We are now at the end of the semester, throughout the semester we have covered some interesting elements of the internet. From social media, politics, journalism, internet security, e-commerce to growth mindset. As i was previously a IT student studying internet computing, i wasnt very enthusiastic about the course and was hoping i cld get exemption from it. However, throughout the course it reinforced some of the stuff i had learned in poly and also the changes that had happened since then. In the beginning, it felt like a walk down memory lane and then it truly excites as we all look into the future. From 2001 - 2009, the internet have been through quite alot of innovation. Things was not always this dynamic and interactive and one example is how much social networking sites have grown, from using friendster and myspace in late 2003, other sites like zorpia, now defunct everyonesconnected.com, hi5, buzznet, facebook and twitter sprung out continuously. It looks to be an exciting future ahead with all the innovative gadgets coming out, revolutionising how things are done and what was thought as impossible in the past. we seen a few in the course of our study, like the internet umbrella and six sense technology.





In the end, i tink this course taught us again, theres never things that you can't learn. It showed us new meaning and insights into the technology we used everyday. i tink it become so routine for most of us, it just did not seems so excitable anymore but this course injected some fresh perspective into it. thanks you Mr. choy for not just imparting his knowledge on internet but also incorporating life lessons into it.

lets await what the future holds for humanity

on a lighter note,

So we talked about online journalism or also known as citizen journalism this week. We learned that journalists have lost their monopoly international news and internet have shifted the way who creates, distributes and own the news.

Criticisms about citizen journalism are the challenges adhering to the elements of journalism.

1. journalism first obligation is to the truth
2. its first loyalty is to the citizens
3. its essence is discipline of verification
4. its practitioners must maintain an independence from those they cover
5. it must serve as an independent monitor of power
6. it must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise
7. it must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant
8. it must keep the news comprehensive and proportional
9. its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

Personally, i feel that blogs such as Singapore Enquirer and Wayang Party provide the people with a different perspective and insight into the news portray by the state media. if i dare say, SPH is a new agency managed by our government and news reporting in recent events have shown some slanted views. In general, i take things i read from the media with a pinch of salt and use other sources to see a bigger pictures of an issue. i just wanna say that when the media do not serve as a watch dog for the people, then the people have to judge if the elements of journalism still holds true.

Conventional platform for political campaign have pretty much always been newspapers, television networks and radio programming. In the past decade, politicians are venturing into internet, exploring new ways to reach out to the people. As we had learnt in class, internet is transforming political fund raising, advertising and mobilization.

Speeches and interviews can be viewed anytime on website such as youtube. Political parties are also using websites, blogs and other social media to spread theirs words. The younger generations today generally gathered and consumed much of the information from internet and it is this, that the party are trying to tap into.

This is a survey conducted by the non-partisan Pew Internet & American Life Project.The 2008 survey finds that a record-breaking 46 percent of all Americans have used the internet, e-mail or cell-phone text messaging to participate in the political process.

The survey also shown a surprising 74 % of those surveyed disagreed with the statement that they would not be as involved with the campaign if it weren't for the internet.The researchers feels that age could be the factor that explains that finding. Among the age groups, a larger portion of the younger groups of people tended to agree that the internet is important in helping them to stay active and connected with the campaigns. The survey also finds that Americans are eager to view source materials for themselves -- almost 40 percent of internet users and a third of all adults have gone online to read or watch unfiltered campaign material, such as archived debates, speeches and announcements and position papers.

This really goes to show how much an influence the internet will grow to become. The internet have continue to dominate much of the other traditional media in all aspects. It will be interesting though to see how much our own local political parties will utilize the internet for their own campaigns.

The term Multimedia is used in contrast to media which only utilize traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms. (wiki)

so that the definitions i have gotten off wiki, and when i was still a poly student, i fondly remembered one such earlier creation.

xiao xiao, im sure some of us would remember this.


i was learning streaming media in 2001 and part of the course required me to make simple videos that would stream on a website, such as the one we did for our previous posts. Youtube was not available then, so we had to set up our own server to store the video and other necessary network setting to stream it online. Come to think of it, things are so much easier now for everyone to place their own content online. And much of what we experience online are multimedia content. When i was first beginning to learn HTML, creating simple things like mouseover images and cursor animations was a BIG deal. Then dreamweaver made it easier with a graphical UI and Flash allow more dynamic features that HTML couldnt support. these days, website are so much more dynamic and interactive with some features i did not think was possible or too much of a hassle to try back then.

Here a portable way to view multimedia content anytime, anywhere. Try not to do it while walking tho.

Google the words "internet security" and you will get about 134 million web links. The words "anti virus" will fetch about another 283 million hits. well what i am trying to say is, computer security is a BIG, MASSIVE business. This pie will only get bigger as more and more people get connected onto the information highway.


get the picture!

The internet has almost anything that you can think of and of course, people will ill intent will try to exploit this wonder invention. Here are some of the known risks involved whenever u get connected onto the internet or plug some thumbdrive, disc, diskette(old skool) into your computer:

• virus
• worms
• trojan
• spamware
• spyware
• malware
  
• phishing

Most of these can be prevented with a good computer security suites and with a little extra care, you can probably have a problem free hardware. if you do your research on security softwares out there, you might find that those off the shelf names that we are familiar with, arent exactly the best. Well, frankly, even if you search for those "respectable" names in computer security on torrent tracking sites. It too, will make you wonder just how secure can your computer be because if the brand new top of the line software that were supposed to protect your system can be hack, really just what is preventing someone from taking over your system.

Maybe it wouldnt be too far away from the threat of cyber-terrorism to be real.


This the trailer of the movie "eagle eye", a preview to how cyber-terrorism can happen.

Here is an attempt on stop motion animation. This was produced last semester with my group for the Advertising module. It was hell lot of fun - spent the whole day snapping photos and then editing the pictures.



Since we had to post a home made video this week, it reminded me of another "home made" video. It's really cool but it turns out to be a viral marketing video for Guitar Heroes 3: World Tour.

This week, we talked about the growth mindset in class. It looks a very powerful tool that can change our life. The whole emphasis is on the process rather than the outcome. I'm sure most of us can recall the times when our parents asked us about our exam results and whether we won the game/tournament/contest we participated. It is definitely the case for me because they never asked if i had learned anything or did i had fun, mostly i believe it have to do with the Singaporean mentality and my family background.

You see, both my folks had humble beginning, they worked hard to put my brother and me through tertiary education and all they want is for us to get a good certificate, thus live a better life than them. It is so competitive in Singapore that a diploma doesnt seems adequate enough to hold a well-paying job, even the market now are saturated with degree holders.

I believe this is why most parents(at least mine) focus on the outcome rather the process. Losing/failing is a bad thing, even when learning something from the experience it is stilled viewed as a failure. I guess they had forgotten about the Chinese proverb,

There is just so much good stuff about this growth mindset that i am wondering what the hell the people in MOE are doing. I mean someone has got to get hold of this and start it in our schools immediately! I tried looking for the cons/disadvantages of growth mindset, either i am looking at the wrong place or there's just isnt any or no one had conducted any research about it yet. For something that can be taught in one workshop, it really sound like a perfect concept that might finally just result in an ideal world (wishful thinking, maybe) but i think they should put a whole town on trial and see what it does to the whole community.

This picture shows the different in the thought process of the different mindsets.