Difference between Method and Methodology

Method is the process followed in doing a task to achieve a desired output. For example, to get data, specific techniques or methods are used. Methodology, on the other hand, is a set of activities which are interconnected to explain how those methods can be used to achieve the desired output. These activities (methodology) use a set of techniques (methods) to reach or achieve a desired output.

Ms. Sheryl Caguimbaga posted on Service Quality Evaluation Method for Community-based Software Outsourcing Process by Huimin Jiang, Alice Liu, Zhongjie Wang and Shu Liu from the School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology.

With the rapid socio-economic development, service becomes more and more popular. At the same time, service quality is increasingly attracting wide attentions. The reason why service quality becomes so important is that the higher value of service quality can lead to higher customer satisfaction, and ultimately result in higher revenue growth and profitability. More and more enterprises are looking to outsource their software development to other companies, respond to the pressures such as development costs, human resources access, new market development, or building business competencies. Recently, to outsource software development to the community developers through web has been recognized by more and more people. This outsourcing approach is termed as community-based software model in this paper. According to the paper, outsourcing software development to the community developers is a promising model to help reduce software development cost and improve software quality. The paper presented a method to evaluate the quality of service in the managing community-based software outsourcing process. There are three types of objects whose service quality need to be evaluated, i.e. service behaviors, service products, and service providers. For each type of object, there are five dimensions of quality indicators, i.e. time and efficiency, price and cost, quality of service content, resources and conditions, reputation and risk. Based on these dimensions, the researchers built a set of quality indicators and the corresponding measurement methods. The researchers adopted the traditional AHP method to calculate the total quality of each type of object. Call-For-Implementation is community-based software development method put forward by IBM china research lab. In the paper, Call-For-Implementation was taken as an example to introduce how to apply the proposed service evaluation method. A prototype is developed to support the evaluation process and exhibit results of quality evaluation. The main contribution of this paper is that an objective and dynamic service quality computation method is proposed to help evaluate the quality of outsourcing software management service.

Back to the paper posted by Ms. Sheryl, the content is informative although there were some abbreviations that were not explained well. Although the papers topic is about outsourcing, the term itself was also not properly emphasized same as what Ms. Sheryl noticed. As I read through the paper, I think the paper was more concerned on the Service Quality Evaluation Method. The researchers presented the findings in an orderly manner making the paper interesting to read. Since the term outsourcing was not emphasized in the paper, I made some readings about it.

According to wiseGEEK.com, Outsourcing refers to a company that contracts with another company to provide services that might otherwise be performed by in-house employees. There are many reasons that companies outsource various jobs, but the most prominent advantage seems to be the fact that it often saves money. Many of the companies that provide outsourcing services are able to do the work for considerably less money, as they don't have to provide benefits to their workers and have fewer overhead expenses to worry about.

Outsourcing also allows companies to focus on other business issues while having the details taken care of by outside experts. This means that a large amount of resources and attention, which might fall on the shoulders of management professionals, can be used for more important, broader issues within the company. The specialized company that handles the outsourced work is often streamlined, and often has world-class capabilities and access to new technology that a company couldn't afford to buy on their own. Plus, if a company is looking to expand, outsourcing is a cost-effective way to start building foundations in other countries.

There are some disadvantages to outsourcing as well. One of these is that outsourcing often eliminates direct communication between a company and its clients. This prevents a company from building solid relationships with their customers, and often leads to dissatisfaction on one or both sides. There is also the danger of not being able to control some aspects of the company, as outsourcing may lead to delayed communications and project implementation. Any sensitive information is more vulnerable, and a company may become very dependent upon its outsource providers, which could lead to problems should the outsource provider back out on their contract suddenly.

Lever (1997) described four phases of outsourcing: discovery; negotiation; transition; and assessment. Zhu et al. (2001) also described four stages within the outsourcing process: planning; developing; implementing; and surviving. These process models are useful as a basis for understanding the steps involved in outsourcing. Discovery consists of benchmarking internal service levels, identifying future requirements, issuing requests for proposals and identifying a shortlist of suppliers. Planning is creating a sound business plan that includes all the present and future costs of outsourcing the activity as well as identifying hidden costs, such as impact on the community, customer services and employees. Negotiation entails selecting the supplier based on the compatibility of the supplier’s operating philosophy, approach to service and approach to joint planning. Development has a different focus. Negotiation is focused on creating a partnership; development, however, involves determining the appropriate vendor agreement with the appropriate level of detail, establishing the appropriate business relationship to be entered into by the buying and supplying companies, an assessment of the impact on and management of employee benefits, developing a timeline for outsourcing to happen and preparing a communications plan. This involves focusing not only on the relationship, but also on the internal issues that have to be addressed. In the transition stage, the company is planning and preparing staff and computer systems for transferral to the supplier. Similarly, implementation involves creating a transition plan and checklist. At the assessment stage, the supplier is providing the activity and the performance is monitored using service levels and benchmarks. At the end of this phase, the contract is either terminated or renegotiated. The survival stage involves a post-outsourcing review to determine if the objectives before the outsourcing were met by the outsourcing.

Distinct forces shaped each of the outsourcing processes: environmental forces, organizational forces, as well as individual and group forces. These forces influenced the activities to be outsourced and the motivations to outsource.

Within each of the cases environmental factors, factors external to the organization, were regarded as an influence on the outsourcing process, especially on the decision to outsource. These were the intensity of the competitive environment, the political and regulatory environment, changes or issues surrounding technology, and influences from the social environment. From an organizational perspective, history, strategy, cost, resources, critical incidents and competitive positioning all appeared to shape the outsourcing process. At an individual and group level, several factors appeared to influence the outsourcing processes: political behavior; altruism; power; and incomplete information.

An Alternative Information Web for Visually Impaired Users
in Developing Countries

Nitendra Rajput, Sheetal Agarwal, Arun Kumar, Amit Anil Nanavati

IBM Research Division
IBM India Research Lab
4, Block C, ISID Campus, Vasant Kunj
New Delhi - 110070, India.


This paper presents an alternate platform — the World Wide Telecom Web (WWTW), for delivering information and services to the visually impaired. WWTW is a network of VoiceSites that can be created and accessed by a voice interaction over an ordinary phone. The researchers presented user studies which demonstrate that the learning curve for using applications on the Telecom Web is relatively low and does not require extensive training. With this study, the researchers believe that the Telecom Web can be the mainstream Web for blind users. Websites in World Wide Web are primarily meant for visual consumption. Accessibility tools such as screen readers that render the visual content in audio format enable the visually impaired to access information on the websites. Despite standards that are available to make websites more amenable for screen reading softwares, not many website authors embed the required metadata information that feeds into such tools. Moreover, the wide variety of visual controls available makes it harder to interpret the websites with screen readers. This problem of accessing information and services on the web escalates even further for visually impaired in developing regions since they are either semi- literate/illiterate or cannot afford computers and high-end phones with screen reading capability. This problem is addressed by this study.

Nowadays, for a common person, access to information is a key requirement. Over the last decade, the World Wide Web has grown tremendously to become the largest source of information. It is also being used by governments and enterprises to provide services to their citizens and customers. It is being used by most people today. With this, how about those people who are visually impaired? Because of increasing efforts of addressing these problems, there are several existing efforts at making the content on the Web accessible to visually impaired users. These include software tools such as screen readers, web accessibility standards and government laws to make websites accessible. In this connection, the paper presented the Telecom Web as an alternative to World Wide Web for delivering information services to visually impaired people. Telecom Web provides a low-cost, completely accessible platform, especially for people in developing countries. The researchers performed usability study with a sample VoiceSite and derived interesting insights. I found this paper interesting since it also presented several potential applications that can be delivered to the blind population through the Telecom Web.
The paper was also made interesting since the researchers also included illustrations on their study especially with the results making the paper more comprehensible by readers although some of the terms were not properly explained.


