EIR Practical 8 - Twitter

EIR Practical 8 - Twitter

I have used before Facebook and blog but I have not tried before Twitter because I feel that it is useless to me. I thought that Twitter is only used to tweet about my feelings and also used to communicate with friends. I would not anyhow share my feelings in social network and I prefer using SMS to communicate with friends instead of Twitter.

After trying out Twitter there are actually much more features than I thought. Twitter provides the fastest and latest news. Example the Sichuan Earthquake Twitter was the first to publish this information as compare to other media. However it is not in depth since Twitter only can type in 140 characters.

Twitter VS Blog

My research topic is “The impact of financial crisis on spending habits and consumer market”. I followed some people on Twitter that is also interested about this topic so that I can receive information from them. I feel that Twitter is similar to RSS feed but it is much more convenience. I just have to click on the follow button to get informed if that person have posted. All the notice will appear in one page therefore it is easy to view. As compare to RSS feed I have to view them 1 by 1 to see their newest post.

However, there is a 140 characters limit people can only provide you with a short link and a brief description. The link provided might be useful for my research because I will not need to spend my time finding article in search engine related to my research. People with the same interest about my topic can share with me the article therefore I can save time looking for article.

Both Twitter and Blog have enhanced my learning of effective internet research. If I am using Twitter to do research I can get many replies from people which are also interested in that topic in a short period of time. Because people will tend to visit their Twitter more often as compare to blog. More people visit means higher possibility people will comment. I can hardly find anyone which will help me in my research when I post on blog. They will comment on how well or bad I have written which helps me to edit my work. Some blog do not even have comment so people can’t comment. People will normally post on discussion forum if they need help instead of blog.

I can use Twitter to do my research. (Twitter seems to be like search engines which only provide a brief description and a link to the article.) I can click on the links to get to the blog or website for the full explanation.

Most people tend to visit Twitter more often as compare to blog. Bloggers can use Twitter to announce what they have updated to get our attention. If the topic is related to my research I will be able to use it.

EIR Practical 7 - Group Wiki on Ethics and Internet

EIR Practical 7 - Group Wiki on Ethics and Internet

Learning Experience in Group

Working in a group generates more ideas therefore it will enhance my learning experience. If I have any doubts I can ask my friends. I also have learnt that different group have different style I have to change to adapt to their situation. I also learn to become more independent for this project we only meet up online for discussion. No face-to-face discussion which save a lot of time for travelling.

Individual learning Experience

I gain more knowledge about Cyber ethics than the other groups. I have to do research on what is cyber ethics so that I can do my project therefore I will know more about cyber ethics. I have gain most knowledge on the part I did as compare to my team mates.

Most Challenging Problem

There is no guidelines and limit on what should we do was the most challenging part. We only know about the topic is cyber ethics in general.

We solve this problem by thinking of some topics that are related to cyber ethics and then branch out from there. In the end, the report became super long as compare to other groups because everyone keep adding in ideas about cyber ethics. We decided to stop writing because it is too long.

Advices

You must make a back up copy of what you wrote. Save everything in Microsoft word. Anyone can delete away what you wrote in Wiki and then you will waste your time uploading.

Use Mozilla Firefox or internet explorer when doing wiki. I tried using Google chrome and it does not support all features. Browse must be updated it will be best if you have the latest version.

CAPTCHA will appear every time if you want to post or edit what you wrote. You can apply to be a writer so that you can save time typing in the CAPTCHA

Using Wiki for research

Wikipedia is famous website that provide information on different topic

Yes, I will be using Wiki for research just reference for some idea. Wiki is actually very useful for my research. Most of the time when I am doing research a lot of information comes from Wikipedia. However, anyone that has a Wiki account can add or delete information in Wiki. Therefore, information might not be accurate. I have to use my basic knowledge to judge whether I should use the information.

