My laptop is saved! Thanks to Norton Antivirus! :P

This is probably going to be a repeat of a previous entry i wrote weeks back but i just wanted to let all viewers who read my blog know.... GET SYMANTEC NORTON ANTIVIRUS NOW!!! :D It's such a lifesaver as i recently caused my laptop to be infected by a TROJAN! (Yes, you read that right, i actually inserted my thumbdrive and unknown to myself, there was a trojan hidden inside! Imagine my horror upon discovering it! :O)

Anyway, upon installing the norton antivirus, as you can see in the picture below, please enable the automatic protection as that was what saved the trojan from infecting my laptop. This is because it quarantined the trojan allowing me to easily delete it from the system. 

Isn't Norton Antivirus so fuss-free and easy to use? :) I definitely think it's the next best thing as it took me a few steps to eliminate the trojan from the system. So please do install it into your system! I ensure that you wouldn't have any regrets!!! *wink!* ;)

Future of the internet

I was wondering long and hard about what the future of the internet would be for many of us.. and for now, i still do not know an exact answer.. Or rather, i would say the future holds many possibilities for all of us!(so there is no one answer!) :) I do know one certain thing: the internet will revolutionize our lives and be integrated into our lives much more than today. Increasingly, we are becoming dependent on the internet for many things and one can only wonder how the internet can serve us better in the near future.

Anyway, I was browsing through the internet today and found this interesting video from Nokia which shows how Nokia can literally connect people to people in the future if their invention was really created. Really interesting as the sunglasses which doubles as a screen to see the latest news is useful yet quite stylish at the same time.. :) Unique concept if you ask me!

Browsing further, I discovered another video, this time on cars. It's really amazing how cars of the future would probably be so smart as to be able to see if there's a motorcycle in a blind spot to sensing whether our eyes are focusing on the road in front of us while we're driving! Indeed, the future holds much promise as it would save many lives from getting into accidents that could be prevented.

And one of my favorites: for all the housewives and for any of us out there who hate long lines in the supermarket, here's the video for you!! :D Now we don't have to wait so long to scan each and every one of our products, we just need to walk right through the barriers! Now that's really something to look forward to in the near future.. ;)

After seeing all the above videos, you're probably thinking, "YAY! the future looks bright!" or  something along that lines.. well, i do have one small concern: I really do hope the internet does not take over our lives and make us SO DEPENDENT on it that if anything should happen (for e.g, a major power outrage), our lives would come to a standstill. That would be such a disaster!! :( And not only that, i have another worry: there may be a possibility that we will all be using less and LESS of our brain since we would be increasingly allowing the technology around us to do our thinking for us. In short, we would be reduced to mindless souls that just take the easy way out of matters.

Nonetheless, i will still cross my fingers while i await the future that's closing in day by day on us...

Social networking

This week's main focus is on social networking sites. If there's one social networking site that I am really familiar with, it's probably facebook. Or maybe friendster (mostly in the past though) too.. :P So that got me thinking... why not check out other social networking sites that i don't use??

The social networking site that popped right into my mind was twitter! Reason: i don't really know much about it and people seem to be so hyped up about "tweeting" and all. 

What striked me at first glance about twitter when i went to my profile, was its simple yet easy to use layout. I must admit that it has a very clean look that is not jarring to the eyes. :) Furthermore, i liked that each message that i typed (or twitter's words, "tweet") was limited to 140 words so unlike other social networking sites, i did not have to look at such long paragraphs of words. Neat stuff! 

Other interesting things i found out about twitter is that twitter has their own microsyntax and abbreviated Twitter grammar to make their Tweets more expressive. If your are merely retweeting someone else’s tweet, for example, you acknowledge that by placing a ‘RT’ at the beginning of your micro-message. If you are replying publicly to another user or just referring to them, you indicate that with an ‘@username.’ You can even add hashtags to a tweet so that it shows up in searches for specific topics. That is seriously a cool and interesting creation on twitter's part!! :) 

Searching for a certain topic is also made very easy by just typing in the topic in the search bar like seen below. Indeed it's almost idiot proof and anyone will find the ease of using twitter almost addictive! :D

 Another niffy tab that twitter has is the "follow" tab that allows one to follow and hear what an individual tweets on their home page. It's so fuss free and all it needs is a click of a button and i'm instantly updated with the latest stuff the people i'm following has to say.