Towards Trustworthy Kiosk Computing

Scott Garris
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburg, PA

Ramon Caceres, Stefan Berger, Reiner Sailer, Leendert van Doorn, Xiaolan Zhang
IBM Research Division
Thomas J. Watson Research Center
P.O. Box 704
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598


This paper presents a system in which a user, by leveraging the capabilities of a personal mobile device such as smartphone, gains a degree of trust in kiosk prior to using it. Trust is the expectation that a computer system will faithfully perform its intended purpose. The researchers refer to a kiosk as trustworthy if they can verify the identity and integrity of the software running on that kiosk. Public computing kiosks, such as an airline check-I terminal at an airport or a rental computer at an Internet café, have become common place. A problem with current kiosks is that the user must assume that a kiosk is performing only its intended function, or more specifically, that it has not been compromised by an attacker. A compromised kiosk could harm the user by, e.g., stealing private data. Similarly, the owner of a kiosk wants to ensure that the kiosk is not used to perform malicious acts for which he may be liable. The paper presented a system in which a user controls a personal mobile device to establish trust on a public computing device, or kiosk, prior to revealing personal information to that kiosk. The researchers designed and implemented a protocol by which the mobile device determines the identity and integrity of the software running on the kiosk. A similar protocol simultaneously allows a kiosk owner to verify that the kiosk is running only approved software.

The researchers have made this paper concise and direct to the point. This made the paper understandable even though the word kiosk was not properly defined. I think if a person who is not that exposed to the computer terms may not really know what this paper meant. I think more emphasis on the topic can be a solution to this. On the other hand, the researchers presented very well the system design of the system and prototype implementation. The researchers also used an illustration on the Kiosk Computing Scenario. Based on what I have read on this paper, trust and integrity is the main issue.


A New Schema for Security in Dynamic Uncertain Environments

Dakshi Agrawal
IBM T.J. Watson Research Center


The hypothesis presented in this paper is that for a complex system of systems operating in a dynamic, uncertain environment the traditional approach of forward, static security is insufficient. What is required are macroscopic schemata for security that incorporate mechanisms which monitor the overall environment and feed their observations back into the security mechanisms so that they can adjust their ‘posture’ accordingly. Such schemata must also account for system-wide aggregated security risks in addition to risk presented by the individual users and information objects. With this, the researcher proposed one such schema in this work. It is the uncertainty and dynamicity in the operating environment that ask the most penetrating questions from the current security solutions. In the early days, computers were largely isolated from each other, had limited software functionality, and their users were technically sophisticated, resulting in an environment that was well-controlled. The properties of a security mechanism could be proved under a ‘clean room’ security – model that was not too far from the reality. However, computers have since then transformed into computing devices of all shapes and sizes; the functionality has grown exponentially and the user base has expanded to include technical equivalent of laity. While current state of the art in computer security has addressed many challenges rising from these changes, it has failed to systematically address the most basic change; namely, there is a lot more uncertainty and dynamism in the operating environment and the context of computing systems today than it was a few decades ago.

The paper explained the new schema proposed by the researcher. Two examples of a security schema for access control that addresses the problems being mentioned in the paper was presented by the researcher. With those examples mentioned, the researcher investigated on how the proposed new schema can be used to provide interesting insights into the design of access-control systems. The paper, in connection with the examples given, also showed illustrations which relates to the examples.

Key Factors for Publishing Research in Top-Tier Journals

Identify and discuss key factors for publishing research in top-tier journals like CSP, ACM, i3E, etc.
ACM, like many other publishers, has started to provide its journals in both electronic and print versions. The purpose of the ACM Transactions on Computer Systems (TOCS) is to present research and development results on the design, specification, realization, behavior, and use of computer systems. The term "computer systems" is interpreted broadly and includes systems architectures, operating systems, distributed systems, and computer networks. Articles that appear in TOCS will tend either to present new techniques and concepts or to report on experiences and experiments with actual systems.
Papers must be of high quality and fall within the scope of the journal. There are four main ingredients to an acceptable paper:
technical quality is high;
relevance to significant computations is high;
interest and novelty is high; and
presentation is effective.
Few papers excel in all of these, but a substandard level in any of the four ingredients is sufficient ground for rejection. ACM TOCS does not accept papers that belong in more theoretical journals (e.g. JACM, Springer-Verlag's "Distributed Computing", Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing). This does not imply that all theoretical papers are to be rejected; rather it implies that theoretical papers that cannot establish their direct relevance to current issues in the development of computer systems will generally be rejected. An acceptable paper of this type should contain:
motivation and technical analysis of the method;
evidence of effectiveness and practicality; and
demonstration of superiority compared to alternative approaches.
In addition, reviewers should be aware that because of the relative rarity with which such papers are accepted, the standards for originality and impact are unusually strict in these cases.
The ACM Transactions on Database Systems publishes original archival papers in the area of databases and closely related disciplines. Submitted papers are judged primarily on originality and relevance, but effective presentation is also critical. Contributions should conform to generally accepted practices for scientific papers with respect to organization and style.
The primary goal of the program committee of a major conference like OOPSLA (Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications) is to put together a high quality program of technical papers. The program is created by soliciting contributed papers from authors and then selecting the best papers according to some criteria. The process is reactive: the authors submit, the committee selects from those submissions.
The primary requirement is that your paper must contribute to our understanding of object technology. It must have something new to say, and its message must be of sufficient importance and interest to warrant the attention of the OOPSLA community. If your paper is a research paper, it should describe a new idea or a new technique. It must describe original work. Your paper should present supporting evidence, not just conjecture. Idea papers should be backed up by a convincing analysis. The purpose of your paper should be to communicate something to someone. Your paper should convince the program committee that your work is technically correct. If the correctness of your work is in doubt, your paper will probably be rejected. Soundness of ideas or techniques can often be demonstrated by the depth and clarity of the analysis, or by reference to a working implementation. The audience at OOPSLA includes people from many communities. You will improve your paper if you can address a broad audience, wherever possible. While specific examples can be given, the problem and solution should be presented in general terms. Effective communication is important for a successful paper. A paper has little value if its intended audience cannot understand it. An incomprehensible paper cannot even be reviewed.
To sum up everything, different top-tier journals accept papers basing on their different requirements that your paper should contain. Although they may have differences, some qualifications on accepting research papers are similar. These journals similarly consider relevance, originality, and impact of the paper to audience.

How do you know if a piece of research work is good or not? How are they evaluated?

All students are required to write research papers at some point during their. In conducting a research, you are basically conducting a search for facts: little tidbits of truth that you will assemble and arrange in an organized way. Your first responsibility as a researcher is to understand the difference between fact and fiction—and also the difference between fact and opinion. In addition, you need to offer a rationale telling why your problem is a good one and what methods you plan to use for gathering and analyzing your data. Furthermore, students' intentions, as reflected in how they phrase their project proposals, can suggest that they are not seeking an answer to a significant question but, rather, are trying to get readers to accept a belief that those students already cherish and wish to propagate. Such intent can be implied when they introduce their project with such a phrase as "My purpose is to prove that. . . ." or "I will demonstrate that. . . ." or "This study will make it clear that. . . ." Therefore, if you know at the outset exactly what conclusions will be drawn at the end of your project, then the project qualifies as propagandizing or salesmanship rather than research.

In determining if a piece of research work is good or not we need to have a checklist of the things we want our research paper would look like or what its content will be. Is the paper too long? Is the paper well organized? Are the design and analysis sound? Do the conclusions follow from the results? Has the author cited all relevant references? Are all the tables and figures necessary? Are the title and abstract fully descriptive of the text? Any ethical concerns with the paper? Are the statistics satisfactory? Is the task you propose for yourself really research, or is it something else?