EIR Practical 6 - Evaluation of Internet Resources 2&3

EIR Practical 6 - Evaluation of Internet Resources 2&3

I wish to visit Sydney in Australia for a holiday. I know that Sydney is a vibrant cities just like Singapore with beautiful tourist attraction such as the harbor bridge, Sydney Tower and opera house. I will also like to visit the Sydney Wildlife World to look at the Koala, kangaroo and other animals. Sydney Aquarium it is one of the largest and the most spectacular aquariums in the world! Gold Coast have clean sea water, sand and nice temperature during December is around 20 - 27 °C. Dreamworld theme park have more variety of rides as compare to Singapore

Click on the Picture to Zoom+ in for better view.

Secondlife - Walking in the middle of Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Haha don't even have a single car I can experience walking through the bridge

Secondlife - Sydney Harbour Bridge

I can only take screenshot of half of the bridge due to graphic problem. If I move further away by another 30 meters another part of the bridge will disappear. This is why I dun like Secondlife I can't enjoy the whole scenery of the surrounding.

Sydney Harbour Bridge at night

The scenery is much more beautiful as compared to Secondlife. There are lots of lighting at night which make the city looks more energetic and vigorous

SecondLife - Opera House

Similar to the real one but the graphic is terrible as compare to the real one

SecondLife - Opera house close view

Opera house during the afternoon

Opera house during the night

Cites in Australia seem to look nicer during the night

Opera House and Harbour Bridge during the night

Perfect combination

I went to this website to look for more information about Australia

Consumer: http://www.australia.com/

Corporate: http://www.tourism.australia.com/

The consumer website is for consumer. It provides a lot of information, pictures about Australia. For corporate it provide information about the company and data of how well is the tourism industry doing.

Several criteria used to evaluate a website

• Coverage
• Currency
• Usability
• Purpose
• Presentation and Arrangement
• Accessibility
• Authority
• Accuracy

It can be make into acronym E.g. "CCUPPAAA"

I will start to evaluate the website using all the 8 criteria

Coverage

I like this website it cover a wide range of information about Australia. Wide coverage means that I do not need to visit other website to look for other information that is not in the website.

• Travel Planner - This feature will recommend people to visit places that suit their needs not only that they even provide information about where to stay, recommend travel agent

• Things To Do - It provides information about what to do in each city. How many days to stay in each city and how to travel to those destination
  
• News & Events
• Image of Australia
• Videos of Australia
• And many more

Currency

The information is of course up to date and well-maintained. It can be proven by the News & Events section. There are hardly any event and news for them to post in their website. Once there is news or events that is related to tourism they will post it up within few hours.

E.g. the recent Queensland Flood was posted a few hours later after the flood...now the webpage is still updating the information about the flood.

Usability

• User friendly
• Page complete loading in lesser than 8 second (10Mbps)
• Easy to navigate around
• Have search facility
• Site Map
• No broken links or missing pages
• No bugs and error

Purpose

Yes their aims is all written in the mission section

• To influence people to travel to Australia, including for events
• To influence people travelling to Australia to also travel throughout Australia
• To influence Australians to travel throughout Australia, including for events
• To help foster a sustainable tourism industry in Australia
• To help increase the economic benefits to Australia from tourism

Personally I feel that the website is providing people with information about Australia. This website also acts as a guide on where to go, how to travel around Australia and also recommend where to go.

Presentation and Arrangement

Flash was used at the home page and it has a lot of pictures in every web page. Alignment, font and size are consistent in every web page. Contrast colours which was caring for our eyes. Can therefore, words can be read in the web page.

Accessibility

This website is accessible for everyone who have internet that visit that webpage. Login is not required to view their content except for their Image Library. Login is required to gain full access to the image library.

Authority

This website is managed by Australian Government agency

Tourism Australia Head Office

GPO Box 2721,

Sydney NSW 1006

Tel: +61 2 9360 1111

Accuracy

The information provided by tourism Australia regarding tourism are mostly true. They are the ones that have most information and experience about Australia tourism. They also have the 1st hand information about Australia tourism as compare to other organisation. If they have provided the wrong information other organisation will also be wrong.

