Chat with broth: eat, eat, and eat

ตอนนี้กำลังคุยเอ็มกับปาล์มอยู่ สุดสัปดาห์ที่ผ่านมาปาล์มไปเที่ยวกับเพื่อนที่บางแสน เราก็เลยถามไปว่าได้กินอะไรบ้าง น้องพิมพ์ตอบมาว่า
“Bullet กินปลาหมึก กุ้ง หอยตลับ หอยแมลงพู่ หมูปิ้ง ลูกชิ้นสาหร่าย ลูกชิ้นปลา ใส้กรอกเล็กๆ เป็ปซี่ สไปร์ท ข้าวต้มทะเล ปลากรอบเล็กๆ ส้มตำปูม้า ไก่ย่าง ปลาช่อนนึ่งมะนาว
ปลาดุกฟู ยำปลาหมึก ขนมปังทาแยมสตอเบอรี่ เลย์ ฮานามิ มาม่าหมูสับ น้ำมะพร้าวน้ำหอม ส้มตำไทย
Bullet จำได้แค่เนี้ยะ”
ตอบได้แนวมาก เลยเอามาจดเก็บไว้เป็นที่ระทึก
แค่นี้ล่ะ ต้องไปนั่งเทียนเขียนรายงานต่อละ

เจ็บจี๊ด ๆ ที่ใจ

ถ้าดูจากหัวเรื่อง เราไม่ได้กำลังจะมาร้องเพลงอะไรนะ แต่ว่ามันเจ็บจิ๊ด ๆ จริง ๆ บริเวณ..เออ..เราคิดว่ากล้ามเนื้อหัวใจมั้ง เพิ่งเป็นเมื่อกี้เลยรีบเขียนก่อนลืม (ยิ่งความจำสั้น ๆ แถมยังขี้เกียจอีกต่างหาก)
เข้าเรื่องแล้วกัน เมื่อกี้อยู่ดี ๆ ก็รู้สึกเจ็บบริเวณใต้หน้าอกด้านซ้าย ซึ่งเราก็เป็นแบบนี้นาน ๆ ครั้ง แต่ว่าจะเป็นแค่ระยะสั้น ๆ หนึ่งถึงสองนาที พยายามทำตัวยึด ๆ ผ่อนลมหายใจทีละน้อยแล้วก็หาย แต่ครั้งนี้มันไม่เหมือนเดิม พยายามทำแบบที่เคยครั้งก่อน ๆ แต่อาการก็ดูเหมือนไม่ทุเลา ต้องหายใจสั้น ๆ แบบถี่ ๆ เป็นแบบนี้ประมาณสิบกว่านาที ไม่ได้การ ยกหูโทรศัพท์กะเรียกรถไปส่งที่ศูนย์สุขภาของ ม. ตอนพูดก็ไม่เป็นสรรพ ขาด ๆ หาย ๆ แบบว่าลองคิดดูนะ ผ่อนลมหายใจได้ทีละสั้น ๆ ปลายสายก็งง วันนี้แอบเปิ้ลมาแปลก ตัดตอนมาที่แอบเปิ้ล
“ขอรถ..เออ..ได้ไหมคะ”
“กี่โมงล่ะ”
“เออ..ตอนนี้”
“…อีกสิบห้านาทีได้ไหม.
ช่วงนั้นมันจุกยังไงไม่รู้ ความคิดพลั่งพลูแต่พูดไม่ได้ อึกอัดๆ
“ว่าไง อีกสิบห้านาทีนะ”
“…เออ …” พูดไม่ออก มันหายใจไม่ทัน…
ฉับพลันทันใด เหมือนพระเจ้ามาโปรด อาการกลับมาสู่สภาพปกติ
“งั้นเดี๋ยวโทรกลับไปใหม่นะคะ”
รอดูอาการอีกแป๊บนึง ดีขึ้นจริง ๆแฮะ เอาละหว่า คราวนี้ต้องโทรไปขอโทษกับเจ้าหน้าที่จัดคิวรถ แต่ก็ไม่มีอะไรมาก Happy endding.
เรื่องนี้สอนให้รู้ถึงการที่หายใจติดขัดมันทรมาณจริง ๆ นะเนี่ย แล้วก็โรคภัยไม่เข้าใครออกใคร เพิ่งกินข้าวเสร็จนั่งเล่นดูทีวีอยู่ดี ๆ ซะงั้น
อยากรู้จริง ๆ เลยว่าเราเป็นอะไรเนี่ยแบบว่าอาการจี๊ด ๆ ใครรู้ช่วยตอบทีนะ

