0 COMDDAP 2009 Posted by jealou* | at 4:43 AM

COMDDAP 2009

Last July 3-4 2009, we attended the COMDDAP's IT expo held in the Apo View Hotel, Davao City. This the 46th year show of COMDDAP,the giant of all Philippine IT.
With the speed that IT is evolving and becoming ever more pervasive in our everyday lives COMDDAP continues year after year to to step up to the challenges of bringing something new to its market with every show. They showcase the latest IT products and software for computing, imaging, printing, connecting and communications, security, entertainment and lifestyle applications. As a matter of fact, COMDDAP Davao stages the LCD Monitor Shootout, and brings together the top LCD monitor brands in the world in a showdown of their most brilliant features in terms of graphics, photo, and video display.

Also part of its regular event is the Technology
Update series of seminars and workshops, and product demos.

As part of our real world education, we took part in the Technology Update session. The session we attended is the The ERIC Dealer Management Systems, The HP Thin Client, and Retailer Management
System Overview and Open Source For Business Applications.

We arrived at the Apo View Hotel around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. After getting our identification sticker as students we eagerly went to see the exhibits. Exhibitors include the Wordtext Systems. Inc., Trinity Marketing, Tills n' Labels Systems Marketing, Symantec, Smart Communications, Inc., Novell, Ng Khai Development Corp., Neo Manufacturing & Services, Microdata Systems & Management Inc., Metropreneur Trading, McAfee, Glee Electronics, Inc., Foxchit Business Systems, Faire Technologies Inc., Envision LCD Display, Danpro Computer Inking System Co., Cogent Consulting(CCSTC), Chase Technologies Corporation, Canon Marketing Phils. Inc., Autodesk, Astech Pengson Distributors Inc., Asiantech, and Adobe.
After exploring, we went to the function room for the session which has already started.

The Eric Dealer Management System
-presented by Jupiter Systems Inc.

According to the presenter, “The ERIC Dealer Management System is an end to end software solution for automotive dealer operation.” In the session they showed us on how to implement the ERIC DMS as well as it features which are the Costumer Relationship Management (CRM), Vehicles Sales and Administration (VSA), and Service Management (SVA).


The HP Thin Client
-presented by Nexus Technologies, Inc.

From the HP Thin Client brochure…“Thin clients are computing devices that function as an access device on the network. It provides solution to issues such as desktop replacement costs, network security, supporting application software on diverse hardware, or ensuring your data remains accessible and secure.”

The speaker also mentioned that Thin Client is designed with no hard drive and fan making it less bulky than normal PC system units.

Microsoft Retail Management System
-presented by Nexus Professional Services and Solutions

The next session is the Microsoft Retail Management System. In this session we were given an overview of the Retail Management System, its solutions and key benefits to retail industry. According to the slides that the speaker showed us “RMS is a software for retailers with multi-branch store. The key benefits it provides are:

• streamline operations - RMS automatically generate POs

- view inventory status and best-price suppliers
- speed checkouts
- receive shipments and update inventory
- track inventory offline
- share reports

• improve profit margins - easily adjust pricing

- identify best selling items
- track ROI from marketing
- eliminate card payment terminal and fees
- increase employee productivity
- up sell and cross-sell your costumers

• build customer loyalty - customize receipts and price labels

- reduce out of stock
- accept multiple tenders
- use flexible pricing structures
- tailor marketing to customer preferences
- reprint receipts

• manage business not technology - RMS is easy to install and use

- train employees in minutes
- gain insights and make decisions
- tailor POS screens
- manage different inventory types
- add new lanes or stores

In terms of the RMS headquarters or the main office, it can control pricing, purchasing and inventory across stores, view and analyze data company wide, set and monitor policies and procedures for every store.”

Open Source for Business Applications

The last session we attended is the Open Source for Business Applications.
By definition…“Open Source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to software’s source code. Open Source software is licensed software that meets the Open Source definition.”
Some of the Open Source Technologies mentioned by the presenter during the lecture are Ubuntu, OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, GIMPshop, Transmission, LimeWire, VLC, LAMP, Drupal, Joomla,Wordpress,OS Commerce, Zen Cart, Ruby on Rails, PHP Cake, Civi CRM, and Moodle.



