Currently a final year ITO student from Temasek Polytechnic. Enjoy photography, travelling, designing website, cycling and blogging. Aims to try my best in everything I do. One of my favourite quotes: "Everyone wants to ride with you in a limo, but what you need is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." Love people who are kind, smart and hard-working. Hate hypocrites. New York Times
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Ms Farida
Mei Fong
Shabab
Lokman
Yuan Jie



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Shi Hui's site feed

Chun Hui's site feed

May 2008

Time really flies; it now comes to the end of UIR lessons, or rather the end of this block. It seems like yesterday when we just started having our very first lesson for this block. Sadly, every journey has an ending. Forgive me for saying all these emo words right now…cos I am very emo now. One of my favorite quotes saying, “Some people come and go quickly; some stay for a while and leave their footprints on our heart, and we are never the same.” This applies to many parts of our life, and of course, it applies to UIR too. Example 1, some of my group mates, come then goes quickly and quietly. Example 2, through the process of the UIR learning journey, I have changed along the way. Though it’s only a few weeks time, UIR has taught me a lot in doing research. For example, in the past, I would just copy and paste the whole chunk of words into the search textbox to do my research. Now, I am able to apply the knowledge in doing the research online more effectively, efficiently and professionally. First thing is to identify the keywords. Then apply other knowledge. However, though I have already know how to use the Boolean operators like AND , OR, * and others in the past, I did not use them to do my research at all. I don’t know why, maybe too lazy. But this time, because of UIR, I have been applying it in doing my other research subjects most of the times. I am just glad that UIR has changed me for the better.

I guess every UIR lesson is important, because all the lessons are linked together and they all come back to the same purpose – Using Internet as a Research Tool. However, there are two lessons that left the deep impressions on me. One of them is teaching us how to evaluate a resource website, another one is the introduction of different search facilities. These two has greatly helped me a lot in my learning journey and for sure those who like me took UIR will benefit tremendously in the future.

Evaluating a website makes me realize a website is not just a simple website. What do I mean by that? Well, a website may contain different purposes. For example, education or entertainment. A website’s authority is important too, because it tells you whether the website contains any biasness. Thus tells us the reliability of the website. And there are also other factors such as Accuracy, Currency, Accessibility, Usability, Presentation and Arrangement and finally the Overall factor. Therefore, it is very important for us to evaluate the website before using its contents.

The introduction of search facilities is the one that makes me go ‘Wow’. Because since the first time I do research online, I only know and use Google and Yahoo searches. Yap..I agree I a bit lagging behind with the technologies in the world. However, now, after going through UIR, I make friends with MetaCrawler, Galaxy, Yahoo!Directory, Clusty(formally known as Vivisimo) and etc. Indeed, internet has provide us a vast pool of many useful tools and innovations to make our life better.

Through UIR lessons, I have also acquired knowledge of my research topic, “Discuss the development of AIDS research”. Other than the research part, I also have deeper understanding about AIDS.

Last but not the least, UIR has been fun, enjoyable and fulfilling for me. And thanks to the friendly Ms. Farida for the guidance and all that for making UIR so happening.

This week is e-learning week. All we need to do is to submit an entry about the research on out individual topics and submit it to Wiki. It's very similar to the one I used for BSIT subject. Okay, There are quite a number of resources I came across, but there is one that give me an overall research developement of AIDS. After reading through the PDH file, I gain better understanding about the developement of AIDs research. I came across with HARRT, it is a kind of treaatement that is used to treat the AIDS infections, but this does not fully cure the patients, it only helps them to live longer. Also, I realized that most infections do not died from the AIDS virus but actually other problems such as kidney failure. Lastly, the research for a cure for AIDS infections continues, at the same time, the findings also helps treat other chronic disease patients.

Resource used:

National Institute of Health, USA. (2006, October). “Fact sheets - HIV/AIDS”. Retrieved May 21, 2008, from World Wide Web: http://www.nih.gov/about/researchresultsforthepublic/HIV-AIDS.pdf


Evaluation of the resource

I think this site is a trustful website as it is a government founded website. The contents are reliable, because its main purpose is to provide education and research information for the public. Thus, the information on the website is mainly facts or research findings. It allows me to gain insights easily on the subject by categorizing the different parts of the topic.

Their focus audience are the public and the researchers. Publics like me can gain a better understanding about the subject. And at the same time, they are also working on the research area, thus they also provide very useful and professional information for the researchers around the world.

