Monday, November 29, 2010
Practical 4 & 5
Difference: Metal-search engine is more effective in helping me find the resources related to my research topic.
Metal-search engine provides more relevant information as compared to subject directory. Despite the fact that metal-search engine is time-consuming but the size of information provided is quite small, which makes it easier for researcher to find relevant information for researcher to make correct decision.
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| Cover of Metal-crawler |
Yahoo directory has a topic category in which researcher can click to narrow down the information. However, if we do not know the category of the topic and search normally, the information provided will be quite irrelevant.
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| Yahoo Directory |
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| Different categories available |
Similarities: Both are search engines which serve different purposes to meet the required needs of the researchers.
Whichever search engines used depend on the researcher. Both are useful in a certain way.
LEARNING POINT
By using different search facilities, I will be exposed to the different features of the search facilities. It will aid me in researching as I will be able to make use of what I had learnt of the different search facilities (purpose, pros and cons). I will be able to make full use of the search facilities.
By using site feeds, I am able link to other people’s blog. Information update my other people’s blog will be updated instantly. With site feeds, information can be categorized in a more organized way.
shattered`* 11:38 PM
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Saturday, November 20, 2010
Virtual Youths Meeting and Networking on
Second Life (E-learning Activity)
In this activity, we were asked to meet students from PolyU at the entrance of the PolyU campus on Second Life. The student I met is from Hongkong. Her avartar name is Christy Asadar.
Profile: Her real name was Christy Sung.
Age: 22
Course: Master degree in Electronic Commerce.
Favourite Landmark: Library- it is a very quiet place where she can think through of the happenings around her.
Hobbies: Window shopping, ordering food and food materials online.
Other than the above item mentioned, she has no experience in buying clothes online. However, if given a chance, with a $500, she would like to buy shoes, earrings, rings and bags. As long as she thinks is nice, she would not mine any brand of the items she wanted to buy. She would not want to buy clothes as she does not trust the website; she thinks that for clothing, it will be better if she is trying out the clothing on the spot (assurance).
Most importantly, she is not sensitive pricing as she thinks that price and quality are closely related. The better the quality, the higher the price.
She told me that the popular E-shopping site is Ebay. First of all, there isn’t much website where they can use and she thinks that Ebay is easy for trade purpose from consumers to consumers. Besides that, she also told me that in mainland China, people uses E-shopping site known as Taobao. It is similar to Ebay only that it has a large platform. She plans to stay connected with her new friend like myself through msn, email or perhaps go on a holiday together.
During this activity, I realize that there are polite. They will bow first as a form of basic etiquette. To show respect, I will do the same as well. It was a firsthand experience and it was fun talking with the new friend in Hong Kong, they are really polite. I learned that online learning has really widened to the point that even in games, we get to know people from other country. It has gone beyond the border that internet is solely for research purpose.
The world is getting more and more globalised, we need to think of different ways in which we can bring people from different religions and races to get together.
There are a total of 24 students in my class but the number of Hong Kong students available is not enough to allow us to have a discussion with the Hong Kong students. Also, they have a limited time in which they can chat with us. Their lab closes at 10.30pm and the activity started at 9.30pm, even though we managed to ask the required questions, there is insufficient time for us to further ask them other questions.
Below are some snapshots of my new HK friend!!!
shattered`* 1:18 AM
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Virtual Shopping Spree on
Second Life (E-learning Activity)
HELLO EVERYONE!!! We were asked to go one a virtual shopping spree on Secondlife and select one of the areas. The one I chose was Man in Action (MIA)
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MIA ISLAND
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| MIA ISLAND |
Product/Services offered: Men and women clothing
The items i bought are:
Ambience/Shopping Environment: The place is full of shops and greenery. There is a directory telling you the different shops in the landmark.
Accessibility to the products or services offered: I didn’t really go through all the items, so far those that I had selected are charged. However, I heard from my friend that certain places like Port Seraphine, offers free products and services.
User-friendliness & flexibility: Moving around is kind of hard as I am not familiarize with the place. Also, as the shops are really packed together, it is kind of convenient going from one shop to another.
People I met: I met one person while shopping on MIA. His name was Malcom Bubble. He is also a newcomer like me, unable to find the correct destinations he wanted. I have made a new friend!!!
So what do I like about this virtual experience that I
cannot get in real life?
Firstly, is the directory of the different places. Just one click on it and you get to the targeted in an instance. In real life, if you want to get to a certain place, you will have to walk to there by yourself without any guidance.
Secondly, which I think everyone would like it is the fact that you can fly around to get to the place you wanted which we cannot experience it in real life.
