Toss the Recipe Book, It’s 21st Century!

  

My mother cooks some really good home cooked food past down by my grandmother. She will have her thick bible of recipe on the kitchen top and follow every step written; that’s if the handwriting is readable. However, the variety was limited to just a few signature dishes of hers, and if we wanted something different we will have to eat out. She gives little trust to commercially sold recipe books.

Things have changed with the introduction of Internet, especially the Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a common term used to described information sharing and user generated content over the Internet.  

Site like Epicurious has definitely generated a huge population of chef at home. It enables recipes sharing by user either adapted from magazines or self produced recipes. Its content is almost fully user generated, with user contributing to the recipe database, user rating the recipes and nevertheless giving feedback.

This is a whole new culture of home cooking. Free online recipes have provided millions the motivation to try out home cooking. Besides, there are thousands of recipes from all around the globe, which is sometimes a hard decision to make which to try out for dinner.

Food information is abundant over the Internet as users generously share their knowledge and experiences to others while they drawn content from it. It is a typical Web 2.0 theory of the “Push-and Pull” that drowns the web server with information, regardless of its usability. 

Below is a few links that you may want to refer to the next time you want to impress someone over the dinner table.

Allrecipes

Taste of Home

Taste.com.au

Blogging In Malaysia

Internet is the new media that is said to be more democracy compare to the old media. In Malaysia, many people turn to the Internet to look for alternative news especially from blogs. Blogging is a very popular trend in Malaysia recording more than half a million active blogger in the year 2008 (The Star 2008). It is a new form of journalism where everyone can be a journalist. Although the internet can provide a platform for freedom of speech, but there are laws that detain bloggers who are said to be disrupting the harmony in the country and is called as a threat to the nation. Cases of arresting bloggers in Malaysia have happened a few times, including famous blogger Jeff Ooi, Raja Petra, and so on. This situation forces bloggers to practice self censorship when writing in their blog. This is to avoid being detained under the law of ISA.

Bloggers should follow a set of ethics while blogging to keep up their credibility. Some examples of blogging ethics are honest, fair, accountable, and minimizing the harm (Cyberjournalist.Net 2003). Although blogs often provide an alternative viewpoint differ from the mainstream media but it does not mean they are always right. Audiences have to make sure that the blog they are reading is credible and the information are accurate.

In the future, tougher rules and regulation may be introduced in Malaysia to control the blogging sphere and to prevent bloggers from spreading untrue news and messages on the internet (Mamakk 2006). The government should allow democracy journalism on the Internet and if by censoring the Internet content the media democracy will be affected. Nevertheless, bloggers should not misuse the freedom granted to them on the Internet. There are abundance of blogs on the net, which are mostly unnecessary information to the public. To build their credibility, bloggers should be considerate and make sure the content that they want to post on their blog is useful to the public, accurate and does not harm the interest of the country.

 

<http://juliasmola.blog.com/2009/11/29/demotivators/&gt;

Reference List

1.       The Star 2008, Blogging in Malaysia ranks among highest in the world, viewed on 13 November 2010, < http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/3/nation/20827588&sec=nation&gt;

2.      Cyberjournalist.Net 2003, A Blogger’s Code Of Ethics, viewed on 13 November 2010, < http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php&gt;

3.      Mamakk 2006, Malaysia Mull Internet Laws Against Bloggers, viewed on 13 November 2010, < http://www.mamakk.com/12/malaysia/malaysia-mulls-internet-laws-against-bloggers/&gt;

 

Microblogging Trend

The new media, particularly blogging has become the prominent alternative media for political parties especially the oppositional parties. Recently a new form of medium is taking over blogging which is called the microblogging. Microblogging is a shorter form of blogging where the number of words in each post is limited to certain length (Freedman 2009). Microblogging sites include Tumblr, Facebook, Linkedln and so on (Indian Blogger n.d.).  This trend has hit the world, including those political leaders. They are turning to microblogs like Twitter to send their message across. Launched on 2006, Twitter has already exceeded 100 million users on April 2010 (The Huffington Post 2010).

Microblogging is like posting a quick and short post on your blog, but people can follow this post more quickly. Microblog are updated more frequently than blog, due to its short messages. Many public figures and organisation has also signed up to microblog websites to announce information about themselves and to let their audiences keep track with them. It is especially useful to inform the audiences on live updates about an issue or event. Politicians use microblogs to send their views, ideas, and update to their supporters instantly. Microblogging has also grown with the service of 3g internet connection. People can easily update on their microblog about anything that comes to their mind from almost everywhere.

