Murderer

haizzz..... since ue always wanted me to blog..i shall blog ONCE for her la...

ue PLS DON'T ASK ME TO BLOG la ha..

hmm... wat should i blog???

ok, lets start from the morning dunno wat time when i was still sleeping probably having my nice dream.... there's a gal (my sis la) wake up early suddenly stand next to me and said:

eh fang3.. look3 faster wake up n see.. then i open my eyes n saw a ring then later on she ask me see again.. this time she's wearing a bracelet..after tat i just suddenly felt awake..

u noe wat so special abt the ring n bracelet tat made me awake??

haha...come3 let me show u

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keep going

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come la

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going to reach edi

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here it is la

this the ring!!

this is the bracelet!!

this the way she's wearing it

i think u all feel weird right how come my house got these kiddy things

these are things tat me n my sis will kept after eating HAPPY MEAL

yea it's happy meal...hehe

later on something happen after our breakfast......

i tot wanna give the remote control to my sis n stand up but..

suddenly my sis hit me...i dunno how she hit me but i think she actually..

THROW the remote control at MY HEAD...

and then my sis is laughing there n said sorry i dunno y u give me the remote control so i tot wanna give u back but.. sorry

it's actually quite pain lo

it's like somebody hits u with a beer bottle lo

isshh.... so bad luck la..

end story la..haha

caMeroN HighLanDs TriP

haven't been to cameron for like 10 yrs..the last time v went there, he was still here ;(
the tortuous mountain path is making me feeling so dizzzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyy and feel like puking lo! dad scared i will really puke so he stop by this place...

A WATERFALL

din plan to take any photos for this trip... luckily i still have a good camera phone...the water is clear n so cooling>continue the turning n twisting mountain path> after god knows how long was the jam> finally reached our destination>BERINCHANG> had lunch and took our apartment keys. the apartment wasnt that bad, thanks to Eric! tht WF lazy to bring Wii, so boring la, camerons really nothing much to do lo>> ppl only go cameron n sleep lo... tht's wat me n WF did for the half day..

Reflections

When I first got the assignment, I wasn’t excited at all as my other classmates are all discussing about it.

I do blog, but I never blog with any blog community before. Blogging wasn’t as easy as I thought of. Moreover, the blogging topic, publishing issues is not a simple topic to discuss on. Although it’s tough, but somehow I think I got my way out. I gained a lot of skills while completing this assignment.
The “Skills”
My most interesting experience was to upload a profile photo on to my blog. This is the first I read at all the instructions given to upload the photo as I do not have knowledge on how to make the photo into a URL. At first, I was struggling to upload the photo because the URL doesn’t work but still I get to solve the problem with some of my patients (actually I m quite frustrated).

Others skills that I learned are like designing the layout, techniques on how to write for web, adding hyperlinks, uploading photos and etc.

The readings on designing web and writing for web are quite helpful as I realized the importance of these techniques and guidelines while doing the assignment.

Overall, I enjoyed doing this assignment and I will continue blogging after this assignment. I am used to blogging with friendster blog and as a first-timer blogger blogging on blogspot, I am quite satisfied with the blog.

Speak Freely on the Net?

Every year, there are numerous debates debating over freedom of speech online. Is there really freedom to speak or write whatever we want on the internet?

Internet or blogs introduced the idea of “uncensored and borderless world”. With internet, everyone in the world regardless of citizenship, race, culture, gender, age and etc can say anything online freely. This was the “ideal” idea that was introduced. But in reality, are such practices practiced online? If there is freedom online, why are authorities of the world still making up laws to protect freedom of speech online?

We can have complete freedom while blogging online, but issues like credibility, privacy may occur. According to Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), anyone has the rights to blog anonymously and to keep sources confidential. If everyone was to blog anonymously and keeps all sources confidential, there is no credibility at all. No one would use work that is written by “unknown” writer. Moreover, there is no trace of sources. Nielsen (2006) is very important web users. He stated it is crucial to use outbound and hypertext links for users to obtain more related information and also check the path and credibility of the materials used.

We can have certain level of freedom, but we cannot have complete freedom. If we have complete freedom on the internet, more issues and problems will occur. We cannot be to extreme! Governments and watchdogs are still needed to gatekeep contents posted on the net.

Readings and References:

Help us Protect Freedom Online! [Online, accessed 5 June 2007]
URL: >http://www.eff.org/br/

Nielson, J. Writing for the Web (9 parts) [Online, accessed 4 May 2007]
URL: http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/

What is Freedom of Speech Online? [Online, accessed 5 June 2007]
URL: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jmrobins/milieux/index2.html

The Power of Blogs

As we all know, media is a very powerful tool in educating people and instilling new thinking. Blog communities are growing rapidly. Every second, there for blogs registered. Blogs is an alternative channel to disseminate messages.

With blogs and internet, almost every thing is possible. Just a click on the mouse and a search engine, users can get information about every thing. The speed and the amount of information that users get through internet are much better than the conventional ones. Take an example, the VirginiaTech gunshot incident; information on the incident was so vast where just a Virginia word typed in the search engine, the results was shocking!

