Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Personal UIR blog reflections
This blogging experience has enriched my knowledge in certain areas. I had learnt how to use html scripting to adjust my alignment and to make it easier for readers to read my blog entries.
The research allowed me to read up about various different topics and it was interesting to know facts and opinions about interesting subjects. The website on the misuse of Chinese characters had a deep impact on me and it was interesting to know how the western culture has perceived the meaning of certain Chinese characters.
I also got to know how to make full use of the search engines and I’ve learnt the different between Yahoo! and google. I had learnt how to use “AND” and “NOT” to help enhance my search results. I believe such techniques would be useful for my project research further on during my studies.
-when are you
coming back? ;
Practical 7
Evaluation for Internet Resources
[2]
Title of Internet Resource: MaydayBlue, homepage
URL : http://www.globality.org/Mayday/MaydayBlueMain.html
Purpose
The aims of the website are clearly stated.
Coverage
The website talks about the previous album of mayday, which is the main focus of the website. The collection of data is very comprehensive.
The links to other websites are working and quite useful as they are all related to the main theme. The write-ups on the links help too.
Authority
The website as been discussed in some forums and feedback was that the users find the website meaningful and easy to understand.
Accuracy
The website talks mostly on a person opinion of the music, which in this website is about a famous rock band mayday.
The author of the website displays strong personal opinions in certain areas and there seems to be some kind of ideology in the concepts presented.
However, the facts are mostly accurate and there is no typo or grammatical errors.
Currency
The information was last updated on January 2007
The information is well organized according to the years and various categories, e.g., like the lyrics section and the review section. It is regularly updated also.
Accessibility
The website is easily accessible. It does not require registration or log-ins to view the information. It is available to all for free.
Presentation and Alignment
The information is well presented, clear and simple to understand. There are links to other more relevant websites in the same database and the links are pretty useful.
The arrangement of the information is neat and easy to view in one glance.
Usability
It is user friendly as it provides quick links at the top which links to the information at the bottom for quick references.
Overall
Overall, I am impressed at the presentation of the data, which was easy to understand and the website was easy to navigate. The information was comprehensive too.
However, it would have been better if the website was more colorful and had included more graphics. It could have used some music or some more colors to brighten up the pages and bring focus to more important information.
The alignment could have been better too.
[3]
Title of Internet Resource: Hanzi Smatter
URL : http://www.hanzismatter.com/
Purpose
The aims of the website are stated clearly, in the headings.
Coverage
The websites talks about the misuse of Chinese words by western cultures. It is not very comprehensive as the amount of information is quite limited to a few sentences.
There are no links to any other websites which discuss similar information, like regarding the misuse of Chinese words. However, the links include the website promoting the correct use of mandarin and some other irrelevant links.
Authority
The author of the website is an individual which as expressed interest in this area of study. There is no information on the website stating if the author is a professional or not but as seen in the entries on the website, it seems that the author has a very wide knowledge on the Chinese language and the use of words.
Accuracy
The author mostly posts the real meaning of the Chinese character which he/she feels has been misused. The meanings of those Chinese characters are quite accurate.
The author adds the perceived meaning of the Chinese character by the western culture as a form of comparison and usually adds his/her own opinion in the entries.
There is no grammar or spelling errors in the website.
Currency
The information was last updated on January 2007
The information is well organized according to the years and various categories, e.g., like the lyrics section and the review section. It is regularly updated also.
Accessibility
The website is easily accessible. It does not require registration or log-ins to view the information. It is available to all for free.
Presentation and Alignment
The information is presented according to posts, sorted by date and it is clear and simple to understand.
There are also links to the archives and previous entries.
Usability
It is user friendly as it is easy to view and understand. The colors used are easy on the view’s eyes, white as the background and black words.
Overall
Overall, I am satisfied with the website as it has been interesting to read about the opinions of another and about the interesting misconceptions.
However, it would have been better if the website was more colorful and had included more graphics. The author could have made the website even more user friendly by dividing the links according to a certain subject, thus making it easy for any user to browse according to topic, rather than view one entry after entry.