I would say that twitter is a good way of advertising for businesses in the sense that it allows supporters of a certain business to be updated with the current progress. For example, with some online blog shops, they constantly tweet their newest products and by placing their link there, it makes it easy for followers to click it and immediately to see the product. 

A personal example would be myself, i'm currently following Chef Gordon Ramsay (https://twitter.com/GordonRamsay01) on his twitter page and i discovered that his newest restaurant, Petrus is almost in completion and that the restaurant has been booked for the next few weeks! His twitter page can be seen in my screenshot below:

By reading his tweets that give updates about the setup of his restaurant, it creates a sense of excitement and anticipation for his restaurant. Moreover, it also creates a sense of closeness between himself and the followers (potential future client/customers to his restaurants) as we are able to "see" into some of his thoughts about certain stuff. All these i believe would undoubtedly serve to help his business. :)

In short, i believe that as many people globally are connected through social networking sites, it is useful for businesses to bank on this aspect to reach out to this huge supply of people to promote and advertise their businesses to the huge masses. 

Internet and Journalism

With the dawn of the new era, the internet has become a huge essential part of our life. One particular significant event that has emerged from the internet, is the sprouting of what i like to call as citizen journalism. So what is Citizen Journalism you may ask?? :S

Citizen Journalism is when private individuals do essentially what professional reporters do – report information. That information can take many forms, from a podcast editorial to a report about a city council meeting on a blog. It can include text, pictures, audio and video. But it’s basically all about communicating information of some kind.

 What i discovered about citizen journalism is that there are two different categories to it:

1. semi-independent 
2. fully independent

Semi-Independent Citizen Journalism

This involves citizens contributing, in one form or another, to existing professional news sites.

• Readers posting their comments alongside stories done by professional reporters - essentially a 21st-century version of the letter to the editor. A growing number of news websites allow readers to post comments. In an effort to prevent obscene or objectionable messages, many websites require that readers register in order to post. 

• Reader blogs that are incorporated into professional news websites. That can includes blogs in which readers critique how the news organization is performing.

Example:

New Jersey.com

Independent Citizen Journalism

This involves citizen journalists working in ways that are fully independent of traditional, professional news outlets.

• Blogs in which individuals can report on events in their communities or offer commentary on the issues of the day.

 Example: 

Onlinecitizen

• Websites run by an individual or a group of people that report on news events in the local community. Some have editors and screen content, others do not. Some even have print editions.

Examples:

Daily Heights

My only concern with citizen journalism is where is it the appropriate line to draw?? If everyone is to write their opinions about a certain issue, it is dangerous when that issue is highly sensitive and result in some form of unhappiness among the public. For example, take the local website, stomp. As can be seen from the website, there are occasional articles written by "stompers". However, at times fellow "stompers" may accuse the "stomper" who wrote the article as being too nosy and taking pictures that are inappropriate and that they should mind their own business.. For example, there was a particular post that i read where the "stomper" on the train had taken a picture of a guy who had taken a picture of a girl who wore a mini skirt without her permission. People started accusing the author as being as bad as the guy for taking pictures of him as well which makes one realise that even though the author's intention was to bring attention that there are sexual predators on trains, other people may not view in the same light.

This brings back the same question, where is the line that we should abide by?

Internet and Politics

The power and limitation of internet for political campaigning

It has been a widely understood fact that the internet is a powerful method to reach to audience far and wide and yet at the same time, it is limited in its own way.. today,  i will be touching on this topic since this week's main theme is on politics.. :)

Firstly, let me touch on the power of the internet. Indeed, the internet has many multiple uses, even for political campaigning! The internet is powerful as it allows people immediate access. Since most people check their E-mail anywhere from 1 to 100 times a day, using the Internet to reach out to potential voters is brilliant. Also, each candidate has a website where voters may go to find out how to help the campaign and to see where the candidate will next be speaking. The Internet helps to quickly spread the word about the policy of the candidate.