All in all, the website is well-arranged; contents provided are easy to understand way and it provide ease of navigation. At the same time, I trust the information on the website as it does not contain any biasness.


Today, had the 1st class test. Did pretty well but could actually done better. There was one careless mistake. The question was asking 'is/are not' but I read it as 'is/are'. Lol...Never mind. It's over.

After the test, we were introduced to the "TalkingCock" website. Initially, I wasn't paying attention, thus i had no idea about what was i suppose to say/do. My group was supposed to present the Singaporean's view of the website. After the presentation, I finally understands what was i supposed to do. Lol... Okay, let me now share my views on the website.

Basically, I think it's quite humourous and interesting. Singaporeans have always been labeled as 'obedient citizens'. This website depicts another side of Singaporeans. It allows them to voice out their thoughts and views about news or regulations in Singapore like the increasing taxi fare and etc, in a humorous way. Previously, we used to have speaking corners but some super funny thing happened later..

Years ago, Singapore opened Speaker's Corner in a city park, indicating a willingness to promote free speech. However, people who wish to speak at the corner must first register at a police station and topics that could inflame religious or racial hostility are avoided. After an initial flurry of interest, Singapore's Speaker's Corner has now closed down. Why? ... What's the definition of free speech? Why should speakers register at a police station before that? I guess nobody likes to go to the police station. It just make people feel that they have done something illegal.

I remember there was a website opened up for people to discuss issues happening in Singapore. But was closed down soon after its opening. Why? Because goverment immediately posed rules on the flow of information online.

Was wondering who are the people behind the 'TalkingCock' website..Check out here

Start laughing...hahah.

Evaluation of the website

Purpose:
Introduced in 2000, it promotes free speeches in Singapore by presenting it in a humourous way. A satirical feature site for Singaporeans, i.e. write articles which poke fun at local events and happenings. Build a community of Singaporeans with a sense of humour and who enjoy life in all its complexity.

Authority:
Introduced in 2000. Consist a bunch of Singaporeans from diverse occupations: we have journalists, cartoonists, writers (a few award-winning ones), scriptwriters, playwrights, teacher, lawyers and doctors. TalkingCock is clearly NOT a political website (i.e. it has no political agenda of its own) but a satirical one, i.e. it engages in social comment through the use of biting humour. Provides discussion forum for readers to participate to make fun of the local happenings

Coverage:
TalkingCord provides a wide coverage of humorous information from the different areas such as Politics, Arts and Business. It also provide columns for users to post their fun articals to be shared with viewers.

Accuracy:
This website promotes free speeches in a humorous way. It is a form of entertainment for people around the world. Thus information need not be correct but have to be fun.The information on the website are mainly jokes and individual opinions. Therefore, the contents are not reliable.

Currency:
The website provides up-to-date articles that happens around us recently.

Assessibility:
Users need to register to be come a member of the site in order to post articles on the website. Members need to accept their certain disclaimers before posting. Information on the website is assessible by everyone.

Usability:
The website is very clean and clear with the white as the background colour. Navigation schemes are very easy to use. Articles re group into similar or same categories for better organizations.

Presentation and Arrangement:
The information on the website is clearly and consistently arranges. Search features are provided for user to search for particular topics or articles

Overall:
This website provides ease of navigation through out the website. Colour schema is cleam and clear. It is a entertainment webiste that mainly provides current news or happenings in singapore in a humourous way to make people enjoy and laugh. Thus, information are mostly individual opinions and not reliable.



Today, the lesson ended quite late. There were some important stuffs we need to know for the Portfolio. First of all, we were lucky to have a look at the works done by the previous 'A' graders (6 pointers). I can only say, they really did a great job! Now I also have an idea about what to present in the portfolio. Hope i can also do something that can make myself go "wow!". Haha.

During the lesson, we were taught about the different types of research facilities. Now, let me briefly describe some of the characteristics of the facilties:

• Search engnes: uses software to automatically generate the results for the users based on the search keywords. It sifts through millions of web pages recorded in the index to find the matches to the search term. Examples, the famous Google, and Altavista.
  
  
• Meta Search engines: also known as the multi-search or metacrawler search. It does not have its database. Basically, it transmit the search term to the other search engines to look for the results. Examples, like Clusty (also known as Vivisimo) and MetaCrawler
  
  
• Subject-based Directory: Usually contains specific subject focus. Subjects are listed in a hierachy manner. Topics are ranged from the more general ones to the more specific ones. I think this search facility is helpful if we have an idea about the background information of a subject. Examples, like Yahoo! Directory and Galaxy.
  

