Facebook recently unveiled it’s new re-design to all it’s users, called Facebook Timeline, where it takes over the traditional profile based design and replace it with a brand new interface with heavy emphasis of time and well, not to mention age, many users would take time to understand the re-design and there’s a foreseeable backlash of users that would object against it.

However, this is certainly the right step of presenting users with useful and detailed information, as its now presented in a life profile, allowing any individual to learn more about one’s life. (And not whatsoever that’s recent).

I believe this is a response to Google+, extending the circles concept further with it’s wealth of information collected over the years, with a strong emphasis of history.

This is Facebook’s Brand New Re-designed profile (The photo was taken from one of my recent Toastmasters’ competition)

Immediately beside your titles are tiles / tabs, which you can easily update, add applications (which will be made available during launch) to include in your profile and it shows you interesting services and contents which you are linked to, for example, like Spotify (it will pull up your musical tastes)

But just for this example, I’ve included Tetris Battle in one of my featured applications, seems cool, don’t you think so?

Well, unless there’s further privacy concerns.

As you scroll down, you’ll no longer see lines of excel sheet sized status updates and photos, its more like a magazine styled design with a timeline at the centre, allowing you to navigate through your virtual life, and learning all about your past with dates at the side.

You can easily add a status, photo, place or any one of the diversified categorised, such as Work and Education, Family & Relationships, Living, Health & Wellness and Milestones & Experiences.

And yeah, you get this feature too in the timeline profile itself, at the sharing box located right below your personal information. And yes, you get access to the diversified categories!

As you scroll down through the timeline, it will show you a month by month summary on all the events you had RSVPed and Friends you had made, so it’s easy to consolidate and have a one glance view on what you had done.

Through the new Facebook Timeline, I get to scroll through all my old and long met friends and probably see when I added them, since its heavily focused based on time (the past and present), the content are modified in such a way where time becomes the content of wealth.

And if you didn’t notice, as you scroll down, you’ll get to see a large personal bar which you can share and add information about yourself automatically straight from the bar on top.

Scrolling through the timeline is like reading your own personal life magazine, it is fully customised based on what you’ve input to Facebook over the years, its a breeze to see what you had done, accomplished and experienced in both good and bad ways over your usage period in Facebook, and for some, it starts when they are born.

Some extra privacy details about sharing information in your timeline profile before I jump into the important Facebook applications, as usual, you could delete / hide the post from the timeline. And now, for those stuff and moments you are proud of, you can always feature them in the timeline.

And yes, not forgetting the Info tab, which you can learn more about the person in the profile that you are currently viewing. It’s now so much neater, cleaner and provides you with only information that you need. Nothing else.

Now, lets go through some of the crucial Facebook apps, one of them is Friends, it shows your friends in tiles, with their display pictures at the side. Looks like Windows Phone 7 tiles, it’s easy to comprehend, and instead of putting friends in alphabetical order, it shows friends that you always talk to. Some personalization algorithm there, I believe.

The photos application look similar to the friends app above, it shows you all the photos that you’ve recently added and Facebook still employs their same old tactics, more images will load when your scroll down (so there’s nothing to show other than this feature right now)

Using your check-ins, Facebook will now show you a map representation on the places you’ve been and classify it accordingly with the tabs located at the bottom, the places are also really interactive. For example, after clicking on one of the shiny dots, which represents the number of check ins:

Now moving onto Facebook Likes:

I wouldn’t say that Facebook had really invested time onto changing the Likes section, as it looks similar to the older Facebook profile under the info tab, but the interface looks cleaner and simple.

Facebook also provides an activity log, or a stuff that you’ve done over the past few years. Nothing in much detail, doesn’t need much explanation, what you see is .. what you get!

Alright, I believe that I had managed to cover some of the most essential features about Facebook Timeline, hit me up at @thejeremygoh if you’ve any more questions.

PS: After scrolling all the way down in my timeline, Facebook is seriously asking me to add my baby photo (Are you sure about that Facebook, this timeline is even thicker than my graduation yearbooks combined!)

J.

P/PS: If you’ve not got your timeline, you are probably not a developer, which you can easily sign up and do it here, which should look something like this:

After looking at some of the people in my working networks. If something that touches to the future, you have to secure and take it seriously.

Click on the picture for a high quality image.

Take it seriously and it will change your life drastically. However, on the contrary, things will change from time till time, it just comes from the perspective of how we react and adapt to the changes as it happens.

This picture is something that I had worked on. However, the original credit for the photo belongs to LowDensityLifestyle, credit to them for the above original image.

J.

(Credit: Anny Jacoby)

Well, stalking people isn’t a new meme, it had far existed in the olden days where people tailgate others on the streets and find out their whereabouts and what they were doing, to private investigators, where people pay a sum of money to get others (usually people who are more skilled to perform investigative operations) to find and follow their target for updates.

