Closing Ceremony: 30 Januari

Hi everyone, Its another TGIF today!

Here we are, coming a long way from the day we started the course till now, when we have learnt a whole lot more than we used to know about the Internet. I'm glad I took this course, its definitely given a whole new insight into the insides of the Internet. & I think that personally, I've been practicing what I've learnt throughout this block 8. The stuff is sure useful. & as the course intends to instill in us the skills to utilise the WWW more effectively, I am sure that I am now able to do research & look for information in a more systematic & organised approach.

Lets take a look at what we've generally covered:

• Search techniques in Internet research
• Internet search facilities
• Evaluating of websites

Search techniques

• specifying search query
• Boolean operators
• stems & wildcards
• brackets

Internet search facilities

• search engine
• meta search engine
• subject directories
• databases

Evaluating websites

Criteria:

• Purpose
• Coverage
• Authority
• Accuracy
• Currency
• Accessibilty
• Presentation & Arrangement
• Usabilty
• Overall quality

Thus now I feel that I am more equiped with the necessary skills to utilise the Internet to the best of my advantage & in my opinion I think that I would recommend this course to my peers as it really gives the essentials for us to do work effectively online. In turn that would give us a boost in doing great projects throughout the diploma course we are currently in.

A special Thank You to our educators, as well as peers, for making this course a successful one. Personally, I enjoyed myself throughout. =)

Reflections: 23 Januari

TGIF for this long weekend! Hapi Chinese New Year for those celebrating!
Today was test day. Oh so nerve wrecking. It was a little bit tricky for me personally.
Btw today's lesson task is to read up this case study on Youtube, referring to Tutorial 3&4.
So let's take a look at the reviews we can give for the day.

What role Youtube plays in my life?
As major a role that it plays in anyone's life, I find that Youtube is like a one-stop shop for entertainment multimedia. It has a whole library of music videos & songs that can be streamed online & some of the material are even uploaded by official bodies. Not exactly so major role in my life, it mainly serves as an entertainment channel for me to watch episodes of tv shows or even just to listen to music (Leona Lewis for eg hahahaha) while I surf the net or do my work on the computer.

Can I live without Youtube?
Well...yes, I can live without Youtube. It just is that without this ingenious website for all sorts of media, life would not be as colourful or easy for us to obtain such content.

How can I use Youtube for research purposes?
Youtube has a very wide variety of content which also falls into so many categories of material that can be used as entertainment media, informative videos or even tutorials. When it comes to research, I am of the opinion that Youtube bears plenty of educational videos, tutorials & such. These videos sometimes even shows step-by-step methods of doing things, for example how to do a simple marker rendering. I believe that Youtube also has many documentary videos on certain topics ranging from official to amateur videos. Thus I think that Youtube does have certain materials that are very useful to do research.

That's about it for now. Cya next time. Have a good break.

Reflections: 21 Januari *Dream Hols*

Its Wednesday & we're starting to feel the heat.

Class test 2 on friday & then long hols & then prepare for the final piece.

Today's task is for me to tell you more about my dream holiday. Actually I don't even know where I'd really really like to go. Many I have to choose from. But here goes...

I'd like to go to Spain! It'd be nice to spend some time between spring & summer in Costa del Sol. Ah...the beautiful sunsets, clear white beaches...how else can I say it? Its time to bask in the sun & do some recreation.

Here are some pics from http://www.visitcostadelsol.com/:

Ok, lets see how we evaluate this website. We shall look into it using mainly the criteria:

• Authority
• Accuracy
• Presentation &Arrangement
• Usability

The website's authority is clearly stated and is surely credible because of the fact that it is made by the tourism authority of Spain. The author can also be contacted for further details if we needed any help.

Accuracy. There is apparently no typo errors, giving me confidence that it is an edited & regulated piece of article. Also, several of the locations reviews are made by independent sources & is relatively unbiased.

Presentation & Arrangement of the website is also very well done with synopses & brief descriptions of the tourist attraction very comprehensive.

Usability of the website is outstanding by far & it is very easy to navigate through the vast info in the site. I am very impressed by the quality of the website & believe that it is very suitable for finding further info about the dream location that I would like to holiday at.

Till the time I get to do that, that's about it for my dream holiday for now =)

Muhammad Adam, signing off.

Reflections: 20 Januari

Hello, a new week it is, & do work I must.
Hmm..dreadful as it is, strive on I must.

Ok, today is a whole new topic we're touching on & it is about evaluating websites. For this exercise I am evaluating www.talkingcock.com, a horribly funny website that exudes humour to the core & probably the best satire this lil' red dot called Singapore has ever seen. It is gorgeously hilarious I must say, so do take the time to drop by and have a good laugh =)

Now, to evaluate websites, here are some criteria we can base it on:

• Purpose
• Coverage
• Authority
• Accuracy
• Currency
• Accessibility
• Presentation & Arrangement
• Usability
• Overall quality

Btw, in evaluating talkingcock.com, there is 1 criteria that stands out from the rest i.e. Authority. Surprising to me, for the fact that I thought the whole website was about plain humour & "constructive critiscism". Just take a look at the 'About Us' link, & you'll realise the authors, contributors as well as editors for this site are not just any plain Jane, Tom, Dick or Harry, but are professionals in the real world! I quote, "...we have journalists, cartoonists, writers (a few award-winning ones), scriptwriters, playwrights, teacher, lawyers and doctors."

The reputation of this website is also quite credible & as they declare, it is not a political website. The editors can also be easily contacted for clarification with a link clearly stating the email contact of the administrators. Nvm the humourous banter, sources may not be clearly stated as the website itself thrives on fictitious outcomes despite being a satire of current happenings in & around our country.

