Thursday, October 15, 2009

SONA of the President (27 July 2009)

Assignment 7

Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address for the 3rd Regular Session of the 14th Congress
27 July 2009

During on the SONA of the president, she mentioned about the ICT or Information and Communications Technology.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) is an umbrella term that covers all technical means for processing and communicating information. The term has gained popularity partially due to the convergence of information technology (IT) and telecom technology. ICT defines a broad range of technologies, including methods for communication (communication protocols, transmission techniques, communications equipment, media (communication), as well as techniques for storing and processing information (computing, data storage, etc.)

In relation to this, the president mentioned to have an ICT department…..

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.


Arrow Arrow ICT allows users to participate in a rapidly changing world in which work and other activities are increasingly transformed by access to varied and developing technologies.
ICT tools can be used to find, explore, analyze, exchange and present information responsibly and without discrimination. ICT can be employed to give users quick access to ideas and experiences from a wide range of people, communities and cultures.



More funds to education were also brought up. “Pondohan ang mas maraming classroom at computers. Kaya namuhunan tayo ng malaki sa edukasyon at skills training. Ang magandang edukasyon ay susi sa mas magandang buhay, the great equalizer that allows every young Filipino a chance to realize their dreams.

Arrow Arrow More attention to education is a big help to all especially to the youth because what we already know, education is the key to success. More funds for classroom will make the student more effective in class and will give productive place to learn and gain more knowledge. To be aware and expose in technology would also be a great help to the student. It would make the student to be more equipped after the school life, to face the real world.


"In 2001, I said we would finance fully automated elections. We got it, thanks to Congress."

Arrow Arrow Election is a crucial event in our country. It is a big issue that is needed to have attention and concern of. Truly, it should not take advantage and even use to personal interest of any. Making our election to be automated is a big help to the process of election and to make it effective timely manner. Having automation has many advantages to the voters and to everyone. But, there are still important things that should take into account. Implementing the automation should properly discuss well, plan well and make sure it is secure.
Arrow Arrow Automation in election would be very helpful to make it more organize in manipulation of data, to make the result more reliable and fast, it may lessen the human error, and can make the process more easy and timely. It may reduce any anomaly during the election process and even in the casting of votes.
Arrow Arrow We cannot deny that the result of the election is very important to the government of our country including its constituent. The elected individual will be in the position to serve its people and to manage the political issues and concerns of the country. To make sure the laws and regulations are implemented well and assure its people to protect their rights from any vices. That is why, this automation would be a great help but it should make sure to make it fair and honest.

bounce bounce bounce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communication_technologies
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/technology/07/27/09/arroyo-oks-creation-ict-department
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_and_communication_technologies

Green Campus Computing

Assignment 4
Green Campus Computing

Environmental issues of today….


The climate is changing. The earth is warming up, and there is now overwhelming scientific consensus that it is happening, and human-induced. With global warming on the increase and species and their habitats on the decrease, chances for ecosystems to adapt naturally are diminishing. Many are agreed that climate change may be one of the greatest threats facing the planet. Recent years show increasing temperatures in various regions, and/or increasing extremities in weather patterns.

We all know that the world today is facing not only economic crisis but also with the environmental crisis. Everything that we do that has something to contribute to the environment affects us directly or indirectly. More likely, we are now starting to perceive the effect of what they called “Global Warming”.

Global Warming is defined as the increase of the average temperature on Earth. As the Earth is getting hotter, disasters like hurricanes, droughts and floods are getting more frequent.

According to Encarta Dictionary “Global Warming” is the increase in world’s temperatures that believed to be caused in part by the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse Effect is warming of the earth’s surface as a result of atmospheric pollution by gases coming from factories, burnings of plastics, etc. made by human activities. It is now feared that the warming effects are being undesirably increased, causing climate change and melting icecaps. Changes that would really inflict all creatures in the world.

To address this very important issue that everyone is involve one of the advocacies is green campus computing.

Green Campus Computing is a way that make our practices using computing devices environmental friendly and contribute to the welfare of our environment. Its concern is to the electrnic waste or e-waste to lesssen and save energy.

To broaden the idea, let us take the side from Encarta dictionary about green campus computing. It denotes to become environmental advocate, to become aware of environmental issues, and make somebody aware of environment issues. As well, supporting or promoting the protection of the environment and produced an environmentally and ecologically friendly way such as by using renewable resources. An advocacy that has something to do with the use of computers or activity of using computers software, electronic gadgets, and the like that is more likely involve to school activities and universities.

An eye-opener and movement to make everyone to…Go GREEN… to become actively interested in environmental issues and support environmental causes.

Since, it involves computers and technology; there are a lot of organizations and institution that support green campus computing. One of the medium in promoting it is through internet or specifically speaking sites, blogs, and forum. There are some of the sites that promote green campus computing is:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/es/8450.shtml
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/03/greencampus.html
http://www20.csueastbay.edu/news/2009/04/powerdown-040709.html


This site campaign to save energy and the environment by practicing green computing. They have several suggested practices of saving energy, to mention with:

Enable Power Management on your Monitor
Setting the monitor to go into "sleep" mode after 10 minutes when not in use. For the 2,800 computers on campus this could save as much as 574,000 KWh annually. Through following this, our university could really save energy and contribute to prevent the increasing condition of environmental crisis.

Turn off your Screen Saver
Despite the name, screen savers don't save anything, especially not power. Screen savers with a moving display use as much or more energy as a monitor in use. Unless it is conveying a message to the user, shut it off, and enable the "sleep" mode or turn off the monitor.

