SONA 2009

As what I have heard about a 9 pages SONA of the President last month, these are the things that I think areas that could be related to ICT.

I’ve got some excerpt down here from the SONA of the President.

“In technical education and skills training, we have invested three times that of three previous administrations combined. Narito si Jennifer Silbor, isa sa sampung milyong trainee. Natuto siya ng medical transcription. Now, as an independent contractor and lecturer for transcriptions in Davao, kumikita siya ng P18,000 bawat buwan. Good job, Jennifer.”



-From the previous SONA, the President also mentioned about this technical education and skills training that the Malacañang have been working on. Let’s accept the fact that not all people are given the chance to study much higher education in Colleges and University. So with this technical education and skills training they are offering, a lot of unprivileged people will be having a chance to prove their selves. These programs is very applicable especially to those out of school youth. Not to underestimate them, but I think through these programs, a lot of them would have great opportunities. To have a job and earn much enable them to help their families. Even though they are not a degree holder, still equal chance are given, especially to those highly skilled people such as Jennifer, a medical transcriptionist of Davao City.



“Kung noong nakaraan, lumakas ang electronics, today we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth. Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall in accordance with the state of the world economy. But BPO remains resilient. With earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity. Let us have a Department of ICT.”


-This is such a great news to us, to have a Department of Information and Communications Technology. Thus, recognizing the great potential of ICT to create wealth for the country and the need to form a permanent entity that would promote the utilization of information and communications technology, and effectively coordinate and implement national and local ICT services. Department of Information and Communications Technology is important ,"For instance, the Digital Village project which will enable rural farmers to use the Internet to access information on prices of goods, land records, weather forecasts, local government database and other agricultural knowledge support - thereby boosting their agriculture productivity - has been dragging on for years. This is largely due to the lack of coordination among agencies with ICT functions," Sen. Ed Angara said in an interview. As stated, ICT is one of the frontier fields that will dominate the world - how we work, study and conduct business. That’s why it is such a great lost for us if we will be left out in the field of ICT. Since BPO have been mentioned on President’s SONA, a lot of hope for the people have been opened. Especially, to the people who are unemployed right now. Great chances are given by developing BPO’s and tourism sectors in the country. Business process outsourcing enhances the flexibility of an organization in different ways. Thus, helping a lot of Filipinos obtained job here and abroad.


“Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone. We need to amend the Commonwealth-era Public Service Law. And we need to do it now.”


-I think this one was once such an irritating problem especially for many cellular phone users. If the government could have a quick solution with this, there will no longer complaints about stolen load. As for today, Philippines is one of the most populated Cellular phone users. Used as means of communication, whether rich or poor, are using mobile phones. If cellphone loads are always stolen, it will become harder for the people to communicate. So this is a right track for the government to amend a new law about this matter. Helping people to have a clear communication with their loved ones, no matter how far.

Again, I just hope that all these things are properly implemented in order to bring improvement in every Filipinos life.

IT Consultant

Given the chance to be hired as an IT consultant of the University of Southeastern Philippines, I would gladly do all my best to cater all the needs that the institution require.

So the issue here is about the improvement of the internet connectivity in the University. There are a lot of things that should be considered and must be look over to in order to satisfy what the University wanted to improve to.

The first thing that I could do is asked them about the problems they are encountering. Then analyze the problem well and present different factors that well though – out to.

The following are the things I would likely want to suggests:

Upgrading of Computers/ Hardware – before being hired as an IT consultant, I’ve been a student of the University for four years. And let’s face it, the computer units are not that upgraded in order to cater the needs of the students. The University should also pay attention to their computer laboratories. Obviously, there is a lot of hardware problems. They should allocate budget first for new computers before thinking of the problem about the internet connectivity. Even if the connection of the internet has speed up, but still the computer cannot keep up with it due to faulty and old devices, the internet connection will still be suffering for being so slow. The advancement of the computer units may be one reason to help the internet connectivity be stable. They should boost the computer speed or at least try to purchase a high-speed computers in order not to suffer with slow internet connection. Since the University have been cutting of the cost giving limited budget all over the institution, I would still suggest that if they could have at least a portion of the computer units to be improved. And also upgrade the problematic hardware so that the computers can be used comfortably by the student. With this, I can say that the improvement of the internet connectivity will not be impossible.