For example, let's take the most well known president of the world in this current time, Barack Obama. He too, understands the value in reaching to the technologically savvy demographic. One of his donation campaign was conducted in part via email. Rather than a contributor sending $20 and never hearing back, the campaign managers cleverly set up a system that allowed people donations to be matched by other donors. Each donor could contact one another and write why they supported Barack. As a result, this donation campaign was a success, mostly thanks to the accessibility of the internet to the public. 

You Tube also has an impact on politics. This more recent addition to Internet usage provides instant coverage of political events, news clips that relate to candidates, ads that are making the rounds of Internet users, and spoofs of the candidates. If a politician does something embarrassing in public you can be sure it will be on You Tube within 24 hours or less. Morever, youtube videos target young people to participate in online opinion and may bring more youths to the polls in upcoming elections.

The Internet also makes it easy to mobilize political activism. Political groups are able to stage huge protests and events with a simple mass E-mail. Impromptu gatherings are also possible via E-mail alerts. If a candidate is in a public space during private time he or she may find a crowd who has been alerted via the Internet awaiting them outside on their departure.

The Internet also allows voters to use Google or Helium to find articles about and texts of speeches by each candidate to read about their political strategies. The Internet makes keeping up on each candidates opinions quite simple. It is an invaluable tool for voters.

However, despite the above factors that i mentioned, i feel that the internet is limited in some ways.  Personally, i feel that by using the internet, the political campaigns loses its personal touch. People who watch the videos of the speeches that candidates make may not get the full impact of the speech if they were not at the campaign "live" which may affect the voting. Besides that, using the internet may sway people to vote for someone just because they see a mass majority of people giving opinions on the internet to vote for a certain candidate.

Ultimately, political campaigning will inevitably make use of the internet to promote the candidates, therefore, it is always good to keep in mind the above while reading/watching the speeches made by the candidates.. :)

Reflections on com 125 Project Groups & my own com 125 project

The focus for this week's com 125 classes were presentations from the other groups. It was quite enlightening to watch other groups present as through watching their presentations,  I found myself mentally taking note of some key aspects that my project group and i would have to keep in mind during our own presentation. :) Probably one thing i did learn from the presentations is to make the presentation a little more engaging and have something in store for the audience which they can take away from the presentation after watching it... 

Currently, for my own com 125 project, it is due in about 2 weeks time.. Work has been distributed and while looking for resources to back up some of the data in our project, personally, i feel that i have learnt quite a bit from searching on our topic, some of which i probably would not have realised unless i had bothered to research it out of my own interest. I feel as if i i'm learning something new every time i deal with the project work material. :) I'll be crossing my fingers that the project will be a success! :)

Multimedia on the internet

Last week's lesson was really MINDBLOWING. I loved the tech gadgets that professor showed us as they looked really out of this world! I especially like the Xbox 360 Project Natal Game console. Really cool idea of making the individual the controller instead of using a physical controller  :P Thumbs up!

Anyway, i went to surf the net and found other cool multimedia gadgets that are also really unique.. :) Check the video out below for Virtusphere:

 Pretty cool right? :) It's actually a hollow sphere, which is placed on a special platform that allows the sphere to rotate freely in any direction according to the user's steps. Transmitting a virtual environment to the wireless head mounted display, users can move freely 360 degrees creating the most immersive virtual experience. Personally, i feel that this may be great for gamers as it allows more hands on for gamers who like to move and feel the action when they play rather than having to stay rooted in the spot. Besides that, i was exploring the possibility that it may allow people to exercise while they play the game and in that sense, allow gamers to so stay healthy while they're playing? =P

Another cool techno gadget that i MUST share with everyone is this: PIXELBOTS. They're by far one of the coolest things i've ever set my eyes on. If you ask me, they're like a swarm of robots that have intelligence and they are able to notify you of anything under the sun. AND BEST OF ALL, it can become a moving motion picture at certain intervals! How COOL is that!!! :O I can't even put into words what they are in all accuracy so please watch the video below instead :)

Curious Displays from Julia Tsao on Vimeo.