Why did I choose this criteria when evaluating in the 1st place? Well, it was because talkingcock.com is unique in a sense that it is a collaboration of professionals from different fields & of different levels of the social strata. & the fact that it is deliberately made to be informal, Singlish, full of slang words & satirical, it gives a whole alternative view of what life is like in Singapore. Talkingcock.com shows that while a reputable authority is present in its administration, it can still be made informal yet meets its aim & purpose of plain humour & satire.

*Mind you, talkingcock.com was even mentioned in the 2006 National Day Rally speech by PM Lee*

Thats about it for now. We'll c u again tml same time same place *darn...sounds like sesame street*

Takecare everyone! Adam signing off =)

Reflex: 16 Januari

TGIF? Another week has passed.
Today was our 1st class test & I did well enough to meet my expectations =)

I'd say that if one would have gone through the lecture notes provided then the test would be manageable. Though, I think that I may have overlooked certain important points & may have caused myself precious marks. ahah.

Test aside, we are now continuing work on Prac 6 & to begin work on part of our folio's submission. Ok, lets talk about Prac 6; among the various search facilities available - search engines, meta-search, subject directories & databases - are databases the more effective search facilities?

My take is No, it is not more effective than the others. I even feel that in some instances it performs worse than any of the others when it comes to narrowing down my search to particular topics. Most of the time, the results returned to me were pretty much irrelevant or ranked with low relevance. hmm...I would say that it had plenty of advanced search options to work with, but still I was unable to get a more accurate result for my research.

Will I use databases for research in my diploma? Well, that would be subjective. That would be because I find that it is not as effective as the other online resources that I can squeeze juices out of. Maybe if I decide I would need academically inclined articles that is only available in these invisible webs then I'd probably give it a chance. Seriously, there are times when research materials I require can be more accurately found using conventional search engines or subject directories.

Till next time, see ya ard =)

That special something...a tale of a search engine, a meta search engine & a subject directory.

Its a new week on Blk 8 & things are spicing up with drafts of reports & 1st submissions to prepare. EIR is also not missing out on the action.

For yesterday (Tues Jan 13th) we finished up on the practical worksheet we had been working on from friday, i.e to compare between two search engines. Today, instead we are comparing between a meta search engine & a subject directory. & my weapons of choice: Mamma (http://www.mamma.com/) versus Yahoo! Directories (dir.yahoo.com).


Personally, I prefer directories, sort of because they are...well...direct. This is re-inforced by the fact that Yahoo!'s directories are mainly headed by the main search engine, & I find this one particular function in its search engine tool that is very interesting: the search within 'directory' option. So, as you narrow down into the category that is of most relevant or close to my own research topic, I can go a step ahead by searching within the directory for a relevant source.

Eg, searching "green design" within the Art & Humanities directory.

Mamma.com however has let me down abit. Well, that is because it is not giving me many results & it is not very relevant to my research topic. Most of the results obtain direct me towards websites of other fields of design & these are not applicable for my research.
However there were probably a couple of consolation items like the search refining suggestions on the right pane of the Mamma.com website.

There are benefits when I use the different resources to do research. It is as if I am getting many people's opinions. You get the analogy right? So there, some Internet resources are just not suitable for certain topics of interest or research queries, but maybe, when you combine the use of search engines, meta search engines, directories & databases, then the results obtained will be fairly good, relevant, & useful for my project.

Well, that's enough for now. tata.

TGIF

Thank Gooodness It's Friday! =)



Greetings, & just to say, its been a week of EIR. Nevertheless, lessons go on, & today's class was about Google & Googling - sort of. Ok actually we r taking insights into search engines, how they work & then to compare between a search engine's features, a meta search engine & subject directories. But of course, we earlier looked at the use of Boolean operators & how it helps make our searching more accurate to our needs.



Comparing between search engines & directories, there are a couple of differences..

• search engines are machine compiled while directories are human compiled (sort of info put into specific folders)

thus...

• search engines return worth millions of results & varied in form, while directories only have a pool of low millions, thus limiting results to specific stuff.

Lets also talk about meta search engines. Surprisingly I've never heard of these. hmm... Well, these are search engines which send out the keywords typed in to various engines & when results are returned, they compile & rank the results specific to the user. Pretty smart way to search the WHOLE of cyberspace.

For today, we are also asked to give our take on Google's search features. I have been a relatively frequent user of Google search engine most of my school life & I personally am impressed by its functions, quick returns & its large pool of websites to search from. It has the largest listings & I like the way it gives quite accurate results.

However, I think that Google doesn't have a distinguishing feature for ranking its results when we do searches. I think that it would be very helpful & easier for users to see a ranking so as to easily evaluate if the websites listed are reliable/frequently visited by other users. Nevertheless, it has been very easy to use its main search facilities as they are straightforward & have clean interfaces.

Citations & bibliography are important. We have to always quote the sources we research from or take our info from. This is in respect of the individual's or organisation's intellectual properties. It is never right to take other's works as ours, or atleast out of basic courtesy, do give recognition to the people who gave us the info we need in our research.

Bibliographies then is a compilation of the citations we took from all the resources in any 1 project. Hmm..I do feel that it is also a good way to come back & refer to the sources whenever we need to, especially when correcting or evaluating the info we need.

OK, I'm tired out just doing this. Its worth the while i guess, & I did learn quite a bit of stuff probably alien to me prior to this class. Thanks for taking a look at my blog. Have a nice day.