Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Reflection of the course 'Issues in Publication and Design'

After enrolling in the course of 'Issues in Publication and Design', I realized that every media issues in our society require a lot of design theories to meet our society's needs. As a document designer, I found out that designer must design his product wisely based on the theories that I have learned from this course. He must produce something interesting or meaningful in order to deliver the main message efficiently. 'Document design is the act of writing and designing along with the skillful selection, structuring and emphasis of content with the reader's needs in focus' (Gergi 2010). Readers are the final consumers of a designer's work, and designer must do his best to please his final consumers. What I learned from this course can assists me in my profession as a publications designer. Besides that, I also learned how to become a good blogger from this course. In my perspective, to become a successful blogger, a blogger must design his blog post based on the design theories to attract more people visit his blog. It's not only can raise the blogger's popularity, at the same time the blogger are able to share his ideas more effective to every of his blog visitor and thus he can achieve his aim.



References:

Blogger held over Insulting Posting

                              Blogs (Source: tiosijimbo.wordpress.com)

The article 'Blogger held over insulting posting' that written by Jassmine Shadiqe is reporting about a blogger named Aduka Taruna was arrested by the local police due to purposely posting insulting blog post in his blog. His post is about the death of the late Johor sultan with plenty of insulting words that cause his blog visitors feel uncomfortable. He received up to thousands of comments that complaining about his action. Furthermore he was being warned by the other people and somebody made a police report to against him.
 

Everything is Too Late
After he realized that his blog post could bring him into troubles, he decided to delete the blog post and made a public apology about what he did in his blog. His action was obviously against the principle of Malaysia laws and 1Malaysia but also humiliate the image of the country. The blogger at last decided to become low profile and hide in Kota Baru to avoid more troubles come to him. In my opinion, I agree that the blogger's action is unintelligent and unnecessary. Publicize the personal opinion which contains insulting meaning to certain people or issue should not be practice by everyone especially on internet. Internet is a highly reachable communication tools and everybody should clear about that.

Back to the case of Wee Meng Chee
3 years ago, a creative singer known as Wee Meng Chee, had did the similar thing before and he was also being warned by Malaysia government. His song 'Negarakuku' had been suspected that contained the insulting comment about races and government. I personally think that no people should publicize own comments on something which is sensitive. Insulting people is considered as an unwise action and people should clear about the consequences of it. Instead of in public, people can discuss about certain sensitive issues privately to prevent facing the troubles which could make someone regret in his entire life.

                          Namewee (Source: reformisjalanan.blogspot.com)

According to Malaysiakini.com (2007), Wee Meng Chee was being investigated by police due to announcing the music video which suspected as giving bad comments about race and religion issues in Malaysia. He was nearly being expelled by the country because of ruining country image (2007).

Not only in Malaysia
In the other cases, an Iranian blogger had been arrested due to insulting his country's leader and jailed for nearly 6 weeks (Naughton 2009). Two cases above show that people should not publicize their own bad comment and think wisely before doing something unintelligent or else will get into the serious troubles. 

                           The Iranian Blogger (Source: Astreetjournalist.com)

References:

iPad - A Good Deal or Waste of Money?

Test Drive iPad
iPad is a new product that produced by Apple Inc. It is a technology device which allow user to surf internet, play games, read e-book, watching video and listening music anytime anywhere. Glaser's son, Julian is an iPhone lover and he was given a chance to test the iPad. He and his son downloaded lot of games, applications and books into the iPad and Glaser summarize out the good features and weakness of an iPad. They test the iPad based on the design, interface, games, news apps and browsing, books, screen and pricing. They stated out their own opinion about the iPad based on these six factors while testing the iPad. Although iPad does have some weakness for example no camera, USB port, Flash support, no memory slot and battery cannot be change, but at the end Julian still like to use iPad.

                  Julian is playing Labyrinth with his dad's iPad (Source: PBS.org)

Not Worth at All?
In my opinion, I think that iPad overall is a good product from Apple Inc, as it can makes people life more convenient and fun, but iPad still have its feeble. For the pricing, iPad obviously is cheaper than an ordinary laptop, but it is prove to be too expensive as a device to read book, play games, and surf internet as a net book can do it as well. Moreover, buying an iPad is more expensive than buying a net book. Some people might think that there is no reason to buy an iPad as it is just a bigger version of iPhone and both devices can do the same works.

