:: MIS Insights ::

It’s only Tuesday and my working schedule (6 A.M. to 7 P.M.) is already filled until Saturday! What a load!

However, no amount of work will ever be enough (or well-paying enough) to keep me from indulging myself on the things that I like. For instance, since the arrival of my camera (a Nikon D70 from my father) almost two weeks ago, it’s only now that I’ve really begun playing with it.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Cyclops. While I might not know much about her or photography in general, I’ll do my best to get informed on such topics over time. The D70 manual and three issues of Popular Photography has gotten me to a good start with photography jargon and technical know-how out there.

That aside, let me share with the world the one picture that I liked from the first hundred shots that I took (click image to enlarge):

From one of my photography teachers:

nix: You worked with diagonal lines.
nix: very good.
nix: and the lighting.
rj: harigato
rj: i like diagonals
nix: kaso masiyadong maraming gamit. nag-aagawan sila ng focal point

Alas! There is much to learn for a n00b like me. To motivate myself to learn more about this unknown realm, I’m developing an online gallery that will showcase the sight-seeing adventures of Cyclops. Hopefully, a soft-launch of the gallery will be in order before October ends.

Until then, Smile!

After two long weeks without a phone line at home, I am now back in business!

HP - went in for a third interview today. I don’t know what will happen next, but I hope it turns out well. After hearing about the working perks from Punzki, I was more than eager and excited to learn and get it on with whatever task they might have in store for me.

Geodetic Engineers of the Philippines - I got my Notice to Proceed yesterday for a portal that I was proposing for their organization. This is a very exciting project - involving collaboration with top engineering heads all over the country, integration of countless information sources and deployment of online services that I haven’t done before. Yahoo!!!!

Chemical Inventory System - progress is proceeding as expected. The System Development Life Cycle taught in college works wonderful magic for our deadlines and deliverables! I recommend it as a must-know to anyone wanting to do System Development.

TF - after six weeks of preparing the prerequisite documents for incorporation, it seems that the last few articles will be completed by early next week. Hopefully, we’ll get to formally incorporate by the end of next week and start rolling out our services by the end of the year.

D70 - my father gave me his digital camera. Something to allow me to express my creative side. Harigato!

Mueslix - my mother came back from Hong Kong to check up on us a week or two ago. She introduced me to Mueslix and flavored oats - alternatives to my Oatmeal+Milo diet. Harigato!

Nihongo - I’m currently learning Japanese through self-study and occassional conversations with a friend of mine. I bought several books on the language earlier this year and they’re proving to be very helpful. By learning how to speak, read and write Japanese, I hope to increase my productivity by ten-fold. No longer will I have to read subtitles while programming late at night.

Dungeon Siege 2 - In between bouts of anime marathons, I kept myself busy with this hack-and-slash role-playing game. A breed between Diablo’s hack and slash and NeverWinter Night’s quest system, this game has succeeded in killing my time where other recent games have failed.

Gym - After getting sidelined for two weeks because of improper stretching, I am now back at Moro, pumping iron and burning excess baggage.

Now, without much further ado, I still have a date with BusinessWeek, Fortune, Slashdot and CNN.

Google recently acquired YouTube for 1.65 billion US Dollars! What an effect 12 days without internet (and counting) can do to a person! Usually, I’d hear about such things from Slashdot, BusinessWeek, CNN, etc at the early rumor stages of such deals. However, when I watched CNN today, the ticker said that it’s already a done deal!

While the $10 increase in Google stock has gotten investors happy, this deal has sparked a lot of nay-sayers from the online community. In summary, there’s the camp telling Google now becoming more vulnerable to copyright infringement lawsuits and there’s the YouTube camp saying that it will lose its audience because of moderated content.

However, I don’t think Google got into this expensive deal only to get their company Toilet-Papered by opportunistic lawyers out there. Nor do I think will YouTube have drastic changes with its user exeperience.

If I guess right, Google will only use YouTube to gather more internet usage behavior and to increase the exposure of people to their services. The more that people are exposed to their services, the more chances of profitable advertising. Just like what they did with News Searching a few weeks ago.

it’s been 11 days and PLDT still hasn’t fixed the telephone post outside our house.

we’ve been calling them every day and they keep saying that they’ll fix it the next day.

it’s been 11 days.

i hate monopolies.

no.

hate would be an understatement.

“detest, abhor, pissed at”

i think those are better terms.