[4]
Title of Internet Resource: National Arts council, Singapore
URL : http://www.nac.gov.sg/
Purpose
The aims of the website are stated clearly, in the overview sub page: http://www.nac.gov.sg/abo/abo01.asp
Coverage
The websites contains all information available on the arts in Singapore, mainly dance, literary arts, music, theatre and visual arts.
There is also information on the latest events concerning these arts and further studies or opportunities related to these topics.
Authority
The author of the website is a government ministry.
It is the official website which many would think of firstly when it comes to any topic related to the arts in Singapore.
Accuracy
The websites contains the most accurate information and it is political biased as it belongs to a government agency. The facts stated in the website are also of factual accuracy.
There is no grammar or spelling errors in the website.
Currency
The information is constantly updated with the latest activities and policies and information related to the topic.
Accessibility
The website is easily accessible. It does not require registration or log-ins to view the information. It is available to all for free.
The website contains both images and text. It is best viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0 or Netscape Navigator 6.0 and above, which are both very common web browsers.
Presentation and Alignment
There is a content page and a site map.
The links are easy spotted; right on the top where it can be easily seen and the headings are easy to understand. There is also a search facility which allows the user to search for any information using certain keywords.
Usability
It is user friendly as it is easy to view and understand. The search facility is easy to use but the results are of a wide range and there are many different results and some of them are not related.
Overall
Overall, I am satisfied with the website as it has been interesting to read and it has been constantly updated.
-when are you
coming back? ;
Practical 6A
Evaluation for Internet Resources
[1]
Title of Internet Resource: Pop music – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
URL : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music
Purpose
The aims of the website are clearly stated.
Coverage
The website covers the history of the topic, pop music, the history of the topic and provides links to more websites which are discussing about the similar topic.
The information is comprehensive and helpful.
Perhaps the website can include more write-ups about the people or themes regarding the topic and add more pictures, graphics, animations or even music to make the website seem livelier.
The links to the other website has deemed to be very useful and it is somewhat connected to the theme of the site.
Authority
The references has been stated in the website. It has been used and been referenced to many times. There is a discussion on the wikipedia forum on the neutrality of the website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pop_music
Accuracy
It is a factual site which includes all the facts and not any opinion. However, music has been and still is a very much argued topic. It is hard to define the different kinds of music, as to which specific genre they belong to. There are arguments in the forum page as to how neutral are the information are.
To me, the information is mostly on facts and some of the examples given are defined on a wide range.
Currency
The information was last updated on December 2006.
The information is well organized according to the years and various categories.
Accessibility
The website is easily accessible. It does not require registration or log-ins to view the information. It is available to all for free.
The website is a sub-page of the Wikipedia database, which is an online encyclopedia, which maintains on donations to keep it running.
Presentation and Alignment
The information is well presented, clear and simple to understand. There are links to other more relevant websites in the same database and the links are pretty useful.
The arrangement of the information is neat and easy to view in one glance.
Usability
It is user friendly as it provides quick links at the top which links to the information at the bottom for quick references.
Overall
Overall, I am impressed at the presentation of the data, which was easy to understand and the website was easy to navigate.
However, it would have been better if the website was more colorful and had included more graphics.
-when are you
coming back? ;
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The forum which I would be posting my questions on:
http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/index.php
Direct Link:
http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=22171#p22171
-when are you
coming back? ;
Practical Worksheet 4 & 5 (Weeks 5 & 6)
Introduction to Internet Resources: Internet Search Facilities 1 & 2
Type of Search facility:
Search Engine [Google]
Keywords: Music.....Trends.....Teenagers
Purpose: Information
The Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_music
Hits: 1,130,000
Meta Search Engine [Mamma]
Keywords: Music.....Trends.....Teenagers
Purpose: News
The Web: https://www.elca.org/lutheranpartners/archives/teenmusc.html
Hits: 36
Search Engine [Yahoo]
Keywords: Music.....Trends.....Teenagers
Purpose: Information
The Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_trends_in_music_(1950-1959)
Hits: 673,000
Reflections on Comparison and Evaluation on search effectiveness
Compare the search results. Identify 2 characteristics that make all 3 search facilities similar or different from one another.
Results of total number of websites found (however, the results of the subject directory and search engine is really a huge amount)
They have an advanced search option which allows users to perform a more specific search.
