Monday, August 31, 2015

Review on Telegram

According to Group 5 which did a presentation on Telegram, I have slight fear for the security of Telegram. Based on the group's presentation, Telegram is a open source product where the quality control is not properly implemented in which it may leads to threats from virus and malicious data.

However, being an open source project actually exposes some of the security issues. In addition, chat application tends to contain important and sensitive during the chat. As a user, I definitely do not want my chat to be exposed to such threats. Although the developers should not be uploading all the important information such encryption keys or private keys information online during development, there are still some part of code that will provide the malicious hackers some information to crack the security of the application. Imagine if the hacker is able to make changes and redirect a copy of the message to himself, it will be very dangerous and insecure for the users.

However, I do agree that open source application does have its benefits. It is able to tap on the power of community to produce fantastic product. Therefore, if a good quality and information control are in place, the above worries still can be minimized.

Regarding UI/UX of Telegram, I do agree that less clicks sometimes make the application more user friendly but it does not necessarily true all the time. Assume a huge list of logo representing multiple functions in a single function page, the user  can reach almost all functions in one or two clicks but due to lack of organisation among the functions, it becomes less user friendly. It is indeed the case for Telegram where the function is grouped in a long list. In other hand, a well grouped and organised function may require more clicks to traverse the categories before it can reach the actual functions but due to neat organisation, it may gain more users' supports. Therefore, I believe the simplest may not be the best.

The team suggested one marketing possibility that Telegram can adopt is to allow custom keyboard. It reminds me of messaging application such as WeChat and LINE. In WeChat, there are various animated emoticons where user can download them. Some of the emoticons require users to purchase before it can be used. This strategy has been implemented by many messaging application. Therefore, this strategy may lose its originality and may not be able to attract more users to use it or to pay for it.

One key reason a messaging application is dominated by a few major applications such as Whatsapp, Line, etc is the importance of users. Without a large user pools, those applications are nothing but useless application. It requires two parties to use the application at the same time in order to form a communication. Therefore, users tend to go for the messaging application with large users pool or the one with most friends. It is very hard for user to migrate to another messaging application if the targeting application has very small number of friends using it.

Therefore, I feel that the messaging application market is hard for new companies to enter unless there is a very strong breakthrough or innovative changes in the messaging application. If not, I will rather stick with the old application such as Whatsapp although it may be slightly worse off in term of design or functionalities.

Friday, August 28, 2015

Week 3 O.o

Today marks the end of classes for this week. However, there are still lots of assignments to be done. In fact, those assignments have started to pile up as tutorial and lab classes have started this week.

While I am busy for coding assignment 1 features, assignment 2 suddenly comes by and demand a set of slides in Pecha Kucha style (What is that????). Believe me or not, the first thought that came to me was Kecha Wacha (google this for those who don't know). Although our team tried our best to follow the rules of Pecha Kucha, I still feel that we are using quite a few tricks to pass by the rules since the rules are not too restrictive in same manner. Therefore, I felt a little bit surprise when our slides are accepted, I guess it is expected for us to go around with some tricks.

Today also marks the start of 1 week countdown to the final deadlines. Although I believe our team has committed a lot to the assignment, I still feel that we are lacking in some expects. I hope that we can catch up and produce an almost complete product on  Monday so that we can go around getting more user feedback on all our features and UI/UX.

Next week will be an extremely tiring week for me. One presentation, one assignment product submission, two release of assignments and two forming of project groups......MY SLEEP AND REST!!!!!

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Week 2 of CS3216

Today ends my second week lessons for this semester. However, the workload of CS3216 is piling high.

I have finally formed a group for my second assignment. The grouping is rather rushing and I doubt anyone has the time to choose their teammates. It is mainly due to the fact that everyone is rushing their first assignment in which the mid report is due next Tuesday. 

As for my first assignment, it has been a busy time coding the product. We managed to decide on node js and express framework as the backbone and angular js as the front end.

While I have experienced in node js and express framework last year during orbital project, my understanding node js and express at that moment of time is very bad due to the lack of experience in coding and developing software. Lead by Sun Wang Jun, I basically follow the online tutorial without understanding the techniques and terms used in the framework (aka copy paste).

After one year of experience in coding and software development, I have returned to node js. With my current knowledge, I believe I am able to understand those terms used and not apply without understanding them (aka copy paste).

Lastly, I hope that I still can sleep well every night (SLEEP IS IMPORTANT) and not too worry about the assignments.

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

CS3216 - Hope to learn

Hi, I am Mun Aw and this blog will be used to communicate/update? my status on CS3216.

As a CS3216 student in this upcoming semester, I hope to learn the best out of it. I enjoy creation as it gives me the satisfaction looking at the product. Therefore, in CS3216, I wish that I can obtain more skills in building and creating a software. As mentioned by CS3216's title, Software Development on Evolving Platform, I aim to learn the latest skill of software engineering and the technology. By the end of CS3216, I hope that I can produce a fantastic application which can bring my SE skill to a higher level through the creation process.