cash for it now?  No sweat.  AVG offers a free version of their antivirus software that you can download from their site.  The antivirus will offer the basic features of protection such as detecting/stopping viruses, threats, and malware.  It is great if you want a quick software shield for your PC but in NO way should it be used as a substitute for full PC protection.

Ever bought antivirus software that didn’t work?  Let us know what it was by commenting below.