Reflection on Blog Writing

Writing blog is not a new thing to me, I did try to write a blog when I was in High School. I write blog as a personal blog, use as sharing my everyday life, sometimes sharing my personal experience and photos. After writing different articles on media issue, I hve realixed the difference between themed blog and personal blog.

Updating is necessary for blogger to attract their reader, supporting your stance with refreshing ideas and news is another key factor of attracting readers. Blogging is much more easier by comparing writing journal article or newspaper. When you sit in front of the computer, you have idea and write what you interested that is blogging.

Another interesting thing of blogging is we can write anytime and anyway as long as we can access to internet. In these days, it is really popular to update and checking our blog or social networking site with our phone. It is also not restricted by time, by the time you click the button post, less then one second the whole world can see what you post.

I wrote some oponion on the media issues in this blog, some of them may not be a big media issue but I have more understanding on cencorship and the importance of new media. I make use of online newspaper instead of traditional newspaper because they got a lot more topic and I can choose my own interest to write on.
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As a chinese, look at the chinese media

From the high speed train crashed in China last few months, there are huge voice on the Chinese censorship in the media. Especially the online media, the government is controlling the newspaper and the online media.
In China, a lot of online social networking site is already blocked by the government, like Facebook and  Twitter. However, Chinese still building their own social networking site, like micro-blogging site. They said that Chinese government always hiding something from the public. Whenever a accident happened, state government will use the fastest force to cover up the tuth of the incidend. From the crash of high speed train, there were media said that there are a lot of reasons that the government are hiding. Media is a medium between government and public, why the Chinese government use media to tell the public the truth instead of hiding and blocking the news. A few newspaper column got report the swimming champion instead of the high speed train crash. Which news is more concern by puclic?

"Whatever (comments) you cut, we'll post again." One message on Weibo.

On the other hand, chinese internet have a filter on the message and information that about the government, all those information are all being blocked. Some of the messages are from China, people in China posting something on their blog and got deleted. The freedom of speech in China still need to be improve. Some of the news reporter reported something about China and didn't care about the censorship therefore he got detainted.

In an other way, China is blocking themself in information. They are not sharing with the world and Chinese will only trapped in Chinese news and information. They need to open up and wider the hearing and eyesight of Chinese.
Reference:
Australian, 2011'Chinese censorship push sets blogosphere alight', 27 October
Reuters, 2011'China train crash censorship scorned on Internet' 1August
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Steve Jobs want us to dream Big?

Although Steve job had pass away for more than 2 weeks, but his spirit is still affecting Apple.  From a quote from Jobs, Apple stock rose by 3%.
‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ Steve Job said.
People are really looking forward to the TV that come from Apple. Due to the success of Apple's ipods, iphones, and iPad. They are all simple and easy to use which with a big screen and without a lot of buttons. People are hoping they will have a bigger iPad hang on their wall and perform a perfect fuction of TV.

However, are the TV now really not userfriendly? Are they really hard to use?

TV is a really easy to use device, they are a big screen with an on and off button. Also, they have a remote control with numbers on it. Their design started with simplicity. The reasons of the 'hard to use' are these days there are more stuff connected to the TV, therefore TV become a complicated device. They are connecting with DVD players, recording machine or cable box. Apple keep promoting touch screen deevice. People of cause are expecting more in their life, they are willing to have a touch screen TV.
Someone thought of why not using a computer, they contain eveything in a box. Why not making them with a bigger screen and with less button on the keyboard. The fact is different device are profession in different function, like computer is profession for internet or document editing. A tv is for watching dramas and movies.

If there will be an iTV come out, I will prefer it a big flat screen TV. Which it is touch screen, but still have remote control. TV will be included all the cable box, dvd players. I know it may not possible in this stage. But who knows will it come out in the next 50 years while technology is improving.
Have you think of your own iTV? What function do you want it contain?

Reference:
Australian, 2011, 'Jobs wanted to make TV sets simple, elegant: biography', 27 October
Time Entertainment, 2011'What Would You Like Apple to Do to Your TV?' 25 October
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Politican should not ignore social media

Social media is growing faster and faster, and it is spreading among people in different ages. Even American president Berek Obama is making use of Twitter to host a Twitter Town Hall. Every American can tweet on twitter #AskObama, president will retweet base on social influence and metrics.

Social Media is so popular among teenagers or younger generation. The politican should pay attention and make use of social media to attract the citizen or their supporter.

Berek Obama use facebook in his election for his supporter. A lot of American candidates are using social media to take over their traditional campaign. The election expense can be less when they move some of their campaign online. In fact, politican should not be just focus on social media like Facebook or Twitter. They should be making use of the online resources because 21st century is relying on the internet, which is the fastest way for expanding information.