But this efficient service may sometimes be a disadvantage. User should practise ethical posting when using this service. One example of this is the when the ABC News employees posted on their tweeter that the U.S president Obama called Kanye West a “jackass” for his action during the VMA (Gold 2009). The thing is Obama made the comment during off air, and it is unethical to post messages to the public when it was not meant to be for them.

Reference List:

1. Freedman T. 2009, Web 2.0 For Rookies: What Is Microblogging?, ICT In Education, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/12/24/web-20-for-rookies-what-is-microblogging.html&gt;

2. Indian Blogger n.d.,Microblogging, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://www.indibloggers.com/microblogging/&gt;

3. Gold M. 2009, Obama, Kanye West, Trouble With Facebook, Los Angeles Times, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/16/entertainment/et-abctwitter16&gt;

4. The Huffington Post, 2010, Twitter User Statistics Revealed, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/twitter-user-statistics-r_n_537992.html&gt;

1. Freedman T. 2009, Web 2.0 For Rookies: What Is Microblogging?, ICT In Education, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://www.ictineducation.org/home-page/2009/12/24/web-20-for-rookies-what-is-microblogging.html&gt;

2. Indian Blogger n.d.,Microblogging, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://www.indibloggers.com/microblogging/&gt;

3. Gold M. 2009, Obama, Kanye West, Trouble With Facebook, Los Angeles Times, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://articles.latimes.com/2009/sep/16/entertainment/et-abctwitter16&gt;

4. The Huffington Post, 2010, Twitter User Statistics Revealed, viewed on 12 November 2010, < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/twitter-user-statistics-r_n_537992.html&gt;

Privacy On Facebook

Social networking websites have rises in popularity in recent years, including webtsites like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and so on. Facebook is one of the most popular social networking websites in the world. There are 500 million people that have signed up for this site since 2004 (Pepitone 2010). Facebook may be the perfect site to let you stay connected with your family and friends but at the same time it may also put you at risk. This is because user disclose too much of personal information on facebook that is accessible by the public.

<http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2009/1211/Facebook-privacy-Friend-lists-not-public-after-all&gt;

It was reported that top applications on Facebook are collecting user’s information and selling them to marketing companies (Williams 2010). Those applications include Farm Ville, Texas Hold Em Poker, Frontier Ville, and so on (Helft 2010). These applications take the information of the user without them knowing and this breaks the privacy policy set by Facebook. Not only they transmit the user’s information but also their friends’ information to third party company (Helft). Facebook has disabled many applications that are violating these rules and regulations. In addition, facebook also changed their privacy policy to overcome this issue.

User’s private information that was sold to third party companies was used to track the user’s activities on the internet. This intrudes the user’s privacy and is unethical without asking the permission from the user. New technologies should be imposed on websites like Facebook to prevent the private information of users being misused. Stricter cyber rules and regulations should also be introduced to protect the privacy of users on the internet.

On the other hand, the user of the internet should be careful of the information that they disclose on the internet. They should be careful of who they information they gave it to as it is also their own responsibility to look after their personal information.

<http://ceoworld.biz/ceo/2009/12/18/a-review-on-how-facebook-privacy-hit-with-ftc-complaint&gt;

Reference List

1.       Pepitone J. 2010, Facebook 500 Million Users Reached Wednesday, CNNMoney, viewed 10 November 2010,

< http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/21/technology/facebook_500_million/index.htm&gt;

2.       Williams R. 2010, Facebook Apps Selling Personal Information to Marketing Companies, Hardgeek, viewed 10 November 2010, < http://hardgeek.org/facebook-apps-selling-personal-information-to-marketing-companies&gt;

3.       Helft M. 2010, Facebook Acknowledges Privacy Issue With Applications, The New York Times, viewed on 10 November 2010, < http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/facebook-admits-to-privacy-issue-and-makes-fixes/&gt;

Electronic Books?

Ebook or also called electronic books are books that are just like the traditional books except it is digitalized to be viewed on computer screens. Ebook is hard to define as it is still evolving but simple definition of it is the electronic version of a printed book (Dowdy et.al. 2001). Even so, not all ebooks may be available in printed form. The use of ebook is a rising trend around the world with the development of ICT world. Although there is no official statistic available but the total number of ebooks is estimated to be more than 10million (Numberof.net 2010). Kunhardt (2009) reported that the sale of ebooks outsell the print book during last year according to Amazon. Ebooks is no longer something new to the world, it has became an industry, for company like Amazon is make billions of money through ebooks.

