Photos Editing for Online Text

Hehe, please have a look at some photos I’ve edited and turned into photos that I think they would work well on the internet. Most of editing processes involving with pictures cropping and color adjusting.

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06/10/2011

By: Dara Sayuth 

My Facebook is ACTIVATED again

Image via CrunchBase

At last my previous account on Facebook (Dara Saoyuth) is activated again. It’s almost a year already that I cannot access to this account since it was temporary suspended because I confused to use this account on another website that is similar to Facebook (I was cheated!).

Today is a birthday of a person I know and like, but since we have some misunderstanding, my new Facebook account (Saoyuth Dara) that created after the previous one was suspended was removed from her friend list.

I want to send her a HAPPY BIRTHDAY message, but I cannot do via Facebook. The only way I can think of is to try to access my previous account in the hope that she is in the list and that I will be able to post on her wall.

My attempt was failed though I was succeed in restoring my previous account because this account was blocked since before we know each other. Even though I am having a little frustration, I’m happy that I can get my account back and start to connect with people in the friend list again.

As soon as I log into the account, I can see 92 friend requests, 29 messages, and 22 notifications. I think they all might not know that my account was suspended. Now, I can get to them again.

26/09/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

To be able to restore this account, I was required to enter my “PASSWORD” and then named 5 people from my friend lists so that Facebook can make sure that this is really my account.

My assignment today_22 Sept 2011

Dear Student Blog visitors,

Since I’ve been here in Malaysia, today marked the second time for me to have a meeting with Cambodians. Yesterday, I met the Cambodian ambassador in Malaysia, princess Norodom Arunrasmy, and some of the embassy staffs. Today, I went to meet some Cambodian students who come to study at Limkokwing University here.

This meeting is for my article which is about the lives of Cambodian students who come to study abroad. From the article, you can expect to know what challenges they have to face, and how they can adapt to the new environment without any relatives around except their friends from the same countries.

Today also marked the 1st time for me to travel for a far distance alone for an assignment. It took around 45 minutes from my office, the Star publication, to the Limkokwing university in Malaysia which located in Cyberjaya. I’m so exhausted, but at the same time excited to meet people from the same country using our national language in our conversation.

Group photo with Cambodian students who come to study at Limkokwing university in Malaysia / photo by: photographer from the Star pubication

I’ve chit-chatted with them for around 3 hours before I came back to the office. I prefer not to call it an interview because I don’t think that I can get the real feeling inside my interviewees if I make this conversation into something too formal.

So, it’s just about friends sharing what they have learned and experienced, and I just bring what they told me for other people who will read my article.

I will try to finish the article as soon as possible because I have only 12 days more in Malaysia. Please stay tune for the article!

Tonight, I have so many works to do, so I’ve decided not to have a look at my Facebook page. I have three more feature stories to be finished – Cambodian maids working in Malaysia, Lives of Cambodian students coming to study in Malaysia, and Dog breeding sharing experience. I might be able to finish only 1 of them by tonight because I also need to prepare some slides for tomorrow I have to do public speaking in front of the Star metro staffs and bosses. I’m so excited and hope i can do it well tomorrow.

Have to say good-bye from my blog now; otherwise I cannot finish my plan for tonight.

Thanks for coming back to read my personal stories as well as some other information on this blogs.

Hope to see you all again soon.

Yours,

Saoyuth, Student Blog author

22/09/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth 

Related articles

• My assignment today_02 September 2011 (saoyuth.wordpress.com)
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My assignment today_02 September 2011

Dear my beloved readers,

I’m here again today writing what I have been doing and what has happened to me today hoping that I’m not making you bored by just reading my personal story everyday.

I am now in the process of training myself to be more productive, happy, friendly, and so forth. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have these qualities before, but I just have to maximize the good points while minimize disastrous parts.

I got up at 8am (Malaysia Time) this morning and arrived the office so early(because I mostly arrive so late recently). There are 3 articles I haven’t finished, and there will be two more on an assignment at 11am. I immediately started working on the last night event of Sapporo premium beer launching and finished it about half an hour before my today assignment came.

Performance during the launching ceremony of Sapporo premium beer/ by: Dara Saoyuth

Today, I first supposed to follow Tho Xin Yi, one of the Star reporter, but then my supervisor change my schedule to follow Yip Yoke Teng for the sponsorship event of Penang Star Walk 2011 and PJ Half Marathon. The event finished around 12pm and I finished them before I left the office for home. I am so happy because this is the first time for me to finish three articles within a day. However, I still have two more to finish as soon as possible: The dog breeding sharing experience, and A night club review.

Tonight, I will try my best to do both stories because I realized that the more I delay, the more I have to handle for the next day.

