Technology Vs Humanity

I discovered the Internet when I completed high school and started my days in college back in 1997. I was in awe with World Wide Web and I thought email was the most awesome thing. I love sending cute e-greeting cards. Those were the days of receiving and forwarding emails of articles and jokes. Birthdays, Hari Raya, Chinese New Year and Christmas in the coming years was never the same again. No more greeting cards and the loss of that personal touch of handwritten cards with cute drawings and personal wishes.

Then there's the birth of instant messaging service such as IRC(Internet Relay Chat). Internet cafes or more widely known as 'CC' (Cyber Cafe) can be found at any nook and corner in town. Spending time in CC until late nights are common routine for students and a new universal 'language' is formed. LOL, BRB, GTG and TC are used as a short form and Emoticons such as :-), ;-) or ;p are ways for us to express our feelings on-line. We 'meet' the most 'handsome' man and 'sexy', 'cool' girls on-line and we feel that we are as cool and as good-looking as them. I got my first Motorola mobile phone a short while later and SMS(Short Messaging Service) doesn't help to improve our communication. Young generation nowadays are automatically born into the 'texting' language and many could not appreciate the beautiful handwriting and language. Can you spot what's wrong in the email below? ;)

The introduction of Facebook has created a phenomenon that changed the world. Social network is a communication tool between a group of people in an application over the Internet. There are people who joined the social network to communicate with friends and family. There are people who connects for professional purposes and some connects to find their life partner. The early years of social networking has started from MySpace, Friendster but Facebook has changed the world with its easy-to-use and fun, appealing features.Individualistic, selfishness and social network addiction are the new generation's 'disease' in our society. New social rules arise. Are you still friends off-line when you have 'unfriended' a friend on Facebook? How do you tell your grandmother that we are all invited to a wedding, when she has not received the wedding invitation card or personal call or visit from the host?

What do you think?Have we lost our humanity in the advances of technology? Watch this video and share with me your views, if you Like.. ;-)

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My Top 5 Favourite Apps

Life is beautiful. Even more beautiful with wonderful Apps that made your day. Here are my Top 5 Favourite Apps that I swear by:

1. MyFitnessPal

The year is coming to the end. Have you achieve your resolution set at the start of the year? Well, for me it has been a yearly resolution to eat better, lose some weight and exercise. This Apps is brilliant to help me record my meals within my targeted calories and record my exercises. When you first start, the Apps will ask you to insert your goals i.e your targeted weight, your activity level. It will then calculate for you what is your daily calories target and by when you will achieve your targeted weight. Then, you will need to start to record your meals and activities daily. It helps you to count the calories for each meal item and display the remaining calories for the the day. What's great is the food database is large which includes Malaysian food. If it is not listed, you can create the food item and add in to their database. What's even greater is that you can use the bar code scanner tool to add in your food into the database. Awesome!

2. CamScanner

On a typical busy day, you are running around town hopping from one meeting to another, whilst your Inbox is filled with emails and requests from clients and colleagues that requires your attention. What do you do when there are documents that are needed to be scanned urgently and send over to people and yet you are still out and about? This Apps is your mobile 'scanner' where you will just have to take a picture of your document and it will convert to a pdf document instantly. You can crop your photo and save it in your Gallery or File for you to attach to your emails. Brilliant isn't it?

3. Livestream

I love to attend talks and seminars. However, there are times that I am not able to attend due to my work, location or because I'm too tired to drive all the way across town, after what seems to be an already long day. This Apps allows us to 'attend' the talks virtually via an excellent live video streaming from your mobile devices. Even if you still missed the live airing time, you can select the recorded session from their archives library and catch up at your own convenience. You are able to watch talks from various industries from all around the world in the comfort of your own home lying on your bed, or anywhere of your fancy. Besides, you can also host a birthday party and ensure your loved ones who are abroad are there virtually to celebrate together. The visual and sound are excellent even if the talk is from a host from a faraway land like New York or Japan or anywhere else as long as there's a good Internet connection.

4. Evernote

This is my daily essential. I note my shopping list, recipes, articles, reminders using this easy-to-use Apps. You can create checklists, drag and drop files and annotate images from your smart phone or laptop. The information will be synchronised when you open the Apps on any of your devices. You can create different Notebooks for different category such as My Studies, Work, Recipes, Shopping List or My Travel notebooks. My favourite feature is you are able to 'Add to Evernote' of your favourite articles instantly when you're surfing the Net on your browser. 

5. Waze

A few years back, I was contemplating to purchase a GPS device for my car. It was priced at RM800-1200 and I was saving my money for it. Before long, the smart phone arrived, and one of my firsts downloaded Apps was Waze. It saved me hours from traffic jams and showed me alternative routes that I have never used before. An important feature is that you are able to send your location to your friend and it makes our lives much easier! I love to use Waze to see the traffic around me before I start my journey, even my trip is just to the nearby groceries store ;).