Now, we know that other than the well-known Google and Yahoo, there are a lot of other search facilities that can help us do our research more effectively (the required information) and efficiently(the speed of the search).

During this lesson, I also learn about using the right keywords to do research. In the past, I would just put the whole sentence to do research. The results.... Well, as you guess, it return a whole chunk of results with most of them not related to my topic.

My research topic for UIR is "Discuss the development of AIDS research"

The main keywords I need to have are: development, AIDS and research

search query used: (Development OR Advancement) AND (AIDS OR HIV) AND (Research OR Study)

We also learnt about boolean operators such as 'AND' and 'OR' which makes me think of Maths. AIDS AND research will return me the results that contain both AIDS and research. research OR study will return me the results that contain either research or study, but not both. There are also other operators like *, AND NOT and (keywords).

After learning these techniques, we are required to start preparing our Portfolio. Basically, I haven't start my research. Feeling a bit guilty, think I should really start putting my hands on my research topic now. Well, maybe tomorrow..hehe.. cos it's time for me to watch my favourite show now.

Quote to share:

"There is never an end till your last breath… Believe in yourself and keep Trying!"


There are too many heart-breaking news recently, which convince me that the world is really going crazy:

• The 7.8 magnitude earthquate in Sichung, China. An estimated of 65,000 people already dead.
• The cyclone in Myammar raised the death toll to 43,318, with nearly 28,000 still missing.
• The soaring rice price due to the lower agricultural production.

Any piece of the news makes me depressed and wonder what's the world going on. Anyway, Let me take a short break from all these now. It's time to think about my dream travel destination.

There are many places I would like to visit. But France is the one that makes me go "wow". This is one of the reasons that I took up French Language as one of my CDS subject last year. I am just waiting for the right time to do the right thing. Haha..

I remember during my French language project, I had the chance to browse through some of the 'Travel in France' websites. And I am mesmerised by the beauty of France.

According to one of my friends who went to Paris last year and information I gathered from the internet, the following are some of the "must-go" places in France...




The Eiffel Tower is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the Seine River in Paris. The tower has become a global symbol of France and is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris. More than 200,000,000 have visited the tower since its construction in 1889, including 6,719,200 in 2006, making it the most visited paid monument in the world. Including the 24 m (79 ft) antenna, the structure is 325 m (1,063 ft) high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.

The Louvre Museum in Paris is the largest, oldest and most well known museum in the France. Even those not interested in art cannot help but admire the magnificent building of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Originally built as a military fortress in the 13th Century, the Lourve Museum was a royal palace for several years during the 16th century before becoming a museum in 1793.

The Notre Dame Cathedral is located at the eastern part of the Île de la Cité in Paris, and has a Gothic style which is considered the finest example of this kind of architecture, is one of the most visited attractions in this city and is still used as a Roman Catholic cathedral.


Other than exploring the stereotype image of Paris, I would also love to spend my times at the countryside of France, experience the lifestyle and taste the essence of la vie française


I have to stress this -- French Wine (cos it was the French project topic I did last year, thus a bit of wine information taken from my project)

France is one of the oldest wine producing countries in the world. The classification and variety of the wine is complex because of the diversity of wines in France.

French wine is the number one choice for wine enthusiasts.

Do you know?

Franch wine is named by the region it comes from. Thus, only sparkling wine that comes from the region of Champagne can be use the patent name of Champagne

Burgundy (Wine region) is the home to some of the most expensive wines in the world.

Some of the information are taken from the following website
http://www.justfrance.org

Evaluation of the travel website

Purpose:
A well-known world travel guide, provides detailed travel information for over 90 countries worlwide to consumers and license content to third party sites including:
Greece | England | Spain | Italy | Germany | France | Portugal | Russia | Japan | China | India | Thailand California | Florida | Canada | Australia | Peru | Mexico | Argentina | Cuba | Brazil | Kenya | Egypt | Turkey
also they supply many top-ranking travel companies in the world with destination information for their public websites as well as many smaller travel and property websites. In addition, they also produce a unique World Airport Guide, a Resort/Ski Guide, a World Cruise and Port Guide and Attraction Guide.