While I am so happy with my accomplishment, something not good happen. I received an E-mail from my working place in Cambodia saying that my suggestion to some changes were rejected. More than that, the mail stated a lot of negative points towards me in responding to my previous mail suggestion some changes in the workplace. I know clearly what I am doing, and I never expect to get such that mail from my boss. It seems like I was considered as a bad person that sought for personal benefit rather than team development. This mail made me realized that some messages really contain unintentional meanings, and that would cause problems when people decoded that meaning while kicking away the intended meaning.

As soon as I finished replying that mail to defend my stand and give my reasons in the hope that the right message could get through many filters around, another thing happened. It is hard for me to describe, but I just can tell  that the person I like start to hate me because of what happened at my workplace.

I am so lucky that I have more than 1000 friends on Facebook and my beloved blog readers, so that I can have encouragement to take another step. I have sent two mails explaining what I really wanted to tell them in my previous mail. I hope that it works because it’s the only meaning I intended them to get when I wrote that mail.

I’m sure to update this case for all of you if there is any development.

Good luck and good night.

02/09/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

Related articles

• My assignment today_01 September 2011 (saoyuth.wordpress.com)

Cambodia Circles – a new website specially designed for Cambodians

Sample page from cambodiacircles.com

Social networking sites have evolved and gotten recognized by the fact of keeping people from every corner of the world to stay connected; however, Cambodiacircles.com is more than that. The site comes from the word Cambodia + Circles, and according to the dictionary, the word circle means: A group of people sharing an interest, activity, or achievement.

Founded earlier this year by initiative members living in foreign country with the support of Cambodian taskforce in term of content providing, Cambodiacircles.com is struggling to be more than a social networking site for Cambodians by gathering 6 groups of people who share the same interest, activity, or achievement. They are professional group, civil servants, NGOs, Academics, Business Owners, and the rest of us who are still studying or unemployed.

Imagine that you were a student in a particular subject and want to get some advices from experts to solve your academic problems or want to seek for a job, where would you go for it? To deteriorate ever-experienced difficulties in searching for a particular group of people, Cambodiacircles.com provides easy platform for Cambodian to get to know each other and keep up with that relationship by chatting, messaging, documents sharing, etc. All Cambodiacircles.com members have to express their current position or expertise so that it’s easier for its users to look for a particular group of people.

More than that, Cambodiacircles.com provide variety of local news contents concerning with social development, technology, business, education and experience sharing from experts from different fields.

We strongly believe that knowing a lot of information will minimize your risks in making decision on everything.

27/07/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

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10 Reasons People Hear News FIRST Now from Facebook

Kathy Nelson, one of Student Blog readers, has just sent me an article which I hope all of you also like to read it. I’ve posted the full article here, and if you’d like to read from the original site, feel free to click the link at the end of the post. Cheers,

From original post

So there’s this new social networking service online you may have heard of – FaceBook? Yes, of course you’ve heard of it, unless you’ve been exploring deep space for the past seven years. It’s all but replaced the telephone as a communications medium between friends and family; so it’s small wonder that a growing number of people count on FaceBook as their primary source for news as well.

The following is a list of ten reasons why people are getting their news first from FaceBook:

1. Because They’re There – The first and most obvious reason is that many people are spending so much time on FaceBook that they’re getting all their information there, from family events to current events. That is, when they’re not sharing hugs, or planting crops on Farmville.
2. Widgets – Many people have their desktops and browsers set to display notifications directly from FaceBook. As such, these notifications tend to be the first thing they will see when booting up their PC, or while they’re working at their desks. So when news breaks, it’s no surprise that Aunt Clara’s wall post will be the first you’ll hear of it.
3. Causes and Groups – One facet of FaceBook’s popularity has been the proliferation of various interest groups on the website. Many FaceBook members who join such groups also get updates and news reports on issues relevant to their common interests, via FaceBook messages.
4. Newsgroup Profiles – Just about every entity you can think of has a FaceBook profile associated with it. If your source for news is CNN, and you’re a frequent FaceBook user, chances are good that you’ll be getting your news feeds via CNN’s FaceBook page as well.
5. Going Legit – A December 16, 2008 article on the Australian website TheAge.com, reported that lawyers in Canberra had been granted the legal right to serve court documents to defendants via those defendants’ FaceBook profiles. The point being that as FaceBook continues to shape our social, political and commercial lives/livelihoods, users are increasingly dependent upon it for information of all sorts, including their news.
6. Going Mainstream – As FaceBook has become the foremost means by which many family members keep in touch, it also tends to be the primary source for hometown news, via updates from relatives on FaceBook.
7. Trust – has always played a major role in where an individual turns for their news sources. As social networking services such as FaceBook provide members with a vehicle by which to develop their own individual networks of friends and affiliates, it’s only natural that this extends to how they stay informed as well.
8. Following the Herd – News agencies are like any other businesses. They are driven by numbers: audience size, advertising revenues, etc. And like any other business, their parent media companies are following those numbers; and those numbers are telling them that FaceBook membership represents one huge global market.
9. Scooping the Tube – The immediacy of the social media platform makes for a faster means by which to disseminate information. As opposed to the lag involved in traditional news production, it’s an attractive alternative for sharing news. So more news outlets are breaking stories via FaceBook.
10. FaceBook Members  – Some events and other newsworthy items are being shared on FaceBook pages by the news-makers themselves before they actually become mainstream news. Corporate, celebrity and political entities are using profiles on sites like FaceBook and Twitter to share their news prior to the stories being picked up by the media.

