DKIT experience

As the first time when I arrived at the small town where the Dundalk Institute of Technology is located, I was interested in its rich history with modern industrial development. Not only we can get beautiful view from DkIT, it is an Institute which creates a dynamic learning environment for all our students.

From the beginning of my study here, especially being an international student, everything is different and unfamiliar. I was lost in direction and confidence and very keen to improve my English by making friends with native students. When I felt struggling of how to give the first step with other people, they welcomed me and accepted me as an old friend. After three years study here, I learned a lot both from academic aspect and practice. Our Institute gives the commitment to course provision, which responds to the aptitudes and ambitions of our students with an unrelenting focus on excellence. Also DkIT provide us a wonderful new Library and Information Resource Centre as well as additional classroom and performance space where are very significant to our study.

The life in the Dundalk Institute of Technology is continuing and I am very proud of being one of the students here. It was a wonderful memory that everything happened in DkIT and that will be my treasure for the entire life.

Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce is triggered by the well-developed wireless technology, which provides the users to conduct commerce using a mobile device, such as a mobile phone, a PDA or other newly emerging mobile equipment such as an iPad. Through mobile commerce, shoppers can easily get connected to the sellers online around the globe to get their desired commodities. No doubt, the wireless technology speeds up the transaction process in the way to help the shoppers to buy online whenever there is a hot spot for wifi services or 3G networks. The mobile devices are portable and user-friendly. Also, it is fast and convenient, and shoppers will be able to get immediate feedback or confirmation from the seller online even in the case that they are waiting in line for a coffee.

From some personal experience, I am using an iPhone now, and the App Store provides thousands of apps that I can download to my phone for various purposes and uses. I can go online to browse news, connected to Facebook, shopping on eBay or Amazon. The specifically designed software applications are built in the iPhones, and through the Apps’ interfaces, we can conduct a lot of activities using the mobile devices. Not to mention that the mobile devices are also connect to the mobile banking, for iPhone or Blackberry they have specifically designed apps for banks, such as HSBC. This approach makes the mobile transactions more timely and efficient because the users can get instant resources right away. 

Censorship

Censorship is an action of limited using of speech or other form of public communication that may contain harmful, sensitive, or offensive information to the main public (Wikipedia). Therefore, the government or other organizations may propose related regulations to prevent the potential harms that might be resulted from the media sources.

The types of censorship highly depend on the kind of information that is potentially harmful to the public and therefore needs to be censored. Moral censorship is the most common one and it requires removing the materials that are considered morally questionable. Pornography often falls under this category and it is illegal to expose these materials to the general public especially to children. Another type of censorship is recognized as military censorship, and the major task is to keep the military tactics confidential and prevent them being exposed to the enemies.

However, the issue of censorship has brought a hot debate into the public, people are more concerned with the freedom of speech and expression of their opinions especially for the news media. The public is worried about losing the democratic status in the society. For example, the news of War of Iraq, the information has been somehow limited and hided from the public because of political pressure and chaos it might bring consequently. When Internet users are browsing online for the news, they might only see and comment on the information, which has already been censored by the government in order to make sure that no intense news has been released. Due to the reason that higher mortality rate during the wartime will cause negative domestic influence. The positive side for censorship for certain news is trying to protect the public, but in the long run, the public will inevitable question the news and they will potentially lose confidence and trust in government.

This is what I have been experienced about the debate over censorship towards news media through TV shows and Internet-based providers.

Usability

Web usability is gaining its importance in nowadays fast-paced society. The reason is that the Internet can store tremendous amount of information for the global users and we can get the information needed within seconds. Sometimes, when the end-users are exposed to millions of different sources of information, it is really important for us to narrow down what we need in a more efficient way.

