Best time to Tweet

 

Just found this interesting article and findings related to time tweeting. According to the research, the best time to post to Tweeter is early in the afternoon – 1pm to 3 pm – from Monday to Thursday.

Vietnamese Cuisine: Banh Cuon

Living in Melbourne Australia for about four years but I still couldn’t find the right Banh Cuon, in terms of its taste and texture. Below are some nice photos of Banh Cuon collecting from different sites…

Bran Nue Dae

Review by Hoang Minh Phuc

November 3, 2010

Willie (Rocky McKenzie) and his schoolmates dance and sing as a rebellion against Father Benedictus (Geoffrey Rush).

Review Rating

Genre: Comedy

Running time: 85 min

Actors: Rocky McKenzie, Jessica Mauboy, Ernie Dingo, Geoffrey Rush

Director: Rachel Perkins

Screen writer: Reg Cribb, Rachel Perkins and Jimmy Chi from the play by Jimmy Chi

Appeal: Australian

OFLC rating: PG

Year: 2010

DVD Release: March 17, 2010

An intimate portrait reveals the nature of Australian humour with a mix of joy and happiness.

Many will remember the adventure of an Australia bushman Dundee in New York City in ‘Crocodile Dundee’ (1986) and the journey in a school bus to Alice Springs of three drag queens in ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Through capturing heroics with their self-deprecating humour, resilience of the face of the adversity, and desire to conquer the landscape, Australian adventure comedy always brings a complex mix of witty gags, joy, surprise, and happy ending.

As an adaptation of Jimmy Chi’s 1990 stage musical, Rachel Persin’s ‘Bran Nue Dae’ is the best slide of Australian heroic comedy out of its time.

In Australian comedy movies of all stripes, the most usual comic characters are young men – but Bran Nue Dae centres on Willie (Rocky McKenzie), an Aboriginal teenage boy, who escapes from the Catholic boarding school in Perth to find his way home in Broome in north-western Australia.

Set in the late 1960s, the movie opens with Willie enjoying with the life of the idyllic old pearling port Broome – fishing, hanging out with his mates. The opening scene grabs the audience’s attention through Willie’s timidity, naivety and imaginariness of Rosie the girl he loves.

However, his mother returns him to the religious mission for further schooling. After being punished for an act of youthful rebellion, he runs away from the mission on a journey that ultimately leads him back home.

Along the way to head back home, Willie meets some new friends, most notably Uncle Tadpole (Ernie Dingo), who is a drunken buffoon but at the same time becomes a helper and guide. The old man makes laugh through his cunning trick to hitch a lift on a pink van.

Adapting the approach of road movie, Perkins brings her characters out of the prison cell to the natural world through capturing the heroics’ adventure to conquer the vast landscape.

The movie amazes the audiences through many comic icons. The pink van evokes the witty image of a colourful school bus in ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’. A hilarious image of a ‘condom tree’ is another amusing effect that generates the laughter.

‘Bran Nue Dae’ reveals the uniqueness of Australian humour through portraying different body types, energies and forms of self-expression. Missy Higgins attempts to parody herself as an idiot hippie, Annie, and Deborah Mailman powers through scenes of a mincing older woman, Roxanne, tries to relieve Willie of his naivety.

One of the great facets that create the pleasure of the movie is its fabulous music – a pastiche of rock’n’roll, Broadway, country and folk – is by Chi’s band, Knuckles.

Facebook: selling users’ personal info

 

An article on CNET says that a data broker has been buying identifying Facebook user information from app developers. This announcement was made because many popular Facebook apps were transmitting user IDs, which can be used to look up a users’ names and, in some cases, the names of the app user’s friends, to at least 25 advertising and data firms. The article also adds that Facebook modified its policy to require developers to use the anonymous identifiers when working with ad networks.

It can’t be denied that Facebook is now becoming the leading social networks with more than 500 million users (Source from The Age). Facebook is also a social networks site that users can share their personal information, not just their background, but also photos, videos, and notes. I am also a Facebook user. As many other users, putting my personal information is just a way of ‘advertising’ myself, so that everyone who are in my friend list can understand who I am. I post my interests in details because I want my friends know that I am not a boring personal. All is about portrait myself to the world, to keep in touch with my old friends and make new friends.

