Lionel Chin

Lionel Chin, a co-founder of RippleWerkz and a ex-student of Temasek Polytechic IIT school, he started of as a free lancer, designing websites for different people, and soon started his own company RippleWerks with some of the people he knew, designing some amazing web designs for people like XiaXue and companies like Nuffnang, he really inspired me alot, as i have a great interest with web designing and hope to be working with designing webs or web related stuffs in the future.

He said that while working as a free lance one would need to be committed towards his work, to some people its hard to be committed with anything if there was no down side to them for not being able to complete their work, unlike when in a company and working with clients, its when a due date is set and some serious problems to arrive if work is not completed on time.

portfolio is really important to us as designers, with a good portfolio to show our clients, it has a much more better chance of being able to get different jobs from people. unlike in school clients wouldn’t hesitate to give nasty comments towards your work, expecting only the best from you, so one must really be prepared for the working world ahead as it is not as forgiving as it seems.

Even though after creating our website, we have to advertise it to gain traffic to our web, a web without traffic is useless. We can advertise in other website, networking sites like facebook, use social widgets like twitter and such.

Research findings (Samaritans Singapore)

Samartitans was started 1st in the UK as a organization aimed to prevent suicide, and to provide 24 hours emotional support for those in need of help. The organization was set up in Singapore in 1969. Samaritans Singapore focus is to prepare professionals and members of the public to be more aware of the situation of the problem, warning signs by people in distress and ways to help them.

The Web presence of the Samaritans Singapore web page is a flash driver web page with simple designs and animation, however, i do feel that the web design they have now is not suitable for people who are stressed and feeling suicidal, it might make them feel more anxious just by trying to look for the information they need to help themselves. The website is more towards creating awareness to volunteers and people who are interested in helping people in crisis, rather than helping the distressed people themselves.

This website doesn’t have any social media tools, they have no real picture, only some sketch animation.

I would propose to create a new prototype webpage for the Samaritans Singapore, something that people in distressed can feel calm when visiting this website, the use of relaxing colors green and blue would be the main colors, adding the contact information at every page in the website so that they can know how to get help even if they were directed directly to another page other than the homepage through a search engine. Addition of new media tools like, twitter, a microsite, facebook groups and youtube, using these social media tools to create more awareness in the community as well as information for people in distress themselves, posting small updates on current events and help on twitter, getting people from all over Singapore together in facebook, posting up pictures and videos of events and showing some tips. Microsite and youtube can be used to promote more about the Samaritans and even show stories of people that were saved from their depression, so that others can have a better understanding of their problems.

Visit to the National Archives Singapore

National Archives of Singapore (NAS) was previously known as the National Archives and oral History Department in 1979, and was known as the National Archives and Records Centre(NARC) in 1968 which was established by an act of the parliament. Now the nation archives is an institution under the National Heritage Board, and currently located at Fort Canning Park.

National Archives of Singapore is a record keeper of Singapore, it holds and preserved many old and new collections from all kinds of different media, they include books, journal, reports and other text based media, photographs, floor plans, blueprints, videos, audio recordings and etc. This is a very good place for those who needs to or likes to research about the history around Singapore.

The National Archives also handles old and damage books and paper, repairing them to a readable state and patching damages that arrived with the book, the book is then layered with a harder paper then bind and preserved within a environment controlled area to prevent it from getting damage again. They also have documents from different organization or the government to preserve as a backup, these documents are processed into a microfilm. They also have rights to record down anything from the local media that they feel may have a value for storage in them, things like the national day celebration, the PM speeches and etc.

The NAS also have a web database system, access to archives, @²O which allows students who have to do research findings to get their research materials online, from there they can head down to the NAS to retrive the information that they need, or view more information from the research section there, and get it printed if possible.

Non-profitable illness support group

Alzheimer disease is a common form of dementia among the older people in the society, dementia is a brain disorder that seriously affects a person ability to carry out normal daily task, things like speaking normally, eating and dressing. people who have Alzheimer disease is likely for forget about recent events that happened or names of people that they know, they may even forget about the names of people related to them or may not even recognize them anymore. People with this disease may even forget about how to do the simplest things like brushing their teeth or even buttuning a shirt, they usually get anxoius or aggressive later on, while some might even wander away from home.

Alzheimer Disease Association is a non-profitable organzation that was formed in 1990 in concern with the growing needs for people with dementia in their family, it is a voluntary welfare organzation that made up of care givers, professional and those who are interested in Dementia.

Alzheimer Disease Association provides day care services to for the elderly at 4 different location, at Bukit Batok, Jurong point, Tampines and Toa Payoh. They provide transport to and from the centre, therapy, information, suport group and services, teaching on how to care for people with Dementia and more.

To allow a much larger number of people to get to know about this diease, they could publish posters at bus stop, it is where most people will be everyday, make advertisements about their website in social networking sites like, facebook and myspace, constant updates on twitter, so that the public can know more about them. They could have a change of design for their website as it is very plain now, and users would much leave the site without even reading anything, small posters on the buildings notices for adults who spend less time on the net. These would allow more people to get to know more about the Association.

http://www.alzheimers.org.sg/

Literature Review

Pizza Hut’s iPhone App has generated $1 Million in sales.

Ever since the iPhone has appeared in the market, hundreds and thousands of people have already been anxiously queuing up for this new product by Apple, right now, no matter where you go, you will be able to see many different people holding onto this phone. Since it’s launch, Apple have come out with a way to allow people to download new applications onto this machine, the App store, available in the Itunes software, consumer can log on and download any kind of software that is available on the store for free or for a small price. And for programmers out there, there is also a feature for them to upload their applications into the app store for others to download and use.

More and more companies are creating applications for the iPhone, either as a way to promote their brands or to gain new customers through this phone, and some of these companies are even seeing increased sales thanks through the app store. One such company is Pizza Hut, creating an application for the iPhone and Ipod Touch, this application itself had generated sales of $1million dollars since 3 months ago according to MoblieMarketer.

Before the introduction of this new iPhone, ordering food was made through flipping through its hard copy flyer or catalog, making your choices and then making a phone call to the fast food resturant to place and order. But right now with this new technology, consumers can just make an order of the food they want anywhere, looking at the catalogs and promotions, deciding orders, types and ways you want the food to be, without having the hassle of making a call. With an check list right at the end before we make our order, we can make sure that nothing is missing, unlike calling, where the staff might have missed out some items and having the consumer to wait for it to be delievered again.

 

reference:

http://mashable.com/2009/11/03/pizza-hut-iphone/

My NewMedia Terms

 

What is a Tag Cloud?

A tag cloud is a visual collection of keywords of different sizes used to show the type of contents found in the current web page.

 

What is it for?

A tag cloud is used for linking users to a specific term or topic within the website for easy searching.

 

How is it created?

A tag cloud can be created from using available tag cloud generators in the net, all the user have to do is just to input their desired keyword and a hyperlink to link it to another page