So, what's your favourite Apps? Let me know in the Comments column below.

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Smartphone is changing the business activities in today's world

   

The birth of smartphone around a decade ago has given a tremendous impact to the world and how businesses do things.Mobile phone industry has started with the ATUR satellite phone, followed by the Motorola phones, Nokia phones, the Blackberry and the touch screen innovation by Apple with their iphone. Smartphones is part of mobile computing where it is literally can be called as a mini computer. Smartphones has allowed workers to be more mobile, flexible, efficient and productive in performing their day-to-day activities. Workers now can access their emails from their smartphones and communicate with colleagues via instant messaging services such as WhatsApp, WeChat,Telegram an many others. This creates a more efficient working environment and a more productive organisation. A lot of documents are shared on-line and it has created a paperless or a greener environment. In a global business world, there are many companies that set up their businesses overseas and with smartphones, communication between the Headquarters staff in London and local office in Kuala Lumpur will be much easier and cheaper. A quick meeting via video conferencing using apps such as Skype or FaceTime is common and essential in helping executives makes decisions.
     Smartphones technology has also encourage the development of ICT in the world. In Malaysia, the government has put in initiatives to encourage the development of software and IT technology services via Digital Malaysia, MDEC and SKMM. It also has spur the growth of telecommunication industry with more telco offering broadband or internet services. The advances of this technology has also raise the issues of cloud computing and big data in the world. Rapid growth of e-commerce where more on-line business available and the focus of today's organisation. This can be seen where more on-line shopping portals such as Amazon,ebay,Zalora and mobile banking apps by banks such as Maybank2u, Cimb Clicks and many more.
     However, smartphones has social impact to individuals and the society. Most people are addicted or as if programmed to check their smartphones first thing when the wake up in the morning. Addiction to Facebook or WhatsApp can make a person more individualistic and acquire less hand-ons skills due to the high reliance on smartphone technology.

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How to cite your references in Microsoft Word

As a student, my friends and I are always having a problem in citing our references in our assignments. Generally, we need to use the APA format. A normal citation would be from journal articles or books. How about citing information obtained from a website? I will guide you through on how to cite your references easily using References Tools in your Microsoft Word. I am using Microsoft Word 2010 in this example.

Firstly, click on References tab located on the top part of your page.

Next, click on Insert Citation, then click on Add New Source.

Then, choose your type of source and fill in the rest of the columns.

Click Ok. Now, your article is cited! 

On the last page of your work, you can create a Bibliography by clicking on Bibliography on the References tab. As you go along working on your assignment, insert your citations and click on Update Citations and Bibliography. It will automatically list all your citations nicely :)

Another useful tool is Insert Caption and Cross-reference. Watch this video to understand better.

Hope this helps. Happy citing! :)

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PC EXPO 2014 and NICE2014

Hello readers! :)

I had the opportunity to visit this year's PC Expo held at the Mid Valley Exhibition Centre(MVEC). It runs from Friday, 31st Oct 2014 until Sunday, 2nd Nov 2014. It opens at 11am until 9pm-FREE Admission ;)

This is the perfect place to grab your hardwares and accessories, and do your shopping and dining under the same roof!Yeayy!!

Take some time to check out the latest gadgets from Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo and of course for me, get my student's essentials of pendrives, sd card, printer inks.

 Oh, don't forget to grab the hourly deals..

And, my guilty pleasure was..these cute phone covers ;D

Another event happening this weekend is the National Innovation Conference and Exhibition (NICE2014) held at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC). It is organised by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI). There are conferences, exhibition, sales of the Research & Development (R&D) product, product demonstrations and business matching sessions.

Among the participants are various agencies showcasing their products and innovative efforts in biotechnology, health, ICT,etc. Talking to the exhibitors has been an eye-opener for me, especially when talking to the young innovators. 

One school from Johor has produced the Whiteboard Automatic Duster, which solves the problem of cleaning up the whiteboard manually by the teachers ;). Using only one click of a button, the automatic duster will clean the whiteboard. The duster is crafted to be attached on the whiteboard, so the duster can clean up the whole surface of the whiteboard. The duster is powered by a electrical motor to move entire the whiteboard. 

Another school produced the Ambulance Emergency Radio Intercept System(AERIS),which is a self-programmed radio-hijacking system that intercepts other car radio channel to alert the public to give way to the ambulance on emergency nearby. For example, while we are listening to the radio, we will be alerted by the sound of the siren of the ambulance from our in-car radio. The road users will automatically make way for the ambulance to pass through.

Bravo!

  

During this exhibition, I had the opportunity to attend the talk by Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC) on funding schemes. If you have a company producing innovative products, you may seek help on getting grants and funding from them. Please visit their website at www.mtdc.com.my for more information.

That's all folks! Thank you

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