Ebooks were once in trend on the 90’s and are said that it will take over the entire publishing industry. Though the prediction failed miserably, the trend is now back. The annual sale growth of ebooks between 2002 to 2007 was more than 50%, while the growth sale of printed books are only 2.5%.

So what makes ebooks so popular? The convenient of ebooks that are stored in the computer instead of your bookcase save space in your house. It is easy to look for, unlike looking for traditional print material, reader can type in the keywords to look for material they want. Sites like Ebooks.com and Amazon provide a huge database of ebooks to be purchased in the comfort of your home. Since Internet is so common nowadays and almost every urban citizen has access to it, purchasing books is easier than ever. In addition, the launch of portable devices like Amazon Kindle and Apple Ipad has made ebook reading more effortless thus contributing to it’s growth. Through these portable devices, people can now download their favorite books with just a few clicks on the buttons or in the case of Ipad a few touches. Nevertheless, they also come with many other features like wireless connection to the internet and camera that interest the people. These devices are handy and they could store up to hundreds and thousands of reading materials (Squidoo 2010). Prices of ebooks are normally cheaper than the print book. At the same time, it also help save the environment with the use of computer screen instead of paper.

(Ipad-Review 2010 <http://www.ipad-review.co.uk/2010/02/ebooks-to-cost-more/&gt;)

Reference List

1.      Dowdy J., Parente S., Vesper V. 2001. , Ebooks In The Academic Library, Middle Tennessee State University, viewed on 10 November 2010, <http://frank.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed01/21.pdf&gt;

2.      Numberof.net 010, Numbers Of Ebooks Available, viewed on 10 November 2010, <http://www.numberof.net/number-of-ebooks-available/&gt;

3.      Squidoo 2010, Best Ebook Reader, viewed on 10 November 2010, <http://www.squidoo.com/bestebookreader&gt;

The New Media

New forms of media are emerging alongside with the development of the internet. For instance, the latest form of media publishing would be through social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Bloggers and so on. They are also called the alternative media because of the availability of the freedom to speech. Because the new media is still fresh, therefore there were not much rules and regulation attached to it. This gives opportunity for people who want to reach out to the mass an alternative besides the main media. One of the examples is political campaign of oppositional party who have minimum access to the main media especially in a country like ours; the new media is an ideal approach to reach their voters. The media ecosystem is also evolving due the same reason. Journalism has been redefined as people also consider blog as a form of journalism. The media is now more interactive compare to before as printed media also set up websites allowing audiences to send feedback to them in the just a few clicks. It is no more a one way communication whereby the audiences absorb whatever information provided to them. This is very important as the media directly affects the culture of our society.



A Blog Community

A blogging community is a group of connected bloggers that links each other in their own blogs. These blogs usually are from the same category of blog. A blogging community is not only a online community, members of blogging community also meet offline (Anthony 2009 ).The first step to building a good blogging community is reading others blog (Nikkis 2008). Leaving comment on others blog can help blogger to make new blogging friend which will eventually become one of the member in their blog community. With the conveniences of social networking websites, blogger can now sync their social network accounts with their blog. Moreover, they can tag people in their blog post which will help in expanding their blog community. They can also join groups or organizations that are set up for bloggers. An example of a blogging community is the Global Voices. It is a blogging community that provides alternative information that is usually not found in the mainstream media. This community is made up of voluntary and credible bloggers whose posts are reviewed by professionals.

References

Nikkis 2008, How to Build A Blogging Community, Ehow, Viewed on 30 September 2010 < http://www.ehow.com/how_2152382_build-blogging-community.html >

Anthony 2009, What is A Blogging Community, The Travel Tart, Viewed on 30 September 2010 < http://www.thetraveltart.com/what-is-a-blogging-community/ >

Classifying Blogs

There are many types of blog online and they are classified in different ways. Because the internet is multimedia now, many blogs also have more than one criteria that suit into different group. One of the ways of grouping blogs is by determining the content of the blog which is depends on the purpose of the blog and the blogger.  They include personal blog, school blog, automated blog, fashion blog and so on (Honeysweet 2010). Another method of blogging is moblog, which means blogging through a mobile device. Blogs are also classified through the type of media used for example vlog which means video blog. In my opinion, the most appropriate way of classifying blogs is through the content of the blog. Readers look into a particular blog regularly usually because they are interested In the topic of the blog. For this reason, I think content is the most important criteria for grouping blogs.