Final post: Blog assignment reflection

Finally it has come to the final entry of this blog assignment; I never continue writing or regularly upload my post before. Even though I own a blog, I always take an excuse that I have no time to update.) I wonder if I still continue writing (in such an academic style), is there anyone really visit my blog? Similarly, are there any classmates who would still write and update their web 2.0 posts? Despite the fact, I have to admit that from this blog assignment, I have learnt a lot, and it does change some of my attitudes toward bloggars and its community. Perhaps, I will turn back to my own blog and pay more attention on it. Below are some benefits and provoking ideas I get from this assignment.

Benefits of Blogging:

Learning from the real life
One unique characteristic of web 2.0 and the internet is to allow users to communicate exchange and interact among themselves, blogospere is likewise able to respond these human’s needs very well. From this point of view, I feel working on the blog is somehow different from a piece of paper or just on a PC. Blogospere mimics our lifestyle or even a small society that there are questions concerning human interaction and the internet or the web: Does the virtual world reflect on the real world, or the real world reflects on the virtual world instead? Even though what the answer is, I am certain that this tool brings our living and learning together here.

Real-life connection to writing is another point that makes blog become unique and interesting. Since blog was originated from daily journal or so-called “diary”, people tend to link their own experiences with their writings. Generally we, as a human beings, love to hear stories from other people; therefore, this writing style, that heavily mix with reality or author’s context, would catch an eye of audience rather than reading textbooks (which are usually dry and daunting.)

Huge/ready-to-hand references
Another reason that I like reading blogs is that there is a features to add or insert external sources for references. As pointing to the original sources, it makes that writing reliable. Readers can evaluate their thoughts more effectively while authors are able to validly prove their own arguments. The most important thing which makes blog different from a paper assignment is that those external sources can be reached at one click. (Although sometimes it is hard for me to view uploaded videos.)

Language learning
For me, as a foreign student, practice reading and writing is definitely a good thing, but working on blog is so much different from traditional assignments. First, I do not feel obliged to write such a formal language (Most classmates do write in an informal style.) Second, because of the casual way of writing, I can learn many speaking language which hardly appear on the text. Oftentimes I have to look up those terms either on the internet or my own dictionary.

Self-Reflection
Exploring own ideas and express it through writing is an effective way of learning since writing requires higher cognitive thinking and refining one’s thoughts; unlike speaking, a that may not need a lot of thinking efforts. Self-reflection provides us an opportunity to review what have happened (in the class or weekly readings). It let us think back and forth, and sometimes questioning ourselves about those topics; most of the time, I went back and search for more relevant information to prove my own thoughts, and then I posted on my blog.

Reflection from critical friend and others
Continuing from the previous session, I am always excited when I receive comments (although those are not so much). Although the comments do not agree with my own thoughts, I am happy that there is somebody who care to read and are willing to listen to my opinions. They help me think and look from different angles, practicing my thinking, process, and more importantly, they help to extend those ideas and refer me to various sources. Is this a power of collective knowledge and learning, such a fascinating feature!

Self-motivation
For the blog assignment, it allows us to not only able to exchange ideas through comments, but we also view this matching as a sort of self-motivation. I have often been motivated and thought that I should have regularly updated my blog because my friend has already posted. I would consider this is a positive because they rescue me from the late posting!

Technical aspects:

Strengths of using blog
Working on blog, we do not have to worry (or leas concern) about the lost of our paper. We can access our own writing anywhere (as far as there is the internet connection). Additionally, there is an archive for us to keep our postings as long as we want so that we can refer or make changes anytime. Another benefit is the convenience. It is easy to access or read our friends’ postings without password protection like OnCourse or other CMS systems. Nevertheless, there are some blogging sites that visitors who want to leave comments have to put an image verification code or captcha. This regretfully prevents me from leaving comments to some of my friends’ blogs and convinces me just to stay tune only for the same site.

