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.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
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.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Assignment #1
The assignment 1 is to discuss the best IT/IS practices of the company(s) that you have visited. Together with my classmates, we visited 3 companies and these are: Callbox, Global Connect e-Solutions and Concentrix, so let me tell you what and how it happened…
Its just yesterday, we realized that we really have to visit the company that we intend to share their best IT/IS practices. Sir Gamboa said, we are obliged to show evidences that we have interviewed the company and asked permission from them for we are going to post the MIS facts of their company on our own Blogs.
My classmates and I had a brainstorming of different IT companies; first on the list was Callbox, for it is the nearest call center from our school. But before going to Callbox, we had our letter printed and we’re ready…
Its just yesterday, we realized that we really have to visit the company that we intend to share their best IT/IS practices. Sir Gamboa said, we are obliged to show evidences that we have interviewed the company and asked permission from them for we are going to post the MIS facts of their company on our own Blogs.
My classmates and I had a brainstorming of different IT companies; first on the list was Callbox, for it is the nearest call center from our school. But before going to Callbox, we had our letter printed and we’re ready…
….Callbox…
Callbox is a call center, which occupies the 9th floor of LandCo building along JP Laurel Avenue. At first, we were doubtful if they are willing to entertain us because as we tiptoed inside their office, no one was there so we went back outside and went to the ladies room (except john) to finalize our questions. Suddenly one of their employees approached us and asked what we need, so we went back inside their office and gave them our letter. One of the MIS guys, said maybe we can write down our questions and come back Friday, with this, our eyes widened..lol.. for we need the information as soon as possible (not so demanding). The guy suggested we just have to leave our email address so that they can send it at around 6 pm, so since me and john have an internet connection at home we wrote down our email addresses, we were relieved at last. When I got home, I stayed online until 2am but got no email. So unlucky…
…Global Connect e-Solutions…
This morning after our class, we decided to interview another company since Callbox haven’t sent an email yet. We went to Global Connect e-Solutions office, the company where I worked for 5 months last semester. I am so confident that we will be successful this time, since I personally know some of the MIS staff. Unfortunately, they are having a meeting that time, so Sir Rhyan Diansay the Company Programmer of Global, asked for the questions and instructed us to come back at 12:30 noon. So I went back, and had this statements from Sir Rhyan…
* How do you define MIS in your company?
According to Sir Rhyan, a management information system is a subset of the overall internal control of a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies and procedures by management accountants for solving business problems.
*What is the function of MIS in your company?
Sir Rhyan said MIS includes software that helps in decision-making, data resources such as databases, the hardware resources of a system, decision support system, people management and project management applications and any computerized processes that enable the department to run efficiently.
*What are the best practices in IT/IS in your company?
For Sir Rhyan, a best practice is the belief that there is a technique, method, process, activity, and incentive as reward that is more effective at delivering a particular outcome than other techniques. He also added that shared knowledge and group performance are their best practice.
At Global Connect e-Solutions, Sir Rhyan Diansay is the main programmer and the rest are technicians who do the troubleshooting and minor programs and databases. In addition, Global also use a Biometrix System which is exclusive on their company.
While waiting for the Global’s answers, we proceed to Concentrix, which is 1 km away from Global. Luckily, this time we had interview their MIS Supervisor with the help of our friend Leo who works at Concentrix.
...Concentrix...
Concentrix, a Synnex Company Corporation is a call center that offers technical and customer support. SYNNEX offers product distribution, relatedlogistics services, business process outsourcing and contract assembly andworks with the leading industry suppliers of IT systems, peripherals, systemcomponents, software and networking equipment.
Mr. Christopher Lim is the MIS Supervisor of Concentrix and according to him, MIS department is the core of the company for the reason that it is a technical call center. They develop their own system and its exclusive for their company. They offer services not only locally but also globally. Concentrix servers are accessible in different locations and they have 30 servers here in Davao. Sir Lim discussed to us the basic functions of their MIS department and these are the following:
Level 1 – help desk
Individuals in this level repair, install and troubleshoot. They are also responsible for the networking, user configuration, the access and the different restrictions.
Level 2 – Network Specialist
They manage the deeper aspect of troubleshooting and they serve as mentor for level 1.
Senior Network Specialist
They are responsible for configuration of servers, telephone companies, management of all the access. In addition, they are the ones who suggest whether they need to upgrade or not.
Supervisor
This person is the leader of MIS department. He/she does the decisions for the changes and does the recommendation for all accounts.
Mr. Lim said that the MIS department best practice is teamwork, there constant evolving and more.
Monday, June 22, 2009
First Day Learnings on MIS 1...
Our first meeting on MIS (Management Information System) was fine..(really??) and as expected, we have to use our critical thinking to answer the critical questions of the one and only, Dr. Randy S. Gamboa..
As usual, Sir RSG started the class on time, at exactly 1:00 pm.. not 1:05 but 1:00.. :lol!: Sir RSG was our teacher on HRM last year, so i'm quite used to his overflowing research, assignments, and the blog thing (but im not a good blogger). First, sir welcomed the transferees from usep-tagum and asked them to sing one by one, which served as an initiation to all virgins.. :cheers: .. (welcome to usep-obrero, welcome to hell.) :lol!:
To start the discussion, sir rsg asked what does MIS stands for and what is management.. Some answered in chorus, "it is the act of managing"..hahahaha..ofcourse. For us to understand more, sir rsg mentioned and explained the 4 keys of management which are planning, directing, organizing and controlling (PDOC). He emphasized that a person can not be managed by another person, but can be led and can be guided. From his statements about this, I realized several things and so far agree with him. He also discussed the components of IS which are software + hardware + peopleware. So from this, a query which confused us was constructed, "Is the subject name Management Information System correct?"... oh my, his deadly questions are here again..
For now, im a little bit confused but im gonna try to give my points of view on the next post..
I know all of us gonna shed blood on this subject , but i definitely believe that knowledge and new learnings will overflow. We will learn a lot from sir, from each other and of course from our adopted company. I tell you, its not that boring...
As usual, Sir RSG started the class on time, at exactly 1:00 pm.. not 1:05 but 1:00.. :lol!: Sir RSG was our teacher on HRM last year, so i'm quite used to his overflowing research, assignments, and the blog thing (but im not a good blogger). First, sir welcomed the transferees from usep-tagum and asked them to sing one by one, which served as an initiation to all virgins.. :cheers: .. (welcome to usep-obrero, welcome to hell.) :lol!:
To start the discussion, sir rsg asked what does MIS stands for and what is management.. Some answered in chorus, "it is the act of managing"..hahahaha..ofcourse. For us to understand more, sir rsg mentioned and explained the 4 keys of management which are planning, directing, organizing and controlling (PDOC). He emphasized that a person can not be managed by another person, but can be led and can be guided. From his statements about this, I realized several things and so far agree with him. He also discussed the components of IS which are software + hardware + peopleware. So from this, a query which confused us was constructed, "Is the subject name Management Information System correct?"... oh my, his deadly questions are here again..
For now, im a little bit confused but im gonna try to give my points of view on the next post..
I know all of us gonna shed blood on this subject , but i definitely believe that knowledge and new learnings will overflow. We will learn a lot from sir, from each other and of course from our adopted company. I tell you, its not that boring...
Thursday, June 18, 2009
studyante mode again!!!
waaahh dis is it!!!
here it comes again...
blog, blog, blog...
hope to enjoy and learn more this time...
wew....
be good with us sir...
lol.
good luck to all of us :)
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