seeking company's approval is not that easy.. i called almost everyday and it's like waiting forever.. >> sigh :(
Last august 19 to 21, our group reviewed the modules and formulated guide questions for our first interview, since our adopted company scheduled us on 27th of august for the interview..
We we're glad that finally they gave a date for the interview but the sad part is, the day of our interview (august 27, 2009), I called an hour before the scheduled time to make sure that everything will be fine and the answer was .... "sorry we are not allowed to share our company's operations"...>> another sigh :(
Is this a sign that we should give up on them and find another company??? help!! huhuhuhuhu...
Monday, August 31, 2009
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Green Campus Computing
What is Green campus computing? In my own understanding, it is a widely promoted campaign on saving the environment from technology’s fast evolution and reducing the power consumption of computers. There are articles over the Internet that discuss about green campus computing and some of the best solutions to apply this said campaign. Currently, several Universities and Colleges are putting into practice these possible ways. Does University of Southeastern Philippines can also achieve green campus computing?
http://chronicle.com/free/2009/01/10296n.htm
This article talks about the conference held by University of California at San Diego. “Greening the Internet Economy” is the aim of the conference. The event, offered a sampling of a new generation of technologies that promise to help colleges make their IT departments more competent. Relocate a college's server computers next to a solar-power generator. Replace AC power with DC power. Cool the servers only where they get the hottest. Put the servers in the ocean and power them with waves were some of the ideas discussed in the conference. They introduced a device called the Green Light Instrument. This device will deploy sensors and software to measure the energy use, humidity, and other variables in various parts of a Sun Modular Data Center, a popular, self-contained complex of servers. Its goal is to encourage engineers to try different computing strategies to reduce electricity consumption.
If our school will adopt these things, it will be a great help to the environment. But I don’t think if our school can afford this kind of technology. One best alternative for this is to supply energy from solar cells or other sources of DC power. In this way, the school can save on electricity bills.
http://www.theorion.com/2.691/green-campus-pushes-energy-saving-program-1.3253
It talks about a computer program that would save energy and reduce greenhouse emmissions. Power Save is the computer program created by the software company Faronics. It put computers into a low energy consuming stand-by mode and it measures how much energy is being used and saved. The said program will be installed on each computer and it reports back to a central-control server that synchronizes the whole Power Save setting process and makes it a lot easier than setting one computer at a time.
If Power Save will be implemented in USEP, the school’s emission will be reduced and of course it can save its budget on energy. But before implementing this kind of program, the teachers, staff and also the students should be oriented about it. The university can benefit from this program as well as the environment.
http://greencampus.winserve.org/greencampus/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=40
This article is about putting your computer to sleep and how it can save energy and help the environment. When your computer is in sleep, it is on low power mode and it will be easy to wake up whenever you want to use your computer again. To make sure that you consume less energy, you can set your computer to automatically sleep when not in use in a specified amount of time.
If the university will apply this strategy, energy consumption will be reduced and it can lessen environmental concerns. The computers, especially on laboratories and in the library should be maintained and set a specific time to sleep when not in use. It is also better to use CRT monitors and CPUs, for it consume less energy. The management may also consider thin client computing or using more environmentally friendly consumer packaging models. These strategies will not only save the school from power consumption, but it will also provide great experience for students and staff.
The dramatic increase in energy consumption and costs has caused a renewed interest in the effective management and use of computing throughout the campus. Every time we leave computers on without regard for energy conservation and planned use, we potentially waste electricity, which means wasting money and polluting the environment. But there several ways on preventing this, lets all support green campus computing.
http://chronicle.com/free/2009/01/10296n.htm
This article talks about the conference held by University of California at San Diego. “Greening the Internet Economy” is the aim of the conference. The event, offered a sampling of a new generation of technologies that promise to help colleges make their IT departments more competent. Relocate a college's server computers next to a solar-power generator. Replace AC power with DC power. Cool the servers only where they get the hottest. Put the servers in the ocean and power them with waves were some of the ideas discussed in the conference. They introduced a device called the Green Light Instrument. This device will deploy sensors and software to measure the energy use, humidity, and other variables in various parts of a Sun Modular Data Center, a popular, self-contained complex of servers. Its goal is to encourage engineers to try different computing strategies to reduce electricity consumption.
If our school will adopt these things, it will be a great help to the environment. But I don’t think if our school can afford this kind of technology. One best alternative for this is to supply energy from solar cells or other sources of DC power. In this way, the school can save on electricity bills.
http://www.theorion.com/2.691/green-campus-pushes-energy-saving-program-1.3253
It talks about a computer program that would save energy and reduce greenhouse emmissions. Power Save is the computer program created by the software company Faronics. It put computers into a low energy consuming stand-by mode and it measures how much energy is being used and saved. The said program will be installed on each computer and it reports back to a central-control server that synchronizes the whole Power Save setting process and makes it a lot easier than setting one computer at a time.