Internet Security

For this week's class, we were exposed to internet security and one particular useful thing i learnt was how to differentiate between a virus, worm and trojans. So what are the differences??? :O

 Virus:

 A virus:

• a computer program. It's written by some individual or individuals, presumably with the intent of spreading and causing grief.
• makes the infected computer "sick" - in the computer sense, "sick" can mean poor performance, crashes, lost files and data, or more.
• replicates itself - just like you can copy a file from one disk to another, and now have copies on both disks, a computer virus is in part defined by its ability to make copies of itself. Typically the copies aren't on the infected computer, but rather on other computers, which leads us to the last characteristic...
• infects other computers - exactly how depends on the virus, of course, but another key defining point for a computer virus is that it can spread, on its own.

Computer Worm:

A worm:

• a stand-alone program
• can cause a great deal of trouble merely by getting passed from one computer to many others, and can clog up a network very quickly.

Trojan Horse:

A Trojan Horse:

• program that claims to be one thing, but is, in fact, another
• not a virus, per se, but may carry them.  
• For example many people consider Kazaa, the music sharing software, a trojan horse because it carries with it a bunch of spyware. 

So, locally, in Singapore, are companies in Singapore aware about all the cybercrime and stuff related to internet security??? :O

According to an article from CNET news, it states that:

Many organizations are focused on stopping random hackers and blocking pornography when they should be concerned with bigger threats from professional cybercriminals, according to a new cybersecurity report.

to read more: see this link.. http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62060776,00.htm

In short, many companies are misguided with relation to their security. To me, this is a big concern as the focus of companies are misdirected and imagine what cybercriminals are capable of if they know how lax the companies are with their security! Their companies could very much suffer a big loss should they be attacked by cybercriminals.. One can only hope that through news like this, companies would increase their security against potential internet cybercriminals. 

Internet tools

HAPPY CHINESE YEAR EVERYONE!! :)

For this particular blog entry, it's gonna be pretty exciting as i did a video entry of using an internet tool, in specific google maps. And it's even more exciting as i did it while i was on my chinese new year holiday in London! So please watch the video as it took me a while to piece together the pictures and videos i specially took for this video :) 

Before you watch this video, i would like to introduce the google tool which i am exploring so you have more knowledge about this internet tool. So what is Google maps? It is a basic web mapping service application and offers street maps, a route planner for traveling by foot, car, or public transport and an urban business locator for numerous countries around the world. So visually, it looks like the picture below when you type in a destination you would like to get to.. 

The most spectacular feature of google maps that i am very intrigued with is probably the street view.. Google makes use of a car with a camera attached on the top like the one you see here:

By so doing, it allows google maps to show us UP TO DATE (AMAZING ISN"T IT!!! :D) the pictures of the place! The pictures are very clear and allows us, the users to see the place and spot it easier when we look for it ourselves.. Is this tool cool or what!!

NOW, on to the main highlight:

My video on my experience using google maps! Hope you find it fascinating! :)

My experience making this video has indeed been quite a fruitful one as i learned more about how to use google maps and how to use it to enable myself to reach the tube station in the fastest time possible. Moreover, after making this video, i will probably use google tools again if i ever get myself lost! :) One of the best google tools created!!

Power of Internet for Learning

This week's class was on elearning which is the learning using digital tools and content. To bring in a more personal light, it's especially so for me as I am now doing an online course where my professor (MGO 302: Product and Operations Management ) teaches me through videos that she uploads in real time(albeit a bit outdated by a few hours, nonetheless, still very amazing that i can see her teaching even though she is many leagues away from me! :P) and students located in Singapore and London are able to watch her lectures. Personally, i do think this form of teaching is quite effective as she doesn't need to travel to Singapore to teach and YET is still able to teach us! Therefore, instead of having only 500 students from US, she has 200 extra students over singapore! And with the videos, it gives us the students the flexibility to pause and replay whatever material we missed while the lecturer was speaking! Now wouldn't we all wish that we had that in all everyday lessons where we can pause to copy notes and press play when our teachers talk too fast?? :P

HOWEVER(yes yes, there is always a "however" to almost everything!), there are some cons (at least for the students that are not "physically present" in class). For example, i ran into a problem with the videos uploaded. I discovered to my horror that I had been watching videos from last year 's curriculum!!! :( Apparently it was a technical error on the US side but due to the time difference, it took a while to fix (wasting some time on my part!). Besides that, there is always the problem of asking questions through email.. It's just that certain things are really hard to explain through email (especially stuff like diagrams!! OH MY!) and there's always the possibility that the teacher may misinterpret the question asked when trying to figure out what the email was asking.

