Talking Cock !

Everyone knows what singaporeans are like. They love to talk cock !

Important matters, they also talk cock !

Today's lesson, we looked at Talkincock.com and discussed about how we would react to this site if we were :

• Singapore' Prime Minister
• A Singaporean
• A Foreigner working / studying in Singapore

Me and my 2 other friends took on the roles of a foreigner in Singapore. We mentioned that it would be a joke to us, we would simply laugh at how locals could joke about their "gah-men" in such fashion and make jokes out of national security matters such as "Matt Selamat". For us foreigners who aren't used to this in our own country, this is really a breathe of fresh air for us, to see people being so relaxed and of course understanding their limits as there hasn't been a complete shut down on this.

This lesson was a rather enjoyable lesson.

My dream destination !

Viva Las Vegas ! Sin City is what I like to call it. This would be one of my dream destinations to visit, to unwind, to part all night long ! This place is filled with entertainment ! From music artists performing, thrill rides, sumptuous pool complexes with wave machines, lots of golf courses and amazing shopping, from designer boutiques to out-of-town factory outlet stores. 24 hours a day, this really is the entertainment capital of the world. If I'm still not satisfied, who can forget about the casinos ?
For food, you have fast food, to fine dining, you can just choose whatever suits your preference, no restrictions !

In Las Vegas, there's also the Grand Canyon to visit, spectacular light shows ! Musical shows ! Not to mention all the bars and clubs that are available through out Sin City !

This place is definitely one I would go and never forget about.


I got my resources from : Virgin Holidays

My second destination would be Manchester, England.

My first stop would be the Theatre of Dreams ! Old Trafford !



Home of the Red Devils ! Manchester United ! This would probably be my only reason why I want to go to Manchester so much.

There are loads of other stuff in Manchester that one would really love to visit as well.

The Museum of Science and Industry - Located in part in the oldest passenger railway station in the world, this immense museum covering seven and a half acres is made up of five historic buildings all crammed with exhibitions and displays, working machinery from the ages, and hands-on galleries where visitors can get down to it.

Manchester Town Hall - Designed by Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1877, the Manchester Town Hall is a magnificent Victorian Gothic style building, and among the displays are the Ford Maddox Brown murals depicting Victorian Manchester science, trade, textile, and education of the day.

Manchester Cathedral - Not only can visitors enjoy a service and the fine choral music of the cathedral, but also stand before an entire wall of stained glass by the twentieth century artist Anthony Holloway, as well as see examples of some of Europe’s finest medieval carving. The new visitor Centre on Cateaton Street is next door to the cathedral, and has a hi-tech, interactive exhibition on the church and its connection to the community and world at large. The Visitor Centre also houses a shop and a licensed restaurant, winner of the Manchester Citylife Coffee Bar of the Year Award in 2002.

The Royal Exchange - The historic building of The Royal Exchange has been at the heart of the cotton trade worldwide for decades, and today it houses antique gallery, fashion and specialist boutiques, gift shops and restaurants under its roof. The Royal Exchange Theatre is also to be found in the building.

These sources were taken from: TravelLibrary

Practical 4 & 5: Comparing the different search engines

For this practical, we were told to list out the keywords we used in our search query and also list down the variations for them.

It was then that I realised, podasting and blog had no other variations, not being so sure on what to do, I put a dash for the variation instead of listing them down lyk the rest. For forum there was discussion, developments for trend which sounded more accurate than fads. Confer for discuss and, well, RSS is just short for Really Simple Syndication.

We also learned how to make use of variables such as AND and OR to help define and widen our search. I used "(Trends OR developments) AND podcasting AND (forum OR blog OR discussion)".

I then compared 3 different search engines, one regular search engine, a meta search engine and lastly would be a directory.

I compared, Google, Dogpile and Yahoo Directories.

When I used my defined search query, for Google I was able to get back 773,000 hits ! Loads of results, and most of them were relevant.

When I searched on Dogpile, I only received about 3 pages of results, very little. When I did my own comparison against MetaCrawler, they gave me more hits than Dogpile did.

Lastly would be the Yahoo Directory, it gave me a directory of results related to what I was looking for, but they were limited as well.

1st Practical Lab for UIR

For the first practical lesson, we were told to search the internet for the following resources:

- Discussion Forum
- Electronic journal/magazine
- WWW site
- Personal
- Organisational

It wasn't easy to start off, looking for a forum related to Podcasting that I can get people to post their views on, but I managed to find one called Digital Podcasting Forum where I have seen people post up threads for help on how to podcast/RSS. Maybe I could start a thread to get the views on how podcasting/RSS has become a trend.

For electric journal/magazine, I would say it is harder. For starters, I've never read any of them online before and I've never seemed to bother about looking for any, until now. I managed to find out result that could fit the bill. Learnoutloud.com, it's a website for audio and video learning, I managed to find one section in their website that is called E-magazine, it had an article on Podcasting ! Cheers !

Now, for the WWW site, this was easy. However I had to pick the one most relevant to my search topic. Found articles on Ezine Articles, ars technica, a blog on RSS and podcasting trends and learning circuits which had an article named: "Trend: Podcasting in Academic and Coporate Learning". I can easily use all of them.

Later on, I managed to find a personal blog by a CEO of AdaptiveBlue, in his post that I found, He discussed about on whether podcasting will survive. His post received many comments from the community, his post also shows that he has done his research on podcasting.

Lastly, for the Organisational site, I found a site by WAOE, World Association for Online Education. They had an article with references on the usefulness on podcasting for students.

That's all for this lesson, I'm behind time on my blogging, so I'll be blogging more on one day rather then over a series of weeks, hopefully I can catch up and stop slacking off !

Introduction to UIR

Hey yo !

This is Chiaw Khim AKA C.K !

This is my blog for UIR and my topic would be to discuss the developments and trends in the area of RSS/podcasting.

First things first, about myself.

I love sports, play them and love to watch them too.

I'm a Manchester United fan. Though it might be a little controversial, my friends would know why and it would be better if I didn't mention it here.

I'm a LA Lakers fan. When I first started playing basketball, I watched Kobe and Shaq win the Playoffs, winning their 2nd consecutive title, I became a fan of them. The following year they went on to win the New Jersey Nets for their 3rd consecutive title.

I'm a Pittsburgh Steelers fan. I became a fan of the Steelers when they were on the road to win the Superbowl XLII. I read up about the Steelers and watched videos of their trip to the Superbowl for that season and realised how much the whole team and their coach went through and it was a really inspiring story.

I'm a fan of rock music. Guns 'N' Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica, Paul Gilbert, Stereophonics, Black Sabbath, Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I love listening to them and many more artists !

Now, about UIR, it's interesting to take this subject because I thought searching for stuff on the internet is easy peasy. This subject might just prove me wrong !
We've all chosen a topic to research about, now it has already begun to seem hard. Hope this subject teaches me well.

How I would spend my $500

2006 Epiphone Les Paul Zakk Wylde Electric Guitar Used

Being a guitar player and a fan of Zakk Wylde, I decided to spend $400 on a 2nd hand Epiphone Les Paul Zakk Wylde Custom. The bullseye design is my favourite and also I love the sound of a Les Paul it sound being thick, more for the blues. This one is customised with EMG pickups that Zakk Wylde uses himself, I played it before and I fell in love with the guitar. This is how part of my $500 would be spent.

Manchester United Black Jersey (2007/08)

My last $100 would go to a Manchester United away jersey. Despite owning the Home jersey, it is not complete until you get the away jersey as well. Being a hardcore Manchester United fan, I take it to my own liberty to make sure that I support the club all the way.

Thanks to ebay.com and Image Shack