Click here to join in the App

There is a network setup on Facebook, but not very well known – only 81 people are on it. The rest are either in their previous school (I see a lot of AIS), Hong Kong, or are having trouble to join any networks. Follow this tutorial, and I’ll get you into the app shortly.

If you are not in the network, you’ll most likely see a message like this when you access to the app:

Some people might be able to resolve the issue through Network Settings in Facebook without any hassle, but others find it troublesome to change network. In that case, you’ll need to double-check the following settings:

Are you in any colleges/high schools currently?

1. Click on “Profile” on top right corner
   
2. Under “Education and Work”, click on “Edit”
   
3. Remove your colleges records
   
4. Update your highschool record to be “International Christian School (Kowloon City, Hong Kong)”, and set the year to be the year you’re graduating.  (For 09-10 school year, Seniors = 2010, Juniors = 2011, Sophomores = 2012, Freshmen = 2013)
   
5. Save your settings

Check your Birthday

This is quite important, as somebody over 18 obviously can’t be in a high school network. If you don’t have it set, or set as something over 18 years old, you’ll need to contact Facebook to change it for you. Or, if you really are over 18 and are still in this school, you’ll need to contact Facebook as well.

Join the Network again

After the steps above are done, try to edit your network settings again. You should be able to see International Christian School in the Edit Network Settings screen.

If you don’t see it, please contact Peter Zhang at p@peetahzee.com.

Just a little statistics… I was at 89kg (196 lbs), and now I’m at 77kg (169lbs). My current BMI is 25 I believe. Still a few pounds away from “normal weight”, but hey, at least I’m not obese anymore!

Just wanted to say thanks to all those who have encouraged me along… you guys are awesome! Though, I still need help reaching that “normal weight” though, so keep controlling my appetite and making me work out.

And in dedication to my achievement, here is a little poem I wrote for English class. (And yes, thanks to Tim Au who helped me on the poem )

A scene quite opposite to heaven,
Happened on November Eleventh,
The day when I was announced clinically obese
Oh crap, doesn’t that mean I can’t eat?
“You have 4 months to lose 4 kilos”, he said
with a casual expression on his face that just made me mad.

“That can’t be hard for you, can it?
Just control yourself a little bit,
Eat less, work more,
And soon enough, you’ll get the girl you’ve been looking for.”
Okay… that last thought was kind of weird,
but it was true my weight might be what the girls have feared.

I was sure that once they see the new me,
They would jump for joy and shout with glee.
But wait, before all this can happen,
I must work to become like the legendary Kraken.
How I can achieve that I didn’t know,
All I wanted was people saying “whoa”.

Four months of sweat have dripped,
Thousands of calories have slipped.
Now, I am standing ever close to the trophy
On a journey that I never thought was easy.
When I look into her eyes that I now have caught,
I know in my heart, my hard work has been bought.

When I designed the app, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I can make use of the already-awesome Facebook systems. That way, I don’t have to spend a lot of time on programming a nice interface myself, nor do I have to worry about the right security stuff – Facebook can take care them for me!

Showcase with Pages

After thinking a while, here’s what I decided: Facebook Pages! Each Tribe has its own Facebook Page, and that is where the tribes”showcase” their class. Through them, tribes can easily upload pictures and tell everybody about it through the fans system. Pages are where tribes basically showcase their work, and most likely where all the tribal points will be coming from (posting good pics, reflective stories, etc.)

While that is solved, another issue popped up: I need to somehow connect the pages together. And this is where the Page Tabs come in. With the “ICS” Tabs on each page, you can access the information about a tribe quickly, such as points and members, as well as links to other tribes too.

“Internal Communication” via App

In addition, there is also a separate part from the pages system, and it is the app itself. If you launch the app from Facebook menus, you’ll be able to see something like an announcement system. Although the whole system is still in progress, the part with advisory announcements is done. Advisories and Mr. Chan can easily setup advisory meeting times. And yes, that means no more posting “any advisory tomorrow” messages on Facebook. =)

Always Looking for Suggestions

So now, please do me a favor and start using the Facebook App! We’ll be running a few contests soon, but it’s never too late to start. =D

I’m always looking for suggestions. If you have ideas (be reasonable, please) that you think can help the ICS App Experience, please do tell me! Either by Facebook wall post, or commenting on this post.

But there is a problem as well. With that many apps already made on Facebook, I have to make mine really stand out and make the users really like it and find it useful. But how exactly do I do that?

Social Vocab

Let’s see… apparently people like apps to interact with their friends and stuff (look at Social Interview)… but I want to make something more than Social Interview; being a copy cat never works. I was studying Vocab for my SAT when I thought of that, and an idea immediately popped out – Social Vocab!