Coverage
This website provides a wide converage of informtion about France
Information of many hot destinations in France are provided for users to browse, such as Paris, Cannes, Bordeaux, Nice and etc. Maps are also provided for users. Visa application, hotel, flights, transport information, french culture, french food and drink, french language and french business. In addition, they also provide information of other countries.

Authority
This website has affiliations to the many companies such as Hotel.com. Since there are so many affiliations, it is an authoritative website. The team consist of in-house editors and international network of multilingual freelance journalists and travel writers have been able to create travel guides specifically for this online environment. Moreover, since the website has been in service for more than 27 years and it is very well-known in its industry, thus the reputation is verified.

Accuracy
Since the website provides travel information for over 90 countries worldwide for online users and top ranking travel companies, the information on the website must be very accurate. In addition, it also links to many other well-known travel -related partners, therefore the information on the website has to be accurate. There are also no grammar or spelling mistakes in the content

Currency
The information on the website is up-to-date. The website updates the information on the website on a regular basis. Moreover, specific dates for each festivals in France is reliable. The information for activities in France has to be current so customers can enjoy the holiday there without too much fuss. Also, since it provides detail information for many travel companies, it is essential that the information on the website is current.

Accessibility
This website is accessible as it does not required any registration to access the information online, so there is no cookies or bookmarks.

Usability
The website is user-friendly and intuitive. The topics are properly arranged into categories, thus users can locate their desire information easily. Also, this website provides links to other useful websites, for example, users can book air-ticket online conveniently without the need to check out a flight company again.

Presentation and Arrangement
There is an appropriate arragement of photos and texts. Photos are placed according with the information. The background colour (white) matches with the all the images and texts colours.


Overall
This website is very useful for travellers who intent to visit France. Very comprehensive information about France, from dinning to accomodation to sir-ticket and etc...Basically, users can find everything they need for their holiday in France. Also, they provide up-to-date information of the festivals, activities and special events. Thus, i believe, the aim and purpose of the website has achieved.





Lecture 3 taught us about the purposes of internet resources and also compare the differences of these purposes. This is something new to me...Anyway, let me conclude what I have learnt in this lecture.

Purposes of internet resources:

• information: provide facts
  
• advocacy: influence public opinion
  
• business/marketing:promote product or service
  
• news: provide information on current events
  
• personal: provide personal information
  
• entertainment:provide enjoyment
  

Explainations and examples of each purposes were given. In particular, advocacy website made me a bit depressed and worried for the readers especially the younger groups who can be easily influenced. I guess it's important for us to stay neutral and be open-minded.

During this lesson, I also have a better idea about Site Feed. A site feed is a standard for receiving updates from your friends' website. It makes reviewing a large amount of website in a very short time because not everything on the website are loaded. This means, you won't get to see the design or layout of your friend's website(only white and black background). But all the updated information are available on the website. Actually RSS, Atom, XML all work in the same way and called a "site feed".





Pactical 3 ended relatively early as compared to the previous lessons. Ms Farida briefed us through the tasks we need to do for the practical. After that, I went through the lecture slides and concluded the learning points for practical 3.

WWW Sites can basically be categorized into the following 3 groups:

• Organisational:
  

a clloection of www pages which are created and maintained by a particular organisation, contains extensive materials on the subject, provide links to other related sited and services. E.g.: www.aids.org

• Personal

Maintained by an individual, usually relates to personal interests, can also be part of a organisational page. E.g.: www.drday.com

• Subject-based
  

Have a clear subject focus. Overlap between organisational sites and the personal sites . E.g.: www.medguide.org.zm/aids/aids.htm

We also learnt some techniques about citation in this lesson. Though I have learnt citation in CMSK, I have forgotten most of them...Oops... So, it's like a revision to me, helping me to refresh my memory back...

wow, as I just mentioned in My Self-Introduction post, I have been longing to buy a new camera. After reading through the reviews posted by the users, I found this camera very attractive. Basically it meets all my needs and the price is affordable.

• This bag is for my cousin who is going to Hong Kong next month. Hope she will enjoy her trip there.
  
  
• It is big enough for hand carry. Can put many things inside. Though the design is simple, it still looks a bit elegant and guess she will love it. Most importantly, it is very cheap.hahah...
  

Camel Buffolo Leather Tote Duffle Bag Lugguge
Price: US S$18.99
From eBay

Okay, enough shopping. Time to sleep now.