Reflection and Learning’s

From the exhibits I get the chance to see the new technologies present in the market.

During our participation in COMDDAP we meet IT people such as programmers, web developers and projects managers and through them I get a little picture of what I’m heading into. (ohhHhh..?)

True, I didn’t really appreciate the importance and beauty of ERIC DMS and Microsoft RMS since I’ am still a student. But I guess the information might still prove useful someday. (hehe…^^)

Perhaps the most exciting and informative session I’ve attended is the Open Source…
Actually that was my first time to meet open source (not heard, but meet…) and I found out that I’m already using some of its software and technology..(VLC, LimeWire, OpenOffice, PHP).

Let me tell you the story…

After meeting open source the presenter showed us a business case and ask two of the audience to analyze it. The task is to estimate the development time for each feature in days of the Anchor website, as well as the estimated total of days of project completion. After assessing the task both representative came up with the analysis that they can finish the project within 30 days. However the presenter told us that using Open Source (Ubuntu) they can finish the task in 16 days.
To accentuate his point the speaker told us the “MAC Analogy…” to explain the advantage of Open Source Technologies from Proprietary Software.

It goes like this… “If you were to buy a macbook from two stores that has the same specs, features and price but the other store can give it to you a day earlier, in which store would you likely buy a macbook?”

Of course, I’d go for the store that can give it to me earlier…who will not? And with that I was amazed and so impressed with open source technology…for a moment I believe it was the solution to whole world…(hehe…)

Just then, a handsome gentleman asked the speaker a question…
“If you were to choose from Open Source Technology and Proprietary Software, which would you use in a mission critical event like the 2010 election?”
The speaker answered that he could not choose between the two because there are many factors to be considered.
So the gentleman asked if he could address the crowd at large. He told us that he is a representative from Microsoft Company and that he is not against open source technology in fact if he were a student himself he would choose to use open source for practicality.

He emphasized that one of the important thing to consider in choosing a software is the level of liability. In the case of mission critical events open source is not the best and only option in all situations, because technically you can’t sue someone when your system fails in open source especially that you get it for free unlike in proprietary software.
And he left us with these words… “Remember that there is no such thing as free in this world. Everything has its own consequence. In Microsoft, you might pay more now but we’ll support you later…while in Open Source you might get it free now but you may pay more later.”
So interesting were his points that it left me thinking…
And that’s the best part of education…when it leaves you thinking.

We returned the next day, July 4 (particularly because of that gentleman…hehe…) but unfortunately I did not attend any seminar because of our interview.

Oh…and did I mention that flash drives and t-shirts are effective motivators?. I applaud HP for that and of course congratulate some of my school mates who win the prizes…hehehe…

Getting the general picture of the real thing is much better than theories alone.

…the first day…
that was GREAT!...^^

0 Assignment #3 Posted by jealou* | at 4:28 AM

On Philippine's 2010 Automated Election

Recently, the Commission on Elections announced that on 2010 the Philippines will be having their first automated election. After the long process of preparations, budget and provider of the system has been named.

Smartmatic with its Filipino partner TIM won as the highest bidder and will be our provider for the Automated Election System (AES) and with the budget of 13.9 billion everything is rolling...
The Comelec promises a clean, honest and fast election...

If I will be ask if I want an automated election...
Yes, definitely!

But if ask if Philippines is ready for 2010 Automated election...
hmmm...I must say no...

What I found out being an IT student is that implementing a new system is not easy. Extensive and thorough research must be done.

Here are points that I want to share why I think our country is not yet ready for the automation in 2010.

CREDIBILITY
Credibility of the provider...
Not long after Smartmatic and TIM has been named as the highest bidder a conflict between the companies arise jeopardizing the automation of election. According to reports TIM president wanted a 500 million php 'up front' from its foreign partner, which Smartmatic took as deal breaker.
The very words of TIM president is this "If you give me a half a billion pesos, all of these problems will be solved.”
So what are the problems to be solved?

First point, at this very early stage of the implementation the Comelec experience a problem in pushing the contract. And even before finalization of contract providers are against each other.