I think it is tough time for Facebook developers to think about privacy protection. In this way, users like myself can still be confident to upload personal information on Facebook.

Week 11: A Medley of Tech News

18 Oct: New Rules dealing with mobile bill shock

An article on The Age reports that the Australian government and regulators are considering a new rule that mobile carriers would be forced to notify customers before slugging them with excess usage fees and other extra charges.

The article also adds that the new regulation will require carriers to alert consumers when they near their monthly quota for voice, text and data services. The alerts, sent by text or voice message, would also apply to other extra charges such as international roaming fees.

I had experienced ‘bill shock’ last month when I had to pay extra $150 for my usage. Therefore, to me this regulation is very substantial. I am using Three with $50 cap. If I want to check my usage, I need to go to My3 and log on with my user and password. But the point is My3 actually doesn’t show my up-to-date usage. I only know my usage until Three send me online statement.

I think this situation also has been happening to many mobile users. Especially in Australia where the mobile charges are very high, it is very necessary for mobile services like Three, Virgin, Optus and so forth to alert their customers if they are going to excess their usage.

19 Oct: Google travel search

Although this online article is under ‘Traveller‘ section on The Age, I want to put it in my collection of technology news for this week.

The article gives an interesting information that Google search engine is experimenting new tool to provide much richer search results. This new technology helps customers trawl through multiple sources or cross-reference information from several sites.

The article also provides a clear example that travellers are able to look at a map and see actual prices for hotels in a given area (along with images and information on facilities and nearby attractions), with the ability to click through to make a reservation via a third-party booking site.

Rethinking about how Facebook control users’ privacy

‘I will deactivate my Facebook account soon,’ Vivian banged her laptop and threw the statement toward me.
‘Why?,’ I asked
‘Cause I will lose my privacy if I keep using it,’ she replied.

Vivian is from Vietnam and comes to Melbourne doing Master of Law. She has been using Facebook for two years and now thinking about ending up her social networks account.

I read news this week and found an interesting story on The Age, which is related to Vivian’s concern about privacy on Facebook. The article is about Facebook keeps users’ photos that has been deleted for years. Such situation can also happen to Yahoo email users; specifically, deleted mails from the mail box can be accessed.

The problem is that if users have a direct link to the photos that were deleted, they are still able to gain access to those photos after years of removal.

This is tough time for Facebook to think about how to control its users’ privacy. Today is about ‘deleted photos’, tomorrow might be ‘users profile’, ‘videos, ‘notes’ and so forth. The issue of how to protect users’ privacy on social networks like Facebook has been discussed for years but still lack of an effective and applicable strategy.

What a nightmare if all of my friend close their Facebook accounts to protect their privacy. I will be abandoned in the social networks and have no ideas about what is going on to my loved ones. But who knows what will happen next if Facebook ignore its responsibility to protect users’ privacy.

New decade of news

Readings of this week bring many interesting viewpoints that spin around the rise of blogging and the death of newspapers.

1. Rupert Murdoch\’s view on the role of newspaper in the digital age

In the speech, Rupert Murdoch aims to address the decline of printed news consumption and the rise of online news through a range of actual evidence. It’s undeniable that in recent times, young people prefer to get information through the web than read newspapers due to the convenience and updating of online news. The interesting point in Murdoch speech, I think, is his though about the role of journalists in providing information for young readers, who want faster news delivered by distinctive ways. He says that editors and journalists use the internet as a great tool to deliver news. Journalists are media actors, who have ‘the experience, the brands, the resources, and the know-how to get it done’. The challenge for all news websites, according to Murdoch, is how to get a room in the internet traffic. The answer is media practitioners need to bring to their readers more compelling and relevant content with deep local news and relevant national and international news. Also, a blend of commentary and debate, or gossip and humor can reshape the presence of a news web page.

2. Journalists’ Professionalism

Rowan Williams\’ article focuses on the credibility of online materials. He says that it is a challenge for media practitioners in the digital age to balance the professionalism of traditional media and online communication. Williams also raises an issue about the responsibility of the media for the quality of communication in a society. Williams also brings Steven Johnson‘s viewpoint on the article to argue that compared to works twenty years ago, news now ‘doesn’t guarantee an imaginative depth, a sense of knowledge as tied in with processes that take time’.