Let us take a look at the example of Yahoo’s main page. Right next to the YAHOO! Title is a search box where end-users can look up for the information to fulfill their needs. On the very left side, there is the navigation panel which will lead the users to the various yahoo sites related to finance, jobs, entertainment, weather, shopping and so on. Under this major navigation panel is a section called “my favorites”, so end-users can add or delete what important activities they require for personal need. Another good illustration of the highly convenient Yahoo website is the middle section which is the news section. This section includes the local and worldwide news. The images of the hot topics are also showing under the news in order to direct the readers’ attention to highlight the importance of certain information. Overall, Yahoo did a really good job of reducing the potential ambiguity for readers while viewing the website. The information is clearly laid out, and the interface is very organized. It helps the users to find what they need more efficiently and improve the user-friendly features of the website.

Search Ranking Algorithms in Baidu & Google

If you want your website appear in the first page when people searching your keywords in the search engine. One of the most important things is SEO. In order to be successful in SEO, it is necessary to have good acknowledge of search engine ranking algorithms.

Baidu and Google are two most common used search engine in China. There is a big difference in website. When searching the same keyword respectively in these two website, the results appeared is quite different. For example, I type in “Beijing luxury hotel” in both website, the result is showed in the picture below. The left one is from Baidu and the right one is from Google. (to click on the picture to see the clear one)

According to some research on this area. The difference between ranking algorithms of Baidu and Google can be concluded as: Baidu is more focused on matching keywords, the freshness of the page, the page URL, and Google is more concerned about the influence of the site.

The main factors to be considered in search engine ranking algorithm are the following: URL, site impact, keyword matching, web update and web page similarity.

Baidu more focuses on whether the keyword matches the overall page, title, Meta and content, and also the URL rather than the influence of the site. Baidu intention to do so is to reduce the role of site influence, therefore to give prominence to the quality of the results page and the matching degree between the results and users’ expectation.

Since Google doesn't use human interference in searching results, Google focuses on the site influence as their priority of their website ranking algorithms. Otherwise there will be a large number of spam sites appear in the first page of results.

Not like Google, which is completely dependent on the machine to appear search results, Baidu use human interference in searching results. Therefore Baidu has the monitoring capability for those websites, which don’t have much influence. Once found spam pages appear in search results in the forefront, Baidu can manually block those sites. Therefore, Baidu can reduce the importance of sites influence in their website ranking algorithms.

One of my friends who is a SEOer talked his experience on these two search engines. He thought that Baidu and Google have some common, also have some difference need to be considered. First, the performance difference on the new site included. General when your new website has been submitted to the both Baidu and Google, Google will include your website in their results page and release the search data. On the other hand, you need to wait a long time before Baidu record your website. Secondly, the rank stability is quite different. Baidu is less stable than Google. Google ranking is generally very stable, if you have already in a high rank, it is difficult to fall off. However Baidu will suddenly give you a high rank, but after 1-2 days, it may fall quickly. If you have a lot of external links and good content, your rank will recover later.

Different search engine ranking algorithms are constantly adjusting. Google recently added update as an important factor in their ranking algorithms since blog is becoming more and more popular.

Web Standards

To accurately define web standards, it is a general term for the formal or the technical specifications describing the aspects of the World Wide Web (Wikipedia). The term is referring as adapting to the standardized practices for websites constructing and websites designing. The international standards organization is the W3C, which stands for World Wide Web Consortium (blog.genggao.net). The W3C’s main function is to propose new standards for the World Wide Web as well as ensure all the industry members and general users are adopting the standards.

What does it mean exactly by complying with the web standards? It means that the site or page has valid HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The HTML, CSS and JavaScript combining together.

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and it is the primary markup language for web pages. Also, HTML is the basic building blocks of web pages. HTML form is consisting of tags, and angle brackets. For instance, <h1> and </h1>, it always comes in pair. The first tag will be called the start tag, and the second one will be the end tag. The website designers can keep adding text, tables and images in between those tags to build up the websites so people can view it using the web browser. The web browser is used to read the HTML documents and convert them into visual or audible formats.