HP’s recent boardroom fiasco has gotten me thinking about how society works. After several rounds of investigation regarding the boardroom leakage, human resource casualties have sprung left and right within the ranks of HP. Most notable of which, was the resignation of Patricia Dunn as chairman.

Clearly, I don’t understand why society likes chopping heads off of trouble-ridden organizations. While I do realize the the urgency of replacing non-functioning and malfunctioning parts in a machine, I find pre-emptive measures better than re-active measures. Why solve the problem when you can avoid it? Why surround yourself with people who will freely screw you?

Re-interpreted, Why surround yourself with humans that have free will? Why not just surround yourself with robots or automatons? Won’t it be fun to be surrounded by Yes-People? However, that’s asking too much and the wrong thing. HP’s current problem is not about human greed or free will. I think everyone will always want something for themselves - something that is always beyond their means. That is a non-controllable and non-factor variable in this situation.

However, I think that HP’s current problem is because of dishonesty. Strategic plans hidden from competitors might be one thing, but the lack of transparency within an organization is another. It’s alright for people’s dreams and desires to conflict and clash, but it’s never alright to be dishonest to others. It might sound like an over-simplification of a complex political setup in an organization - guess what? It is.

Of all the clients I’ve dealt with, it is not startups, the uninformed or the financially-challenged clients that give me a hard time, it’s the liars. Those who do not wish to come clean with all the essential details and those who do not want to hear the truth of the matter in the situation.

In any undertaking, I might not be able to control my clients or partners ambitions, but I always demand total honesty. If we can harness human free will to produce honesty, it will be easier to fix, guide and pre-empt a relationship that will screw you.

Very busy the past week

Overnight Programming Marathons - programming has never been so fun when you’re working with a team. Never mind that we’re only two in the team. The point is - after several weeks of pure documentation, the Computer Science beasts in us have been released.

Eyeglasses - I had my eyeglass lenses changed because it was all scratched up and was starting to give me headaches. From my 50-75 setup, wooot!!, I nowonly have a 25-25 setup. Yes, single ladies and gentle madams, wearing an eyeglass for me is now more for decorative than corrective purposes. Astigmatism = Astig mata ko.

Check-up - went to Makati Med for some check-ups. Now I remember why I don’t like going to the hospital:

1) Long Waits. Luckily for me, 3-hour wait + iPod + notebook = lots of business ideas.

2) The most expensive 5-minute sections of my life always includes a doctor in the plot.

3) Blood tests. At first, I was eager to see what the beautiful nurse would do to extract blood from me. After seeing the needle, I decided otherwise, looked away and let the nurse surprise me. That didn’t help to lessen the pain.

Project Scouting - as my current batch of projects near their end, I’ve been scouting for additional projects left and right. Project hunting gives me the thrill that job hunting never did. This is a very refreshing activity for me.

Anime - currently watching Dragon Ball (young Goku) and Bleach. An epic and another in the making. Can’t have enough of that Powerful Rookie Guy + Training + Battle the Threats to Earth plot.

First, the One Laptop Per Child project was conceived last year. This initiative aims to revolutionize how we educate the world’s children by providing kids in developing countries with computer technology.

Now, we see movements in US pushing for A Laptop at Every Desk in the Classroom!

It seems that laptop computers are having a more appreciated role in the classroom. For the computer industry, this is very good news! The hardware sector for producing educational laptops offers a promising market if hardware makers can craft an affordable and robust solution. Really, how many years do you expect a laptop to last under the care of children? Once this pushes through, this could trigger a demand in Computer-Based Training / Training Supplements in the software sector. Both of which will be poised to take advantage of the good telecommunications infrastructure that we have. More jobs for everyone!

However, parents are not that excited about it:

For one, students sitting in front of a computer screen all day are presented with more tools of distraction, such as electronic games, music, and social networking. In addition, some say the initiatives force computers into classrooms where teachers don’t have a good grasp on how to integrate them into their lesson planning. -BusinessWeek

I’d say there’s nothing much you can do about the distractions that a computer brings- other than restrict access to the internet or applications. However, kids will be kids and they will be distracted - computer or no computer.

Regarding the second part, teachers who don’t have a good grasp on how to integrate them into their lesson planning, this is where solutions planning comes into play.

Consumers no longer want incomplete technology answers, they want integrated business solutions. To illustrate, one company that’s been good at creating solutions is Apple: iPod + iTunes + Store = $$$!