EIR Practical 5 - Citizen Journalism

EIR Practical 5 - Citizen Journalism

There are a total of 8 criteria to be evaluated in Storm.

• Purpose
• Authority
• Coverage
• Accuracy
• Presentation and Arrangement
• Usability
• Accessibility
• Currency

Purpose

Storm is for entertainment, gossip, provide local news and also to criticise other people behaviour. Take a look at the example below it is for entertainment purposes

Bus mounts kerb and charges into path of pedestrians

Haha...Nice parking skills I wonder how he park so nicely between the traffic light and the lamp posts.

Authority

Storm is managed by "The Straits Times" which was a famous Newspaper company in Singapore

Coverage

Storm covers information that rarely appears on The Straits Times such as gossip and criticises. One of the examples that appear in storm: “Couple hugging and kissing on MRT”. Such incident will be criticises on stomp.

Couple hugging and kissing on MRT

Storm provides free online “My Paper” and has a forum for people to share their views or discuss about other topics.

However, storm does not include topics such as business, science and technology.

Accuracy

Information is accurate because almost all topics have pictures as evidences. Storm is managed by The Straits Times which have professional editors to edit their story and also decides on what stories to publish.

Information sometimes may not be true

The photo below can only proof that someone sneak into her room but it can't proof who steal her GF's undies because the photo is unclear. Moreover, they can write up a fake story to attract more viewers.

Topic: Landlord's son sneaks into my GF's rented room to steal her undies

Presentation and Arrangement

Homepage have a lot of picture to attract my attention. Nicely arranged top stories are on the top. Every article have picture which makes the website interesting.

Usability & Accessibility

• User friendly.
• Easy to navigate around with big font size easy to see.
• No broken links
• Require login to post and comment

Currency

Most articles are published 2 - 3 days after the incident because they need to get approve by administrator. Those articles are for entertaining purposes therefore it is still current.

Create my own version of “Stomp”

My topic is on "the impact of financial crisis on spending habits and consumer market". If I were to create my own version of “Stomp” it will be a mixture of storm and forum. My topic is about business and economic which have plenty of words and it is boring. Anyone that has created an account can send us articles. we have editors which are profession in business and economic to edit their work. Information about shares or Forex can be posted into another section that information will be entertained immediately. Anyone that misuses this feature will get ban.

My version of storm will target teenagers which have pictures, comics or even videos to illustrate about the business and economic. Business and economic will also be linked to real life examples and jokes. Therefore it will be interesting and entertaining at the same time it provides readers with the knowledge of economic and business. Language will not need to be formal as long as the information is correct.

People can comment, criticise if the information is wrong, further explain and discuss about the topic. This became about the same as forum. It is to ensure that all articles are accurate.

I know that it is very difficult to understand technical terms therefore there will also be a glossary.

Classmates EIR Blogs

I will be commenting on Rui Xue blog...

• Her Blog posts are up-to-date with beautiful template.

• Fonts and font's size are consistent

• Contrast colour therefore is easy to read and is caring for the eyes

• Pictures and animation which makes the blog look more interesting

• User friendly because is easy to navigate around

EIR Practical 4 - Invisible Web (databases)

EIR Practical 4 - Invisible Web (Databases)

Yes, invisible web (databases) is much more effective in finding newspaper articles. It is very difficult to use search engines and meta-search to find newspaper articles. Most of the newspaper articles will be deleted from the website after a few weeks. Some newspaper website require you to log in or even pay in order to view the articles. Such as The Straits Times.

The Straits Times breaking news section is free but it might not be helpful for my research since there are only a few breaking news articles every day.

I remember during the last semester I used Google to search for newspaper articles for my economic project. It took me more than 2 hours to find relevant 2 newspaper articles for my project. A few weeks later after my economic project my CSA teacher teaches me how to use invisible web (databases).