It’s still a very rough idea, but I think it definitely has potential. Basically, this app will allow the user to go through the friendlist and assign SAT vocabs on them. Let’s say, the app will pick a random person from the friend list, let’s say, Peter Zhang, and the user replies that Peter Zhang is scintillating (out of 5 vocabs optoins). During the process of assigning vocab, the user actually unnoticeably learned the word by associating the word with the object. Now, because of that, supposedly the user will think of Peter Zhang when they see the word “scintillating”, and remember its meaning as being “brilliant”.

Of course, there will be other tools to help the user memorize as well, such as flash cards, quizzes and maybe games; but the main point of the app really is about the paragraph above. The reason I think it will be successful is because, this app can easily spread by posting on other people’s walls (“You’ve been described as ’scintillating!’”); more users will join, and eventually, I’ll be rich.

That’s So True!

Quite opposite to the idea above, this idea came from being annoyed by “Person A joined This Group and 7 million other groups” messages. I really hate it when people join these groups just because they think the name is true. By having a large group, group creators can now earn from putting ads in their group, and I simply think that’s not fair. Plus, you’re most likely going to be spammed for joining groups. Groups were not made to be used this way!

Therefore, in an attempt to bring back the clean Facebook without the joining group messages (yes, I do know I can filter it out), I came up with the idea for “That’s So True!” App. Basically, in this app, the user can find phrases where they think it’s true, and join it. That way, people can discover the trends of what people think safely. No spams; no duplicates; no unfair advantages for anybody else. Also, people are going to find the “truth” so much easier, too.

What do you think?

I don’t really have time to develop these ideas just yet, but I will. Someday. What do you think about these apps? Will you use it? Why or Why not?

Registering is extremely simple, just fill out your advisory and your tribe roll, and then click on Submit. I mean, how hard can THAT be?

Now, If you are the first one to register in your tribe, you’ll be prompted to create a page for your tribe. In that case, you’ll need a little bit more instructions.

1. Click on this link, you’ll be led to a Facebook page where you can create a Facebook Page. (Wait, did that make sense?)

2. Fill out the info as follows:

NOTICE: The name of Page has to be in this format: ICS*space**tribe*. If you do not name your page that way, the app won’t be able to recognize you. So, if your tribe is 9G2, enter ICS 9G2.

3. Click “Create Page”

4. You can mess with the Page’s settings later, but right now, let me get the app to recognize you first. Go to this page IN A NEW WINDOW: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=182521498415, DO NOT close the Page you just created yet.

5. Click on “Add to My Page”

.

6. Choose the page you just created

7. Go back to the Page, and click on “Edit Page”

8. Scroll down until you find ICS Tribes, click on “Edit”

9. Enter in your Tribe name. Click submit.

10. Go back to your page, and click on “+” on the tabs.

11. Choose ICS from the list, and… you’re done!

11. LAST STEP. Invite all your other friends to use the ICS Tribes. When they’re done, invite all of them to be admins of the Page so that they can publish things on the Page’s wall. More wall stories = more points = more prizes!

Happy ICS-Tribes-App-ing!

]]> http://peetahzee.com/2010/02/getting-started-on-ics-tribes/feed/ 0 http://peetahzee.com/2010/02/introducing-vitaku/ http://peetahzee.com/2010/02/introducing-vitaku/#comments Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:05:45 +0000 Peter Zhang http://peetahzee.com/?p=314 For the past three weeks, I’ve been busy working on an online trading platform for ICS students. It’s a MAD Project for me and 6 other friends and is led by Ryan Ho. Allow me to introduce… Vitaku! (If you are thinking why such a weird name, blame Danchu).

Anyway, I just thought showing off a little bit would be cool, so here we go. The site won’t be officially launched until another week, but yup.

Interface

This is the homepage. Nothing much is on there other than some quick links and tutorials, and we thought leaving it this way is sexy.

The “buy” page is really the “main” page of Vitaku – this is where you basically find stuff to buy. There is a huge “featured” box there that we promote whatever we feel like worth promoting (such as a really good seller). There’s also a list of categories at the bottom, so yup. If all else fails, try search for the stuff you want, and I’m sure you’ll find it.

The “sell” page is, obviously, where you sell your stuff. There are options to upload a picture, provide detailed descriptions (with images and stuff, just like you woudl on eBay), and of course, to set your price.

Last but not least, the “My Vitaku” page – it shows you your stats, current transactions (things that you pretty much want to deal with as soon as possible), and stuff that you sell. Later on, based on suggestions and what not, we’re going to add even more personalized stuff to it.