Will the outcomes of your research be considered significant by the readers for whom your project is intended? A topic that you select may qualify as research, yet still not be considered a suitable thesis or dissertation problem. One reason is that the task you pose for yourself may be too simple, in that it fails to represent the complexity and level of expertise expected of a person who deserves a graduate degree. A second reason is that the answer you hope to derive from your investigation appears to be insignificant, so readers' would respond to your results with "So what?" or "Who cares?" Therefore, in originally presenting your topic, you are obliged to indicate for whom--and why--an answer to your research question is important.

There are some basic characteristics of good research papers that students should be aware of if they are interested in excelling academically. First, a good research paper is written about the subject that a professor assigned or that a student selected as his or her paper subject. There may be a more specific sub-topic that a student addresses in the paper, but good research papers always stay on track with the assignment or subject. The most important rule to remember when writing a paper is to follow the instructions your teacher provides. Teachers always have the prerogative to decide what rules, formats, or procedures they prefer for any paper, so the teacher’s guidelines for any assignment will rule against instructions you find on the Internet or in a style guide.

Next, a good research paper will flow well. This means that ideas will be connected and sensible so that the reader knows exactly what the writer is saying. In order to make a research paper flow well, students should spend some time drafting outlines for their term papers. These outlines should help the student to ensure that he or she includes an appropriate amount of content and that ideas flow well from one to the next. The paper outline is also much easier to revise than a paper draft. Therefore, a sign of a good research paper is that it always begins with a research paper outline before the student creates the first draft.

After the student has created a research paper outline, the student can begin filling the outline in as a first draft. Good papers will not only be drafted once, but they will also be revised several times until the student feels that the paper says exactly what he or she wishes to say in the most concise and congruent manner.
A student can use the same level of research to write either a good paper or a bad paper. The difference between a good paper and a term paper often comes down to basic writing skills. Therefore, many students benefit by working with a professional writer or an on-campus writing center in order to improve their writing skills and effectiveness.

Another thing to be considered in writing a research paper is that be realistic about how much the average reader will take away from an article. Non-experts will retain at most a single message. Make sure you have one, and then repeat it over and over again—at the end of the abstract, in the introduction, in the results, and in the discussion. Include different levels at which your results are significant. This is particularly important for papers that you are trying to get into top tier journals. A good paper is not a random accumulation of facts. Give your paper a narrative structure that links from one finding to another. This can be the logical order of why one experiment was done in response to another, or you can describe from the beginning to the end of a pathway. Build up this structure by writing notes, in any order, and then rearranging them so that there are logical links.
Writing a research paper is more straightforward and concise than other types of writing. Avoid using clever, flowing, or poetic phrases in your science paper. Dramatic or emotional statements sound out of place. Use active verbs. Avoid using passive verbs. For instance, instead of saying “When the lights were turned off, the mice reacted… you could say “The mice reacted when I turned off the lights.” Do not misuse terms. Some words, like "variable" and "significant result" have very specific meanings in the science world. Be careful not to repeat scientific terms in your paper unless you have a clear understanding of what they mean. Make sure it is free of spelling, grammatical, or typographical errors. Also, check to make sure you’ve included every source in your bibliography. Finally, check the original instructions from your teacher to make sure you are following all assigned preferences, like title page directions and placement of page numbers.

Many papers are badly written. To avoid this, good writing is a skill you can learn. It’s a skill that is worth learning because this may result to more papers accepted, ideas will have more impact and you will have better ideas. This also forces us to be clear, focused and crystallises what we don’t understand. Papers are far more durable than programs. Experts are good. Non-experts are also very good. Each reader can only read your paper for the first time once. Explain carefully what you want.
Research source is also a factor that will affect what your paper will be. Sometimes, misinterpretations on facts and fiction will be a problem. One of which is Blogs. As you know, anybody can publish a blog on the Internet. This poses an obvious problem with using a blog as a research source, as there is no way to know the credentials of many bloggers or to get an understanding of the writer’s level of expertise. Many people create blogs to give themselves a forum to express their views and opinions. Next is Personal Web Sites. A web page is much like a blog when it comes to being an unreliable research source. Web pages are created by the public, so you have to be very careful when choosing them as sources. It's sometimes difficult to determine which web sites are created by experts and professionals on a given topic. Wiki web sites can be very informative, but they can also be untrustworthy. Wiki sites allow groups of people to add and edit the information contained on the pages. The question that always arises when it comes to homework and research is whether it’s OK to use Wikipedia as a source of information. Wikipedia is a great site with a lot of fantastic information, and a possible exception to the rule. One thing is for certain: Wikipedia offers a reliable overview of a topic to give you a strong foundation to start with. It also provides a list of resources where you can continue your own research. Students also believe that historical novels are trustworthy, because they state that they are “based on facts.” There is a difference between a factual work and a work that is based on facts. A novel that is based on a single fact can still contain ninety-nine percent fiction. Never use a historical novel as a history resource.

The Internet makes it possible to directly reach people we’d have never thought possible even a decade ago. Google the leading voice in the field you’re writing about: a professor of chemistry at MIT, a leadership guru, a corporate anthropologist at Intel, and so on — chances are you’ll come across an email address, or at least a mailing address. Write to them, explain your project, and ask a few questions. The worst that can happen is they’ll ignore your request (so write a few people for backup).

Role of Research Topic in Deciding Future Career

Among the assignments given to us, I think this question is the most difficult one. This made me think how the research topic would affect my future career. I found it hard to answer since I didn’t think of this while we were still deciding on what will be our research topic for this semester. As what I have in mind, we do research to improve the quality of life for us people to be somehow satisfied, for some time, even though we never get satisfied. We do research because of the existing problems we find in our everyday life. For me, as to the most obvious role of the research topic, it is a solution to the identified or observed problems that you have distinguished. As a result of readings done based on the problems identified, the solution is determined so does the research topic which will be the specific solution to those problems. To help me understand more on what is really the role of research topic in deciding my future career, I read some articles regarding this.
Research is a systematic investigation to establish facts. Why do people conduct research? To find things out and to help understand the world we live in. Also to produce valid and useful information or knowledge that has some significance to benefit society. Who are the main funders of research? The main funders of research are: Charities, Business Corporations, Private Companies, and Individuals.
There will come a time in most students' careers when they are assigned a research paper. Such an assignment often creates a great deal of unneeded anxiety in the student, which may result in delay or postponement and a feeling of confusion and inadequacy. This anxiety frequently stems from the fact that many students are unfamiliar and inexperienced with this sort of writing. Writing a research paper is an essential aspect of academics, and should not be avoided on account of one's anxiety. In fact, the process of writing a research paper can be one of the more rewarding experiences one may encounter in academics. What is more, many students will continue to do research throughout their careers, which is one of the reasons that this is so important.

Determining what our research topic will be, considering the theme “Green Computing”, gave us challenge. Our chosen topic reflects where we wanted to be. With this task, we can identify on what is really our interests since a good topic also requires that the researcher is interested of. In this connection, we may be able to somewhat look forward on deciding what our future career.

One of the reasons students draw back at research paper is that writing them is a skill that most college professors assume their students have, while few high school teachers teach it — leaving students to work out for themselves how exactly to proceed. Add to that the fact that students often take a range of courses they have little or no interest in to satisfy their general requirements, and it’s no wonder that students often feel hung out to dry when it comes to writing research papers. Looked at properly, research papers can be a great way to deepen your understanding of your chosen field, and may be the first step towards developing a specialization that will serve you well as you move into your career or advanced education. Figure out the link between the class you’re taking and your educational and career goals. If you hope to earn an MBA and find yourself stuck in a required Women’s Studies class, write about workplace harassment, or the impact of equal opportunity laws. If you are pre-med and have to take anthropology or sociology, write about cultural differences in notions of healing, or about access to health care for members of different classes.

Becoming an experienced researcher and writer in any field or discipline takes a great deal of practice. There are few individuals for whom this process comes naturally; even the most seasoned academic veterans have had to learn how to write a research paper at some point in their career. Therefore, with diligence, organization, practice, a willingness to learn (and to make mistakes! lolz), and, perhaps most important of all, patience, a student will find that she can achieve great things through her research and writing.