Second lesson for UIR. We were have to decide the research topic for our portfolio. I was a bit frickle-minded cos I couldn't decide whether to research on cancer or AIDS. My final decision was to research on the development on AIDS . The reason for choosing it is because I have read an article from Times magazine years ago about the development of AIDS in India. And I was totally shocken by the rapidly increasing number of the HIV affected people there, especially the poor kids. Sad.. Though it's been ages since I read that acticle, I could still vividly remember the content of the article. I guess it really left a deep impression on me.

During the lesson, we were also introduced to three different categories of the information resources, namely, Discussion Forum, WWW Site and Electronic Journal or Magazine. After reading through the lecture notes, I gained a better understanding of these categories. The next thing we need to do is to search for information based on the selected research topic, at least one for the three different categories.

Discussion Forum --> Well, nobody post an entry about the topic there, so I write a short paragraph and posted in Channel News Asia Discussion Forum, and managed to get some replies. Another discussion forum I visited and posted a comment is HealthBoards. It is a community that provide a unique one-stop peer support community with over 150 message boards on various diseases, conditions, and health topics.

WWW Site --> AIDS.ORG. This website helps prevent HIV infections and to improve the lives of those affected by HIV and AIDS by providing education and facilitating the free and open exchange of knowledge at an easy-to-find centralized website.

Electronic Journals and Magazine --> Journal of HIV/AIDS from Library of the national Medical Society. An online medical library, allows us to search for medical related journals and books.

There was this article called " A story about AIDS" that really moved me emotionally. I posted a comment there, in hope to increase public awareness and at the same time encourage the HIV/AIDS infected people to carry on to live their lives to the fullest. Sometimes, it's not the disease that kills but the discrimination.

Move on. What more could I say?

Quote to share:

"Life is not about how hard you can hit.
Life is about how much you can get hit and moving forward!"

Hello everyone. Welcome on board! Before I begin, please prepare a cup of coffee or tea for yourself, cos I guess it’s gonna be a long post. Haha..

This is Vivian, a final year ITO student in Temasek Polytechnic. It’s not my first time blogging, I do have a personal blog which I have been updating my personal affairs, thoughts and concerns since March 2006. However, I am still very excited about my UIR blog, cos obviously it’s going to be very different as compared to my personal Wretch blog. Okay, let me now introduce some of my backgrounds to you….. Basically, my family consists of 5 members: my dear mum and dad, me, my younger sister and brother. Currently, my parents and my sister are living in New York City, USA. My parents are working there for about 2 years already and my younger sister just went there to study in the early this year. My brother will also be leaving for studying in NYC probably 2 months later. I will miss them terribly… Anyway, no worries, I am a big girl..old and independent enough to take good care of myself…haha…

During my free times, I will spend lots of time surfing the net..Websites that I frequent most are 1). New York Times --> where you can have a glance of the latest news from all aspects in the world. 2). Youtube --> I visit it mostly during my long holiday period (too free)…haha..Usually, I will watch my favorite Taiwanese variety shows such as Kang Xi Lai Le and anything that can make me laugh out like hell… 3). Baidu --> this is the place where I can download many popular and nice songs to my tiny size Zen Creative MP3 player.

Other than surfing the net, I also love photography, travelling, designing website and blogging. I fell in love with photography about 2 and a half years ago when I visited one of my friends’ photoblog. Photoblog is actually similar to the blogger but its main aim is to provide a place where people can post their beautiful and artistic photos on their blog and share with others. I have never attended any formal class about photography, but I will always view and observe other people’s great photos and learn some techniques from there. Whenever I find anything that is special, I will take a few shoots with my phone or camera..(talking about camera,,,I have been searching for a high quality, nice design and not too expensive one for a long time, any suggestion??). Oh, I realized I really don’t like to take photos of human..don’t ask me why cos I really don’t know… I would love to capture images of animals, nature plants, sky and more …. But definitely NOT myself or any one unless there is some special meaning behind it…

The last thing I wanna talk about is my life in TP. I can only say, so far so good. Haha. I have been working hard to achieve high grades and not to disappoint anyone who have high expectations from me. There were also times when I find myself lost in the wild jungle, but thanks to some of the great lecturers I have come in contact with, they encouraged me and believe in me. God bless!

A very long post..haha…hope you guys enjoy reading…Stay tune for my further updates soon.

Quote of the day: Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood!