EIR Practical 8 & 9 - My Dream Holiday

Hey everyone!!! This week we are talking about my Dream Holiday... For me, my dream holiday destination is... Australia!!! Why Australia? It's because it has many different cultures, it is a country with lots of flora and fauna and most of all it has beautiful sandy beaches. So having shared all that with you, I'll show you some beautiful pictures of Australia's famous sites and icons...

The kangaroo!! The most recognized icon of Aussie-land...

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Outback

Dirt Biking

Jet Skiing

Hang-Gliding

All the above activities are what I really want to do in Australia... And now I've done them in Second life!!!

Took a picture at Sydney Harbor Bridge...

 Took a boat ride out to sea

 Shared a cruise with my new friends

 Dancing to the music along the streets

 More pictures in the city with my new friends









Rode a mechanical bull in the outback

 Rode a camel in the outback

 My very own dirt bike!

Doing stunts for the very first time!

Outback truck drifting

Horse Riding in the Outback

 Hang Gliding the following day...

 First Jet Ski experience

 Riding the waves!

 Viewing sharks in a shark cage










Sydney Opera House

Relaxing after a hard day in a tower top lounge

End the day relaxing with buddies in the city...

 With that, I ended my short tour of Australia in Second Life. It was really fun and even better with my new found friends who spent the day with me exploring the different areas of Second Life Australia. Special thanks to them!

When I evaluated the website on tourism in Australia (http://www.australia.com/), I checked the currency of the website as it is most important for me to get the latest information on the things going on in Australia especially the update on the Queensland floods which I am quite concerned about as it will affect tourists heading to the area. An updated website would also mean that the latest and most interesting items will be put up on it and so I will be able to go and see the newest spots in Australia and not run into a situation where the attraction which I was planning to go being closed down. So I choose currency of the website as the most important criteria when I check the website.

Thats about all, until next time...

T.

EIR Practical 7

Hey Everyone!!!

It's me again and now I will be reflecting on my practical which included reading articles on Stomp and also posting my views on the EIR space. I personally think that Stomp sometimes becomes more of a gossip website than news as some of the information there is simply because someone got annoyed at something and vents their anger by posting it on stomp so reliability of an article is always questioned. As the saying goes "There are two sides to a coin." and I believe that people are biased, at least most of us are and so reliability is a big part of my criteria when I evaluate Stomp which as a citizen journalism website should at least give information as accurate as possible even though it is mostly posted by random strangers.

I like sharing information on wiki but one big problem is the saving of the information which takes so long and sometimes does not work at all, this makes it hard for us when we want to submit our research because it sometimes work and sometimes does not. Maybe we should have another page or website to share the information so that if we cannot get it up in the EIR wiki, it will at least be shared somewhere else.

Thats about all I have to say, take care everyone...

EIR Practical 6

Hi Everyone,

For this practical, I had to do research on the invisible web or databases using our very own TP library SPARKS system and TP's database on library.books24x7.com. I am quite familiar with SPARKS and so doing the first part was rather easy for me. However as I am new to the second database, it was slightly more difficult for me to find it and start off. Personally, I feel that databases can be rather effective if it belongs to the library as it will contain information on which book to search for however if I were to find websites, the normal search engines will be more beneficial. I prefer search engines to databases as it has a much bigger range of websites and resources compared to the database. Having said that, I will definitely use databases for my research in the future as it will help me find the information I need more efficiently and save me alot of time searching through library books trying to find the right one for my project.

I learnt to edit and also improve on the previous information I had on the wiki but I also nearly deleted all the information on my entry by mistake as I did not know how to restore to the old document after editing. But luckily, I did not save it and so my research is safe.

Well, thats about it everyone. Its already late, take care everyone.

EIR Practical 4 & 5

Hi all,

It's another long day and I would like to share with you about my search using meta crawler.com and yahoo directories. Well, for me personally, meta crawler has a lot of advertisements, old links and outdated information however it is very easy to use, just like any other search engines that I've used before. The sort by search engine function is also very useful as it allows us to see which search engine is most useful in accordance to the topic which you are searching for. The yahoo directories is quite hard to use because when I tried to use keywords, the directories option disappear and vice-versa, so I had to manually go through so many directories until I find something relevant to my search. So boring... After a long hard search, I found some useful links, blogs and details to help me in my research of Web 2.0 in Organizations and all my hard work pays off. So I guess its a fruitful day after all.