CSS, which is Cascading Style Sheets, is another name for web browsers. It helps to outline the appearance and layout of text, images and other materials. On the other hand, JavaScript, not to confuse with Java programming language, is also known as ECMAScript. It is an implementation of the ECMAScript language standard and it is also part of the web browser so that the JavaScript will enhance the user interfaces.

In short, web standards lay out a unified structure of composing text, images and markup languages into clear forms through the web browsers. Anyone who gains access to the web pages through the Internet-enabled devices is complied with the web standards. A good web standards should allow users access the website through any Internet-enabled device, and there should be no difference of the functions or services provided by the website when accessing through different web browsers and Internet-enabled devices.

Technology fast? Three days? Kill me!!!

Nowadays people living in a technology world. Even six grade student uses cell phone and computer in China. High-end technology products are becomes part of our life, like Smartphone, laptop and iPod. Now I will give up all technologies in my life for three days and become a primitive people.

First thing I did is calling my family and told them I would quite Internet and mobile for three days, don’t be worried if they couldn’t find me. After that, I put all my high-end stuff in a luggage and put it in the living room; I thought that could makes me feel better during these three days.

OK, here we go! Technology fast start!!!

Day one

Suddenly I felt my room was so empty and all what I could do was just reading magazine, free newspaper and even all the bills of our house. I couldn't get news from my friends on the RenRen and Sina Weibo. One of my friend won the first prize in a Korean language speech contest that day, and she posted this message and photos on RenRen. She also sent a message to my phone. Obviously I didn't get this news, therefore couldn't congratulate her at first. She told me lately that although she knew that I was doing technology fast, she was a little bit upset. 

In Ireland newspaper and TV, the news about my home country, China, was rare. I usually got news from Internet. But these three days would keep me away from the news about China. I was a little bit worried because I couldn't know what was happening in my home country in these days.

It was absolutely the most struggle day in my life, even worse than exam time! I was just sit around in my house today.

Day two

Finally, I realized that I have a lot of schoolwork need to finish, I just felt so happy about it. If I knew someone who was happy because he/she found some schoolwork to do before I did this task, I would say that he/she was crazy. However, I found that I couldn't finish my schoolwork without my computer. I need to write the CA by using Microsoft Word. I also need to access the online database to read some e-books and e-journals. What I could do was some basic reading. I did reading a lot that day. I also could not download the handout for tomorrow class from my e-mail and Moodle. So I asked my friend to copy the handouts for me.   

Day three

Last day! I felt boring and inconvenient without my cellphone and computer. I was so missing my cellphone and the Internet. 

The task was finished. I made it!!! I found  that it was very hard to quiet technology in my daily my. However, I still had to say that this was a really meaningful task, especially good for girls; keep us away from radiation and save my skin. I thought everybody in the world should try this at least once; it was good for our earth. Less electricity used good for our money. Stop young people to be addicted to Internet. Finally, I would say:”I love this task!”

Social Networking

There is no denying that social networking websites are getting more and more popularized in recent years. It gets people a lot of advantages. People can publish, share and get social interactions through social networks. You can stay in touch anywhere.

The most popular social networking websites in worldwide could be Facebook and Twitter. I don't use these two frequently, but have signed up. However these two and also some other websites like YouTube are blocked in China.

The most social networking websites in China are Kaixin, RenRen, Pengyou and Qzone. What I active on is RenRen and Sina WeiBo. RenRen has the same form with Facebook and Sina WeiBo has the same form with Twitter.

Social Networking websites have been seen as an effective tool to promote business. Many business organizations have developed Social Networks promotion plan as part of their overall marketing strategy. 

I would like to use RenRen as an example to talk about how business organization promoting through the Social Networking websites. In my perception, advertising on RenRen can be categorized into four forms.

First one is the banner advertising. This kind of ads always located on the side of the sites. The objective of this kind of advertising is to generate sales only. The GM of RenRen said that they have ads service platform for small/media business just like what Facebook does, but this is not the major advertising form they provide. 95% ads on RenRen are big brand ads. This might be the reason that why I only see one banner advertising on my RenRen homepage.

