Video!

this is a short video that my friends and i made for a module; com 217. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQqr8WUUXws

Digital Classroom

I grew up in classrooms with chalks, blackboards and not forgetting dusters. Everything that was to be copied into our exercise books was on the blackboard.
It didn't matter if it was Science or Math or Literature; my teachers would write whatever they had to on the board and let us copy it off from there.
There were no such things as powerpoint slides or youtube videos to help us along the way. The blackboard and chalk were the ultimate tools of a teacher back then.

Bart Simpson definitely has issues with the blackboard as he was always being punished to write lines after skipping school and etc. I'm sure a handful of students were enemies with the blackboard for the various "crimes" committed in school as well.

It was only when I entered poly where technology had advanced tremendously and incredibly. Lecturers started using websites to lecture us and some even opened up programs from their laptops to specifically show us how to go about using it. Take for example: SPSS. The program SPSS is a statistics program which helps one organize data into graphs.

Soon enough, our marketing lecturer was introducing websites to us to help us with our exams. Before you knew it, our class tests were conducted ONLINE (E-TESTS) and our projects had to be submitted either via digital dropbox or email.

Everything was practically converted from a blackboard which used dusters to create write new pieces of information to a computer which only needs one button: The Delete button.

from...

to..

our lives have improved greatly from manually dusting the blackboard to the mere pressing of just one button. However, with such readily available information at our fingertips, will we be reliant on the web to give us answers?

Will Google be the internet God? well it has sort of become the internet God. Millions of people use Google or other search engines to look up information for their own purposes. Answers are provided with a click of a mouse.

Although the internet makes life easier for both students and teachers, it is inevitable that one day we might forget the fundamentals of life. With dictionary.com and conversion tools available online, fundamentals of a manual tools such as a calculator, or an encyclopedia can be easily forgotten. A digital classroom helps greatly but it is also possible to make us forget how to do things manually.

Let's hope this won't ever happen.

10 reasons why E-commerce is successful

E-commerce has been on the rise since the beginning of the Internet. The wonders of the internet brings millions of people together through social media and of course, e-commerce.
Businesses online are booming and everyday, new businesses are being setup hoping to earn revenue.
So why is e-commerce so popular right now?

Here are 10 reasons why E-commerce is successful & why people want their feet into it.

Here goes!

1. No such thing as : Time Limit.

In the world of the world wide web, time knows no boundaries. You can work anytime without worrying having to punch in your time card or about the traffic jam along the highway. Managing your business online allows you to be free of the 24 hour prison cell. Since time is flexible, anybody and everybody is allowed to visit your site at any time and in any country!
Hopefully they make purchases too :)

2. Knowledge is free

Everything you need to know about starting, running and growing a business is available online, not to mention online tutorials from prestigious universities, from books (google's scholar search helps you with that) and from people who are already doing it successfully and who you now have unprecedented access to through blogs and social networks (blog search, facebook, you name it!). And nobody cares what your portfolio anymore. :x

3. Your "employees" are affordable

Technically, your employees are your computer, mouse, internet connection, search engines, software and everything that you can find online is, well sort of nearly free. Instead of getting a loan from the bank and borrowing thousands of dollars, why not setup online when it is conveniently free? :)

4. Marketing is Free

Information about your business can be put online! with all them artsy fartsy thing-a-migics.
marquee banners and web titles, flash objects/short clips or even music! You have a chance to provide your information in any format that you want that will suit your business.
How great is that? and you don't even have to pay a interior designer to do it.

5. Spider webbed!

With your business online, YOU CAN REACH THE WORLD. Your website can be and will be viewed 24hrs a day, 7 days a week; practically the entire year. No worries about nobody hearing about your website, when it's good, the word of mouth travels faster than you can send out flyers telling people about your website.

6. Convenient for Customers.

Customers can view the website as many times as they like. It's not like you are forcing them to view your website to purchase your products but more like, customers have the luxury of viewing your products over and over again. There is very little or no coercion at all. It's good for you, and your customers!

7. Your website doesn't need to sleep.

You are only human. Eating, sleeping, and other daily activities are part of your life. However, your website doesn't. It will continue to generate income for you and all you have to do is wake up to orders and wait for the money to roll in. $_$

8. The address book

Allowing customers to fill in their information, you can always let them know about the latest updates, the special discounts of certain items, or even maybe special sprees that are only available to them. By building such customer relations, the bond will strengthen and customers will become loyal. Business repeats, so does the cash-ins!