Talking about the power of blogging, it is so overwhelming. Take an example -- Apple's market cap to plummet by US$4 billion in the span of just a few minutes just because of news posted on a blog.

In the entertainment industry, blogs are very powerful too. Karen Kong, one of Malaysia’s most popular singers, got a recording contract because of her blog. She like other ordinary girl who loves to blog and just within days, her blog was visited by hundred thousands of people.

Looked at the examples that I listed? We cannot underestimate the power of blogs!!!

Readings and References:

Cechols, 2007, The Power of Blogging: $4 million in 6 minuites? [Online, accessed 7 June 2007]
URL: http://9rules.com/apple/notes/3963/

Cechols, 2007, EctoTechnica: Behold! The Power of Blogging [Online, accessed 7 June 2007]
URL: http://www.ectotechnica.com/?p=360

Nolan, C. 2005, Blogs' Power Stretches Far Beyond Politics [Online, accessed 7 "June 2007]
URL: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1748637,00.asp

Online Games SHOULD be RATED too?!

Movies are rated; people aged below 18 are restricted from movies that includes elements of violence, sex and others. But on the other hand, online games are not controlled; almost all online games that comprise of restricted elements are not rated.

Only if a person is willing to spend money in the cyber café, one would have access to any types of online games they like. According to a Top 10 online games ratings done by GameOrge, half or more of these 10 games comprise elements of killings, gun shots, fightings and other violent elements. Some games promote unhealthy habits like gambling, smoking, consuming drugs and etc. In the article, the writer interviewed some younger children and one of them is only at primary level. They spend seven to eight hours a day on online games and at times cyber café is like their home, they eat, sleep, rest there and sometimes eat in front of the computer while playing game.

Authorities of several countries are paying close attention on this issue. In countries like Japan and Korea, the governments implemented policies on how to rate online games. An implication that I personally find quite interesting and effective: in Mainland, China, time- detector is installed into every computer at cyber cafes. If a player played more than three hours, one will lose half of the game assets and will lose all if played more than five hours.

Online games should be rated because not all games are suitable for all levels of people especially the younger generation/ children. Cultural and situational contexts (Schirato & Yell, 1996) combined to produce online games will shape the audience. Children are too young and they do not have the ability to judge what games are suitable for them. Therefore, parents as well as the authority should cooperate to prevent the younger generation to be influence by online games that instills negative portrayals.

Readings and References:

A Chinese News Clipping, taken from TVBS News, Taiwan website [Online, accessed 4 June 2007]
URL: http://www.tvbs.com.tw/NEWS/NEWS_LIST.asp?no=sunkiss20070531193204

About.com: Family Internet: Online Games Aren’t Rated [Online, accessed 4 May 2007]
URL:

Keith, K.L., About.com: Parenting of K-6 Children: Online Games for Kids [Online, accessed 4 May 2007]
URL: http://childparenting.about.com/od/kidswebsites/a/onlinekidsgames.htm

Schirato, T. & Yell, S. 1996, Chapter 5: Framing contexts, Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards NSW, p.90-117

Old Media to New Media; which is better?

Stephen Shepard’s piece of work discussed the issue of the conventional media changing to the new media – going online as well as cell phones. In addition, he also argued the pros and cons of the issue of old media moving to the new media.

With the advancement of technology, more and more people have access to internet. In order to gain more readership or viewership, media owners, especially the print media are following the trend where they are evolving and changing genres from the conventional form to the electronic form.

With electronic devices, media workers emphasize on multimodality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). Other than texts, there are also images, videos, sound effects, music and etc. All these elements add liveliness and interactivity to the audience. On internet, media workers use intratextuality and intertextuality (Walsh, 2006 p25) to let readers fill in the gaps and allowed readers to hyperlink to other similar and related sites (Schirato & Yell, 1996 p110).

I agree with Shepard (2005) that old and new media each have their advantages and disadvantages. Some form of writings especially lengthy ones can’t work well in electronic devices. Users tend to scan texts when reading on screens because reading on screens is 25 per cent slower than reading on paper (Nielsen, 2006).

As long as media workers fulfill the audience’s demand and at the same time, messages are carried out effectively with high quality, it doesn’t matter what forms are used (whether it is the old media or the new ones)!

References:

Kress, G., van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd ed.) Routledge, London

Nielson, J. Writing for the Web (9 parts) [Online, accessed 4 May 2007]
URL: http://www.sun.com/980713/webwriting/

Shepard, S. 2005, New Media vs. Old - A False Dichotomy [Online, accessed 5 May 2007]
URL: http://www.sajaconvention.org/2005/06/stephen_shepard.html

Schirato, T. & Yell, S. 1996, Chapter 5: Framing contexts, Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards NSW, p.90-117

Walsh, M. 2006, ‘“Textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian journal of language and literacy, Vol 29 No 1, pp 24-37