There’s no question that social networking services have altered the way we communicate and socialize. Much like cell phone texting did previously, they continue become more prevalent as a medium for keeping us up to date on everything from our social calendars to current news and notifications.

05/07/2011

From: Student Blog reader

Original site: 10 Reasons People Hear News FIRST Now from Facebook

Join Internet Talk at CTN

Last Thursday, Tivea Koam and I were invited to share experiences after working as Cambodian news reporters for more than a year. At the same time, we got a chance to briefly talked about some of our school projects we have completed since year 1 to year 3. The projects include the establishing of KON magazine, and 9 video documentaries we just produced. Below is the interview clip I just got from the station. Cheers,

29/06/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

Footage recorded on 23/06/2011

 

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• Finished design project (saoyuth.wordpress.com)
• My interview with Radio Australia (saoyuth.wordpress.com)
• KON appears on WEEKEND issue of The Cambodia Daily (saoyuth.wordpress.com)
• KON Magazine Launching (saoyuth.wordpress.com)
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10 Reasons Teachers Shouldn’t Be Facebook Friends with Students

Kelly Kaplan, one of Student Blog readers, has just sent me an article which I hope all of you also like to read it. I’ve posted the full article here, and if you’d like to read from the original site, feel free to click the link at the end of the post. Cheers,

From: Original post

You can find just about anybody on Facebook these days. People are becoming Facebook friends with old classmates, long lost cousins and the neighbor across the street. Teens especially seem to have a tendency to add almost everyone to their friends list that asks. So, if one of their teachers should send them a friend request, they’re likely to accept it. If they randomly came across a teacher’s profile on Facebook, they might also send a friend request too, without thinking much about it. A teacher, however, should give the situation some consideration. There are some very good reasons why a teacher should NOT be Facebook friends with their students.

1. Privacy – The teacher’s privacy and the student’s privacy are compromised when they become Facebook friends. A student (and that student’s friends) may learn things about their teacher that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to. This could be detrimental in the class setting.
2. Harassment – Again, this can go both ways. If the relationship between the teacher and the student is not a positive one, or deteriorates in the classroom, Facebook connections could be used to harass one another outside the confines of the school building.
3. Work vs Home – Teachers often had a hard time drawing a line between work and home. Since Facebook would be something they would use more for their personal lives than their work, becoming Facebook friends with students just further blurs that already fuzzy line.
4. Favoritism – Since teachers have many different students each day, if they were Facebook friends with some of their students and not others, they would likely be accused of showing favoritism to those students they had befriended on Facebook.
5. Intimidation – Some students might see a teacher’s Facebook friendship intimidating. They may be hesitant to accept the friendship because of not wanting their teacher to be privy to their conversations with friends. At the same time, they may fear saying no to a friend request from a teacher, for fear that they will offend the teacher and negatively affect the teacher’s treatment of them.
6. Age appropriate – Since a teacher would be an adult, there may be postings from friends on their Facebook page, which would not be age appropriate content for their students to be reading or viewing.
7. Bullying – School bullies love to tease other kids about having friendly relationships with their teachers. Being Facebook friends with students may make them a bigger target for that type of bullying from other students.
8. Prejudice – As much as teachers try not to allow outside knowledge affect their treatment of their students, it still can have a subliminal effect. A Facebook friendship may cause a teacher to see the student in a whole different light than they did in the classroom previously.
9. Misunderstandings – Online communications are often filled with misunderstandings about what a person meant by something they typed or did online. A teacher/student friendship on Facebook could create more opportunities for these types of misunderstandings.
10. Expectations – A student who has a teacher as a Facebook friend may expect special treatment from that teacher. The student may also expect the teacher to answer questions regarding assignments and homework via their Facebook friendship, that should be reserved for the classroom.

If you’re a teacher and haven’t given this situation any thought, now is the time to do so. The easiest solution is to simply make it a matter of personal policy to not be Facebook friends with any student at your school. That way, no one can be offended by your rejecting their friend request, and you can’t be put in a position that you may later regret.