As a seminar in the Bell Communications Research Colloquia Series, Dr. Richard W. Hamming, a Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a former Bell Labs scientist, gave an interesting and stimulating talk, `You and Your Research' to an overflow audience of some 200 Bell core staff members and visitors at the Morris Research and Engineering Center. This talk centered on Hamming's observations and research on the question "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?"

One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to. That is the characteristic of great scientists; they have courage. They will go forward under incredible circumstances; they think and continue to think.

For me, the tasks that are involved in the research writing are also similar with how scientists in the world do their discoveries. A scientist can never discover something without researching on that topic. So as to research, one cannot achieve his objective if he will not have that enough courage to pursue his study on a certain problem. Although mistakes and other circumstances may come unexpectedly, it is good to have that courage to still continue working on what have been started. As to students, this character will really be a good help since they will practice and enhance how to keep pushing more to finish the research. This will be a good motivation for us students.

What Bode was saying was this: "Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest." Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice out produce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity it is very much like compound interest. I don't want to give you a rate, but it is a very high rate. Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime. I took Bode's remark to heart; I spent a good deal more of my time for some years trying to work a bit harder and I found, in fact, I could get more work done. You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done. There's no question about this.

There's another trait on the side which I want to talk about; that trait is ambiguity. It took me a while to discover its importance. Most people like to believe something is or is not true. Great scientists tolerate ambiguity very well. They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started. It requires a lovely balance.

Why do so many people, with all their talents, fail? Why is it so? What happened to them? Why do so many of the people who have great promise, fail?
Well, one of the reasons is drive and commitment. The people who do great work with less ability but who are committed to it, get more done that those who have great skill and dabble in it, who work during the day and go home and do other things and come back and work the next day. They don't have the deep commitment that is apparently necessary for really first-class work. They turn out lots of good work, but we were talking, remember, about first-class work. There is a difference. Good people, very talented people, almost always turn out good work. Talking about the outstanding work, the type of work that gets the Nobel Prize and gets recognition.
With commitment towards what we are doing in this semester, for us research, we may be able to practice and become more determined in every thing we do. Thus, this will be very useful in determining in what fields are we interested of.

The second thing is, the problem of personality defects. You find this happening again and again; good scientists will fight the system rather than learn to work with the system and take advantage of all the system has to offer. It has a lot, if you learn how to use it. It takes patience, but you can learn how to use the system pretty well, and you can learn how to get around it.

Howard Vernon, a respected philosopher and psychologist in the 1960s, stated: “What you want in life also wants you.” Success already wants you -- it’s just a matter of reaching it with the right strategies and mindset.

State of Computer Science Research

Let me just first share to you insights on what computer science is. As stated in the Wikipedia, Computer science (or computing science) is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems. It is frequently described as the systematic study of algorithmic processes that describe and transform information. According to Peter J. Denning, the fundamental question underlying computer science is, "What can be (efficiently) automated?". Computer science has many sub-fields; some, such as computer graphics, emphasize the computation of specific results, while others, such as computational complexity theory, study the properties of computational problems. Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to describing computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational problems, and human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to people. However, the focus of computer science is more on understanding the properties of the programs used to implement software such as games and web-browsers, and using that understanding to create new programs or improve existing ones. As a discipline, computer science spans a range of topics from theoretical studies of algorithms and the limits of computation to the practical issues of implementing computing systems in hardware and software. The Computer Sciences Accreditation Board (CSAB) – which is made up of representatives of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society, and the Association for Information Systems – identifies four areas that it considers crucial to the discipline of computer science: theory of computation, algorithms and data structures, programming methodology and languages, and computer elements and architecture. In addition to these four areas, CSAB also identifies fields such as software engineering, artificial intelligence, computer networking and communication, database systems, parallel computation, distributed computation, computer-human interaction, computer graphics, operating systems, and numerical and symbolic computation as being important areas of computer science.

The prediction that computers will be increasingly important in our schools, offices, and homes has become a cliché. Word-processing, electronic mail, databases, spreadsheets, analytic tools, and telecommunications have allowed researchers, office workers, and families to have access to a resource that was previously the territory of government, big businesses, and large universities. The way we live and work is being changed and enhanced by improved access to public databases, increased availability of sophisticated computational software, and world-wide communications facilities at a relatively modest price. Artificial intelligence, particularly robotics and expert systems, is a field of computer science that will have a powerful impact on our culture in the near future. What some have perceived as a revolution, however, is actually an evolution of the influence of computing on our society over the past 40 years. Though several generations of computers have matured during this period, their distinctions are not at all clear, primarily because they provide a continuum of capabilities, rather than a succession of preemptive advances. Thus microcomputers, the most recent result of this process, do not replace their mainframe and minicomputer predecessors, function concurrently and complimentarily with them.

Latanya Sweeney from the Carnegie Mellon University stated that Computer Science research and practice are raising growing privacy concerns among the public and government. Computer technology’s increasing ability to capture, organize, interpret and share data about individuals raises questions about what privacy practices computer science researchers should adopt, if any. Not all areas of computer science research are affected by privacy issues.

In the crudest classifications possible, computer science research can be divided into:
(1) theoretical computer science, which has a close relationship to logic and mathematics;
(2) programming languages and systems, which concerns the general development and operation of physical computer systems and networks; and,
(3) artificial intelligence (AI), which has a long-term vision of producing machines that can think, reason and function comparable to humans
Most of the research facing privacy concerns fits into the crudely classified third group, AI.

In more fine-grained classifications, computer science research involving human-computer interaction, personal robots and assistants, biomedical applications, data mining, sensor technology, ubiquitous computing, cybersecurity, and data privacy (a new emerging area aimed at providing technical solutions to privacy problems) are more likely today to face privacy controversies than are any other research areas in computer science.

Two kinds of privacy issues arise in computer science research:
(1) privacy issues inherent in applications of developing technology; and,
(2) privacy issues related to information or practices needed to develop technology.
This shift in computer science research is due in great part to two trends:
(1) the field’s increasing ability to capture and share large volumes of person-specific information and (2) the field’s increasing development of methods to use that information to develop more useful machines.

Latanya Sweeney also pointed out that if developments in computer technology have raised privacy issues, then many believe computer technology can be instrumental in resolving them.

Another article related on Computer Science research also discussed the state of computer science research in India. India prides itself in having one of the largest technical manpower in the world. Her software industry has seen tremendous growth -- over 50% each year during the last 10 years -- which is the envy of many software exporting countries throughout the world. The students from India's top science and technology educational institutions are highly sought after by research universities in the US and Europe. Computer Science (CS) research in India started in earnest only in the mid-80's triggered by the establishment of post-graduate programs in many institutions throughout the country at that time. Today, almost all areas of computer science research are covered by researchers in India, including topics that are "hot" elsewhere such as multi-media, workflow automation, virtual reality, and hardware-software co-design. Some of the research has even attracted international attention including work on neuro-fuzzy systems, machine learning, genetic and neural algorithms, the modeling and control of flexible manufacturing systems, speech synthesis, databases, and complexity theory. There are many in Indian computer science who argue that the goals of research and development in India ought to be manpower development, increasing competence, and keeping faculty up-to-date with current techniques. Towards this end, it is said that "reinventing the wheel" is not only necessary but also important. This might be one of the reasons that even though it is said (repeatedly) that India has one of the world's largest technical manpower, the manpower needed to do state-of-the-art research is found to be wanting, both in quality and quantity.

Without Computer Science-sponsored research, complex, inefficient computer systems could overwhelm scientists. The software industry is unlikely to commit to long-term research or to develop programming for the relatively few machines equipped with tens to hundreds of thousands of processors. Yet, these powerful computers and the applications that run on them are vital to maintaining the United States’ competitiveness in the world economy. Computer Science research will focus on scalable software and applications that can weather system reliability. Such efforts are pushing computer science into unknown realms of discovery.
Various topics on computer science research have been mentioned in the previous paragraphs but I think the current topic which I considered to be really relevant nowadays are those that pertain to the environment which topics are usually termed as “green”.