Despite the pros and cons, i do find overall that im learning a vast amount from the course and im glad that i took up the course in my last semester! Really rewarding experience.. :)

Just a sidenote, i did manage to find out that there are some ways to make elearning more effective for those interested in it:

1) Add a face

Learners are usually reluctant to attend a soft skills training as they tend to think of it as being non-essential, as opposed to technical, work-related training. Already non-motivated, learners will resist a training that is imparted by a faceless, soulless monitor. 

Adding a friendly face to the course material will add a human dimension to the training. Introducing a coach, buddy, or a mentor at the beginning of the course will make it easier for learners to understand the learning objectives. Bringing him/her back at checkpoint and summary screens will be a good idea. Coaches can also help introduce scenarios in the training.

2) Answer WIIFM (What’s in it for me)

The most important question posed by the learners: What’s in it for me? (WIIFM)While most learning objectives address the question in concrete, technical terms, they fail to motivate and convince the learners how the training proposes to benefit them. An instructional designer or content writer should focus on responding to this question in a simple, mentor-like manner, explaining clearly the advantages of the training to the learner. 

3) Present scenarios

A soft skills training cannot be imparted with a series of dos, don’ts, shoulds, and shouldn’ts. A learner will not gain anything from the training unless the training responds to the corresponding whys and why nots. Well-illustrated scenarios can help explain the finer details of the soft skills.

4) Familiar territory

Use characters and situations closer to real life to present scenarios. A thorough audience analysis will help build strong and effective scenarios. Factors such as age, country, ethnicity, language, culture, even attire and food should be taken into consideration while creating scenarios. At times, non-familiarity with the audience could result in a well-meaning scenario giving offense to the learners.

5) Provide online help

This is the toughest challenge and is often not considered because of technical limitations. An always-available guide can help learners extract more from trainings. I am not referring to a physical guide here, but an online repository of information acting as an available facilitator.

Doing business on the internet

This week, we were introduced to the ever so famous term: E-Commerce.. So what exactly is e-commerce??? Well, exactly like how it sounds, it is "the paperless exchange of goods or services through the use of electronic data transfer”.  In the current century, with technology improving and with the increased use of the internet, e-commerce is becoming more and more common for businesses who want to stay current.

Personally, i feel that e-commerce is like a double-edged sword. There are pros and cons to going online to do e-commerce..

 From the web link, http://www.nireland.com/e.commerce/Pros%20and%20Cons.htm, it gives a simple summary of the pros and cons for going into e-commerce.

Pro's and Con's for Businesses

Pro's	Con's
Should increase their market share	Hardware and software are essential and these are big
Enables them to access international markets	Distribution must be very efficient
After they have paid off their capital costs it should increase their productivity	Website site would have to be constantly updates.  Which leads to extra labour costs and training and retraining costs
Enable them to achieve greater economies of scale

Indeed, from my observation of different businesses that were set up online, those businesses that were able to make full use of the internet and were able to market themselves, are able to get the most out of e-commerce. Take for example, Apple. They are currently one of the world's leading mobile devices company.. After watching their video for their latest product I-Pad, im shocked to know that they had just sold their 250 millionth ipod!! And this is partially thanks to their apple website which is easy to use and allows consumers to pick up a product that they like just with a few simple clicks.

This begs the question..in order for your e-commerce to succeed, e-marketing is very important and therefore, how do you make it a success??

According to this website (http://www.emarketingmatador.com/the-4-pillars-of-internet-marketing-success), it states that there are 4 different pillars that are crucial to e-marketing:

1) Good website Design

By having a good website design, it considers what information is presented where and how it is presented. Good Web Design can place focus of the user better, but its primary role is to answer the immediate questions, and get them where they and you both want them to go.