What?! No Flash Support?
iPad does not have Flash support, which is an important element in internet especially the web 2.0 content. It is pointless to buy an internet surfing device but without the Flash support. I personally using an iPhone and I can understand the inconvenience of surfing internet without Flash support.

                    iPad doesn't support Flash!! (Source: Theonbutton.com)

According to the Adobe's group manager of Flash Platform product marketing, Adrian Ludwig (2010), he indicated that it is difficult to surf the heavy Flash contents website for example Disney.com by using iPad, and it could be very frustrating. iPad is a good deal if people use it as an e-book, but it might be difficult to treat it as a computer because of the lack of Flash support (Ha 2010).



References:

Emoticons and Email Etiquette

Email is a kind of communication tool that cannot be lack in people's life. Every people in the world have to communicate with each other and email takes a very important role in it. Without email, human's life will become less convenient and less efficiency. A lot of important information and message can be clearly write down and send to the receiver through email. Most of the people nowadays do have their own email account and they know how to use it.

                                  Emoticons (Source: Bestfreeicons.com)

Misuse of Email
However, sometimes email could bring unnecessary problems if the sender does not write the email in a proper way. A serious email can become a joke if sender does not state his emotional clearly in his email. Thus, Professor Fahlman invented emoticons in order to solve this problem. Besides that, the other common mistake was some of the people usually did not state their information completely in a single email and it could waste each other's time. Moreover, email sender should differentiate the formal and informal situation wisely. Problem often comes due to the lack of judgment in determine the nature of an email.

                                  Yahoo! Mail Interface (Source: Yahoo.com)

Email is still benefits to us
In my opinion, email does a great job in the role of communication, as everyone needs it. 'Combining the chattiness of the phone with the contemplative nature of old-fashioned letter writing, email is probably the most useful and far-reaching tool the net has to offer' (Mandeville 2005). I agree that the use of emoticon can make the things better and avoid those annoying problems, but people must clearly know when they can or cannot use the emoticons. A formal email should avoid using emoticon in order to create a serious mood. Emoticon can result a better relationship between sender and receiver because it can create a good atmosphere and reduce the awkward situation. 'Acronyms and emoticons have become the hieroglyphics of a hurried generation. They're informal, often clever, and they save time' (Martin 2002).



References:

E-book popularity on RISE

Nowadays, e-book seems to be more favorable to the reader worldwide because of its convenience, pricing, and functionality. Amazon's Kindler Book did a great job in selling e-book to the public since it was launched, but Apple iPad might take over its place and become the world most successful e-book that developed by Apple Inc. Publishers at first are strongly unhappy with the rise of the e-book as e-book might terminate their business, but soon they realized that they have to compromise with the e-book producer. If they don't do so, soon their business will comes into the end, as the worldwide reader are gradually goes into the era of the e-book, just like the music and movie industry.


Benefits of E-Book
With an iPad, user can just simply choose the book they want to buy, pay online, and then the book will automatically download to their iPad. Moreover, the price of a digital book is cheaper than an ordinary printed book. With these benefits readers will rather choose to buy an e-book instead of the ordinary book. E-book can even borrow from the library which is open 24/7 and the book that had borrowed will automatically disappear once the duration time is up. Few months later, this kind of new reading style is ready to hit the market and offer more features to every reader.
                                           Apple iPad (Source: Apple.com)

E-Book is good for us
In my opinion, I optimistically view about the rise of the e-book as it really brings benefits to the society. E-book is not only a reading device, user can use it to surf internet, play games, watch movie, listen music, view photos, shopping and etc.  Although an e-book device is expensive, but the digital book that sell online will be much cheaper compares to an ordinary book. In addition, if the readers buy a lot of digital book online, soon they can reach the break-even point, means that it is still worth it at last. We must agree that e-book nowadays is slowly implanted in our society.

                                           Amazon's Kindler (Source: Techfodder)

'Developments in technology and the internet have changed the nature of digital content and its accessibility and have opened up new opportunities for the publishing industry' (Vasileiou, Hartley & Rowley 2008). Industry of e-book provides a huge business opportunity which attracted the companies worldwide willing to invest in this field. According to BBC News (2009), 'Sony is taking steps to open up its e-book Reader and online e-book store'.


References:

  • BBC News 2009, Sony to back open e-book format, Technology, BBC, viewed 15 June 2010, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8201093.stm>
  • Vasileiou, M, Hartley, R & Rowley, J 2008, 'Progressing the definition of "e-book"', Library hi Tech, Vol. 26 no. 3.