Weaknesses of using blog
For the provider that I am using (WordPress), there is no insertion for comments, it would be nice to add this feature because this can make interaction between authors and readers be more social. Another barrier I found (and perhaps not only happen to the blog) is the user interface. Even though blog’s interface is comparatively easy to use, I found it confusing sometimes, particularly when they have developed their widgets or applications. I had to spend quite a long time, trying to familiarize myself. This is another problem that web developer has to consider.

Conclusion
It is such a good experience working on the blog for this assignment. I have learnt so many things even though I encountered some technical problems. I would definitely be happy to work on the similar assignment in the future.

Class 7: Millennials and Web 2.0 users

In the era of neo Millennium, the world has moved from analog to digital. Consequently, many

new technological devices have been developed and become integrated seemingly in our daily

lives. The lifestyle have been dominantly influenced by these
Innovations in which we believe that they can facilitate our way of living. We are now

surrounded by E and I, such as E-
Government, E-commerce, E-learning, I-pod, I-phone, I-calendar, and so on. We, therefore,

have to follow these technologies and tune ourselves to them.

The border line between the period before the years 2000 and the years after clearly

separate two generations: the old and the young, particularly in terms of digital literacy

skills (which is needed in the present days). The views towards technologies of these people

(the generational digital divide) are definitely different. The new media may be seen as

exotic, extraordinary things where the young (so-called “the net gen” may view these

innovations as ordinary and even banal (Herring,
2008). Due to this perspective, some adults feel separated or have no confident in using

these media, and sometimes even compare themselves with the net gen. Let’s take my dad as

example. A few years ago, I taught him to use the VOIP application. He took a note and when

we tried to chat everything was fine. Until the monitor turn on the screen saver mode, he

was so nervous and worried that he might have made something wrong.

In fact, even though these kids are comfortably using such digital device, it does not

guarantee that they have that level of digital proficiency (Oblinger, 2008). Therefore,

adults should stop exoticizing this net gen and view digital devices the same as other tools

in their period. Because the new media today will eventually become the normal things in the

near future!

References:
Herring, Susan C. (2008). Questioning the generational divide: Technological exoticism and

adult construction of online youth identity. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, identity, and

digital media (pp. 71-92). The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on

Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dmal.9780262524834.071?cookieSet=1

Oblinger, D. G. (2008). Growing up with Google: What it means to education. Becta: Emerging

technologies for learning, 3, 10-29. Retrieved April 10, 2008, from

http://partners.becta.org.uk/upload-

dir/downloads/page_documents/research/emerging_technologies08_chapter1.pdf

Class 6: Online Tutorial-TAB Telephony

In this online tutorial paper, the TAB Telephony system will be the subject of teaching. This system is the Digital Talking Book Playback over a phone line. It has been developed by Thailand Association of the Blind (TAB) and been in service since 2005. The main purpose of the system is for persons with visual impairment to be able to easily and rapidly access the print materials without any valuable DTB playback machines or PCs. Apart from the visually impaired, elderly people are also beneficial from the service as well. To log in to the system, users only dial the system’s telephone numbers, and then select a catalog and book to listen. Leveraging the DAISY (Digital accessible information system) technology, users are allowed to control their listening; they can navigate inside the book freely, such as to move to the previous/next chapter or even the phase (of reading). In addition, the system can be customized, such as speed/volume adjustments. The books on the system are the books in DAISY format produced by the TAB library. The system is operated 24/7 and is freely available worldwide.

As briefly mentioned, visually impaired persons are the main target of this online tutorial. There are around 600,000blind people in Thailand (Komchatleuk, 2002). The service is not limited to only the member of the TAB library, it is open for any blind people nationwide. Currently, there are about 20,000 people who use the system.

The selected delivery method for the tutorial is podcast. This is because the primary audience is the visual impaired people who employ an auditory input as the main source of information; therefore, the audio means of communication would be the best option. They do not need to spend a lot of time navigating on the web in order to read instructions/explanation. In addition, most of the blind (especially who reside in Bangkok or in the big cities) regularly use some kind of MP3 players in their daily activities. In this way, they can listen to the tutorial while working on other activities or the instruction can be replayed anytime without turning on computers. Another reason that makes pod cast is more interesting than the static website is because it can insert audio media from the system as part of the instruction.