Difference between the real online shopping and
Secondlife E-shopping
The difference is that the real online shopping, the details of the items are well described as compared to Secondlife E-shopping. Furthermore, access to the items is much more convenient and less troublesome as compared to Secondlife. Just a click of the category of item you want and you will get the information of it in an instance. For Secondlife, we still have to walk from shops to shops and browse the item one by one before we can decide what to buy-rather time consuming.
One amusing this i found is the jail!!!
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Jail HAHA
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Sunday, November 14, 2010
Practical 3- Activity 4
In tutorial, we were asked to do a small experiment on two search engines namely, Google and Google Scholar. I started off by choosing Google Scholar. It was quite a new name to me as I would not have known of its existence if not for this tutorial lesson. I was amazed by the fact that Google Scholar has many search features such as material, article, link and date. Furthermore, it is able to categorise it into journals, news etc. I was amazed by such feature and the first thought was that these features will be of use in helping me to find information regarding my research topic. Before our researching, we were asked to key in the search query to aid us. Below is my search query:
(impact OR effect*) AND (financial OR economic) AND (crisis OR calamity) AND (spending* OR expenditure*) AND (consumer* OR buyer*) AND (habits OR routines)
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| Google Scholar |
After looking at the results, my first thought was wrong. There is no related information to help me in my research. Judging from a common view, the first page will usually have the information that we are looking for but this is not for the case of Google Scholar.
Therefore, I moved on to Google. Although Google do not have those features that Google Scholar has, the search results were to my satisfaction. There were many information for me to choose from unlike Google Scholar which I have click many pages but all the information are irrelevant to my knowledge.
In the end, I choose Google as my search engine as it proves to be much more effective. However, both the search engines have their pros and cons, thus, complements each other in helping users to find the relevant information they want.
After participating in the online discussion forum, I feel that it is much more effective than face-to-face discussion as we will be able to voice out our opinion more freely. As compared to online discussion, during face-to-face discussion, you will be the centre of attraction and sometimes your awkward movements/gestures will be seen by others. However, we must know that everything has its pros and cons. For online discussion, you may not get an immediate response to the comments you posted.
The forum that I participate in is not really useful to my research topic as mainly the comments that they posted are mostly related to unemployment as well as investment. However, it can serve as a reading topic for me as it helps to widen my knowledge regarding finance- It doesn’t hurt to read more right?
Overall, I am quite nervous when I am participating in this particular forum as those people who posted are most probably professional analyst or investors. I fear for the fact that the comments I posted may appear irrelevant or rather stupid to them.
Why do we do citation and bibliography? Citation is an essential feature in a research work. By doing so, it serves a purpose of acknowledging the source of information and to prevent plagiarism. Bibliography, on the other hand is an extensive list of sources you have consulted as you worked on or thought about your document. In addition to identifying the sources you have cited in your paper, it represents the research you've done in preparation for writing, and it offers your audience suggestions for further reading on your topic.
Imagine that you have created a work and someone steals it; claiming it to be theirs, how would you feel? Similarly for researching, it will be unfair if you took someone’s ideas and claim it to be your work. Therefore, both citation and bibliography is IMPORTANT.
shattered`* 3:06 PM
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Saturday, November 13, 2010
Practical 3 - Activity 3
For this activity, we were asked to access the Discussion Forum related to your research topic that we had searched during Practical 1. Below is the link to the forum:
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| MY POST!!! =) |
This forum focuses mainly on financial crisis. Netizens are free to voice out their opinions with regards to a certain topic which they follow. Besides that, they can post any queries they have as well.
I have gone through quite a series of forums being posted and I am shocked that there is a lot of news regarding it which I do not know. Also, the forum topics and discussion that they posted are really of professional qualities. Therefore if I want to post, I must take note of certain terminology that I will be using.
Although my course equipped me with some knowledge of finance, I do not have enough information to really comment on their posts. Despite that, I attempted to post on question regarding the recent news of KPMG. Just in case some of you do not know, KPMG is a well-known accounting terms and is part of the BIG FOUR. The link below is the articles that I had read:
shattered`* 11:30 PM
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Continue.....
I shall continue what I have not completed,......
After reading the forum discussion topic 'Internet makes users feel more lonely and alienated. Do you agree? Why?', I posted my views on it. I fell that by doing so, others may realize the pros and cons of internet. It didn’t take me long to come up with an idea on how to respond to such topic. It may due to the fact that Internet is known worldwide and everyone, including myself are always using internet. Thus, I believe such topic will invite comments and everyone should be able to write freely.
Given the same topic, online discussion and face-to-face in-class discussion are actually similar except that we are using different medium to express our views. For online discussion, there is a barrier as people are commenting on the same topic but we do not really know who that person is. However, for face-to-face in discussions, everyone can actually see the person express his/her views on the topic. We will also be able to see the body gesture of the person. As compared to online discussion, we can actually know if the person is awkward or confident in what he is doing.