Example of a GOOD website:

• It has a clean look
  
• Appropriate links for users to click on depending on what they want to find out
• THUMBS UP FOR THIS SITE!!! :D
  

Example of a BAD website:

• Links are terribly small, are users supposed to squint their eyes to look for the right links to click!?!?!? Ridiculous!! :(:(
  
• Colors of the background are very jarring and distracting!! :( HORRENDOUS!!
• THUMBS DOWN!! BOO!!! By the time any user finds the correct link, i guarantee you that any person looking at this website will have a SPLITTING HEADACHE (like i did!!!) :S
  

2) Good website Coding

Sites with image map and java script drop down menus miss out on being more attractive to search engines and the result is less inbound traffic from the search engines. This would result in users not being able to find the site!!! Thus, it is crucial that website coding is done well.

3) Drive Relevant Visits

To drive relevant traffic, a business needs to know it audience, where they are online and how to best engage them.  For instance, if you know your audience is interested in "home decorating", are women between the ages of 30 and 60 and reside in the Metro Denver area ( in the case of Windows Dressed Up ), then you could target them with Pay per Click, Online Advertising, Social Media Ads and a few other tactics that allow you to target by demographics and geography.

4) Maximising Conversion Rates

There are 7 simple steps as listed below:

1. Make it easy – Don’t have too many steps to achieve something.  Registration for example should only collect essential info.
2. Keep it simple – Don’t overwhelm people with too many options.
3. Relevant Offerings – If someone is seeking information about cooking, don’t try to push lawn equipment on them.
4. Good Placement – Make offers
5. Clear Calls To Action – Don’t have a button that says "submit".  Make the button have meaning like "Book your package today".
6. If possible, offer things that are unique and valuable, preferably both.
7. Have special or free offer your site audience would really want.  See #6 above.   This is related to nurturing business and something we’ll go into at a later date.

If most e-commerce business were to take into consideration the above few factors, i do believe that any website would be one step closer to becoming an e-commerce website that will succeed.. :)

Social Media Part 2

Continuation of social media!!! :D

Anyway, carrying on from the earlier post i talked about social media, i found it absolutely fascinating the point by our professor on how the television which is one of the traditional media & examples of institutional control, is able to influence people, such as in voting. That really got me thinking as i recalled watching a movie that my UGC 211 professor showed us during class last semester, "Fahrenheit 9/11" where it showed the HUGE INFLUENCE that television has on voting during the elections involving George W. Bush and Al Gore.Indeed, that made me wonder the IMPACT that the television has on the masses. It's able to MANIPULATE and INFLUENCE people to act the way they WANT so much so that it is able to affect people's perspective of the situation.

Below is the video that i found to be relevant to how the news on the television is able to influence the people's opinions during 2000's election in US:


SHOCKING RIGHT!!!! I can't believe the other networks ACTUALLY TRUSTED Fox News without confirming first with concrete evidence that George W. Bush had more votes than Al Gore. Pity really that it became a 'birds flock together mentality'.. :(

Notably, there has been a significant shift though in recent times from the traditional media (e.g. TV, Movies, Radios, Print) to the social media (e.g. Podcasts, Forums, Wikis) and one such example of social media that was most intriguing is probably the podcast..(mostly because i've NEVER used it even though i knew the existence of it!! :P)

The podcast: A collection of digital media files which is distributed over the internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable MP3 players and personal computers.

In order to have a first hand experience on the availability of podcasts to the masses were like, i went to the itunes application store and even discovered an application tool that was created which allows users to view at ease the top 100 podcasts for the day. Indeed, this makes searching for podcasts that other people like really fuss-free.

Im so awed as while trying to find out more about the podcasts on the internet, i discovered that we could actually upload podcasts with blogger!!! Now that is WAYYYY COOL for sure!!! :D Don't know how to? Well, refer to this video for an easy step by step guide as to how to do it.. :)

Social Media Part 1

Today during lesson, we were introduced to social media.. And the one question that will pop inevitably into anyone's mind is.. What is social media about???? :O
So!!! A common definition for social media is: online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. One particular video that i would like to highlight is the video on social networking on cyberspace.. You will wonder.. What am i talking about??

Well... one of the most obvious examples is none other than the popular....


FACEBOOK!!!!!!!
Indeed, facebook is such an important essential part of our lives these days especially because we are so caught up with our own lives that it becomes increasingly difficult to connect with friends in comparison to the past.