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The second one is creating a business profile on RenRen, companies can publish articles or photos of their business or relevant to their business. Then their followers can see and share with their social group. As what the GM of RenRen said, this kind of promotion is more likely brand image building than sales generation only. As I know, building a profile on RenRen as a business organization will be charged registration fees.

A RenRen profile page of a wedding planning company.

The third type is advertising on the comments. Here a popular Chinese website should be introduced. Taobao is an online shopping market just like eBay. Some sellers of Taobao advertise their Taobao shop on RenRen. They leave their shop introduction and link as comments under relevant articles or photos. For example, a user of RenRen built an album about teaching girls how to dress in fashion, a seller of female clothes from Taobao may said that he/she has these clothes in his/her Taobao shop and leave their shop link.

The last one is concealed advertisement. Publish articles or photos as a regular user, building and brand image in people’s subconscious, for example, an album of a collection of Coke Cola’s package design.                

Social Medias that I uses for my spare time

Social Medias changes people's life nowadays and no body can live without social medias. Young people may prefer uses mobiles, internet, TV at their spare time, old people may reading newspapers, listen radios more. For me, a foreign student. I spend almost 80% of my spare time online and another 20% on my phone.

Media types:
Newspaper- 0% never read
Radia- 0%
TV- 0% (I don't have a TV)
Mobile- 1hrs per day 20%
Online- 4hrs per day 90%

How to benefit your business through QQ Group?

“Tencent QQ, generally referred to as QQ, is the most popular free instant messaging computer program in Mainland China. As of September 30, 2010, the active QQ users accounts for QQ IM amounted to 636.6 million, possibly making it the world's largest online community”. QQ has such a large amount of users, if you can use it for your business somehow, isn’t it a good thing?

First, I will introduce QQ and QQ Group a little bit.

QQ is “an Internet Instant Message (IM) to support online message communications and instant voice, video and file transmissions”. QQ Group is “a multi-user communication service supplied in QQ. Once a QQ Group is created, the group builder can invite his/her friends as well as other people who share the same interests with the builder to join the group. In addition to this service, QQ is providing “Group Space” function in which members can take advantage of a lot of community-generated conveniences such as forum, photo albums, file sharing, etc.”.   

For most users of QQ groups, it is a place for chat. However it doesn't only mean a place for chat for some business people. Of course it is used for meeting new friends at first, and then it becomes a tool for E-marketing. For example, releasing adv. In QQ Group. Now, it can even be used to find opportunities to do business. Many people may still wonder that how QQ Group can be used to find business opportunities. So how can you realize this?

First, to standardize users’ display names. QQ Group users originally can set their display name freely.  In a business QQ Group, the users’ display names have to indicate what business they are involved in. For example, the user who is in Real Estate business can name like “Real Estate”. If you are in certain company, you should add your company name also. This enables all the users in the group to know what business is each member involved in.

Second, to actualize the virtual platform. Many people worry about that doing business in QQ Group is not secure. What you can to for this problem is to organize some activities like dinner, hiking, BBQ, traveling, etc. regularly to join the members who are in the same area or even world wide together. Therefore, members in the group could not only be assured to discus business in the QQ Group, but also make friends in real life.

Third, let the members in the group to help each other in business. If you have certain business right now, then you post relevant information in the group, you can get lots useful information back quickly. Moreover, in normal times members can discuss certain problem and exchange opinion on their business like marketing and management strategy and so on. For example, a Real Estate company wants to advertise their new buildings and then post the information in the group, and a advertising company in the group can just take over this business. After they discussing the requirements and price of the advertising, they can just to meet to sign the contract.

Fourth, expanding the platform. You should continuously adopt new people into your group. Therefore, the effect of the QQ Group will become more important for each member.

Using QQ Group to do business has become a trend. It is popular among business people because it is convent, quickly and instant. When you making new friends, you can get business opportunities at the same time and build business relationships.