References:
http://reports-archive.adm.cs.cmu.edu/anon/isri/CMU-ISRI-03-102.pdf
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/agency/krithi2.html
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.pu.06.050185.001545?cookieSet=1&journalCode=publhealth
http://www.science.doe.gov/ascr/Research/ComSci.html

Evaluation on Scientific Papers

Novel Nano-organisms from Australian Sandstone



Philippa J.R. Uwins, Richard I. Webb, and Anthony P.Taylor
Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Queensland , St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia 4072
Department of Microbiology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia 4072

Summary:

Nanobes have cellular structures that are strikingly similar in morphology to Actinomycetes and fungi (spores, filaments, and fruiting bodies) with the exception that they are up to 10 times smaller in diameter. Nanobes show a positive reaction to three DNA stains which strongly suggests that nanobes contain DNA.

This paper describes various organic features that were observed as unusual growths on sandstone samples and other substrates. This paper also documents their morphology, elemental composition, and structural detail. Sandstone samples with observed in situ nanobe growths were used in the study. Scanning electron microscopy, Transmission elctron microscopy, Energy dipersive X-ray spectroscopy, and DAPI, Acridine Orange , and Feulgen staining for DNA were the methods used in the study.

As a result of the study, there were many properties of the nano-organisms that support their thesis that nanobes are biological structures based on the methods they have performed. The authors of the paper presented seven properties of nanobes which were results of the different methods and analyses done on the samples that will show that nanobes or nano-organisms are biological structures.

Evaluation:

There were terms in this paper that were a bit hard to understand. But, as to the organization of the contents of the study, the paper shows a clear purpose of their study which was to examine that nanobes are biological structures although the standard format for the research paper, as we have discussed in class, cannot be noticed in this paper. The methods that were used in testing their samples were presented in a way that it can be understandable by readers. After showing the techniques performed on the said samples, they also presented a brief discussion which showed their analyses on the samples. They ended the paper with a conclusion that supported their thesis. Nice thing about their conclusion is that the authors also presented the other side which was if nanobes not being biological structures. Based on their conclusion, they had properly obtained evidences on the existence of the nanobes or nano-organisms as biological structures.

Where There's Smoke, There's Mirrors: The Truth about Trojan Horses on the Internet


Sarah Gordon, David M. Chess
IBM TJ Watson Research Center
Yorktown Heights, NY

Summary:

Trojan horses are programs purposefully damage a user's system upon their invocation. They almost always shoot to disable hard disks, although they can, in rare cases, destroy other equipment too. This paper examined the prevalence, technical structure and impact of non-viral malicious code ("Trojan horses") on the Internet, and its relevance to the corporate and home user.

Throughout computing history, we can find references to Trojan horses. In the late 1980's, FidoNet bulletin boards were popular places for computer users to gather and engage in various forms of communication. Files were also available for download. As users downloaded programs, they sometimes came across programs that claimed to do one thing, but which actually did another. Someone came up with the idea that it might be a good idea to document the existence of these programs and warn users. Out of this need and idea, The Dirty Dozen was born. The Dirty Dozen is a list that was established to provide warnings about the most common Trojans and bombs. The list included the filename, description of what they program is supposed to do, followed by what the program actually does. Many Trojan horses appeared which were also examined by the different anti-virus firms. Determining if a program was really a Trojan horse was a big problem.

Using user simulations and first-hand reports provided by real users focusing on the type and scope of actual Trojan threats encountered on the Internet were done in course of the study. The status of hostile active content, including Java and ActiveX, on the Internet, its impact in the real world and strategies for minimizing the risk of damage from Trojan horses on the Internet were also presented. These preventive measures presented were drawn from the results of the simulations and the reports coming from the real users were also used in the conclusion.


Evaluation:

This paper was a bit long to read since it really discussed the history of Trojan horses. But that was helpful in the sense that it introduced beforehand what really a Trojan horse was. As to the format of the paper, I think the standard format of a research paper is unnoticeable although it had the introduction and conclusion. I think the history presented was the related literature. As what I have noticed while reading the paper, if you’ll not read the whole content of the paper, you will not know what were the methods used and where in the paper can you actually see those things. Unlike the previous paper I have read, you can easily recognize the organization of the information presented. Some parts of the paper were also not that clear. I think it’s because of the different titles the author put which, if a reader will not actually read and understand that part of the paper, the reader will not know the relevance or the connection of the title to the content. But, as to the information presented, I think the study was helpful for victims of the Trojan horses as well as its future victims.

An Environment for Controlled Worm Replication and Analysis
or: Internet-inna-Box


Ian Whalley
Bill Arnold, David Chess, John Morar, Alla Segal, Morton Swimmer
IBM TJ Watson Research Center, PO Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA

Summary:

A worm is a program that distributes multiple copies of itself within a system or across a distributed system. In order to understand the requirements of a worm replication system, the author presented a brief history of worms and its properties.

So-called 'worms' have been a feature of the malware landscape since the beginning, and yet have been largely ignored by anti-virus companies until comparatively recently. However, the near-complete connectivity of computers in today's western world, coupled with the largely Win32-centric base of installed operating systems make the rise of worms inevitable.

The author described techniques and mechanisms for constructing and utilizing an environment enabling the automatic examination of worms and network-aware viruses. The paper is not intended to be a discussion of the Immune System concept. Instead, the intent is to describe an approach that has been applied to the problem with some measure of success.

The approach involves building a virtual SOHO network, which is in turn connected to a virtual Internet. Both the virtual LAN and WAN are populated with virtual machines. The suspected worm is introduced into this environment, and executed therein. The whole system is closely monitored as execution progresses in the isolated environment, and data is amassed describing what the suspected worm did as it executed. This data is then processed by the system in an attempt to automatically determine whether or not the suspect programming is performing actions indicative of a worm or internet-aware malware. In this paper, an outline of a functional prototype of a worm replication system was also presented.


Evaluation:

I think, if I’ not mistaken, this paper is a good example of a technical research. This paper introduced a way of controlling worm replication on networks. Although the author admitted that the development of this study is not either at, or nearly at, I think this paper is really a good start for people to develop one like this. I was not bored reading this paper although it was long enough. The author presented different things in relation to the study but everything was done concisely. The manner of the discussion in each section was direct to the point. As to the format of the paper, I think the standard format I’ve known was still not noticeable just like the other papers I’ve read. Considering the organization of data in the paper, everything was clear because every section of the paper was properly presented. Everything was concise but still understandable for me. To sum up, the sections of the paper was concisely arranged but in a way that it can easily be understood by readers.

Comments and Suggestions on the New Enrollment System

This first semester of the academic year 2009-2010 was started with the implementation of the new enrollment system of the university. For me, the implementation of the new system was successful although there were some problems that occurred in the flow of the enrollment process. Although the previous enrollment system and the new one, from my observation, was the same in terms of the steps that should be taken in order to be officially enrolled. Although there was a bit difference, the flow was somewhat the same from the previous system the university used. The filling up of the Pre Registration Form or the PRF after having been advised by our respective advisers was still there. I think the difference that can easily be observed was the printed Certificate of Registration (COR). In the previous enrollment I had, there were four copies of the Certificate of Registration that was given to me. The two copies are for the Cashier’s Office, one copy for the Registrar’s Office and the other one as my copy of the COR. But, in the new enrollment system only two copies were given to students by the encoder in the respective colleges, one Treasurer’s Copy and another was the Auditor’s Copy. After I had paid the necessary payments, I had to go to the Registrar’s Office and from there, a Student’s Copy of the Certificate of Registration was given to me. The process was faster compared to the previous one especially with the help of the new printers that were used during that enrollment period.