Below is an outline of the content of the online tutorial for using the TAB Telephony.
A. System’s overview
What is TAB TELEPHONY?
The operation and services
B. Steps to be taken
C. Basic commands

Here is a sample script of the podcast.
A. System’s overview
“Hello, welcome to the podcast that will guide you how to use the TAB Telephony. The TAB Telephony is a Digital Talking Book Playback over a phone line. The system was co-developed by Thai National Institute of the Blind (TNIB) and TOT Public Company Limited).”

B. Steps to be taken
“First, just dial 1414 from any telephone system. Then you will hear the welcome speech from the system. You can press “0″ to change into English command or just hold the line for the Thai language. In case you want to leave any comment for the system developer, just press “9″ and record your voice there. Next, the system will direct you to the main menu where you can choose to the following options: Press “1″ for the TAB news, “2″ for the newspapers and magazines, “3″ for the DAISY books of the library, and “0″ back to the welcome speech and option for switching languages.”

C. Basic commands
“After choosing the DAISY books, you can navigate or control your reading by pressing numbers on your telephone pad. Here are the commands for basic navigation control.
Press “1″ to move to the first chapter
Press “2″ to move to previous Chapter
Press “3″ to move to previous page
Press “4″ to move to previous phrase
Press “5″ to play/pause
Press “6″ to Move to next phrase
Press “8″ to move to next Chapter
Press “0″ to exit or change other books … You can change these reading modes anytime while listening.”

Reference:
KomChatLeuk. (December, 2nd, 2002). 423 p. 7.

http://www.thaiedresearch.org/thaied_news/index1.php?id=2008

My first Mashup!

Finally I have created my own first mashup,! It’s such a fun exercise and here is the site:
http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~nansuwan/s603/mashup.html

Class 5 Mashups and Mapping Software

Today’s topic is the most frustrating part of this course module for me. On the other hand, it seems to be one of the most exciting parts for others. Understanding that it is such a challenging task to integrate many technologies (e.g. Google map, RSS feed, etc.) into one place, how about accessibility issues for this amazing technological mixture?

One of the most interesting features of the web 2.0 is the mix and match with rich multimedia. This type of 3d internet or virtual reality allows users to interact with applications easily and full of fun unlike the former generation of the internet. For users with visual impairment, however, this even creates barrier (to information access) for them. As a result, W3c has developed a suite of documents to ensure that this group of people will not be left out.

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI- ARIA) syntax for making dynamic Web content and custom UI controls accessible. It is a stopgap and hopefully short-term solution, because accessibility is not an integral part of the widget. Rather, authors have to do quite some additional hacking to ensure that the widget type (checkbox, password field, et cetera) and widget state (checked, open, closed, et cetera) are properly exposed. This W3C’s WAI-ARIA Features Will Enable Accessible Dynamic Web Sites usable to people with disabilities
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2006JulSep/0247.html

For developers or information providers such as Google, although they are aware of these accessibility standards and guidelines
http://labs.google.com/accessible/overview.html
, many applications have not been fully implemented. Nonetheless, there are some groups of web developers are trying to improve features of these applications and share their expertise such as:
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/keyboard-accessible-google-maps/

Hopefully in the future, there would be more accessible web applications for both content providers and regular consumers!

Class 4: Social Bookmarking Exploration

I am one person among other millions people who always work in front of the computer and surfing the internet. When I found an interesting site I would mark on my browser and later on when I want to read that information again, they are there ready for me anytime.

Now the bookmarking technologies have been developed so quickly; there are many features enhancing the use of those bookmarks and encouraging the social interaction. For example, we are not only able to save our favorite websites and share to friends, but we can also look at what other people have found interesting enough to tag. Most social bookmarking sites allow us to browse through the items based on most popular, recently added, or belonging to a certain category, such as shopping, technology, politics, blogging, news, and so on. Even though I have heard about this term “social bookmarking” and its advantages, I never tried to use this tool until this class. Below is my experience of first-time exploring social bookmarking site.

