DEAR DUMB DIARY
12:42 PM
Today, we were introduced to a new website, Wetpaint. It is just like Wikipedia, meaning anyone is able to edit it. Our website is
http://eir-rawkz.wetpaint.comIt is frustrating when many people just post their stuff up on it, when some of them do not even realise that certain content is already up there or that they do not even bother to try merging it together. The worse part is when they copy and paste the information right straight from the other internet resources. The entire website just looks distorted, and someone has to merge everything together. I still wonder how Wikipedia is able to do that, making everything in one page look so harmonized when many different people is able to edit it.
4:21 PM
We had the second class test today and this time, my marks had improved!!! We also had a lesson about Youtube, like how it can educate or entertain us. Videos are definitely very interactive towards us, hence affecting our lives greatly. Our lecturer showed us a video of an Elvis Presley song, Return to Sender. Honestly, I couldn't tell that it was Elvis Presley, because my impression of Elvis Presley is a big guy in a white suit with curly hair. Like my lecturer, I cannot live without Youtube, it's entertaining and yet educational.
Youtube is free, hence, attracting people from all around the world. Some people do get famous just by posting their own videos on Youtube, for example, Ryan Higa. One of my favourite videos by him is this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wXFCPUlGYEMPicture taken from:
http://www.tigerx.com/people/presley.htm
9:38 AM
This entry will be a compilation of reflections of November 3 and 4.
I've realised that evaluating a website isn't just about the content, layout and usability. It has many other things to look out for as well. Based on the evaluation list from lecture.
1) Presentation/Layout
2) Accuracy
3) Usability
4) Authority
5) Coverage
6) Purpose
7) Accessibility
Taken from:
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-191501770-venice_vacations-iMy dream holiday is definitely going to be Venice, Italy. It has a strong historical background and many beautiful architectures. Since I've studied in Diploma in Environment Design, which is about landscape architecture, Venice would be definitely on the top of my list and who wouldn't want to visit such a unique city before it sinks. Every year, the city's water level rises and soon it will sink away with the history and the art pieces as well. Venice has architecture of the Baroque style and is a very romantic place for many couples.
The website I chose to evaluate on is from Yahoo! Travel. It has quite a disorganized layout presentation as it has some distracting advertisements advertising on Venice Hotels Deals, Flight Deals and Vacation Package Deals. It has many links to enhance the coverage, however it makes it very messy for the viewer. Base on the content given, it is very relevant and detailed, a list of popular attractions and hotels in Venice is available at the bottom of the website. However, it should be placed above the deals to allow the viewer to find out what he/she can find in Venice, rather than looking at the deals available first. There is even a map of Venice to show where the popular attractions, hotels and restaurants are.
As for currency, the website is definitely up to date, as they need to find out Today's Best Deals for the customers. The website is easily accessible without going through resgistrations or keying in of passwords to find out more about the city. Reviews are given by people who have been to the city, and the website is under Yahoo, which makes it reliable. Overall, the website has fulfilled its purpose in promoting Venice, but not in promoting its promotion deals.
1:35 PM
Today was the class test, and I'm just glad that I've passed. Although I've just passed, I could learn from the mistakes I made and do better for my next class test!
It was also fun watching the youtube videos and visiting
TalkingCock.com, and discussing over Singaporean issues. The website is most definitely interactive as it is orientated towards the locals, and through humour that is catered for Singaporeans. It is most definitely sustainable, unless if the government decides to ban it, which is quite impossible. However, I am sure the government understands that it is just a website for entertainment and allows fellow Singaporeans to interact and at the same time, allowing the government to understand the locals better.
For this practical, I was in the Prime Minister group. It was tough to think as a Prime Minister, because not everyone can be one. However, we had some fun participating in the role plays and the practical allowed us to interact more as a class.
9:32 AM
Today I've learnt some extremely cool websites called invisible web gateways, such as Academic Gateway and The Complete Planet. However, I don't find it very user friendly and the results I get are very few and irrelevant.
Whereas, the Temasek Polytechnic's E-books database ITPRO and the TP Digital Library Portal Research Gateway are definitely very helpful and I would definitely use them for research for my future projects. Although the ITPRO has much lesser hits than the typical search engine, it allows you to view the books entirely as TP has already bought the license.
The ITPRO allows me to view different chapters of the book easily, without starting from the first page and scrolling down all the way down to the page I would like to view like PDFs.
The TP Digital Library Portal gives much lesser hits but relevant results.
Similarly to the ITPRO, it allows me to view the entire text, however it does not give a clear heading to the chapters. Hence, I have to scan through the entire text like PDFs to find the relevant information I require. Overall, both ITPRO and the Digital Library Portal gives very few results as well, but relevant and detailed.
I've posted a reply to the discussion forum a few days ago, and today I've got another reply! This time, the person really helped me a lot by explaining certain things to me clearly. Now, I'm just at loss on how to reply and continue the discussion.
2:36 PM
A reply at the forum! That one reply helped me a lot by providing the right information and statisics on the robots being created for different purposes.
Quoted from the article, "First, industrial robots: there are now nearly 1 million units toiling in factories around the world. As for service robots -- which range from military bomb-disposal bots to home vacuum cleaners -- their number grew to about 5.5 million. All of which brings the world's robot population to 6.5 million."
Normally, people would feel nervous or awkward talking to strangers online or even real life. At the forum, I was just a beginner, and it was tough discussing to professionals without researching beforehand. It was definitely challenging for me as to how to reply to the posts. I thought at discussion forums, they speak formally, however, most of the time it's casual yet professionally done. They do credit the authors by doing citations, stating the website they quoted from, which makes it very professionally done and that's something I've learnt today.
10:59 AM
On Monday was Deepavali, but we were to stay home and complete our E-Learning, which was to participate in a discussion which marks as our attendance. It made me interact more with the classmates and find out more on what I was missing out in class. Most of the classmates find Google Scholar much better than Google, but I on the other hand, would prefer Yahoo and Google because of its wide range of results.
Personally, I would choose Metacrawler over Google Scholar because Google Scholar gives very limited variety of internet resources. I prefer Metacrawler as it picks out the best results from the popular search engines like Yahoo, Google and MSN. It also provides more variety of internet resources. However, due to the course I am in, most information that we require are usually found in books, as visuals are required to support on what we read. The other common website that I use with my coursemates is Google Earth, as we are required to do site analysis, meaning to analyse the surroundings of the site as well.
Today, I manage to find an online discussion forum related to my topic. As my topic is "Discuss the role of robots in society", I participated in an online discussion forum on robots. After a long search, I've finally found a forum that is active. My user is robotsnoob and here is the link:
http://www.robotspodcast.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=195Right now, I just wish for at least a reply as soon as possible.
We had the second class test today and this time, my marks had improved!!! We also had a lesson about Youtube, like how it can educate or entertain us. Videos are definitely very interactive towards us, hence affecting our lives greatly. Our lecturer showed us a video of an Elvis Presley song, Return to Sender. Honestly, I couldn't tell that it was Elvis Presley, because my impression of Elvis Presley is a big guy in a white suit with curly hair. Like my lecturer, I cannot live without Youtube, it's entertaining and yet educational.