9. Competitive prices.

It isn't rare that someone else sells the same products / services that you have. The competition will get rough as you fight to keep your price the lowest yet the best. However, such competitive prices keep you in check and it creates the drive to attract your customers even more! Competition is always good.

Last but not least,

10. Your commitment.

One needs commitment to make any business successful. Being on the edge helps. Read the books or visit the sites of those who have made it big. It is never too late to learn and by learning more, your business online will only reap results!

:D cheers.

To be or Not to be..

Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, MySpace, Second Life ...

All these names and many more have become household names amongst us and we have all , at least once been addicted to such virtual networks. Online games as well serve as a social network that people stay committed.

The question for today is: To be or Not to be.

Many a time, the virtual world has been a place where one can have many identities and as a result, people make sure of that. Be it your gender, the color of your hair, the shape of your eyes or even the clothes you wear; one can always alter the way you look.

But are all these for real?
or is our conscious choosing what we desire to look like?

Social networks such as second life, facebook, friendster have been around for less than a decade and already, people are creating avatars and profiles that do not even exist. There have been numerous friendster accounts with attractive female pictures but to your disappointment, the owner of such an account is sadly a male who is simply trying to get attention for all the wrong reasons.

There are many other instances as well, take for example online games: Maple, Dota, Audition and so forth. These games allow you to choose your gender, choose your hair and etc. I have male friends playing female characters and they behave and type ( yes, type ) like any other girl.
Such fake identities are splashed all over the internet and some people even get conned by it.

No doubt there are the advantages of such social networks as it allows one to create groups or even close deals over the internet. Facebook has brought millions of users across the globe together by simply allowing the creation of groups. Party invites and events are being broadcasted via facebook and the amount of people who join the group is amazing.

check out this facebook group; there are 8,245 members and 109 new members just joined the group. By the end of next week, this Ben & Jerry's group would have at least 9,000 members.
Isn't facebook amazing? :)

So, let's come back to the question for today: To Be, or Not to Be.

It's definitely very easy to be someone else in the virtual world as compared to the real world that we live in. Whether it is an escape for some of the users from the real world, or it is just merely to have fun, we all use the virtual world at our own disposal.

Hey, we can even be mushrooms in the virtual world. What else can we not be?

Let's just say everybody has their "To be, Not to be" Days.
These are real players by the way.

Introduction

I have been blogging for as long as 5 years and blogging has become second nature to me.
I have my own personal blog and through out these 5 years, blogging has pretty much exposed the virtual world.

As a teenager, blogging didn't mean much to me as I was simply conforming to society. It seemed that 5 years ago, everybody was getting really excited about setting up their own blogs and they seemed more excited about sharing their everyday life with the world.

It seemed pretty exciting; blogging about my own life, posting pictures to let others have the opportunity to see what I saw, to experience what I experienced. The freedom of speech has allowed me to reveal my expressions without the fear of being criticized as the blog is mine and mine alone. Revealing details of the day's fortunate and unfortunate events became a daily routine as time went by.

As time went by, I realized why I really started blogging. My parents had left for Africa and due to educational reasons, I had to continue residing in Singapore. The blog became sort of like a third parent to me; tolerating my anger, celebrating my joy, enjoying the same kind of music, viewing pictures that might develop different points of views from others.

My blog became more than just a HTML text where I just wrote what I felt. It became a bridge between my friends and I as well. Even though we had little time for each other, we could always visit each other's blogs to see how each other are doing :)

I spent 6 months in Africa after graduating from college. Unfortunately the Internet connection isn't as efficient as it is in Singapore. Lag became a household name amongst Internet users. I only managed to get online for about half an hour every week and as a result, I couldn't access MSN without getting lagged out and worse of all, I could not communicate with my friends in Singapore at all.

BUT....

Blogger has helped me a great deal. I stayed in touch with my friends via my blog and they had the chance to experience Africa through my eyes. With the most basic function of allowing bloggers to post pictures online, it also aided me in relating my experiences to my friends. Most importantly, blogger kept my friends and I closely connected. The feeling might be as strong as a phone call but it definitely keeps people connected. Even now, for my friends who are overseas, we visit each others' blogs regularly to stay connected

The internet has made it possible for us to stay connected with people from all around the world, but for me, blogger has allowed me not to only stay connected with people, but it has also brought the world closer to both my family and myself.

p.s. My parents read my blog every once in awhile, no matter where they are :)