LexisNexis Academic

Factiva

Of course I will continue to use Databases for my research in business. Factiva is one of the best databases for doing research on business and economic. Because most articles in Factiva are about business and economy. I am currently using Factiva for my economic project it just took me lesser than 5 minutes to find an article related to my project. I typed in the query within the date range. The article that i found is “The demand for Indonesian coal” this article is useful my project on the topic of Demand and Supply.

I tried out wiki few weeks ago. It is good that we can share a lot of information. But all our alignment is different.

EIR Practical 3

EIR Practical 3 - Internet Search Facilities 1

What benefits do you get when using different

search facilities to search for resources related to your topic?

I have learnt how to use 2 type of search engine in this week. which is the Meta Search Engine and subject directory.

This is my first time using Meta Search Engine because I had never ever heard before Meta search engine until I joined EIR.

Yahoo Subject Directory is quite common I have used it a few times to do research on topic such as Sports, Games, Food and Entertainment.

I remember I read before something about subject directory. Someone wrote that a subject directory is best used when you do not really know what is the actual information that you wanted".

I feel that what he wrote actually makes sense after I used subject directory to do research on my topic. I personally think that the main categories which link us to other sub categories will help newbie in finding the information they want.

Search Engine

Meta Search Engine

Ixquick

• It also have a advance search system which help to refine the search result.
• Advanced Search Tips which show how to use those wildcards [" " , ( ) ,*] But anyway I have learn this feature before in EIR this only helps to recap what to do.
• Ixquick Protects our Privacy because no search data will be recorded. Personal information will not be saved. Personal information is good marketers, government officials, hackers, etc.
• I found the information that I want in my 1st attempts 1st page
• It can search the same information through 11 search engine at once therefore it is very efficient.

1. Ask/Teoma
2. Gigablast
3. Wikipedia
4. Bing
5. Open Directory
6. Yahoo
7. Blekko
8. Qkport
9. Yebol
10. EntireWeb
11. Statesman

Metacrawler

• is actually bout the same as Ixquick
• advance search system.
• Tools and tips - to teach you how to use Metacrawler.
• customized search preferences - E.g. Search Filter, Results will appear in a page, Etc.
• Recent Searches result - Very useful to find back previous search result
• It will also suggest other result that are similar to your search.
• It will use 4 search engine at 1 shot. those search engine are actually quite famous.

• I found the information that I want after changing some words on the search box. I notice that the search box cannot put in a lot of words.

Subject Directory

Yahoo Subject Directory

• Categories into different section result on same topic are put together. Therefore, result of the same topic can be found together get easily.
• Advanced Directory Search, Yahoo help.
• Result are relevant to what I want.
• Result that I get are very different from the ones I found in Meta Search Engine. Therefore more information on that topic.

Galaxy Subject Directory

• I prefer using Yahoo Subject Directory
• Top stories for different section E.g Business. A bit outdated by a few months but still usable
• Search feature
• 
  
• What's New Section - New things will be added there. Maybe relevant to the research that I am doing. New information will interest people more.
• Headlines - News around the world from different Newspaper. Relevant articles can be used and information are more likely to be trusted.

Go

I never use it for my research those category in this website are more to Entertainment...My topic was more to business, financial or economic.

Site Feeds

Convenience - just 1 click to link to web site

Updated - Will be updated immediately when they post the topic

Efficiency - A short summary on the content easy reference

Wiki

My topic is "Discuss the impact of financial crisis on spending habits and consumer market"

A lot of ideas can be shared because every people think differently and will come out with different ideas in the end.

But there are also disadvantage if the topic have been wrote by a lot of people is difficult to include any addition information.

Virtual Shopping on Second Life

Virtual Shopping on Second Life

Of all the virtual shopping islands on Second Life, I chose to go to Men in Action (MIA) because the name of the place sounds like Missing in Action (MIA). I would first introduce the scenery of the MIA.

Right Click on the Picture open new tab to Zoom+ in for better view.