Evaluating the new enrollment system that was implemented this semester lets first start at the initial step that should be taken first by students. Before students can have there Certificate of Registration, they should be first evaluated by their adviser. From here, students are given Pre Registration Forms for them to be filled up with the subjects they wanted to enroll in the said semester. After filling it up, students go back to their adviser to sign the Pre Registration Form. Then from there, students go to there respective encoder for their subjects to be encoded and for them to get two copies of the printed Certificate of Registration. Waiting for your turn in the line to get to your adviser and filling up the Pre Registration Form itself took a lot of time especially when you wanted to enroll many subjects because you have to write everything on that form one by one. The adviser also has to transfer the grades of the students from their passbooks to the files of the adviser which is on Microsoft Excel. In this step alone, a lot of time is needed. From this, I think there should also be a system on the advising side where the adviser will just search for the name of that student then the system will automatically display all the possible subjects that he or she is allowed to enroll. The student will have the option of enrolling all the subjects or not. He adviser will no longer manually transfer the grades from passbooks to Excel documents. The grades from the registrar will be linked to the advising system so that it will not take too much time. After the adviser has validated the said subjects he will now forward it to the encoding officer who will hand the printed Certificate of Registration to the students. How about the signature of the adviser on the Pre Registration Form? I think it should also be part of the system where it will automatically send information to the other linking system that this student had already been validated. The Cashier’s Office and the Registrar’s Office area, I think, was a bit organized compared to the previous one although there were long lines of students waiting for their turn.

From the time I heard that the university will develop their new enrollment system, I thought that the flow of the enrollment process will be changed. But that did not happen. Yes, considering the time of the development of the system you cannot really expect that big change. Long lines of students in the faculty room where the adviser was, encoding section, Cashier’s office, Registrar’s office and in the university library are still present on those days. Well for me, as a student of this university, I think every student in this university wish on saving money. Other students might not have enough money. I mean their money is just enough for the local fees and a partial payment for their tuition fees but because they still have to finish the whole enrollment process for about two days. Their local fees, tuition fees plus the expenses for those days they spent in that enrollment process, considering the food and the transportation, that was a big amount already. I think the new enrollment system did not address this problem yet. For me, they should also have to make an improvement on the enrollment system for it to be faster so that the students of the university will benefit more from it and the university as well. It might be that the linking of all the systems on the different offices of the university will be a good solution to faster processing in the enrollment period. Maybe in the future we can just have the whole enrollment one day every year level. This will also help the faculty and staff of the university utilize there time in other things they need to do so at the opening of the class on that semester, everything is well prepared and organized preventing problems to occur. I know problems would still occur but at least a little adjustment will answer to that. I think it will be easy for the developers of the newly implemented enrollment system considering their skills, knowledge and experience towards the field of system development.

From what I have noticed, not all systems in the university are linked together or connected from this system to the other systems. I think this should also be considered. For me, if every system in the university to the other systems, staff and faculty will have access to the information on the other system which will let the processing faster. This will be more efficient. Example, if the Institute of Computing staff needs to verify or search for that certain file, the staff does not need to go to the office where the file may be most probably at. The staff can access directly the files she needed thus enabling her to process or to do more things. By this the university can save time when talking on the accessing of files from one system to another or from one office to another.
I’ve heard from my classmates on our discussion in Systems Analysis and Design II that “what if the enrollment system will be put online?”. Well I think that was a good idea. From your computer, it will just be one click away and you will be officially enrolled after that. Wow! Enrollment in a click? That is pretty much amazing! From the students’ computer screens, they will just click on the forms on that page which are necessary for the verification of the enrollment. From there, if the student wishes to submit the form, he or she will just click on the submit button and then, data will be passed on to the different offices of the university like the cahier’s office, registrar’s office, the university library, and the college where the student belongs. Verification from the office which will be in charged for this task, let’s say the registrar’s office, will automatically be sent to the student if there will be no problems on the processing of his enrollment. From there, maybe the student will be given a registration number which will identify his slot in the online enrollment process. Let us look at the brighter side of the picture. If students of the university will just face his or her computer or if the student does not have a computer, he or she might just have to go to a near internet cafe, and click on some items there that should be filled up, well, I think this will really help students lessen their expenses comparing it to the money they will spend if they will go to the university. Talking about the payment of the local fees, tuition fees and other fees, students will somehow just indicate an account number, or the option on how he or she will pay it. But how about those pertinent documents that should be submitted to the different offices of the university before you will be accepted as officially enrolled? Well with this, I think there is no other way than to have those long lines of students again. But at least for now, because submission of documents will be scheduled by college, there will be no big crowds of students in the registrar’s area. How about the security of the data? Will the process be reliable? Can the server of the university handle all these things? On the security, what if someone will do some illegal actions just to be enrolled, then that should also be considered in the development of the system if ever. The system should have a good verification feature so that the university will not be on risk.

A lot of ”what ifs” are now bumping on my mind. What if the enrollment process of the University of Southeastern Philippines will be via Text? Sounds interesting for unlimited texting addicts. Well same thing goes with the online enrollment system. First, they have to be a registered texter as most texting applications do. Then from there, the student will received the list of instructions including the things he need to type before sending the text message. After completing everything, if there will be no problems that occurred, a notification message will be sent to the student. He or she will not be officially enrolled unless the student can submit all the necessary documents in directed office. A message should also be sent to his or her email in case the student will unfortunately erase the notification text message. Students still have to submit there documents in the university at the start of the class. This will be pretty good for those students who do not have a computer of their own. They just need a cellphone with load to be enrolled. How about for those unlimited calls addict? Will Enrollment on a Call be possible? I think so. Everything is possible right now because of technology that is present nowadays. If this is possible, maybe the university can hire part time call agents to cater all the enrollment calls or maybe they can utilize the skills of the students of the university. The student who wants to be enrolled will just call the enrollment hotlines. The call agents will facilitate the registration. After that, since there will be no other way that we can send him a notification message, it will be sent on his or her email account. Once again, he will be asked to submit the necessary documents as soon as the classes starts.

If ever online enrollment, enrollment via text or a call will not be possible, then I think a little improvement on the present enrollment system will do as I have mentioned earlier my suggestions and comments. Thinking that we do not have any other choice but to stick with the system we currently have, here are my points of view. Maybe the university should also invest on facilities for a faster processing not only in the enrollment process but all throughout the systems involved in the university. For example, they will add more computers and printers especially at the registrar’s office and the cashier’s office where long lines of students are mostly noticed. Added staff that will offer services to the students will also be of great help in the faster enrollment process. Added number of printers and encoders will help especially in every colleges of the university where students also have long periods of waiting for their Certificate of Registration.

Considering that all the systems in the university are interconnected to each and every system in the university, well I believe that the clearance should also be made online. Why am I pointing out on this? It is because I saw that the clearance is also one of the initial requirements of the enrollment system. You will not be enrolled unless you are cleared like cleared from any payments. Since the systems are interconnected, it will be easier to know if this student is cleared or not. It will also lessen the burden of students in looking for the person who need to sign their clearance and wait for about how many hours for the papers to be signed. On the part of the in charge who will sign the students’ clearance it will also be a bit hassle for them since lots of papers will be piled up on their desks. Lots of problems also occur on having those papers be signed. Some clearance might be lost causing other students to go back to where they started which is really a waste of time. By having the clearance online, persons who are intended to sign or verify if the student is cleared will just indicate there “CLEARED” or if in case not yet cleared, state the reason why he is not yet cleared and that will only be the time the student will be ask to visit the said office. This will allow students to check on their accounts from time to time whether they are already cleared or not. Since it will be put online, less paper will be used thus reducing the paper consumption of the university or the expenses intended for those clearances. It will also lessen the ink of pens used in signing those clearances. Assuming that the student is already cleared, in the enrollment process where his grades will be evaluated, the adviser will just view the students account on the online clearance to check if the student is cleared or not. The university will also lessen the wastes from these papers. Although many considerations should be taken before developing this system and implementing it in the future, I believe that this will be a great help for the university most especially to students.