Turn off your Computer at Night and on Weekends
Turning a computer off at night so it runs only 8 hours a day reduces energy use by 141 kWh per unit or 57% savings. The 2,800 computers on campus could save as much as 394,800 kWh annually.
If your machine is a server, check with LITS or your department to see if hours of operation can be reduced.
· Shutting down computers does not reduce its life. Myths often do not keep pace with technology, modern hard
disks are not significantly affected by frequent shutdowns.
· Turning computer off uses more energy than leaving it on is not true. The truth is the surge of power used by a CPU to boot is less than the energy used by the unit when left on for over 3 minutes.

Turn off Printers (and Copiers) at Night and on Weekends
A typical laser jet printer uses 1,221 kWh if left on all the time. This can be reduced to 378 kWh by turning off at night and on weekends, a 69% savings. For the 235 LITS supplied printers on campus, this equates to 198,000 kWh.

Don't Turn Equipment on in the Morning until you Need it
Break the habit of turning on office equipment as soon as you arrive each day. Wait until the first time you need it!
For the 235 LITS supplied printers on campus, if each printer operated for 2 hours less each day, the additional annual savings would be $17,100 kWh.

Turn off Scanners and other Peripherals Except when being Used
In many offices, scanners and other peripherals are only used occasionally. Keep them off until they are needed and turn off after use.

Buying Equipment
If you are buying printers or other peripherals for the office, buy Energy Star compliant equipment. If you are purchasing monitors, purchase flat screens. Flat screens use 40% less energy (30W instead of 70W).
By switching the campus standard LITS saves approximately 103,000 kWh annually.

Reduce Paper Use
Producing paper is both an energy and resource intensive operation. In copiers alone, the Colleges may makes hundreds or thousands copies a month. Not using the paper in the first place is always better than recycling it after use.

Tips for reducing paper use:
· Print double-sided when possible
· Use 'print preview' to review documents before printing
· Archive your email by saving to a folder instead of printing it out
· Use the 'track changes' feature in Word when collaborating with others on a document to avoid printing it out
· Limit mailings — circulate by email
· Think twice before printing something off the web — save a bookmark for future reference
· Use recycled content paper (at least 30%)
· Recycle all toner cartridges and computer components

In addition…

Energy audits of campus buildings
Facilities Management that is conducting energy audits of the major buildings on the campuses. The audits identify energy cost saving measures that are implemented to reduce energy costs and consumption.

Recycling Policy
A policy that promote recycling in office materials and wastes. Unplugging electronic devices, changing light bulbs and recycling are made to help departments "green" their offices.

*** By practicing these little things in our university we may do our part as an organization to our environment. It may be little thing to consider but big things start with it. Let’s make our campus green.


References:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/es/8450.shtml
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2009/03/greencampus.html
http://www20.csueastbay.edu/news/2009/04/powerdown-040709.html
Microsoft® Encarta® 2008. © 1993-2007 Microsoft Corporation.

First Major Paper Consultation

just yesterday Oct. 14, we finally had our first consultation...
wewww.....
after a long wait... hehehe.... we already had it....

we are so glad and at the same time during our consultation we are so nervous...
mix emotions were there... is was like we had a fever and worst than that....
but, after that.... we came out in the faculty more relief...
"may na lang...."

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

September 11, 2009

Until now we still didn’t made any consultation for our major paper…

I’m worried…

documentation again...

September 27, 2009

We continued our documentation...
By this time we didn’t meet at my boarding house, we agreed to make it in different place because of some reasons. We’ve started around 6:30pm and the tasked was divided to the group members. Though, the last few hours was arduous we still have accomplished some of our paper works.

...It was already 12:00 am when we went home...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Third Interview

September 25, 2009

On this day, we had our interview at ANFLOCOR. We arrived there at 12:30 pm and we had to wait 30 minutes because office time is 1:00 pm.

We had so many questions that we asked from Mr. Giovanni Pimentel, the IT-Senior Manager of ANFLOCOR. The questions were more about on STEEP and SWOT analysis. We asked him about the Sociological, Technological, Economical, Environmental, and Political factors that are external to the organization. Then, we asked him about the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of their organization. We also asked him about the structure of their company and a brief history of there IS.

We ended our interview at 2:30 pm.

Request for Third Interview

September 25, 2009

During the last few days we have been checking our email account but there is still no reply from Sir Giovanni. So we decided to call them. Fortunately, we were able to talked t Sir Giovanni. We first asked for an apology (thank God! He understands.). Finally, we will have our interview this Friday, September 25, 2009 at 1:00 pm.

Yes....


September 14, 2009

We sent an email for Sir Giovanni, saying sorry and asking for a reschedule of interview… if we can still.


September 13, 2009

We checked our email and read Sir Giovanni’s reply which was sent on September 10, 2009. Sir Giovanni said that he will be vacant on September 11, 2009 at 1pm. Since, September 11 had already passed and we weren’t able to be there, we felt sorry for ourselves and we were so downhearted and afraid that Sir Giovanni might not allow us to interview him anymore.


September 09, 2009

We went at ANFLOCOR before 8:00 in the morning. Sir Giovanni has not yet arrived and the girl on the reception said that Sir Giovanni will be having an important meeting on that morning, so we might not be entertained. Sir Giovanni’s secretary said that we really cant be entertained so she gave their contact number for us to call and confirm our next interview.

Later that day, we checked our email and figured out that Sir Giovanni had actually sent us a message telling that we can interview him 1pm that day.


August 27, 2009

Sir Giovanni replied that we can interview him. Unfortunately, there is a conflict because Edsa and Emilio will have their O.R. midterm examination on that day and time.

So we humbly requested to reschedule the interview.


August 26, 2009

We sent on email to Sir Giovanni requesting for a third interview.
 

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