If Power Save will be implemented in USEP, the school’s emission will be reduced and of course it can save its budget on energy. But before implementing this kind of program, the teachers, staff and also the students should be oriented about it. The university can benefit from this program as well as the environment.
http://greencampus.winserve.org/greencampus/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=40
This article is about putting your computer to sleep and how it can save energy and help the environment. When your computer is in sleep, it is on low power mode and it will be easy to wake up whenever you want to use your computer again. To make sure that you consume less energy, you can set your computer to automatically sleep when not in use in a specified amount of time.
If the university will apply this strategy, energy consumption will be reduced and it can lessen environmental concerns. The computers, especially on laboratories and in the library should be maintained and set a specific time to sleep when not in use. It is also better to use CRT monitors and CPUs, for it consume less energy. The management may also consider thin client computing or using more environmentally friendly consumer packaging models. These strategies will not only save the school from power consumption, but it will also provide great experience for students and staff.
The dramatic increase in energy consumption and costs has caused a renewed interest in the effective management and use of computing throughout the campus. Every time we leave computers on without regard for energy conservation and planned use, we potentially waste electricity, which means wasting money and polluting the environment. But there several ways on preventing this, lets all support green campus computing.
Automated Election for 2010???
Is automated election the answer for a clean and honest election? Is it credible? Is Philippines ready for it?… These are some of the queries whirling inside my mind when automated election brought into topic. Elections in the Philippines have always been a manual process with the results for national positions often being announced more than a month after election day, but this coming May 2010 it will shift into automated election. An attempt to rectify this was done by the Commission on Elections by automating the process of counting the votes.
What is Automated Election System?
Automated election system (AES) is a system that uses appropriate technology to accomplish and aid such tasks as voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, and transmission of election result, and other electoral process. Republic Act No. 9369, which is the Amended Elections Automation Law provides for the use of two forms of AES. The first is a paper-based election system defined as “a type of automated election system that uses paper ballots, records and counts votes, tabulates, consolidates, canvasses and transmits electronically the results of the vote count.” It uses the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) Technology. Here, the voters have to shade the oval which corresponds to their candidate of choice using pencil in a specially scanned paper ballot. It is composed of 2 Laptops, 2 Digital Scanners, 2 card readers, 1 hub and 1 printer. The votes in the shaded ballots will then be scanned and counted using an Automated Counting Machine (ACM). This kind of technology is pretty much familiar in the Philippines.
The second form is the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE). It is defined as “a type of automated election system that uses electronic ballots, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter, processes data by means of a computer program, records voting data and ballot images, and transmits voting results electronically.” voters are provided with a Voting Pad where the photos of candidates can be selected by pressing on the desired picture. Once the vote is final, a receipt is generated after pressing ‘BOTO‘. However, DRE Technology can only be deployed in areas where communications is available and reliable. These technologies proved that IT in the Philippines is fastly growing and developing.
Who will provide?…
This new system of voting will not be implemented without the technology need to run the whole system. The Smartmatic, a world-class leading supplier of electoral solutions and services, won the bid to carry out the 2010 Election project in the Philippines. The contract was worth approximately $150 million, that Smartmatic is to deploy 82,200 SAES1800 voting machines across a sizable proportion of the 7,107 thousand islands comprising the territory of the Philippines, and transmit all results electronically to over 1,700 canvassing and consolidation centers. Smartmatic has successfully deployed its electronic voting technology in multiple electoral processes in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, accurately counting over 150 million votes, always with the provision of an auditable paper trail, and open source-code reviews. Last year, the Smartmatic electoral technology was used in the election in the ARMM region in the Philippines, an event the COMELEC regarded as very satisfactory, and first of its kind in South East Asia. Smartmatic is a multinational company that designs and deploys technological solutions aimed at helping governments fulfill, in the most efficient way, their commitments with their citizens. It is one of the largest cutting-edge technology suppliers, with a wide and proven experience in the United States, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Automated election has several advantages, some of these are: Financial Savings, though automated elections deal with computers and will cost large amount of money, it will still cut the cost, like labor cost. Since computer will do the counting, it means fewer laborer needed. Another advantage is, increased speed and effiency of electoral task and results. Using computers would make the voting and the counting faster and acccurate than manual process of election. It has also improved capacity to identify and prevent frauds., tampering of votes will prevented and the integrity of the election would be higher. There are so many advantages but the question is, Are Filipinos ready for this?
