A World of Possibilities - Future of the Internet (Week 12)

Mr Choy showed us both these videos in class. One shows Corning's vision of the future and the other shows Microsoft's vision of the future. Both seem to have a similar view on what the future holds for us. I was genuinely amazed when I saw both these videos. The internet and the development of technology could open up a whole new world of possibilities in the future. A world where language is no longer a barrier to communication, a world which no longer needs to rely on paper and print, a world where everything is neat, clean, and simple and yet highly efficient. I know that we will not reach that level of technology anytime soon, and that we still have a long way to go. However, we are making progress. In time, I do believe that it is possible to achieve Corning's and Microsoft's vision of the future. I sincerely hope that we get there sooner than later, and that I live long enough to see such technology incorporated into our everyday lives. That would be truly amazing.

Citizen Journalism: Do we still need journalists? (Week 11)

In this day and age, citizen journalism has grown in importance. The internet has empowered people. It has given us a voice to express our own views, report what we see, do our own research, uncover truths, and share them with the rest of the world. Citizen journalism has its benefits. It allows the rest of the world access to first-hand accounts of events, especially when it comes to events such as natural disasters and wars. Citizen journalism also allows for different views on the same issue to be presented. The question we need to ask ourselves now is, "Has the rise of citizen journalism decreased our need for official broadcast stations and real journalists?"

On the surface, it seems plausible that citizen journalism could indeed replace the job of journalists. However, we still need journalists to verify the news that is published. When it comes to citizen journalism, many different versions of a single story may be published, and we may not know which source is reliable, and which source is not. Also, citizen journalists looking to get famous quickly could fabricate stories and doctor photos in order to sensationalize their stories. There are no rules and guidelines for citizen journalists to follow. However, journalists need to be responsible and accountable for every piece of information that they publish for public consumption. They need to verify their information, and check it with reliable sources before it hits the news stands.

Another point to note is that citizen journalists write and report about things that interest them. If we were to solely rely on citizen journalism, we would get an inconsistent flow of news. We need journalists to provide us with a constant and consistent stream of news on a daily basis.

Singapore GE 2011 - Internet and Politics (Week 10)

With Singapore's general elections just around the corner, the use of internet when it comes to politics is an issue that is frequently being discussed. Just recently, it was reported in the news that Singapore has chose to ease rulings on internet elections advertising for the upcoming Singapore GE 2011.

This is good news for political parties as candidates and their election agents will now be able to make use of a broader range of new media platforms to conduct election advertising on the Internet. These changes follow the amendments to the Constitution as well as the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections Act which was introduced just last year.

This basically means that internet elections advertising can now be conducted through a wide variety of social media platforms such as podcasts, videocasts, blogs, MMS and electronic media applications such as those found on mobile phones. It also includes microblogs such as Twitter, social networking sites such as Facebook, and photo-sharing platforms such as Flickr.

Experts predict that the relaxation of the rules could make this year's elections much more challenging. According to statistics, about one-third of the more than 2.35 million voters are under the age of 35 and these voters are all avid users of new media platforms.

"Traditionally the communication channels are one way- from the person who wants to say it to the public. This time round, what is different is that the public can now react and there can be interaction and really it will depend on whether the players are clever enough to create this interactive loop," said Dr Gillian Koh, senior researcher at the Institute of Policy Studies.

The Mp for Hong Kah GRC, Zaqy Mohamad felt that the current changes are keeping "in synch with the times."

"Today many political campaigns involve the new media. Also, many MPs have new media presence and without this policy many would be concerned if election campaigning online has to stop. With this relaxation, it means that the online space would be more vibrant and election will probably continue into not only the regular channels, that is the mainstream media, but also on the new media. "

Personally, I feel that the changes that have been made are very important ones. Not only will the inclusion of new media platforms change the way that campaigners reach out to the public, but I feel that this is also a way to get youths more involved in politics in Singapore. Bringing politics and the discussions and news for the Singapore GE 2011 onto new media platforms gives youths easy access to the information. Youths are tapped in to new media platforms, and bringing Singapore politics to these platforms will definitely increase the likelihood of youths becoming more aware of what is going on, and could also be a stepping stone to getting more youths involved in politics in Singapore.

Marketing Communication - Multimedia on the Internet (Week 9)

Marketing Communications are messages and related media used to communicate with a market. In today's context, advertisers and product promoters all over the world make use of multimedia to aid in their marketing communication.

Today, I want to take a look at something closer to home, which everyone is more familiar with. Singapore's TV programme advertisers make use of multimedia in terms of marketing communication as well. The local show, "The Noose" is a very good example of using multimedia to aid in marketing communication.



The Noose is a Singapore comedy TV series produced by MediaCorp Channel 5 which has aired in Singapore for four seasons. The name of the show is a play on the word The News. It is a parody of local news programmes such as News 5 Tonight, with fictional news reports and a presentation mimicking that of the real news.