I find this online activity is useful as it gathers people from all walks of life to share their views on the particular topic. It helps to expand social network as through this activity, we will be able to know the person and add him/her as friend even though we are strangers from the beginning.
shattered`* 9:56 PM
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Purpose and Learning Point
Hi everyone,i am back to continue what I had left out yesterday. I got the shopping items I wanted from an online website known as ebay. So what is this ebay about?
Ebay is a form of e-commerce which is categorized as consumer to consumer whereby individuals use internet to sell products and services directly to other individuals. In other words we can also say that Ebay acts as business/marketing medium. Payments can be made via credit card or e-wallet.
Learning point:
I have learnt that there are many internet resources which I have not come across before such as RSS in XML and FTP archives. I have also learnt that internet resources serve different purposes such as advocacy and information. Lastly, I have also realized that when researching, typing certain key words or phrases will aid us in finding relevant and useful information that we want to find.
Thats it for today! Hope everyone had learnt something from lecture 1 and 2 as well as the practical exercises!
shattered`* 10:24 PM
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Monday, November 8, 2010
MY SHOPPING LIST!!!
Hi everyone! Its EIR lesson again!! Given a budget of $500, we were asked to come up with a shopping list in which we can choose to buy anything we want with the given budget. Well, not totally buy, it was just a practical. Below is the my shopping list:
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Spy - COOPER Black Fade-Grey Sunglasses |
Conditions: New without tag: A brand-new, unused, and unworn item (including handmade items) that is not in original packaging or may be missing original packaging materials (such as the original box or bag). The original tags may not be attached.
Protection: 100% UV Protection
Lens Colour: Grey
Frame Colour: Black Fade
Brand: Spy
Cost: US$56.01(excluding $6.95 shipping cost)
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SOLID R&B Black TUNGSTEN Men Ring 7M |
Conditions: New with tags: A brand new, unused, and unworn item (including handmade items) in the original packaging (original box and bag) and or/with the original tags attached.
Materials: Tungsten
Main colour: Black
Cost: US$39.92 (excluding $6.92 shipping cost)
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Vestal De Novo Mens Watch DEV002 – Black |
Condition:New with tags: A brand-new, unused, and unworn item (including handmade items) in the original packaging (such as the original box or bag) and/or with the original tags attached.
Style: De Novo
Brand Colour: Black
Face Colour: Black
Material: Metal
Brand:Vestal
Cost: US$239.95
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| Mens Formal Black 1 Button Traditional Suit Jacket 40L |
Style: One Button
Condition: Pre-owned
Material: wool
Type: Suit
Main Colour: Black
Cost: $24.99 (excluding $9.50 shipping cost)
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CARLO MORANDI men's shoes black CUBAN HEEL US sz 11 D |
Condition: New with box: A brand-new, unused, and unworn item (including handmade items) in the original packaging (such as the original box or bag) and/or with the original tags attached.
Main Colour: Black
Material: Leather
US size: 11
Width: Medium (D, M)
Style: Dress Shoes
Cost: $70 (excluding $9.95 shipping cost)
This is the end of my shopping list. =)
shattered`* 10:59 PM
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Monday, November 1, 2010
Hello everyone!! I am from Business school, Accounting and Finance. Last thursday was my first EIR Lesson and here i am creating a new blog. My name is Alvin Chan Chao Siang. You can call me Alvin or cs.
My favourtite past time activities is to play card games with my school mates.
As for my favourite singer, I have two in mind-Jay Chou and JJ Lim, both are chinese singers. Reasons for liking them? Probably because of the lyrics they composed inspired me as well as the way they sing. They really do have the voices that can reach out to my heart.
I dont really have a favourite TV programme as normally I spend my time watching anime online. Really love using twitter and facebook where i can write my thoughts as well as to see what my friends have posted.
I am passionate about playing basketball as well as swimming but recently i have stopped these activities as my friends are all occupied by their hectic school work. Recently, they have been mugging to get prepared for their A levels in 2 weeks time. Guess i will have to wait till their exams are over. But when that day comes, I might not be free.
What am i expert in? I am not really expert in anything but if I were to give an answer to that, well, I kind of like numbers which makes my maths quite good i suppose. Ever since I am in primary school, I am very sensitive to numbers. If I were to come across a difficult math question, I will give all I've got to solve it,even if I were to sacrifice my sleeping time. I can't really sleep well with an unsolved math question in my mind. My love for numbers is what that makes me choose Accounting and Finance as my course. I love NUMBERS so much!!!!
shattered`* 1:15 AM
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