Blackberry Playbook Exposed

The interesting story about the upcoming release of Blackberry PlayBook on Theage prompts me to read from the beginning till the end.

The video at the top of Theage article gives a clear picture of the appearances and performance of the new device. In this clip, Mike Lazaridis, president and co-chief executive of Research in Motions, confirms that this innovative media device is ‘the world’s first professional tablet’. He also adds that ‘it’s ultra-mobile and ultra-thin’ . These statements lead to two questions. First, what are the professional characteristics of the device? Second, what benefits can the utility, performance, and portability of the device bring to users?

An article on News Live provides a clear demonstration on the professional feature of this device. Specifically, compared to Apple’s iPad, Blackberry’s PlayBook can run successfully on Adobe’s Flash. PlayBook also offers micro-USB ports and micro HDMI.

Alexander Grundner’s article on eHomeupgrade has a deeper look on the mobility and portability of the device. Grundner states that the tablet can connect to a BlackBerry handset to manipulate and sync data between the two devices. According to the article, PlayBook has 7-inch high resolution screen with a 1024×600 WSVGA capacitive touchscreen, multi-touch gesture support, HDMI-out, 1080p HD video playback, 802.11n Wi-Fi (3G/4G future), dual-core 1Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM, and dual HD cameras (3MP front, 5MP rear) with support for 1080p HD video recording.

Two interesting stories about Facebook smartphone & Microsoft Hotmail

This week I want to share my thoughts about some interesting news that I read on CNET.

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a news conference at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California May 26, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith

 

The most striking news story is about the rumor that Facebook is building up its own smartphone. Report from TechCrunch says that Facebook is creating the software for the phone and collaborating with others to build the hardware. However, Facebook denies the report and stresses that ‘all experiences would be better if they were social, so integrating deeply into existing platforms and operating systems is a good way to enable this’. Confronting this responses, CNET confirms that building a branded mobile phone is a key strategy to get more aggressive toward Apple and Google. Personally, whether the rumor is true or not, Facebook is still the king of social networks. Building up a new smartphone is simply one way of competing or cooperating with other enterprises.



Another interesting story is about Microsoft’s attempt to add LinkedIn and Facebook chat to Hotmail and Messenger. For those of you who have no ideas about LinkedIn the video below will give you basic information about how linkedln can be used and what its standout performances are.

Back to the news story about Microsoft, I think this is just another attempt on the long run of the company to provide more services for its users in using social networks. My question is that why it is necessary to add Facebook chat and Linkedln to Hotmail and Messenger?

Why blog?

Before blogging on wordpress, I used to have two personal blogs. One was a Yahoo blog. What I did was simply sharing my daily activities, personal thoughts about a random arts work, critiques on a football match, or a bunch of hilarious Youtube videos. The other was an edublog, which was created as a part of my school assessment. This one was quite similar to this wordpress blog. Every week, I wrote about my own views about the readings and some interesting news stories about new media. Once I finished the course, my online writing routine was broken off. I then reckoned that giving up blogging was my big mistake.

 

Personally, blogging is a good way of social and interpersonal communication. Whether it can be a memoir of leisure activities, a medley of videos, pictures, short stories, poems, paintings, or a record of personal thoughts about news stories or happenings, blog pursuits as an innovative tool in nowadays changing social contexts. When we blog, we actually share our own thoughts about what we see, hear, read, and listen to.

This week’s readings provide a deeper and wider grasp of blog. In other words, these articles answer the question of why we blog. The rise of the blog identifies that some bloggers direct to small audiences, others aim to achieve wide fame become the focus of consumer campaign. In Blogging in the global lunchroom, Geoffrey Nunberg through his journalistic perspectives, critically considers blog as ‘a democratic form of expression’. He adds that languages used in blog mostly are informal, impertinent, and digressive. One of the main reasons of this matter, I think, lies in the nature of blogging is personal viewpoints about things. Informal tone is unavoidable in this case.

 

 

I will come back to the point that I made before about the importance of blog. For me, as a media student, blogging is a good way of enhancing writing skills and online design. When I start to blog, I read more and write more. Thanks to blogging, I have discovered many other interesting things from my friends’ blogs. I believe that these reasons are strong enough to explain why I am blogging.