The necessary systems of the university can actually be developed, with the supervision or the guidance of instructors, by the students of the university especially to those who are inclined to the fields of systems development. This can be part of the learning process of students particularly to those who are at the Institute of Computing. As a student from the Institute of Computing, it can be part of our on the job training. We will not be looking anymore for any other companies that will allow us to undergo training in their company. This will really be a great learning experience for students like me. If ever the system development will be successful and the system will be implemented in the university, we will not be having a hard time giving up two of the skilled and knowledgeable faculty members of the Institute of computing. Maybe they will just be guiding or facilitating the students involved in the development of the system. For me as a student, if ever I will be given a chance to help in the development of the system that will really help the university as well as the students, it will be my pleasure although it may not seem that easy. It might be made as a group where the class will be divided in two groups concentrating on different systems for the university. If ever it will be successful, then the facilitators and the staff or persons from the office where the developed system is intended will test to make sure that the system functions well and the developers of the system will know some other improvements on some areas of the system. After the deployment of the system, the students will be paid thus giving the students a big help especially with there allowances. I think this will not cost that really big compared to asking the professional ones to make a system for the university although I am also looking for it as a fair job. Students will not be treated as students as it is but as little professionals who wants to compete in the industry. So much for the money that is involved is the learning experience that this will give the students and the benefits it will offer to university and its residents. By this, the students will not just have there training in the university but also they will be able to help increase the quality of service the university offers. Instead of just answering calls in other companies or being asked to make some tea or coffee by their big boss, by this they will be able to experience what it will be on the real world. After the on the job training we had last summer, I realize how important it was to have the said training. By that, we were able to learn things that we might not learn in the university. I think the on the job training for incoming forth year students should not be taken for granted by students because it is the best training students should ever have. Well, I am only referring to the training in line with our course. This will also help them in hunting for jobs. They can put it in their resume that they are one of the developers of the system implemented in the University of Southeastern Philippines which is currently used. Through this achievement, they can have a better opportunity of having good jobs after they graduate. This will also be in line with the mission and goals of the university which is to produce competitive professionals. This opportunity will encourage students to strive harder on developing new systems. I think if ever, business companies will not hesitate on investing and asking the University of Southeastern Philippines students on making a system for them. Students will also have broader insights on developing a system since they are still exposed to developing a real system, not just having it on papers or documents but also to experience looking at a working system that you are one of the developers. I do not know how proud I will be if ever I am one of those students but I am sure I will not forget it for the rest of my life.

COMDDAP Davao Expo 2009 Experience

Last July 2-4, the COMDDAP Davao Expo 2009 held an IT event at the Apo View Hotel. The Computer Manufacturers Distributors and Dealers Association of the Philippines or the COMDDAP shared their new products, services, and technology. The event was also attended by some IT professionals and students from different colleges. The registration was held online. At the bottom of the registration form before you can submit the form was something like a confirmation and it went like this, “Just to make sure you're human: 1 + 1 = __ “. From there, I already know that it will really be a great event.
My schedule for the first day was on the Open Source For Business Applications - Spinweb Productions, Inc. It was the last session for that day. I was interested with this topic since in our Elective 1 we have been talking on Free and Open Source Software in the forum. The speaker presented applications that are Open Source Technologies. He gave differentiation on Open Source and Free Software. Although the speaker was on the Open Source side, he also gave some good points on free software. The best thing on that session was at the bottom part where some IT professionals were raising their questions and sharing their insights on the said topic. They were somewhat arguing on the issue of security towards using free and open source software and on Proprietary Software. There was a guy there who stood and gave his insights on with what will he prefer to use in the computerized election this coming May 2010. I think he’s one of the organizers of the said event and I admit, he was really cute not mentioning how clear he was on explaining his side and how good he was in speaking Filipino although he looked like an American. So much for that, on my own opinion, the election is a big event and I think no one would ever put that on big risk since it will determine the future leaders of our country. On the issue of what will they prefer to use, Free and Open Source Software or Proprietary software, it made me realize and weigh things out. If they will be using a Free and Open Source Software for the election, yes, it will truly lower the cost. But, will this lower cost out pass the reliability, efficiency and security of the system? On the other hand, if they will use Proprietary software for the coming election, that would really cost high. The cute guy was right when he said that if they will be investing on Proprietary software from an identified company for that high risk event that would give them a guarantee that there is someone (the company) that they can run to or sue when some errors or problems that would occur on that software. This discussion really left me confused on the issue between Free and Open Software and Proprietary Software. Well, I think it’s a matter of reliability, efficiency, cost, quality and security check on which is better between the two.
The next day, July 3, our first session was ERIC Dealership Management Systems (DMS). Honestly, I was not able to digest the things the speaker was saying at that moment because I cannot relate to the topic and I was a bit sleepy that time. I cannot concentrate on it because I was really excited on the next topic which was the HP Thin clients. I think the speaker on ERIC – DMS was talking about one of the systems they were making. At the first look, it was a system with a simple interface. But as the discussion went on, the functionality of the system was amazing. That simple interface covered the complicated functions of the systems. It has a number of functions essential to the system.

The next topic on that same afternoon was on the HP Thin Clients, I already read articles on this that’s why I was excited. That was the first time that I saw a thin client in front of me. It was really small compared to my system unit. Though it only has small memory capacity, the thin clients also have other advantages. According to the presentation, with the HP thin client computing model, vulnerability to virus attack on the thin client system is significantly less than a standard Windows PC. It consumes less space because of its thin appearance. Different features on the said product and its new models were also presented. Since it is designed to be energy efficient and with environment in mind, saving you money, I think this will also help in the major environmental problem of the world which is the global warming. Many institutions are now adopting this technology. At the end of the presentation, I thought of something. What if the University of Southeastern Philippines will adopt this kind of technology? Will this give a great impact to the university? Well, I think it would take a lot more years. I really had a great time listening to that discussion.

The last topic that afternoon was the Windows Server 2008. The session was more on demonstrations on the installation. The speaker presented different features on Windows Server 2008. Some applications were new to me. I think I’ll understand more on the said demonstration once I can have a face to face interaction with those applications mentioned.

Each presentation was ended with freebies which made the participants enjoy more the event. Outside the conference room were exhibits on different products and services. Some booths were also offering free registration like the sandbox from SMART. We came to see the Danpro Inks at the corner side. They offer services like converting your printer to print using those tubes and selling inks for those type of converted printers. I don’t know how it is called. Although I already heard about this ago, that was the first time that I saw it clearly.

Both the exhibitors and the participants took advantage on this event. The exhibitors gave the participants knowledge from their products and in return, they had a chance to promote their product. The participants as well gave their support to the said event and to the exhibitors there and in return left the venue with new knowledge.

Events like this are really helpful for students like me to be acquainted with new innovations especially on the IT world. I hope more events like this will be held in Davao City so we can join and experience a different kind of learning activity.

Was it a Right Decision??