Software – A suggestion is already made about the hardware matter in the University, so let’s take a look about the software. The University should use software that would not allocate so much in the computer’s memory. They should select the application that will be use, applications that are light and could not affect the processing of data. There are a lot of software that could be used to speed up the loading and somehow make the internet connection faster.

Wireless Fidelity – A wireless data Internet technology that lets people connect to the Internet at high speeds through their personal or hand-held devices without needing to use cables. It has always been an issue to the University about the secured wireless fidelity connection. And to think that all the students are paying for it and have the privileged of using it, so the questions is why should prohibit the students in accessing the wireless fidelity connection. I could suggest that having the wireless fidelity to be public is one great moved for the internet connection to be faster. Wireless Fidelity has a lot of advantages. Wireless networks are easy to set up and inexpensive. They're also unobtrusive. Also If they decided to open the wireless fidelity to the public, why not just open a new internet connection provided for wireless fidelity. As I have read, if the internet connection of wireless fidelity and wired connection is shared, wireless fidelity will be useless, for there will be a tendency that the wireless fidelity connection will be as slow as dial-up connection or even worse. Wireless Fidelity has a lot of advantages. Wireless networks are easy to set up and inexpensive. They're also unobtrusive.

Network type to be use - The selection of a network type is one of the first major decisions to be made in setting up a network. Once constructed, a network type can be very difficult and expensive to change later, so it is a decision that should be made correctly the first time. Consideration must be paid to the needs of your organization right now, as well as the future of the network. Knowing more about the basic communications methods utilized by a network gives you a greater understanding the hardware involved and the problems that it may be subject to. Network communications problems can be very difficult to troubleshoot—even more so when you are unaware of what is actually going on inside the network medium. Since each type of wiring has a different bandwidth, cost, and interference limitations. the cable selected will connect to a NIC (Network Interface Card) in a computer or device that will allow it to access the network. The cables used to create a network varies, and it is important to consider all options in determining which type of cabling is best for any networking situation. As far as I know, the University have been using UTP cables and fiber-optic cables. This fact confuses me, because if they wanted the internet connection to be more faster, why not shift to a better option. Even though by far the most popular LAN cabling is Twisted Pair. Especially the University are under budget constraints and want a simple installation. But still the LAN requires a high level of security or data integrity or need to transmit data over long distances at high speeds, twisted pair should not be used. Like use totally the fiber – optic cable. Although expensive, fiber optic cabling is the choice for very high speed, high-capacity data transmission. In this type of cabling, optical fibers are used to carry digital data signals in the form of modulated light pulses. Since no electrical signals are being transmitted, a fiber-optic network is very secure. With this, another problem could be solve. I assumed that the University have great Engineering and Network Administrator people that could be tapped about this matter.

Network Topology – Topology is the design for the physical layout of a network. A Technology Coordinator needs to understand topology in order to create the school (and district’s) network components based on budget. Since we are talking about the medium to be used for the network connection, let me also examine the network topology the University currently using. Assuming, network topology is one factor of having a slow connection, I must suggest that they should use Star Topology. Especially that the whole University is a Local Area Network or LAN. Star Topology should be use because in a Star topology, all devices are connected to a central hub. The hub moves signals from any node and passes it along to all the other nodes in the network. Hubs do not filter or route data. They simply join nodes together. Star is the most common today since enables the network to remain stable, even when one cabling connection fails. If the hub fails however, the network will lose connection. It is easy to install and wire. Star Topology has no disruptions to the network then connecting or removing devices. And it is easy to detect faults and to remove parts.

Bandwidth – Bandwidth includes the range within a band of frequencies or wavelengths as well as the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time. Like the highway system, bandwidth is designed to carry network traffic. The wider the highway, the more traffic that can be carried. Just like the highway system, however, bandwidth is only a potential. Since bandwidth is a measure of potential speed as well as potential data that can be carried, there can be bottlenecks in networks that increase the overall time traffic takes to get from one place to another. As an IT consultant, I would wanted to know first what must the reason why the University is encountering slow internet connection. And I’ve discovered that one reason is about the filtered distribution among the networks connection in the University. One thing that could solve this is to increase the bandwidth. I also knew that the University have already increased the bandwidth, still there’s no effect. Even if the University keep on increasing the bandwidth, if it is not properly allocated, nothing will happen. The University should allocate bandwidth properly depending on the usage. Probably, with this, the tasks require the most bandwidth can be suitably attended to. While the information and tasks that not necessarily need high bandwidth can also be attended to at the same time.