14/06/2011

From: Student Blog reader

Original site: 10 Reasons Teachers Shouldn’t Be Facebook Friends with Students

Photos for remembering our friendship

Spending almost 3 years with DMC batch 08, I feel that I’ve learnt a lot more than acquiring new knowledge from our beloved lecturers but also learn to know the meaning of truly friendship.

Currently, we have 19 members in the batch including one that just finished his exchange program in the United State. But…the other six people including me will leave soon for their international internship. And after finishing the internship, two among the six people will leave all of us for learning in Italy for another 6 months.

Looking from outside, this is such a great opportunity to have chance going abroad and of course it is. However, if we talk about emotion, you might understand how we goona miss each other so much…

We have been to many places and enjoyed a lot of great time together…

To keep this feeling inside, I’ve decided to create some photo albums and post plenty of photos on my Facebook account, so please check it out!

1. Study Tour to Siem Reap (20-23 May, 2010)

2. First launching of KON magazine (15 October, 2010)

3. Our Trip to Chambok Resort (20 November, 2010)

24/05/2011

By: Dara Saoyuth

Virtual friends, digital discussions & real worries

Dara Saoyuth steps away from his own Facebook page long enough to talk to anyone in the country who would know about what consequences Cambodian stand to face if they are overly critical online.

My Facebook profile

It went public in 2006, and since then Facebook has become the world’s largest social networking site with more than 500 million active users worldwide. Facebook has increasingly become integrated into Cambodian internet users’ daily experience as more than half of the users surveyed used Facebook at least once a day and another one-third used several times a week, according to an online survey of 468 Cambodian Facebook users published by the Department of Media and Communication.

There are 255,660 total Facebook users in Cambodia now as reported by socialbakers.com, one of the biggest Facebook statistics portals in the world. Users know that Facebook is an effective tool for networking, communicating or advertising, while tending to ignore or simply not knowing about some important aspects that might lead to legal action, especially involving privacy.

For example, Cambodia is no different from the outside world, where a person can be accused of defamation and face legal action if they post something on asocial networking site that is considered a public place. However, no such case has happened in Cambodia, so far.

“So far, there is no point mentioned in Cambodian laws related to Facebook privacy,” said Sok Samoeun, an executive director at Cambodian Defenders Project, who suggested the possibility that a page might not be a private place anymore if everyone can see its contents or that page has hundreds of friends or members.

Pen Samitthy, the president of the Club of Cambodian Journalists and editor-in-chief of the Rasmey Kampuchea newspaper, said that social networking sites are very good because they create a new form of broadcasting news that he called citizen journalism.

“Now everyone can work like a journalist because they can provide information whenever there is computer and internet connection,” said Pen Samitthy, who acknowledged that there were some negative points with this kind of citizen journalism. He said people who use social networking sites as a tool to disseminate information normally don’t have a professional background, so they cannot balance a story and they just write what they see and put what they think with doing proper research.

Posting, commenting and uploading photos or videos are normally what people do on these sites, to share their experiences and emotions towards daily life. Facebook also allows users to create groups, invite other people to join and make discussions on their topic of interest.

Among the numerous groups created by Cambodians, Khmer Motherland (Meatophum Khmer) is supported by its 1,350 members and Khmer People Network (Bondanh Polrot Khmer) is supported by its 294 members. These are two groups that get updated very often. Most of the topics being discussed by these groups is related to politics and social issues.

A 24-year-old university student who asked to be callled by his nickname of Roumket Roumsomrech Roumtver is a member of the two Facebook groups. He said that normally someone puts up a posting and that leads to a discussion which sometimes turns into an argument.

“Since members try to reflect their personal views, especially on politics and the fact that not all of them have the same tendency, some of them have attacked each other in the form of comments back and forth instead of trying to understand one another,” said Roumket Roumsomrech Roumtver, who explained that by not using his real name on Facebook he felt more confident commenting on politics.

Pen Samitty said it will not cause any problems if a person creates a group to discuss things with a few of his or her friends, but it might lead to problems when putting in links for everyone to see. He added that although there is no law on internet use yet, it may violate another law like defamation if someone went too far.

Facebook is an international website that attracts all nationalities, but AngkorOne.com is the international website that attracts Cambodians living all over the world. To help its members get around any legal problems, AngkorOne.com, a Khmer social networking site with nearly 14,000 members, have created some policies for posting things.

Steven Path, the founder and chief executive officer of AngkorOne.com, said he has staff and members to review all the content to make sure that members are respectful to one another and not get involved in political discussions. “When it comes to political attacks, we see on other websites that they attack very violently and we don’t want this to appear on AngkorOne.com,” he said.

“It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. We are not concerned about having thousands of posts every day, but we do get about 300 to 400 posts per day that are quality ones.”

By: Dara Saoyuth

This article was publish on LIFT, Issue 66 published on April 13, 2011

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