Site feeds is quite hard for me to customize as I went through the html codes but was unable to find the line that I needed to edit but after some exploring, I found the edit template link which gave me what I needed. And now my new blog has a RSS Feed of two of our classmates blogs as well as links to them. Sharing in the EIR wiki space proved to be interesting as the threads are quite hard to find due to previous year students works being there as well, but I still posted my research under the Web 2.0 topic thread. Sharing on wiki space is something new to me and it is helpful as we add onto the page more information that we know so all of us can share it.

T.

Things I learned in Week 5

Well, I have learned a lot today,a lot about Internet Search Facilities. Previously, I just knew about and used Baidu and Google, though I thought they are useful enough for research. However, I realized that for more professional searches Google is not enough. Besides, since everyone uses Google, the search results of the same topic will be the same, and not unique.

So, what are the difference between Internet Search Facilities?
Search engines---most commonly used (such as google & askjeeves),but a single search engine can only find a portion of the relevant web pages.


Meta Search Engines---multi-search engines (such as Jux2, IxQuick, Kartoo, Mamma, MetaCrawler & Vivisimo) which combine google, yahoo...The searching ranges are more bride.However, it is not always stable. (I cannot open the Kartoo for the whole morning in the class) 


Subject Directories---subject catalogs (such as Yahoo Directory & Galaxy )


Invisible Web---Databases (such as Spark )


Tips:
For familiar topic, search engines and meta search engines are good choices.

•For unfamiliar topic, we can use subject directories as it allows us to browse through relevant links .

•For specialized information, we have to use invisible web.

Furthermore, there are three useful guide websites:

http://infopeople.org/

http://www.searchengineshowdown.com/

http://www.noodletools.com/

 

Virtual Shopping on Second Life - The New Way To Shop Till You Drop!!!

Just Arrived at Farrah Island

Flying, The New Way To Shop

So many clothes, so little time... 

First Person View Shopping

JCNY - Picture Perfect w Store Owner

Picture Perfect Services

Picture Perfect Products
(They piece SL Characters into Real Life Scenes)

 

Shopping at TNC

Shopping at VTwins Biker Outfitters

Trying out clothes the SL way

Modelling Contests in Shops

JCNY - Main Store

Talking to JCNY Customer Service Rep.

"Live Models"

Gift Cards As Christmas Presents!!!

What do I like best about this virtual experience which I cannot get in real life?

I personally prefer flying around the mall than just purely walking about, shopping at any hour in the day, friendly customer service who accompanies you around the shopping area all these attract me. Another plus is trying on clothes without having to queue for the changing room but just with simple clicks of the mouse button to see how the clothes look on me. Flying makes going from shop to shop a lot faster than just walking and makes window shopping more fun than it already is. Chatting with real life people who are actually renting shops and hiring customer service representatives or even live models and paying them with Lindens which is the credit in the game brings a whole new level of reality to Second life, making it more than just a game.

I learnt so much about how a helpful customer service officer who isn’t stressed and tired from working the whole day and doesn’t have to rush around trying to get the correct dress size for you can be much more fun to interact with. We do not need to rush to the cashiers and queuing to pay as everything is paid for with a few clicks of the mouse makes life a lot easier.

This shopping experience is a lot more interactive than eBay or any form of online shopping, I am able to see the merchandize straight away, ask for help as to how to test out the clothes or products, and even have customer reps give you a tour around the island and make friends with them enhanced my overall experience. The live models also help make your day as they chat with you and tell you what they think about the new designs, which was an eye opening experience.

I learnt that people take second life as seriously as real life but it’s a more perfect world where people are never stressed, always friendly, no thefts as programming eliminates it from happening, no queues as everyone can test clothes as and when they like and pay for it by clicking on the pictures. Initially trying to find my way around the islands, many floors and many shops proved challenging however, it took me only a short while with some help to make my way around the island.

Overall, the entire shopping experience proved to be a fun, interactive and enriching experience made better with friendly customer service.

EIR Practical 3 Activity 4 - Blog Reflections

Today I did the EIR practical, I was really impressed by the effectiveness of using keywords and the proper search queries. However, the results from Google scholar seems more relevant than the results from Google, but the range of articles from Google is a lot wider. I did not know that using the right search queries and alternative keywords can make such a difference in the results and I will practice that from now on.

Citing and compiling of bibliography of resources was the next activity that I went through, it helps us by letting us give credit to the owners of the information and not violate copyright regulations as a result. It also allows us to trace back where we got our information from when we need to refer to the sites for other uses.

Sadly, I could not find the discussion thread to post in. However, from my previous experiences and postings on other discussion boards in OLIVE, I personally feel that it is not as helpful as doing your own research but I have no problems chatting and sharing ideas with others on the discussion boards.

Overall, I had quite a good learning experience from doing this activity however, it could be much better if it isn't Sunday when I am doing this blog entry. Oh well, until next time....