DNS Setting - Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participants. Most importantly, it translates domain names meaningful to humans into the numerical (binary) identifiers associated with networking equipment for the purpose of locating and addressing these devices worldwide. An often used analogy to explain the Domain Name System is that it serves as the "phone book" for the Internet by translating human-friendly computer hostnames into IP addresses. For example, www.example.com translates to 208.77.188.166. Also the DNS has a software updates: many anti-virus and commercial software now use the DNS system to store version numbers of the latest software updates so client computers do not need to connect to the update servers every time. For these type of applications, the cache time of the DNS records are usually shorter. So if the DNS Setting is managed well, these would also a little help for a faster internet connection.

Computer Virus – is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, adware, and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability. A true virus can only spread from one computer to another (in some form of executable code) when its host is taken to the target computer; for instance because a user sent it over a network or the Internet, or carried it on a removable medium such as a floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB drive. Viruses can increase their chances of spreading to other computers by infecting files on a network file system or a file system that is accessed by another computer. Most personal computers are now connected to the Internet and to local area networks, facilitating the spread of malicious code. Today's viruses may also take advantage of network services such as the World Wide Web, e-mail, Instant Messaging, and file sharing systems to spread. Thus, computer viruses can physically affect the performance of the computer and its processes and also the internet connectivity within a network. Resulting it to a slower connection and even worse. So as a solution, the University should install appropriate anti-virus software in all its computer units. Even for an expert, removing a computer virus can be a difficult task without the help of computer virus removal tools. Some computer viruses and other unwanted software, such as spyware, even reinstall themselves after the viruses have been detected and removed. Fortunately, by updating the computer and by using antivirus tools, you can help permanently remove unwanted software. To help avoid viruses, it's essential that you keep your computer current with the latest updates and antivirus tools, stay informed about recent threats, and that you follow a few basic rules when you surf the Internet, download files, and open attachments. Having an adequate protection for the computer is the most important thing.

People ware – we are done with the proper things and the factors that the University should consider in order to address all the problems they are encountering with regards to slow internet connectivity. So the last would be for the people who were involved with the said problem. The people are main key in order for all the good plans of improving the University’s performance in terms of internet connectivity. They should all be properly oriented about the properly usage of the internet or the computer, be it as faculty, student or staff. Even if we can already solve the problems regarding the slow internet connectivity, if the people would be the cause of delay, then all the efforts will be literally useless.

Once and for all, this is a University. We all belong to a one institution. So we should all cooperate and do all our responsibility to address all the problems that the University have been going through.

References:

http://www.yourdictionary.com/finance/wireless-fidelity

http://ide.ed.psu.edu/itsc/portfolio/itscKristinH/aect/areas/1media/1_16.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://fcit.usf.edu/Network/chap5/chap5.htm

BARRIERS on IT/IS Implementation

BARRIERS on IT/IS implementation

Organizations are as alike and unique as human beings. Similarly, group processes can be as straightforward or as complex as the individuals who make up the organization. It is vital to successfully launching a new program that the leaders understand the strengths, weaknesses, and eccentricity of the organization or system in which they operate. So in an organization, it is always a must to anticipate barriers to implementation so that you can develop strategies to minimize their impact or avoid them altogether.

We already had visit number of companies for our previous assignments. Thus, giving us many opportunities to learned not just for the sake of subject compliance but also for our personal knowledge that we could acquire towards company visitation. Previously, our group have already a personal encounter with the Columbia Computer Center Davao and Davao Light Power Company. During our appointment with them, a lot of questions have been raised for them to answer. So let me identify and discuss some of their barriers on IT/IS implementation. From the prior interview we had made, the barriers for IT/IS implementation was not directly converse among us but since the risk about IS/IT change have talked about, I guess it relates to the barriers with IT/IS implementation. Since we are talking about the barriers, I would like to classify those things to several sectors that could be consider as a barrier. As what I observed, the following are the classifications of barriers during the IS/IT implementation of every company. The human resource quandary, communication problems, operational, technical, environmental, financial, hardware and software difficulties. These are just few of the barriers for IT/IS implementation that I would be discussing.

We could never deny the fact that when new innovations are being presented to every the employees of certain organizations, it would give a hard time for those employee to adjust and adopt with the latest technology that they will be using. They are all reluctant to accept the reality of changes. This is what we called the Human and Organizational resistance. It could really be a great barrier because as part of the organization, human resource is one thing that every company should consider. If you could not cooperate with these particular changes or innovations, you would only bring your organization to a great failure or even yourself a barrier for a successful IT/IS implementation.