References:

Honeysweet 2010, Types of Blogs and Blogs Categories, Viewed on 30 September 2010 < http://www.honeysweetlearningcenter.info/2010/06/types-of-blogs-and-blog-categories.html >

Blogging As Current Phenomenon

Blogging has become a trend in the world, especially in European countries. However, Malaysia is also one of the top ranked countries in the world that has the most active bloggers (The Star 2008). The Star (2008) stated that there are 500000 active bloggers in Malaysia in year 2008. According to Pingdom (2010), there are 126 millions of blogs worldwide and the number is still growing. Blogging trends in Malaysia are mainly personal blog that allows user to express themselves and comment on things that happen around them. Other trends of blogging are food blog, political blog, fashion blog and so on. Blogs offer an alternative opinion to people for example in Malaysia, political blogs are very popular. Due to strict policies of the printing media in Malaysia, blog has become a popular alternative media for the public for instance, online news portal like Malaysiakini and blog like Jeff Ooi’s.Political blogs have a huge influence on people for example the general election in Malaysia is the perfect example of this case. The ruling party in Malaysia nearly loses its authority cause by the campaign carried out by oppositional party through the websites and blogs that has resulted in high votes for them (Lee 2008).

References
Lee 2008 Malaysia Ruling Party Lost In Cyberspace, Bloomberg Business Week, Viewed 24 September 2010,

The Star 2008, Blogging In Malaysia Ranked Among Highest In The World, Viewed 24 September 2010,

Pingdom 2010, Internet 2009 In Numbers, Viewed 24 September 2010,

A Successful Presentation

When talk about presentation, most people have fear to public speaking.  The very first step  to a  good presentation is to catch the audiences’ attention (Caroline and B.Pearson 2007). Darlington (2010) suggested that we should utilize power point to present our presentation so that the audiences have a clear structure of your presentation. It is important that a slide is clear because audience could easily get the main idea and understand the elaboration by the speaker. Russell (2010) and Marquez (2010) had the same opinion stating that fancy font should be avoided in the presentation so that the content would be easy to read. The type of font should also be constant so that it will not confuse the audiences.  Besides that, the font size should also be big enough for the audience to read. Marquez (2010) also mentioned that a presentation slide should not contain too many words and only write down key term in the slide.

Other than the slide itself, the performance of the speaker is also very important.The speaker must not mumble when talking to the audience (Wofford 2010). Marquez (2010) had the same idea saying that the speaker has to speak clearly so that the audiences’ interest will stay. The speaker needs to be confident in order to persuade the audience and to deliver the message of the presentation.

The following is an example of the slide that I think can be improved to make a better presentation.

This slide has too many words in it and it is difficult for audiences to read. The slide should summarize the paragraphs and only present the key ideas to the audiences.

References

Caroline, Brown  P. 2007, Starting a Presentation, Viewed on 2 September , 2010 < http://www.effective-public-speaking.com/starting/menu.php  >

Darlington R. 2010,  How to make a good presentation, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://rogerdarlington.me.uk/Presentation.html >

Marquez Z. 2010, How to make a good powerpoint presentation, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-a-Good-PowerPoint-Presentation&id=4313178 >

Russell W. 2010, Tips for Creating Successful Business Presentations, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointinbusiness/tp/bus_pres_tips.htm >

Wofford 2010, Characteristic of a Good presentation, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://webs.wofford.edu/davisgr/research_spring_2005/goodpresentationadvice.htm >

Caroline, Brown  P. 2007, Starting a Presentation, Viewed on 2 September , 2010 < http://www.effective-public-speaking.com/starting/menu.php  >

Darlington R. 2010,  How to make a good presentation, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://rogerdarlington.me.uk/Presentation.html >

Marquez Z. 2010, How to make a good powerpoint presentation, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-a-Good-PowerPoint-Presentation&id=4313178 >

Russell W. 2010, Tips for Creating Successful Business Presentations, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointinbusiness/tp/bus_pres_tips.htm >

Wofford 2010, Characteristic of a Good presentation, Viewed on 2 September 2010 < http://webs.wofford.edu/davisgr/research_spring_2005/goodpresentationadvice.htm >