Now, if we could port the same business model towards the educational system - of having one company integrate solutions, rather than wait for the markets to realize such opportunities, then we could reduce future integration costs of non-standard services and hasten development in the IT+Education sector.

BusinessWeek reports about the increasing IT jobs being outsourced to the Philippines.

The islands share a language and legal system with the U.S., and offer high skills and low costs. They could outrun India for outsourcing dollars - BusinessWeek

At this rate, dollar$ from Overseas Filipino Workers and revenues from outsourced work can go a long way to improving our economy. However, how long do you think will this business model stay profitable? Can it last us until 2030?

I’m asking this because the opportunities from the reported three billion dollar industry aren’t being taken advantage of.

Not Because You Can Means You Should
Call-center agents and transcriptionists might be getting better salaries than the average Juan, but their impulsive spending behavior sucks. Without the proper financial education and investment opportunities, a good portion of those hard-earned dollars are being consumed at want-based goods rather than being invested at money-producing assets.

You’ve probably heard of the saying, “Don’t give a man fish, rather, teach him how to fish.” Well, now that we were able to get hold of some fish, “Do we cook, serve and sell it to other people?” or “Do we eat it ourselves?”

Dollars from outsourced jobs can be a good thing for us - it can avail us of our needs and luxuries in life. However, it can also be a training for disaster. What do we do once we lose our low price advantage like what’s happening to India right now?

The saturation of India’s outsourcing market, increasing cost of living and developing infrastructures has raised the cost of outsourced jobs. But India isn’t giving up their jobs without a plan in mind. They’re upgrading their service-oriented work force from call center agents to consultants, IT managers and MIS people - something which we already have!

So, while the Philippines is at it copying India’s strategy, why not add a little planning for the future? You know, something about taking advantage of what we already have in terms of culture, work force and financial assets. Something that can improve the current business model to become a more sustainable one.

That’s the tagline from Lenovo 3000 C Series notebooks. I saw it along Edsa’s northbound tunnel intersecting Shaw Boulevard (in Tagalog, the tunnel in front of Edsa Shangri-la).

From the above tagline, I’d say Lenovo was trying to capture an audience that wants to:

• Make history - perform breakthroughs that will be remembered for years to come.
• Make history, Not Backups - have a system that can run forever. Don’t bother with backups, it won’t go down.

I’m all for both types of intended audience, but I don’t think such tagline is a good slogan from an IT security perspective. While such tagline was not meant to be taken literally as it is, it has a subconscious message preparing computer users for a big disaster.

I’ve had many people asking me once in a while, “Do you know how to recover data from a broken computer / hard drive?” To which I honestly reply, “If it’s a broken operating system that won’t let you in to see your files, I can help you with that. If there’s physical damage to the hard drive itself, there’s nothing much that I can do.”

While hard drives today are less prone to bad sectors (a common occurence 10 years ago) and have increased life times (mean time before failure), there is no reason not to make backups - whether we want to make history or not. While it may seem the most crude of IT security solutions in case of a disaster, it is still a basic and fundamental standard operation.

A year ago, I wrote about the same topic. Attached is my entry on the same topic.

(Read on …)

This day has brought the worst negotiation process I’ve ever had in my three years as an IT mercenary. While I’ve been performing hits since I was in second year college, my client today has brought scope negotiation difficulties to a new level.

Background Information
I agreed (using a signed contract) to render my services as a Systems Analyst and System Developer for a startup corporation. For a sum not exceeding five digits in the lower half of such possible compensation spectrum, my services would have included:

• analysis of current system
• design, development and implementation of a new system

So what happened today?
Reality hit my client and I square in the nuts, destroying our fairy-tale project fantasy. Analysis would involve decoding 683 PHP files spread over 49 folders, using inconsistent coding practices, lousy variable names and accessing a database without security measures. This, I might add, is more than enough work to fit the current compensation bill.

So, I renegotiated for a new price. To account for the exponential mind-work needed to accomplish the tasks for the project, their inability to produce the necessary information regarding the system (i.e. explanation for certain program sections and database details) and failure to provide me access to their running system (a required provision in the signed agreement, therefore a breach of contract).

To which they opposed…

That’s normal and expected. Nobody’s really thrilled to hear rising costs coming their way, right?

Violently with insults …

And the freshly-written termination of agreement is all I can do to keep everything civil.