It wasn’t long before computers were born, and when the whole world revolves around it, that’s where people started to realize the potential of Information Technology, not only to provide up to date information but to provide communications between individuals to individuals. That was where IRC and different services like Yahoo and MSN were born.

Fast forward to to the late 2000s, many people find communicating to one another on the internet is too boring, building upon the concept of IRC, early social networks begin to emerge, like Friendster and MySpace pop out from the internet through college or interest projects.

Social Media is something which evolves from digital media communication from a 2 way to a multiple party and interactive communications between many users from the web. It also allows users to check on other friends to see what they are up to without needing to physically meet for coffee.

This had definitely raised a concern among many people, privacy reasons began to surface and something that I want to highlight in this article is Cyberstalking. It had became so easy to commit, even with people that has limited IT skills. Cyberstalking refers to unwanted individuals who monitor, track or harass an individual online usually with intentions in mind.

With the strong influx of many Social Media Applications, to name a few, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Plurk, Blogger, WordPress. It became an easy portal for people to share their private lives online, therefore allowing a loophole for people to retrieve such information and to use it for their advantage. I would dare not say that they are the cause for all this problems as I believe that they had definitely improved my lives across the last few years in terms of communications with many individuals that had parted ways across my life. Nevertheless, this had allowed the “Social Loophole” where people could reach you, and see what you have posted in the Social Media if you had accepted your friend request unless you had made your profile public for people to view.

There’s no definitive failsafe mechanism when it comes to Social Media as communications are interactive and real time, information could be shared in seconds, leaving very little time for users to respond. However, with the careful monitoring of your privacy settings, respond smartly, strong wary attitude of information that you have publicly posted in the internet you could prevent Cyberstalkers from grabbing hold of your information.

One easy way to check whether you have any information of yourself across the internet is to search your name or your internet nickname on any reputable Search Engine, like Google.

There is entirely no way to stop cyberstalking unless you entire unplug yourself from the internet, which I believe many disadvantages will soon surface as many people would find it increasingly difficult to contact you.

Should people monitor an individual online? In my opinion, maybe, as its purposes varies. However this is very controversial and many individuals still feel that is unethical and that had brought up many social implications. However, with the right knowledge, you can protect this from happening to you, before it turns into someone’s intention.

Take charge of your own information and you would never have to worry again.

Tell me what you think about Cyberstalking by leaving a comment below.

J.

The last few weeks I have been preparing for this competition at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and its called Speechcraft, which is a public speaking competition supported by Toastmasters International.

Preliminaries

I started off with my preliminary rounds of Speechcraft in iSpark Studio (School of Film and Media Studies) at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and I met different people from different faculties and schools. People from all walks of life comes together to achieve a single purpose; to speak and to share their knowledge and thoughts.

For the preliminary round, a speech can only be 3mins max, and must be at least 2 minutes. Any topic for your speech is fine, as long it does not touch the controversial subjects.

(Another participant presenting their speech; the archives did not have any of my photos )

My speech had been an interesting one, frankly I only prepared my simple speech in less than an hour for the preliminary round and I felt that I did badly initially. If you are interested, my preliminary speech can be found here. However, I kept practicing my speech over and over again in my mind and executed it on stage, luckily it was delivered with no obvious flaws.

The judges were pretty serious and at the same time, really supportive and smiled when there were pauses or times where I couldn’t remember some parts which I am supposed to.

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Semi Finals

The preliminary rounds were over, and I was notified that I had to be in the next round, the semi finals. The format is slightly different, the time limits were increased and the minimum presentation time of the speech is bumped up too. In this slightly different format, which is also held in the same venue at iSpark (School of Film and Media Studies) at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. All participants will be held in a holding room and will be transferred to a waiting room, which the Speechcraft Organising Committee will show the speaker 5 topics which they can talk about. And will be given only 5 minutes to prepare their speech contents. Which they will than be transferred to the speaker’s room where they will speak to their heart’s content.

I wouldn’t say that I spoke the best, but the lack of preparation is really a killer, I don’t have much objectives in mind and I spoke whatever that came hitting in my mind, which is not a really good experience, but I managed to overcome it by coming up with a simple agenda during my speech; not during the preparation which I was busy making my mind up.

I ended up speaking about this topic, out of the 5 topics on the paper:

“If you were able to rewind time, how old you want to be, and why?”

I spoke about rewinding time back to a primary school student, where I won’t have to make teachers angry, and to get their trust and respect. I also discussed about building stronger friendships when I am young and stop being so playful and careless. But the general idea is, if you keep dwelling in the past, you will not see any improvement in your life but to apply them practically in your current life, which reflects more and more on my character. I have also discussed that all the things in the past isn’t perfect and our brain only selectively remember the happier parts. So why not build a better future, it sounds like a brand new fairytale but I hope I had proven my point of the history is just the building blocks of the future.