FRAUD
First let us identify what are the Automate Election Systems planned to be used in the coming election. There are two technologies:

• Optical Mark Reader (OMR)
• Direct Recording Electronic (DRE)
  

The beauty of the old system of writing names of candidates voted for, public reading of votes in front of watchers and citizens, tallying and manual preparation of election returns was that it was visible.
At times there could have been fraud. But it was visible.

In the new OMR system voters will feed the ballot into the machine the next thing they will see is the printed election return. On the other hand DRE is a touch-screen or touch-pad machine. No paper ballot is necessary as the names of the candidates and the offices for which they are running will all be displayed on the computer screen. The voter directly enters his choices electronically into a memory cartridge, a diskette or a smart-card that will be added to the precinct, municipal, provincial and national tallies also electronically.
Whether votes were properly casted and counted we will not know.

Comelec claims that the Automated Election System (AES) cannot be hacked and the source code will be open for inspection. But the thing is we’re not talking about outside intrusions, the greatest danger of fraud in the 2010 automated elections will be if it come from insiders in Comelec and system providers.

Second point, automating the election doesn’t mean that it will be fraud free.

I know that one could argue if both type of election cannot be fraud free why not go for something which produces fast result?..


Actually, I am not against the automation of election...
I commend the government for coming up in such a good innovative idea for our election. Personally, I believe that we should have implemented this a long time ago...

However Commission on Election are rushing things up, there is a very little time intended for implementing the AES.

TIME AND END USER TRAINING
Testing cannot be done in just months, to get a reliable result this must be performed for years. To assure the voters of clean, honest and reliable election the AES must be tested if it has no flaws. Through testing we could also prevent fraud in the incoming elections offering more credibility.

Other than that, it’s only months away before election but still the citizen do not how to use the system. How will we vote if we do not know how to use the machine. We must consider that not all people know how to use a computer. If people will not be able to use the machine properly there might be a big chance that their votes will not be counted or will be invalid.

If something like this happens, losing opponents will most likely file a case and call for reelection.
There is no need to say that cost is a very important factor in this type of situation.

Therefore I believe that the Philippines is not yet ready for an automated election.

It is good that our government is changing into AUTOMATED ELECTION SYSTEM, I adhere that they continue to implement this for the next election. I suggest that they plan the implementation carefully towards a credible, reliable, fast and better election.

0 journal_16 Posted by jealou* | at 3:46 PM

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Submission of our major paper INFORMATION SYSTEMS NEEDS ASSESSMENT.

...gud luck to us!

0 journal_15 Posted by jealou* | at 3:44 PM

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

THIS IS THE DAY!

No class for today…its family day! Yey!...
So glad there was no class for today, because today is the last day to finalize and finish our ISNA major paper.

Last day we decided to meet in our house in the morning to continue making the parameters, SWOT, and STEEP analysis of our paper.
Around 5pm we still haven’t finished the recommendation, implementation plan, and projected cost so we resolved that they stay for the overnight to finish everything.
It was almost 2am when the Information Systems Needs Assessment was done.
…yep yey!

We took rest and hope for the best later that day…^^

0 journal_14 Posted by jealou* | at 3:42 PM

SEPTEMBER 27, 2009

We successfully finished the first part of our ISNA today.

…first part done!


SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

We continued on our task and did some more research today.
Furthermore we finished some part of our documentation and observation.

The parts we finished are:
• Flow Diagram of the Major Business Flow
• Matrix of the Functionality of the IS

Now we only have one day left to finish our major paper…
Oh…I can’t say I’m not stressed…^^

0 journal_3 Posted by jealou* | at 3:12 PM

JULY 7, 2009

Macondray Plastics, Inc. and Ford Davao were approved today by our instructor to be our prospect companies for the ISNA.
Immediately we made the necessary request letters so that we can conduct our interview in those companies. The letter is needed to be signed by our instructor, college dean and the university’s OSS Director.

the signing was tough…

For the succeeding week we also started making the draft for our Gantt chart. Gantt chart serves as our guide for the activities and topics we will make in our ISNA.

0 journal_2 Posted by jealou* | at 3:07 PM

Last week of JUNE to first week of JULY

Throughout this span of time our group looked and listed for companies to be our prospect for our ISNA.We researched for the profile of these companies and made a hard copy for our instructor to approve.

Some of our prospect companies are… Macondray Plastics, Inc. and Ford Davao.