All three search engines are easy to use and very user friendly.
Do you find any strength/weakness of each of them, in terms of search capability?
Search engine: Google
Weakness
-A lot of irrelevant results
E.g. Results contain a webpage from a site which promotes a drug-free environment
Strengths
-Many variety of results from different sources:
e.g. Definitions of search topic or Forums which discuss the topic
Meta Search engine: Mamma
Weakness
-The results are not specific enough
Strengths
-Smaller range of results, easier to review and explore
- options to search for different sources
Subject directory: Yahoo
Weakness
-A wide range of results (in which there maybe some which are irrelevant to the topic or unhelpful websites)
Strengths
-More specific to the topic which is being researched on (advanced search option)
- provides the size of each individual webpage
Overall, which search facility best meet your searching needs? Why?
The Meta search engine would be quite useful as it provides a smaller range of results rather than a huge amount of results like the search engine or the subject directory, and most of the websites from the results are either irrelevant or useless for my searching needs.
Comment whether your research topic has any co-relation to the purposes of the resources retrieved.
My research topic has some co-relation to the purposes of the resources retrieved. To know more about the latest trends in music, forums discussing about the latest trends of music would be very helpful. Also, news articles reporting about the latest news or statistics would benefit my search process. The information websites like wikipedia (an online encyclopedia) would help me understand the definitions of certain technical terms which I do not understand.
-when are you
coming back? ;
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Practical Worksheet 2 (Week 3)
Introduction to Internet Resources: Categories of Internet Resources 2
Activity 1
Topic : Discuss the latest trends in the music industry for teenagers
Activity 2
Website 1 : (Organizational WWW sites)
[ http://www.idadesal.org/ ]
Website for the International Desalination Association. Provide news about the latest news about water desalination and desalination technology
Website 2 : (Organizational WWW sites)
[ http://www.ssabuddhist.org/ ]
Website for the Singapore Soka Association which is a religious organization that practices the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin
Website 3 : (Personal WWW sites)
[ http://www.globality.org/Mayday/MaydayBlueMain.html ]
Personal website about thoughts about the author’s favorite music
Website 4 : (Subject-based WWW sites)
[ http://www.hanzismatter.com/ ]
A website which is dedicated to the misuse of Chinese character by western culture
Discussion Forum/newsgroup related to your research topic
Discussion Forum/newsgroup related to your research topic:
[ http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/index.php ]
A forum which host different discussions about different languages of music, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and many more
Reflections on your searching activity
1. Which search facility/ies did you use?
- Google and Yahoo
2. Write down all the keywords you had used for searching the resources. Identify those keywords that yield relevant or better search results.
- Websites
- Associations
- Religion
- Music
- Personal
3. What are the major differences amongst the three types of websites?
- The organization website would contain more information and be updated more often as there would be a team of people maintain the website but the personal website would not be updated so much often
-when are you
coming back? ;
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Practical Worksheet 1 (Week 2)
Introduction to Internet Resources: Categories of Internet Resources
Topic: Music
Aspect: Popular music
3. Search the Internet for one example of the resources listed on your chosen aspect:
Newsgroups and discussion list:
[ http://forum.maydaymayday.net ]
Forum for mayday, a popular Chinese band
Electronic journals and magazine:
[ http://www.rollingstone.com/ ]
News on latest albums released, music reviews and the editor’s pick on the music industry
Multi-media source:
[ http://www.imayday.com
Site which contains latest news, clips, videos, wallpapers available for downloads
Blogs & Wiki:
[ http://www.wretch.cc/blog/fanwenshan ]
Blog of famous lyricist Fang Wen Shang who has penned award winning songs by Jay Chou
5. Compare your findings with your partner. Did you find the same/similar resource? If not, how different are these from yours?
My partner’s work are mostly based on websites which promote English music whereas mine is more about the Chinese music.
We found the same website for the Electronic journals and magazine.
6. How did you decide on the resources for the different types? Are your reasons similar for all? Are they the similar to your partner?
By referring to the lectures slides given in OLE, we can easily differentiate which websites to use.
-when are you
coming back? ;
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
TEST
-when are you
coming back? ;