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Trainings

Probably one of the most interesting and interactive lectures where everyone talks and shares their opinions on debates, argumentative and ethics. Everyone speak their minds out and presents their thoughts and findings to everyone else.

Many language skills were picked up, in this Rhetoric lesson, its about Argumentation and Debate with Ms Rajoo, one of our club advisors here at Ngee Ann Polytechnic Student Toastmasters Club.

Debate is process of inquiry and advocacy ..

Friends around me smiling happily. Well, me too.

Who told you what you believed was always right? See this example ..

Discussion in progress about ethics; is it right or wrong? What differentiates?

Further discussion about a case scenario, who is in the wrong? It’s not always the person who commits the mistakes that are in the wrong, what leads up to that?

Mr Bala speaks about speech techniques, how could one’s speech be more engaging and visually entertaining, not only in the form of speech. How to build up their spirit of the audience, and to bring out the sway the opinions of them.

The event started from late afternoon till 11pm, it was a great lesson which I still remember details off, not your usual history lesson that is.

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Finals

Probably one of the largest events that I had prepared in weeks, the finals ain’t something that easy. As usual, the time limits were bumped and the venue had changed to be a theatre with a public audience.

Each competition participant will be making a speech based on ONE of these themes!
1) The Social Media and The Singapore Elections
2) Ethics are taught or caught?
3) Money is the currency for incorruptibility.

Some preparation, among all the finalist of the competitions. Some words of reminder.

I did a simple mic test before we started the competition; so the people controlling the audio equipment get a better view of what would happen during the competition itself.

As the competition is about the begin, the timers sits near the stage and will show us flashing cards so we would keep within the time limit of 6 to 7 minutes, with the minimum of 5 minutes per speech.

To start off the night, our very own NPSTMC (Ngee Ann Students Toastmasters Club) members Nabilah and Aaron kickstart the night by being the host.

The open category, which is for Year 2 and Year 3 students from the school had performance extraordinary well, and they have really interesting points.

Next, the freshman category, which is fortunately for me, where I fall in. And we have a team of amazing speakers which could really talk.

And of course, its not complete without me, so since you are reading this blog about me, I have to take at least some space at this blog. In case you forget that you are reading Jeremy’s Weblog

(Yes, I was talking about Social Media and Singapore Elections and my speech hit the 7 minutes mark, almost hitting the time limit)

After the freshman category, everyone get a 20 minutes break while the judges were in discussion. So we get to see a few performances.

There was entertainment during the break times where everyone had fun and such. I would love to put the videos here, but its currently in processing.

There’s a prize presentation ceremony right after that.

And yes, thats me!

That’s the entire speakers team from Speechcraft 2011!

Thank you everyone, hope that this is really interesting and an eye-opening experience for you!

And thats the start till the end of the entire Speechcraft 2011.

J.

(Credit: The Straits Times)

The battle of bees, can be well seen around the neighbourhood without prompt. With that much buzz around us, it is hard to ignore details which is evident right now. With the influx of bees, everyone is worried if there are enough hives to stay in and honey to make.

As much as it needs to be controlled, I am still really thankful of some bees that work almost 24/7.

The time limit of this particular preliminary speech is within 2 to 3 minutes.

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Eyes? What eyes?
How could eyes be friendly?

Now lets think about it ..

Clearly, it isn’t! However, there are eyes which seems just too friendly, it might be your friends, family and probably the most interesting topic which no one seems to nice about .. your online assets and information!

For years, privacy issues is a long debated topic, from stealing of personal information to credit numbers and monitoring and censoring of data and information. Transparency had always been something which the netizens are constantly fighting for and aware about.

With the recent spike of consumer technological advancements which was introduced in this decade, a cellular device is more than just a normal communications device, it had already involved into a broadcasting station, which is more like a loudhailer, yet many of us don’t really see it. Why?

Again, the rise of Social Media, a strategic shift from normal traditional media where one had always been stuck in the pools of traditional journalism. Social media had made every individual to be their own content owner and journalist. With this introduction, many users who had been using such services is already accustomed to share their lives to anyone and everyone freely.

Nevertheless, many people thought that services offered from corporations and organizations to consumers are really useful. One such service is location services, which is definitely something which many people are already using. However with the recent spit from Apple’s location services, this had set many users switching off their location services on their iOS devices, which had caused Apple to rectify the issue in their software update. A few days later, Google Location Services (On the mobile platform, Android), also sparked a genuine concern.

With so much buzz nowadays about location services, you are never sure which one is really free of any agenda.