An episode of "The Noose" looks something like this:



Although "The Noose" seems to be a funny and light-hearted show, the advertisers put in some serious work to promote the show. Aside from contstantly airing advertisements and snippets of the show on the local channels, many of these clips are also available on video sharing sites such as Youtube (like the video above)

To add on to that, many of the characters on the show own their own Twitter account. Leticia Bongnino, the domestic helper, one of the characters of the show is played by Michelle Chong. The character Leticia currently has her own Twitter account. Many of my friends actually follow her on Twitter, and they all have a good time laughing and the hilarious tweets that are posted under Leticia's account. The tweets are a very clever way of using multimedia for marketing communication. What is even better is that the advertisers have made it interactive for the fans and viewers. Leticia occasionally tweets her follwers on Twitter as well, and starts many conversations with random followers. By communicating directly with the fans, it definitely contributes to encouraging these fans to tune in to the next episode of "The Noose."

"The Noose" is just one example of a programme that uses multimedia for its marketing communication. Many advertisers adopt similar practices to promote their products and brands. Music artists use similar tactics to promote their albums and concerts. Practically all the famous music stars have a twitter or facebook account which connects them directly to their fans, allowing them to update their fans on new album releases and the availability of concert tickets and such. It seems everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, trying to use the multimedia tools to their fullest potential to reap the maximum profits and rewards.

Virus Protection - Internet Security (Week 8)

Many computers are vulnerable to various types of harmful software such as viruses, Trojans, and worms. They are known collectively as malware.

Why is virus protection important?
Having virus protection on a system is important to help protect data.

PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN A CURE.

As with most things, the best virus protection is prevention; an anti-malware program that will stop malware before it can get on your system. Possibly the most well known type of virus protection is an anti-virus software. However, it is also important to have an anti-spyware and a firewall installed and active on the system.

What do you look for?
When looking for virus protection, consider first an anti-virus program. The important options for an anti-virus program are:
- real time or on-access scanning
- the ability to schedule a scan on a regular basis
- automatic e-mail scanning.

Your anti virus should also:
- be easy to use and install
- be effective in both detecting and cleaning viruses
- provide easy to understand notices of found viruses and what the program has done with it
- have good customer support.

To add on to that, it should also be easy to update your software so that there is no unnecessary hassle when you try to keep your software up-to-date.

Who is at the top?

You're probably wondering right now what some of the leading anti-virus softwares are.

Here are just a few of the brands which consumers trust.

1. VIPRE Antivirus

Voters in the 2011 Readers' Choice Awards overwhelmingly selected VIPRE Antivirus as their choice for "best antivirus for Windows". 44% of all votes went to VIPRE Antivirus. In addition to a bevy of loyal users, VIPRE offers a low-impact, high performance scan engine free of the legacy code that can hinder some of the older antivirus scanners. VIPRE's malware detection has been repeatedly certified by all the major certification agencies and the company offers a no-hassle 30-day money back guarantee.

2. Norton Internet Security

Symantec's antivirus products have historically always provided excellent detection and removal of malware. On the downside, that protection came at the price of often crippling system performance. That's now a thing of the past. Performance overhauls were the hallmark of Norton Internet Security 2009, and enhancements continued in the 2010 product line.

Windows Movie Maker (Week 7)

This was my attempt at trying to put together my own short video using Windows Movie Maker. This is dedicated to the girls who make school THIS much more bearable for me. (:



I had a lot of fun putting this video together. It was the first time I was using Windows Movie Maker. I took a couple of minutes to figure out how it worked at first, but once I figured it out it was actually pretty fun. I have got to thank Mr Choy for making us put the video together, because this is something that I can keep for a very long time. (:

Google Maps: What's new? (Week 7)

Google Maps has proved to be one of Google's most useful applications. Most of us already know just how useful Google Maps. For a person like me, who has such a poor sense of direction, I cannot even count the number of times Google Maps has prevented me from getting completely lost in a part of town which I am unfamiliar with. It has prevented me from being late from countless of meetings, and at times, even saved me some money. Before Google Maps, whenever I got lost, I always had to resort to taking a taxi, especially if I was on my own.

Everyone knows the basics of Google Maps, but here are a couple of new features that you may have yet to discover.


1) It is easier to move in between views in the program.

- Moving in between the satellite view to the map view to the earth view is much easier with the new layout

- You can view the different "layers" available with ease. "Layers" refer to to traffic patterns, geotagged photos, videos and even webcam locations. Even bicycling routes, location-linked Wikipedia entries, and real estate for sale is available on Google Maps.







2) You can restrict your Google Maps search to include just businesses or user-created maps.

- User-created maps allows you to save maps with directions to places that you frequent, and makes it easy for you to retrieve these maps whenever you need them.

- It even allows you to create shortcuts to these maps on your phones or mobile devices, making it even easier to retrieve these maps.



3)You can find out what the places near the current location you are at are by right clicking on the "What's here" button.

- Google Maps will churn out a list of locations (be it a specific address or place).



Google Maps just got a whole lot more useful.