There is a research show that 48 % of 18 to 34 years old will wake up and check their facebook straight away and 65 % Adults under 30years old will treat online news as their primary news resources. And 34% of Adult above 50 to 64 years old they rely on internet news as well. Also, Twitter become a better source for breaking news than other news resources.

Online media or social media is covering different ages and different audience, therefore policticans should not ignore social media.

Reference:
Article: Australian 2011, 'policticans should not ignore social media.' 26 October
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RIP Steve Jobs

“brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives.” Apple said.

Steve Jobs who was the apple co-founder and savior dies at 56. He pass away in Wednesday in US time. Apple announced his death today. He put his afford in technology , he is a genius and puted his afford in Apple, created a world famous brand. Apple is famous in all around the world and people are all 'crazy' about Apple's product. The products of Apple are creative and always leading the world.

Steve Jobs created Apple, they start their first Apple computer in a garage. He put his life in Apple, he changed the world.

Apple announced the death of Steve Jobs. There is a rapid changed in Apple's share price but it recovered in a day after. Although there is are news said Apple will release the new Iphone, the stock price of Apple went down a bit because of the ex CEO of Apple Steve Jobs pass away. There is a concerned about weather Cook can keep Apple success. Some of the people said, even Cook is not Jobs but he can still keep Apple 'shine' since iphone and ipad or ipod are already success among all the users.
"Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being" Cook said, who pick up Jobs position in August when Jobs resign from Apple due to the condition of the pancreatic cancer ."Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple."

Reference:
Herad Sun, 2011 'Can Steve Jobs successor Tim Cook continue Apple's success?' 6 October
Herad Sun, 2011 'Steve Jobs, a visionary who changed the way the world lives' 6 October
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Type and classification of blogs

Blogs can be divided into different types. The way of seperating different blogs is by the topics of different blogs.

Personal blogs
Personal blogs are the  most traditional and common blogs. These blogs are related to bloggers personal issues and their life (Condron 2004, p.2 ). This kind of blog don't need any professional skills and they are not use to privide information. They use to reflect the blogger personal life. They would not get read mostly unless the blogger is a famous person, therefore personal blog is mostly for the blogger's own family members or friends.

Companies or organizations' blog
Companies  and organisation's blogs are similar to personal blogs, they use for business reason. They can be use on public relations of a company. They set up a blog to promote their company and it's product. organisations such as NGOs can set up their blog to promote their value and let the public know more about their organisations. For example, Green Peace setup blog to promote environmental friendliness providing information on their function and gather people that with the same idea.

Genre
Blogs can also focus on a particular topic, for example politics, travel and housing(Metcalf 2006). For example, photographers setting up blog for showing people their photos are called Photo blogs. They do not have to be in the same stance or same experience when they are in the same blog community.

Example of Blog Community
There are many blog communities on the internet, blogger is the most common one these days. There is another example that which I have used bbefore. The Xanga community, they got different communities like fashion, dating and love, in which peoplee can interact with different bloggers by posting a reply entry. However, in these communities, personal blogging is still available.

Reference:
Condron, L 2004, ‘Cataloging Blogs’ , Cataloging & classification quarterly, vol. 38, no.2, pp.3-4
Metcalf, S 2006, ‘Fixing a Hole’, New York Times, 18 March, pp.24
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Designing for print and online

No matter where we design for, we design for audience to read, the first thing we need to consider is the target audience. Different target have different design technique. For example, designing for children, should be less text, more pictures or catoon and the background should be more colourful.

As a general rule, design for the worst possible circumstances. If our design is sutible for the worst case, our design can survive in the harshest or reading circumstance. Therefore the design will be even more successful in normal, everyday, circumstances (Parker, 2003 p. 270).

Designing for print
When desiging for print, we have to consider the size of the brochures or flyer.When we are visble to the whole size of the designing material, it is easier for us to consider the order of the content. We need to consider the typefaces, type sizes and type styles for head lines and body copy. The margin, borders and graphic accents need to be consistent(Parker, 2003, p.269).

Designing for online
Designing for online is differnet with print. Printed document is easier to read by comparing to online media. When Onscreen reading involves projected light, readers eye need to be more focus on the screen than compare to printed document. On the other hand, the limited aomunt of text visible at a time on screen is a matter of designing for online. Therefore, designer normally put the most important point on the top of the page which attract the interest of readers to read the content which need to scroll down the page. Due to harder in online reading, there is a lot of method to help in ou design, like reduce the line length, avoid multiple layouts, adjust line spacing etc.

Reference:
Parker, R.C. 2003, 'Desiging documents for web distribution', Looking good in print, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale, Ariz
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