More interestingly, Facebook, an online social media platform, had also been in the spat with it’s sharing of it’s humongous database of personal information of it’s users to 3rd party developers. Some of the most popular Facebook Applications had been collecting and selling user’s information, although they had already been suspended, the work had already been complete and this caused a huge privacy uproar on Facebook, which caused many users to think twice before sharing their information on the web again.

Is your personal devices just an ordinary plastic, or has it involved into something that you have not thought of?

With so many eyes staring in everywhere at you, haven’t you learned anything?

Think again.

Thank you.

Are you too constrained or work within the grill? Have you seen colours that spark if you remove the obstacle and having a bigger picture of things? It’s easy, its just chains in your mind that you need to untangle, but it needs time.

My mind came to an almost subtle blank when the idea of creativity in my mind. I am writing this to give myself an in depth thought about workflow management and creativity. Have we became too complacent with restrictions that we had basically shut off our creative nerves and work on the same procedures over and over again; without making changes to old working styles in the current generation.
Don’t you think so?
Many concepts that sparked on to my generation is a result of developed ideas and when ideas develops, the human mind must be able to catch on, if they don’t, they will be stuck to the never ending loop of old ideas and with the influence of new ideas, many people just lose the point of what they are doing. Which is clearly evident that many are unable to find the purpose of some procedures as they are outdated and irrelevant to the current generation.
However, newer ideas with well documented purpose can be seen in more recent and spun off start-up companies. Nevertheless, the newer companies do not have the experience and the ‘proven track record’ you see in older companies and as time passes by, the ideas will emerge and it needs to be rethought of again.
So I strongly believe that workflow management and creative ideas should work hand in hand but its just hard and no one really wants to review policies if everything is working fine.
I still remember one old saying “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it“, and if everyone just follows that same line there will virtually be no progression in the short nor long term and mistakes that happen will just be patched (With small amendments to procedures, here and there), which other mistakes could subsequently happen again, but in another form.
So in a nutshell, creative ideas is important, but more importantly, those ideas must not only be developed in products but in workflow and how it could benefit and increase productivity and in the missing link is the development of ideas, on how existing ideas could be developed for further use in future scenarios. A key point to note, ideas need to be properly developed before it is being implemented, or risk changes for the worst. So its good to have good experimentation with it first.
A clear and well developed workflow provides high productivity and efficiency but if it’s communicated ineffectively, it could provide adverse results.

That’s just what I am think right now. Probably just a thought that I needed to further develop on.

J.

Drop me a tweet @jeremy89632 and tell me what you think about it!

J.

Although sometimes the manual taps can be dirty to press and be a hassle, at least I am not cut off from my precious water supply when automation fails or it being programmed to save water.

Oh wait and that’s a price to pay for the digital revolution.

Have something in mind about more water taps? Leave a comment below or @jeremy89632

J.

Bed to Sofa Tutorial
Just for the record, if you like to change your bed into sofa. You just have to remove the orange cover on the top.

Than just try to ‘pull’ the bed open. As in try pull the bed from one end to open the enclosed end.

Cool isn’t it. The sofa is now a bed and not only that, you can use the orange sheet as your blanket which is ultra thick and warm / fuzzy inside.
Moving on!

The kitchen is really cool as well, it comes with a fridge (not those mini ones), a microwave oven, a door to the backyard of the house (not the balcony), a sink and just a bar counter.

Now heading to the bedrooms, this is our first bedroom, it comes with 2 beds, a locker and wardrobe (at the side of the first bed, not in this picture) at the side of the beds. The beds also come with a bedside table at the centre and 2 power plugs.
I kinda noticed that all the beds are super single sized. – The beds are slightly bigger than single size.


Let’s take a look at the master bedroom, it comes with a twin double decker bed with a bed facing beside a balcony which is really awesome. It’s just the balcony which doesn’t comes with a curtain, so you will most likely get the hot sun in the morning. But fear not! – there’s a curtain behind to block out the sun out and since the sun rises from the east, you are safe!
The Master Bedroom comes with a toilet and a large drawer to put your valuables.

The balcony allows an eye opening view of the entire Bukit Timah view, the PIE expressway (along the flyover) and a church.

The toilet comes with anything you might probably dream off – except for toiletries, so remember to get that. But don’t worry, they provided toilet paper.
I will not review the second toilet – it’s so stalky! (I remembered someone was using it)

The third bedroom comes with 2 beds, a locker and a safe box, to put all your valuables in it. (As in its literally a safe box, and its fully digital)

I hope I had provided you a really good insight inside theloft@94.
Now go out and play!

Have fun lofting!
Jeremy

FYI, something I found out was, there is actually hot water supply, but you need to activate it by switching on the switch at the bottom of the kitchen sink.
Remember that!

PPS:

I didn’t know that the security system at the loft is running on 4 Eveready batteries.

PPPS: You could always refer to Ngee Ann’s SDAR website about theloft@94.