Transactions

The way that transactions work on Vitaku is actually pretty straight forward. When a buyer is interested in buying a thing that the seller has posted, he’ll click the “buy now” button, and be redirected to a page where he can suggest how the trade should be made.

The buyer and the seller can go back and forth on these details, and when both are happy with it (the person that didn’t make the last edit approves), they’ll trade, and come back to “complete” the transaction.

Then, each of them are going to have an option to rate the other person. This will help the other users of Vitaku a lot when the make decisions on who to buy from.

Last Words

I know you are just as excited as the team to use it. Be patient! When the site’s ready, we’ll be sure to let you know

For me, I always see myself to be a very optimistic, nice, nerdy and tech-savvy person. Not much of a talker, but I suppose I can listen. Really bad at athletic, knows piano… but definitely nowhere as good as some other peoples. But most of all, I’m a guy that really cares about friends.

When I first came to ICS, I thought this could be a chance to “re-brand” myself. Surprisingly it did work. All of a sudden, I’m known as the “piano player”, “Crocs fan” and “the one that lives in Shenzhen” (and possibly others that I don’t know of as well?). I really don’t mind being recognized that way, I mean, they do truly identify me after all.

But I want to be way more than just those. No, I don’t want to be just the dude who you call help from when you face a problem, be it math, tech or directions, but somebody that you can trust, somebody that you can share things to, somebody that you can truly befriend with.

Am I too selfish? Maybe. Am I missing something? Possibly. Am I being too arrogant in demanding something that I don’t deserve? …who knows?

Now, onto 2010. I don’t normally do any New Year resos, but I guess it’s different this year. Why? I don’t know. I just felt different.

Well, first and foremost, I’ll need to somehow lose my weight (AND maintain it) to at most 75kg. That way my doctor will be happy, I will be healthy, and I can get an allowance raise from my mom.

Considering this is my most important year in high school, I need to shape things up academically a bit. Let’s see, a 3.9 GPA would be good, and I’ll need to get at least 2100 on SAT before June. I think it’s totally possible if I just spend a little time everyday studying some vocab. It shouldn’t be THAT hard.

And at last, I need to master Java and Javascript. Two different languages, I know, but I’m linked to them both as a APCS student and a Web designer. I can’t seem to design anything anymore… where’d my design sense go? (Or, did I ever have one?) Hopefully that can be saved by the Graphics Design course, which I am really looking forward to.

Do you think I can fulfill all these resolutions?

I didn’t JUST realize I haven’t updated this blog for a while, it’s just that, the lack of time keeps on preventing me from posting. Or should I just simply say, I suck at time management.

I just came back from my Shanghai trip and spent a week of Christmas break over there with friends. It was certainly nice seeing them, but now that I lived in Hong Kong for such a long time, I realize how boring Shanghai is. I was there for a week, but I could basically think of only two places to hang out at. And in those places, there were basically only one thing to do, besides shopping at really lame stores and eating, Karaoke. (Oh my voice…)

But it is true that I was very busy these days though. After the Finals and the school stuff, I immediately began working on my 8 website projects. Yes, 8. Let me count it for you:

• Tribal Facebook App – my Dean asked me to write a Facebook App that would basically act as a online community for students – for them to post pics, comments, blog posts, etc.
• ICS Buy – an eBay system thing that lets ICS students to trade materials and equipments
• CubePoints – a WordPress plugin that lets users to earn points by commenting/posting
• EEC - a website for my church
• LO.SG – a domain shortener
• AxieBlast - I need to find some way to revive my dead community. Hmph!
• (Not confirmed) A Wedding site for a teacher
• (Not confirmed) A site for an Environmental Club in SMIC

But that’s not it. Since my complete fail at SAT (with a pity 1890 – Reading 520, Writing 650, Math 720), my mom has been urging me to study SAT. I know I need to study, but I just never had the motivation. I get out my SAT book, put it on my desk, and just as I flip the book open, something on the computer would happen: either a new email comes in or somebody would start chatting with me. Sucks .

And besides working, so many good movies are out recently, too! Besides Avatar, there’s Alvin and Chipmunks 2, Sherlock Holmes, and heck, I didn’t even watch Christmas Carol yet!

BUSY BUSY BUSY.

But I’m not giving any of these up. Just wait. I am working on the 2nd day of my ThinkQuest journey, and I already have 2000 words. Heh, wish I can write that much for English class. I doubt anybody is going to read it, but still, I think such a nice experience deserves somebody to document it thoroughly. Just MAYBE, sometime somebody will notice it and asks me more about ThinkQuest… and I’ll be famous? *daydreaming*

We got dressed up, and started heading for a shuttle bus to go from our hotel to Oracle Conference Center, where all the events take place.