Men in Action

Surrounded by water

Beautiful waves

Crystal clear water

Nice scenery and weather

Men in Action Front view

MIA sell a wide variety of products such as.

Outdoors:

Surfboard

Vehicles

ETC

Indoors:

Shoes

Apparel

Hairstyles

Accessories

Skin Colour

ETC

Different types of surfboard

Internal view of (MIA)

The wall is made up of brick and the floor is made up of wood.

I feel that it is similar to the 19th century building.

It is impossible to find a shopping centre in Singapore that looked like this.

Shoes placed in shelf

Clicking on the Shoes boxes to buy the shoes is about the same as purchasing shoes in real life.

These shoes have different types of colours.

I wish I can buy it but I do not have Linden (a currency used in Second Life).

Shopping for clothes

These clothes are hang nicely on the racks.

I have seen before the design of these clothes in Singapore

There's no fitting room around so theoretically-speaking shoppers can't try out the clothes.

Yet, the clothes will magically fit onto shoppers instantly. I wonder how? Haha.

Met someone when I am doing the Virtual Shopping on Second Life

She was a friendly and helpful girl.

I walked toward her and said hi to her and we started chatting.

There are more pictures below.

Asked her some question

what is she looking for?

Joking around

At first, I thought that she was joking with me.

I told her that I can turn into a werewolf.

She was not joking and she turned into a Lycan.

Transformed back to human

Tips and tricks about Shopping

She taught me how to preview the items sold here.

You can only try out certain items.

E.g. The shirt that I showed just now? It can't be tried out.

Side view of my new hairstyle

I changed to a female character.

Because a female character is much more beautiful than male character.

Noticed that I changed my hairstyle?

The second picture will be much more clearer.

Back view of my hairstyle

Back view is much more beautiful than side view.

Noticed that there is a Demo sign on top of my head?

Well, it is just temporary.

Fly up to second floor.

Too lazy to climb up the stairs.

I wish I could fly in real life, it is so efficient and convenient.

Problems encountered

I wanted to make friend with them but they don't seem to be interested.

Kimmy Pitts Laughed and that is why she is on the floor.

They don't seem to be friendly.

Problem encountered

She asked me to buy her clothes but

I don't have any Linden with me.

They are much more richer than me.

After that, they went to other places.

Other problems

System Model: HP ProBook 4310s

Memory: 3036MB RAM

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9600 @ 2.80GHz

Graphic Card :ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series

Graphic Card lower than the recommend specification =(

Photo with bug

• Business lab loading was much more slower than my computer so I never do the E-Learning at there.
• It takes about 20sec to Load a full set of clothes.
• Camera view difficult to adjust I spend a lot of time adjusting the camera view.
• The angle, zoom in and out so that the Picture wont stretch.
• A bit laggy.
• Spent a lot of time and effort taking photos.
• If not the photo will look like this.

Things that I like in virtual experience which I will not do it reality.

• In Second Life I can teleport to anywhere I wan in few seconds.
• "Flying around" mentioned previously.
• Asking stranger for suggestion about which product to buy. I would not dare to do this in real life.
• Able to change the looks of the character. Such as the height, skin colour, face, hair, even gender!

Different between E-Shopping Spree and Virtual Shopping on Second Life

• For the E-Shopping is not 3D.
• Virtual shopping is much more similar to shopping in real life.
• What I did in E-Shopping is to browse through different webpage compare the prices and products.
• No virtual character moving around to shop for products that I want in E-Shopping.
• Items cannot be tried on a character if we use E-shopping.
• Item brought in Virtual Shopping will not be able to use in real life but E-shopping item can be used in real life.
• Products that are show in E-Shopping are more realistic than virtual shopping.

What I gained from this E-learning experience

• I have learnt how to use the features on Second Life.
• Comparing the different between E-shopping and virtual shopping.
• Meeting new friends.
• Looking for different product and service that I wanted in different shop.