I was assigned to explore the “delicious”, one of the most famous social bookmaking sites.

http://www.delicious.com

I first went for the subscription and signed in to the system. Then I tried bookmarking 5 different websites and tagging those sites with appropriate terms. I was first confused with the tag field, I don’t know what should be put here: “Should it be two-separated word or just one?” I visited the FAQ site for this specific topic and found more explanation. The tagging rules are so different from the tags of the blogs (I tried on WordPress and each time we want each tag to be separated, we just put comma in between). For the social bookmarking sites, however, each time we put a space that means those are completely different tags! I also went to Netvouz, another social bookmarking site,

http://www.netvouz.com

It applies the same tagging rules as in the Delicious. Later I just recognized that it is reasonable having the same rules among each service providers because those tags can be searched across these social bookmarking sites.

Another useful feature of the social bookmarking site that I like and is different from the one of my web browser (IE7) is there is a field called “note” where we can put a brief annotation/description as a reminder.

Next is an interesting feature of the social bookmarking site. After I finished bookmarking and tagging those sites, I tried to find out if others, who use the same bookmarking tool– Delicious, use the same tags. Normally, Delicious will show numbers of people who also bookmark the same website as we do. In this way, we know how popular those websites are. Moreover, when we click on those numbers, the screen will show “Everyone’s bookmarks for this web page.” This is the way how we can find others who share the same interest with us, and we can build the network through this feature.

Then I tried other way to determine who tag the same site as I did. I chose the search functionality. Once I tried three tags in the searchbox (at a time) and hit enter, apart from the websites along with the detail that I have bookmarked earlier, the result also shows all Everybody’s bookmarks or “Search all of Delicious for “longman”. In other words, although those people “the cloud” use the same tag “Longman”, for example, it does not mean that they bookmark the same site as we did. I think this is a really good feature; we can track back and have an idea what are other related sites within our own interest that we might have not known before. Additionally, the result also shows numbers of people who bookmarked those websites as well as tags that they used. Regarding the tag aspect, apart from the profile view, we can see if other uses the same tag for the same website that we bookmarked through the feature called “See all bookmarks tagged”. For example, I used “accessibility” for the w3c validation website, when I search by choosing this feature, I can see other tags, such as “w3c”, “validation”, “standard”, and so on.

After exploring the Delicious site, I tried to search for the tags I used on Netvouz. Again, I first tried on “longman”. The first retrieved item listed is the same website that I bookmarked.

http://www.ldoceonline.com/

The following retrieved items are other Longman-related website arranged by number of users who bookmarked those sites. It is notable that the fifth item is the same site as the first one (that I bookmarked). However, these are the bookmarks from all private users.

Comparing between Delicious and Netvouz, Delicious has more members/users observing from the numbers of people listed on the result page. It means that there is more possibility to find interesting sites as well as building network in the Delicious. Considering the tags used for the same website, there is not much difference between these two tools. However, the result page and the detail displayed of Delicious and Netvouz are rather different (by the default view). Personally, I like the result page of Netvouz more than the other one. First, there is a link for opening websites in the separate window. Additionally, URLs are also shown explicitly. This is convenient for users to navigate back and forth. Furthermore, folders that contain each retrieved website are reported. In this way, users can have more idea about categories of the sites. Nonetheless, report of the first saved user is also helpful. We can trace back the profile of that person, i.e. the save date that may indicate the creation of the site. In addition, the direct link to save of Delicious is convenient for users who want to add related websites.

In conclusion, Delicious and Netvouz have similar and difference features/functions, it depends on users and their preferences. I think the most important thing of the social bookmarking site is the retrieval capability and added feature to enhance interaction among users in this bookmarking community.

Class 3: electronic Virtual reference desk

Due to technological advancement, remote or virtual works have become popular in many fields, such as in education, business, and so on. In the area of library, virtual reference (VR) services are also being practised in many institutions. It is obvious that virtual services provide a lot of advantages (E.G. equitable access, quality information at no charge, ETC.), STILL, THERE ARE MANY ISSUES TO CONSIDER UPON.