View the complete gallery of pictures!

The ThinkQuest Live Chant

There were 4 tables setup in the lobby, separated by the first letter of participants’ first name, and about 30 laptop bags at each of them. (Man, I wish I took a picture of that – it looked awesome!) My mom got a t-shirt and a USB stick, and I got an awesome laptop bag (I later found out the price of it to be $100) with a jacket, a t-shirt and an USB inside. (Who was expecting “laptop?)

And behind the registration tables were the breakfast buffet line. To be very honest, the breakfast actually wasn’t so good – especially the scrambled eggs. Well, I enjoy all sorts of food anyway, it’s just that it could have done better.

Anyway, we picked up a plate of food and went inside the auditorium. The auditorium looks really grand, with Oracle posters all around. On the huge projected screens above show a Welcome Message – seriously, those ThinkQuest designs are so good that I don’t think anybody would get tired looking at them.

Soon later, Bernie Trilling, director of the ThinkQuest program I believe, opened with a short speech and introduction to the ThinkQuest Chant:

“When I say ThinkQuest you say Live, ThinkQuest ‘Live’, ThinkQuest ‘Live’…”

Then, following the usual presentation procedure, the staff team was introduced, and then Colleen Cassity, Executive Director of the Oracle Education Foundation, came to make a short speech. I couldn’t really remember what she said though… (pity me)

After that, Al Weis, who was called to be one of the founding fathers of the internet as well as the founder of ThinkQuest, came to make a speech as well, bringing his book “The Business of Changing Lives” (each of us got one, too). ” The line of asking him to sign the book was not long, but since Weis was so kind to talk to each of the participant individually, it took like half an hour – and finally I had to ask my mom to line up for me because I needed to join a preparation workshop for the ThinkQuest Showcase.

Sadly, the Showcase was quite different from that of last year’s (as seen from Mr. Galvin Sng’s Flickr pictures). We had 3 questions emailed to us about 2 weeks before the event, and all we had to do was to watch a video made for us about the website and answer those questions (as if we improvised). Well, it turns out, we did have to improvise. The host, Bernie, asked only one question that was on the email and basically we had to improvise the other two questions ourselves. I prepared for a question, but I couldn’t make use of the answer .

The video was very nicely made, and we got to see some comments from judges on it for the first time; so it was kind of interesting as well. (We kept on looking at the screen when the video played, when we should’ve maybe smiled in the audience ) Each team took about 5 minutes, and 16 teams took about one and a half hour.

After that finished, we started going on to a San Francisco Tour with a Tour Guide. We first went to the Twin Peaks, then to the deYoung museum, the “Thinker” statue for a group picture, the Golden Gate Bridge, LucasFilm Center (where George Lucas works on his films), and at last the Crooked Street, which is my favorite place of all the attractions.

And during the tour, I asked the tour guide for a good restaurant near Fisherman’s Wharf to try out Monday evening, when we each received $30 for a free dinner that we can choose ourselves. He recommended a restaurant called Scoma’s that he said offers a nice amount of food for a nice price. (Check out the next blogpost for how that went!)

A disappointing Surprise

The day then concluded with a rather ironic dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Yank Sing. I was like “WHAT? WE FLEW ALL THE WAY FROM HONG KONG TO EAT CHINESE?!” We arrived earlier than the other groups, and I saw some lion-dancing crew preparing themselves, and I was like… “wow”. I had a feeling immediately that I was going to be disappointed.

And  it turns out I was. A lady who seems to be the manager of the crew stood on the stage and told us meanings of each dish, and one of the things included how “fish” symbolizes “abundance”. I was like, wow, this is a perfect dinner to introduce San Francisco to first-time visitors. The lion-dance was in fact much worse than what you can see in streets of Hong Kong often. Well, sure there are a lot of people who haven’t seen this, but I just thought maybe a California dinner would be much more universal… and I believe last year they went to Hard Rock Cafe!

Perhaps it’s just money that’s the problem here. I’m not complaining though, or I think I’m not; I feel lucky enough to be able to join ThinkQuest Live already. I really do!

When we finally got back to our hotel, it was about 11pm. I still haven’t confirmed with the hotel about internet in our room, so I decided I will just sleep, so that I don’t waste $10 just to go online for a few minutes. It was certainly a busy day, but I know more is to come in the next days. I’m already looking forward to my Team Building workshop.

Check back this blog regularly for more photos and blogposts on the next days of the event!