[IEG]Assignment 4 Topic 3

Barcode was invented in the 50s and was put into use in 70s. This tiny black and white box soon becomes one of the most important reasons of the economy bloom in 20 century. You could’t see a single good that being sell in supermarket does not have a barcode label nowadays. Barcode enable real world data to be read by machine very easily. I am sure you can understand how barcode helps the society ─ just need to remember how much time you have wasted last time in supermarket when the barcode reader goes wrong and need to manually type in the price for each item. But the data that can be store in barcode is no more than a short string. And this is not good. Well, not “not good” but people would expect this tiny label could bring more convenient in many more ways other than just a price tag. In Japan, QR code is one of the solutions of this problem.

Like barcode, QR code is also an “optical machine-readable representation of data”. But it could store more much data then barcode and the 2 dimensional images allows the data stored inside to be read from any angle.

(from wiki)

You now could see QR code everywhere in Japan. Shops, websites, business card, as long as there are needs. The wide-spread of QR code is mainly due to the birth of smart phone. The new “computer/phone”allows user use their hand held mobile device to scan the item and obtain information. Item price, where can they find it, where it was made, basically just every information you may want to know.




↑ QR code for IE World URL


You could just use a camera phone to take this picture down, run a simple decoder and the next moment you will be showing the frontpage of IE World. No more typo, no more long url to be remember, no more trouble in telling the url, the convenient it brings sure is one of the reason for its success in Japan. The success of QR code is also a product of many new things that is only be around 3 to 4 years like the rising popularity of camera phones and better network connection (wifi, 3G etc). The need of improvement is always there, a real innovation that being put in the correct time and correct place have no reason for not success.

[IEG] SWOT analysis on myself

To help frame the question of how the university would affected me, here is a SWOT analysis of me, what I could do, and some things I could consider working on - in 2008 and beyond.

(S) Strength

Good Searching Technique
I am good at searching; I have been an active internet user since secondary school, and I have a system of my own to organize information. For information that I need for research, I know where I can start searching with, and locating the data and getting it is something easily for me to do.

Wide Information Base
I read a lot of tech blogs and tech news sites everyday. This helps me develop a wide and deep understanding of what is happening on the internet.

Understand the Internet trend
Compare to other students, I have a deeper understanding of how the internet is changing, for example the meaning of Web 2.0 or what do the experts in this area are studying on.

(W) Weakness

Bad Momory
I have a really bad memory. I have read thousend of articles but hardly remember any one of them. I could find everything I need near the computer but without it I would be like any normal teenagers.

Easy to get distracted
Like most of the children who grow in internet age, I never work on something long and often turn away from the original focus of interest in less than a hour.

Lack of creativity
No one would expect me to raise any new ideas; I am good at organizing information but do not have the insight to see things different.

(O) Opportunities

IEG group project
This project require students to read lots of articles and write a report on some technical issues like mobile computing. It is the best opportunities to use my research and organize skill to get the project done.

New Life
First year in university is like starting a new life, everyone are learning from a new starting line, this give fast learners an adventage over the others.

(T) Threats

Family Issue
Recently a close family member have go into hospital after tested positive for cancer. I need spend quite some time in hospital every day and this greatly affect my normal life.

Lack of time
Also due to various activity like softball team training, Information day preparation, volunteer works, all have taken up a certain amount of time that I have no other choice but to sacrifice some of my revision time.

This is the assigement 3 of IEG10001

IEG1001

I just saw the assignment require me to write the blog in English....Orz

I open this blog only because the course I am studying require me to. And I don't want to just put it here and let it lay and waste for a year until google decided to close it down, so I make it become my baseball notebook for saving good articles from PTT so that would not waste this place. Hope the university would allow me to write Chinese on the blog....- -"

[IEG] About Me

September 20, 2008

Mr. Howard Charney
Senior Vice President of Cisco

Dear Sir:
Recently, I attended your talk at CUHK talking entitled "Absolute Innovation" and I found it was very instructive to me. I will be finishing my course for Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Chinese University of Hong Kong in May, 2011, and mostly likely will be available for employment at that time. I am looking for the opportunity to work in your Cisco Company and under your internet developing department. I believe my knowledge and sense for the future internet trend world will help me and your company to clinch the No.1 Company in the field.

In your talk, you emphasize the important of the combination of innovation and engineering, both the software engineering and hardware engineering, which is exactly the CUHK IE department aim to train their student. I believe after 3 years I would no doubly become an all around student that could match all the requirements you require.

The biggest difference between me and other students is that I have much more experience about Web2.0. I am interested in this trend since 2005 where Hong Kong had just started to have the first generation of bloggers. I have subscribed verity of blogs, in Chinese and English, and have a wide and deep understanding about this phenomenon. Compare to those of my same, I believe my knowledge does put me above most of my classmate when talking the future internet development.

My Email is catsondbs@hotmail.com and CUHK ID is 08627801. You can find my name and digital photo at the end of this letter. I am looking forward to put my knowledge into practice in the IT field soon. I am sure my love for engineering and the energy deep in my heart could help me though the problem of lack of experience in a very short time. My contact number is 9999 0123. Thank you for your consideration.


Faithfully,
Cheuk Wai Kit, Tony

My Digital Photo