Below is a video from Carolyn Kelley Klinger who describes the personal and professional benefits and uses of Facebook. It gives a short and sweet summary of the pros of using such a social network. :)

To sum up from the video, facebook is important as:

1. It provides a chance to connect with people, especially friends all the way back from high school and keep friends updated by changing "status"
   
2. Helps to reinforce our own "brand"
   
3. Can use it professionally for own company, e.g. Society for Technical communication
   

Being a very visual person, i found the bottom visual image quite useful in showing how facebook enables us to use the social media effectively. (click on the image below if it's a little fuzzy, it'll appear clearer that way! :D)

I always find it amazing that how facebook has evolved to becoming more than just a way to add friends that you know.. for example, i once chanced upon the "Marketplace" in facebook and found people giving up their little kittens up for adoption.

In some sense, it's a heartwarming experience seeing how people make good use of social media such as faceboook to look for good homes to adopt the little furry creatures.. :)

History of the internet?!?!??!

You're gonna wonder why i placed a nuclear bomb as the first picture of my blog entry today... HAHA! It's mostly because today i was introduced to the.. *DRUMROLLS!*

HISTORY OF THE INTERNET!!

To me, it's totally MINDBLOWING...almost to the effect of like a nuclear bomb! =O Words can't describe what i was thinking as i did not know there was more to the history of how internet was formed than first meets the eye.. Who would have thought that the history of internet even involved the Soviet Union sending up a satellite into space?!!? You can sort of imagine my surprise when i went to search on the internet and i chanced upon this slightly amusing clip on how the internet started! :D i think it gives quite a humorous perspective to the history! Watch it below!


On to some fun trivia that i learnt in class today:

Did you know how the first mouse for computers look like??

It looked like this!
Okay okay! Just kidding and pulling your leg! WAHAHA! :D it looked actually like this!!!!
Like WHOA, seriously!!! From what i discovered, it's created in 1986, by Apple Macintosh Plus. It's the most basic of mouse which is why it does not have different buttons to left click and right click. What a far cry from how i thought the first mouse would look! It looked more like a box if you ask me!! :P And years later in our current generation:
We see the EVOLUTION of the new mice that currently we all use! The awesome mighty mouse of the century! Indeed, we have improved in technology by leaps and bounds. :) It's amazing how technology has come so far..

First entry and im feeling psyched! :)

WHOO! IM HOOPS & YOYO EXCITED-LICIOUS!!!! :D *beams away!*

It's my first day of COM 125 class & im quite excited seeing how it is: 1st day of school, new classes, new classmates, so forth.. :)

Im thinking of choosing a nice template for my newly created blog(which is also part of COM 125 learning journal but i rather treat it as also a new way of expressing myself on the internet, seeing how as it is, i haven't blogged on my personal blog for quite a long extended period of time! HA! :P)

Just a brief short paragraph on what happened today in class & my thoughts...

Today, we had a brief introduction to COM 125(aka Introduction to internet) & it really gets you thinking about how we're all connected to each other through facebook, messenger, etc & with a click of a button, we can instantly find items pertaining to a search request we type into search toolbars, i.e. google, yahoo.. NOW ISN'T THAT FANTASTIC OR WHAT THAT WE CAN DO SOOOO MUCH WITH THE INTERNET??? :D Besides that, we were introduced to different versions of web browser! Fascinating really!

Melody's "DID YOU KNOW???":
1) there's currently 3 versions of web browers: Web 1.0, web 2.0, web 3.0! (we're currently on web 3.0 and i DIDN'T even know that!)

• Web 1.0: mostly for information sharing, WE are the CONSUMERS

• Web 2.0: content is from us, WE are BOTH CONSUMERS & CONTRIBUTORS => PROSUMER!
• Web 3.0: semantic web, the web is able to have some form of intelligence!!! *shocking right! :P* And it gives advice to us

2)If you noticed, it stops at Web 3.0.. so what will the future be? Will Web 4.0 be even MORE ADVANCED than our current Web 3.0?? :O Only time will tell.....

On the whole, it really gets me thinking... Do we even know what we're really doing when using the internet?

I shall let you readers sit on that thought for now..


Till next time(YES there are many more EXCITING entries to go!!), look forward to my coming entries!!! :D