Basically, if you belong to an organization, communication with each other is solely significant. You should work as one team and always establish a team work in order to address the needs with IT/IS implementation. So if you lack of communication and interaction, this would become a barrier towards a great plan for IT/IS implementation.

In technical point of view, the need for modern information systems resources are one thing that an organization should consider in IT/IS implementation. So if an organization have limited resources this would result to a failure of IT/IS implementation, developing and the implementation of the system may be inefficient than expected.

Lack of expertise between the people in your organization with the information being process could also be a barrier. A general lack of education and information about both technology and programs is such a problem. Considering that the people have limited organizational intelligence toward the IT/IS implementation, a lot of obstacle would be an outcome.

Also in developing systems, data collection and data management is the most complex part in the entire process of IT/IS implementation, leaving an impression that this could be a barrier. It is the most complicated yet important piece for an IT/IS implementation because it let us know about the whole system, what it is all about and what is it scope and limitations. Since we are talking about limitations, the problem about time could be an issue. The situation of having a limited time for IT/IS implementation could affect the developing process and the output of the system itself. Also the time factor for limited collection and updating of the information for the method of completion. This sometimes indicates the unrealistic time frames that every system is considering.

Talking about this whole thing of IT/IS implementation, we would always consider the financial aspect that we would be encountering in the entire process. These include budget restrictions limiting the overall expenditure on the strategy, financial restrictions on specific hardware and software, and limitations on the flexibility with which revenues can be used to finance the full range of IT/IS implementation. It is always a barrier for it gives us a channel to acquire certain resources that an organization needs.

If we would have a limited resources as what I have discussed a while ago, the monetary capabilities of an organization would become a barrier. If the organization could not secure a sufficient funding for such project implementation, it would closely end up to a very regretting decision for the organization to develop a new system. When we are talking about the funds and cost of the implementation, the strategic planning would also be a factor. If certain organization lacks of current information for planning and developing these technology, it would be just waste of time and effort for them to come up with new ideas in IT/IS implementation.

Since planning have been mentioned, all organizations have always a goal and purpose for setting up the idea of presenting a new system to be develop and implemented. Then, if in the first place their goals are too ambitious for the resources that are available within them, the planning is still useless. In an organization, the conflict between employees are always present. Especially if you have a partnership with other companies. Unclear goals and purposes would always be a barrier.

The overlapping missions among the involved organizations is such a difficult thing to mull over. So far the public or private partnerships between organization have proved to be unsuccessful. Lets discuss about the hardware and software difficulties that we could encounter during IT/IS implementation. If the availability of the said hardware and software doesn’t meet the desire equipments, it would directly came up with an idea of failure of implementation and development of the system. The lack of step by step procedure within the organization is such a problem that would always been taking care of so that it would not be a barrier for the preparation of the enhancement of their IS.

Final Na!

YELLOW MINIX for the 2nd-4th year CS Studs..

PINK DRAGONFLY for 1st year IT and CS Studs..

GREEN NEMESIS for 2nd-4th year IT Studs..

Well this is the final shirt and color design for our ICEAN Festival '09! Since we are divided into three teams, the color of the logo will only alter in every shirt. The team names were derived from the Networking Operating Systems we have researched..

Comments are accepted.ü

Davao ICT Summit '09

It was just Thursday last week, August 6, 2009 when we were informed about the 2- Day Davao ICT Summit held on Davao Convention Center along F. Torres St. We were glad of course since our class will be suspended again. Just kidding! Seriously, it was another opportunity for us USEP- IC Students and also a privileged to be invited in this kind of event. So we scheduled ourselves on August 7, 2009, day 2 of the Davao ICT Summit.

We arrived at the venue around 1:30 pm in the afternoon. There are already a lot of people all over the place. Our group have entered the Room A which tackled TESDA’s Career Profiling YP4SC:Skills Bridging for Davaoenos. It was really funny all along since we didn't know the topic that will be going to discuss in Room A and as we discovered, it was raelly not related to us because the seminar is intended particularly to 4th year High School Students. Still, we had learned something and enjoyed the day full of fun and insights.

ICEAN TSHIRT DESIGN

Please choose what color you most prefer for our ICEAN Shirt '09.









Thanks!