First, since the remote or virtual services require the moderate to high technological skills, libraries should prepare their staff to deal with this change. Also, infrastructure and technological equipment are essential; there should be enough budgets ready to support this part.

Confidentiality of patrons is another issue that librarians should consider. It is true that because of anonymity nature of online services, identity of patrons is protected. However, there is a concern about the security and authentication problems in Off-the-Record Messaging inherent in IM.

http://www.xelerance.com/mirror/otr/

Eventually, library should find ways to guarantee and ensure that confidentiality of patrons is treated as the same level as the traditional services.

Apart from the provider–the library site, Administrators should also consider the readiness of patrons as well, such as their digital literacy, supported tools/access point, and so forth. These are factors that influence the use of services, and hence, affect the cost- effective as the whole operation.

One of the interesting solutions offered by Lipow (1997) is to provide virtual reference services as part of a consortium or some kind of collaboration, but that will probably change as virtual reference becomes as common a service as renewing books online. Let’s see what the future of this VR services is!

Reference:

Lipow, A. G. (1997). Thinking Out Loud: Who Will Give Reference Service in the Digital Environment? Reference and User Services Quarterly 37(2), 125-129. Retrieved December 6, 2008, from Wilson Web.

Class 2: Topic: Blogging and RSS Feeds

Today we studied about the blog and associated features like RSS feed. In the class, we tried to create the feed on our own by using Atom and posted to our site. Below is my feed:
http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~nansuwan/s603/apple.xml

Then we were assigned to work on the subscription feed. It is the first time I’ve tried the feed subscription. I chose Google Reader:

http://www.google.com/reader

And Bloglines:

http://www.bloglines.com

First I chose Google Reader because I already have a Google account and Google’s applications are always accessible. Then Google does not make me feel disappointed. After logging into the main page, hitting Add Subscription in the left column opens a layer right there that lets users submit a feed URL. Once the feed is added, users can move it into the desired folder. For Bloglines, first users had to subscribe for the new username and password, and got to verify through Email just like Google account. To get started on some feeds, Bloglines tells users to choose favorite topic(s), such as music, fashion or books. As scrolling over each topic, users will see the pre-bundled feeds for selection (there are more options here than the Google Reader). However, this step is optional. This is very good feature, especially the ones who just start to surf the net or have no idea what to choose. For me, the accessibility features on the Bloglines are very poor. I hardly access the site on my own. Therefore, the browsing option is the least preferable.
Moreover, there is also “Add link” where users can do the self-added site the same as the “add a subscription” of the Google Reader. Considering this feed subscription feature, it is obvious that Bloglines has more functionalities. After clicking on the subscription, users can modify display preferences in feed through various options, such as location for opening new links, sort order, and feed folders, posting length, and so on. In contrast, even though Google Reader does not provide many options like Bloglines, its search feature is powerful. The result page does not show only the retrieved data, but that information would be rank according to the accuracy and statistic of subscribers or “trends of preference” are also displayed.

In addition, both tools have many similar features (e.g. importing subscription, reading post, sharing post, managing subscription, shared feeds, etc.), however, usability of each tool differs. Sometimes Bloglines is easier to use whereas many features of Google Reader are more convenient. For example, when importing the new subscription, Feeds are automatically imported, while duplicate feeds are ignored in the Bloglines. The successful imports are placed in the appropriate folder if it was defined in the file, and duplicate feeds are listed. On the contrary, to import feeds into Google Reader, users have to first go to the Settings link in the top-right navigation, and then click on the Import/Export tab. Once the file is uploaded, users are brought to the Subscriptions tab with all of the feeds listed. There’s no differentiation between the existing feeds and the newly imported ones. While duplicates are ignored, they are not listed out. Imported feeds are not assigned to the pre- defined folders either.

All in all, to compare between these two providers, Bloglines looks more professional in terms of blogging tool. Nevertheless, each has own strengths and weaknesses that make one tool is more popular than the other. Accessibility issue is another concern that Bloglines has to improve. I believe that these blogging tools have continuously developed and more features are available since nowadays information is dispersed anywhere and RSS feed is one technology that can help us arrange and handle this amount of information.