Even automated election provide high security, there are still computer geeks that can bombard the whole system or hack the computers and manipulate the results. There is also a possibility that cheaters would come from the people who developed the system. And wee can’t deny the fact that some Filipinos doesn’t know how to use computers especially in the rural area, will they be able to adapt this new process? In my own opinion, the main problem with automated election is “transparency”. People won’t able to see the actual process of counting the votes and several will doubt if the results are really correct.
Our country might be a long way to go from being industrialized and fully prepared to reap the benefits of Information Techbology in every major part of our everyday lives, but the conduct of the 2010 automated elections is a still a big step forward towards the achievement of a truly democratic and honest elections and the closure of the digital divide as a whole. Our infrastructures might not be at par to other countries and our people might not be fully informed and trained yet, but these shortcomings can be greatly remedied if we are equipped with the willingness to learn and adapt to our ever-changing world.
What is Automated Election System?
Automated election system (AES) is a system that uses appropriate technology to accomplish and aid such tasks as voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, and transmission of election result, and other electoral process. Republic Act No. 9369, which is the Amended Elections Automation Law provides for the use of two forms of AES. The first is a paper-based election system defined as “a type of automated election system that uses paper ballots, records and counts votes, tabulates, consolidates, canvasses and transmits electronically the results of the vote count.” It uses the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) Technology. Here, the voters have to shade the oval which corresponds to their candidate of choice using pencil in a specially scanned paper ballot. It is composed of 2 Laptops, 2 Digital Scanners, 2 card readers, 1 hub and 1 printer. The votes in the shaded ballots will then be scanned and counted using an Automated Counting Machine (ACM). This kind of technology is pretty much familiar in the Philippines.
The second form is the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE). It is defined as “a type of automated election system that uses electronic ballots, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter, processes data by means of a computer program, records voting data and ballot images, and transmits voting results electronically.” voters are provided with a Voting Pad where the photos of candidates can be selected by pressing on the desired picture. Once the vote is final, a receipt is generated after pressing ‘BOTO‘. However, DRE Technology can only be deployed in areas where communications is available and reliable. These technologies proved that IT in the Philippines is fastly growing and developing.
Who will provide?…
This new system of voting will not be implemented without the technology need to run the whole system. The Smartmatic, a world-class leading supplier of electoral solutions and services, won the bid to carry out the 2010 Election project in the Philippines. The contract was worth approximately $150 million, that Smartmatic is to deploy 82,200 SAES1800 voting machines across a sizable proportion of the 7,107 thousand islands comprising the territory of the Philippines, and transmit all results electronically to over 1,700 canvassing and consolidation centers. Smartmatic has successfully deployed its electronic voting technology in multiple electoral processes in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia, accurately counting over 150 million votes, always with the provision of an auditable paper trail, and open source-code reviews. Last year, the Smartmatic electoral technology was used in the election in the ARMM region in the Philippines, an event the COMELEC regarded as very satisfactory, and first of its kind in South East Asia. Smartmatic is a multinational company that designs and deploys technological solutions aimed at helping governments fulfill, in the most efficient way, their commitments with their citizens. It is one of the largest cutting-edge technology suppliers, with a wide and proven experience in the United States, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Automated election has several advantages, some of these are: Financial Savings, though automated elections deal with computers and will cost large amount of money, it will still cut the cost, like labor cost. Since computer will do the counting, it means fewer laborer needed. Another advantage is, increased speed and effiency of electoral task and results. Using computers would make the voting and the counting faster and acccurate than manual process of election. It has also improved capacity to identify and prevent frauds., tampering of votes will prevented and the integrity of the election would be higher. There are so many advantages but the question is, Are Filipinos ready for this?
Even automated election provide high security, there are still computer geeks that can bombard the whole system or hack the computers and manipulate the results. There is also a possibility that cheaters would come from the people who developed the system. And wee can’t deny the fact that some Filipinos doesn’t know how to use computers especially in the rural area, will they be able to adapt this new process? In my own opinion, the main problem with automated election is “transparency”. People won’t able to see the actual process of counting the votes and several will doubt if the results are really correct.
Our country might be a long way to go from being industrialized and fully prepared to reap the benefits of Information Techbology in every major part of our everyday lives, but the conduct of the 2010 automated elections is a still a big step forward towards the achievement of a truly democratic and honest elections and the closure of the digital divide as a whole. Our infrastructures might not be at par to other countries and our people might not be fully informed and trained yet, but these shortcomings can be greatly remedied if we are equipped with the willingness to learn and adapt to our ever-changing world.
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