Almost everybody from the university was a bit shocked knowing about the new enrollment system which was newly implemented this semester. At first I was happy to know that the previous system was changed because on my own observation, there are many problems that are encountered every enrollment period with that previous system. The thing that makes it harder is that if the system has a problem the encoder in charged in that college needs to call first the attention of the representative from the company that maintains the system because they are the ones who have knowledge on that system. I was one among those students who had a problem while enrolling my subjects the previous semester. The encoder in charged in our college did not know what to do and asked me to call any representative from that company maintaining the system so he can fix the problem on my accounts. The person I was looking for was at the other college also fixing a problem with the system. I was waiting there for sometime. If only I got my subjects encoded with no problems at that time maybe I already finished paying my accounts and already got validated by the registrar and the library. That was really a waste of time. By that experience I said that this enrollment system should be improved or better change it.
There was one instance that our instructor made mention about the enrollment system of the university. He mentioned that the university is spending about 70,000 every month for renting that enrollment system we had the previous semester. At first I thought it was rent to own but it was not the case. By this I can say that that amount is just too much for that system. If the university can only lessen the amount paid for that system then maybe they can allot the said money for other projects like new computer facilities for the university.
It was last semester that I first heard that the university decided to tap in house resources. I was happy and proud of hearing it that time because the developers of the said enrollment system were Mr. Cagape, our instructor in Software Engineering 1, and Mrs. Mercado, our instructor in System Analysis and Design 1. By that time, they needed to give up some of their subjects including our subjects so they can concentrate on developing that new enrollment system.
Honestly, as a student, I really don’t know the real reasons why the university decided to tap in house resources. I’m sure they have been studying about that the previous time so they came up to that decision. On my own understanding and observation, I can think of possible reasons why the university decided to do that. These reasons are just based on my “MAYBE” thoughts. First, they wanted to lessen the cost that they are spending for that enrollment system, and as a result, they will probably save some of their money and maybe they will use that to fund other projects which will be beneficial for the university. Second, they saw the different problems encountered using the old university enrollment system. Third, the university wants to utilize the skills of the faculties of the university. Forth, the university might be running out of funds so they decided to do so. I think this reason is a bit impossible or far out, on my own observation. I’m just referring to the number of students enrolling in the university every year which I think will raise a big amount of money for the university. Lastly, maybe the university is preparing for a new project that needs a bigger amount of money that’s why they need to save to be able to attain the success of that project.
Thinking of these five reasons I have in mind why the university decided to tap in house resources, a question rises asking “Was it a right decision? ” . Until now, I’m still weighing things out. I can say that it was good but part of me says that yes it was a good decision but I wish I can really see the change or the effect of that move in the university. Maybe I’m just thinking so fast that I want to really see now how that new system affects the university. The sacrifices and efforts of the persons involved in the development of this new system should be replaced with benefits that will also be helpful to the students and faculties of the university. As I have noticed last enrollment period, comparing it to the previous one, the flow was a bit organized excluding the long lines of students in the registrar’s office. Maybe the new printers in the different offices really helped a lot in the faster processing. It was a good decision, for me, because at least the university found a way of utilizing our skilled faculties. This will also help in saving money. At least now, the university won’t be paying that big amount. I know that the new system also needs to be maintained but maybe that won’t be that big anymore. The university was still adjusting to that new system at first. Although problems were still encountered, I think this system is pretty much good. On the other hand, I’m still thinking what are the reasons behind these things. I know that the development alone is very costly but at least in the end of these sacrifices, the university can have this system of its own. As what I have noticed, students are also encouraged to save energy for the university to save the cost they are paying every month. I hope to see more improvements in the university especially with the facilities of the university. I also hope that we will be able to experience the effect of this move of the university, maybe not now but in the following months. I may not know, as of the moment, the real reasons behind this decision but I’m sure this move is for the university to benefit.

I'm Back!!!

MINIX 3

MINIX 3 is a project to develop an operating system as reliable as a TV set, for embedded systems and mission critical applications, but also for future $50 single-chip laptops and general desktop use. The focus is being small, simple, and reliable.
MINIX 3 has a bright future but somewhat checkered past.
- First released in 1987
- first UNIX clone with all the source code available
The first version, MINIX 1, was released in 1987 and was the first UNIX clone with all the source code available. It developed rapidly and soon had its own USENET newsgroup (comp.os.minix), with 40,000 subscribers within 3 months, a large number at a time when the Internet was only available to university researchers and students. One of the early MINIX adopters was a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds, who went out and bought a PC just to run MINIX, studied it very carefully, and then decided to write his own operating system, inspired by MINIX. Although Linus knew MINIX very well, he didn't steal any code from it, as some people have alleged. Linus system grew into the modern Linux system. MINIX' author, Andrew Tanenbaum and Torvalds have had some fairly public discussions on operating system design, originally in 1992 and most recently in 2006.
Although MINIX was (and still is) widely used used for teaching operating systems courses at universities, it got a new impetus in 2005 when Tanenbaum assembled a new team of people to completely redo it as a highly reliable system. MINIX 3 has some history with MINIX 1 and MINIX 2 (released in 1997 as a POSIX-conformant OS), but it is really a new system (analogous to the relationship between Windows XP and Windows 3.1).


In our Operating Systems subject, we were asked to choose an operating system that is not widely used. Our group chose to have the MINIX 3. The other groups also had a report on their chosen operating systems and that discussion was really an interesting one. They presented OpenSUSE, Fedorra, ReactOS, Ubuntu, Red Hat Linux and a lot more. Some operating systems presented really looked like the widely used Windows Operating System.
The environment of MINIX3, the operating system we chose to present in class, was like the one with the LINUX operating system since both operating systems are text mode. Above is part of our presentation.

My Mama’s First Computer Lessons

Nowadays, almost everybody know how to use computers even elementary students now also have their computer lessons in school. People sometimes think that you if you know how to use computers, you will easily adapt to the new gadgets available nowadays.
Before, my mother mentioned in one of our conversations that she really wants to go back in school and that she wants to know how these computers are operated. There was one time in our place where a school was offering short term courses for those who want to learn about computers. Knowing this, my mother told me that she wanted to enroll in that school. Unfortunately, the classes are scheduled every Sunday so it will be a bit difficult for her to attend those classes because she had many things to do in those days. Just to make her feel good, I told her that I will teach her the basic things done in the computer.
Fortunately, I got my computer last December. But I was busy then so I had no time to teach her. This month, I started teaching her. Now, she knew how to turn on and off the computer, and to use Microsoft Word 2007. This image above is her first document saved.

Although I just taught her those basic steps, it really made my mother happy. Sometimes when she has nothing to do, she would open the computer and play the games installed in my computer particularly the game Chuzzle and Text Twist. She told me this line, “Better late than never”.

It’s never too late to learn new things. Congrats Mama!!mwah

reflection on the consultation

Our proposed system is a University eMap Directory. At first, I was really worried about this system because I know that my capabilities won’t be enough for this system but with my teammates’ help, I know we can make it happen. The team’s determination and patience will be the key to the success of this system. As I was thinking about the systems proposed by the class, if this will be successful (I know we can with God’s help), then this project will really be of great help for the university. (this is really bonggang-bongga!) With this, we have to make sure that we finish the phases we are working on in this semester so we can proceed on the implementation next semester.

With the consultations, at first, it was quite difficult for us because of the time issues. But thanks to Mr. Randy S. Gamboa that he considered all our “hinanaings” regarding the consultation time. Thanks sir for staying that long in school. I hope sir it will always be like this.

FULLY DEVELOPED DESCRIPTION FOR THE ENROLLMENT SYSTEM
Use Case Name:
Enrollment System
Scenario:
Enrollment Process for Non-Scholar Old Student in USeP
Brief Description:
Enrollment procedure of the university
Actors:
Student, Collecting Officer, Adviser, Encoder, Cashier, Registrar and Librarian
Preconditions:
Student must be present with his student ID, clearance, and library card.
Postconditions:
Student’s COR must be verified and library card must be validated.
Student’s record must be updated.
Student must be officially enrolled.

Flow of Activities:

1. Student pays all local fees to the collecting officer.
2. Collecting Officer issues receipt to the student.
3. Student goes to the adviser and present his grades.
4. Adviser evaluates the student’s grades and issues Pre-Enrollment Form(PRF).
5. Student fills up the PRF and goes back to the adviser to let the adviser sign the PRF.
6. Student proceeds to the encoder.
7. Encoder releases the COR.
8. Student pays tuition fees to the cashier.
9. Cashier receives the amount and issues a receipt.
10. Students proceeds to the registrar.
11. Registrar checks for the student’s enrollment requirements (clearance, school ID, receipts, and COR).
12. Registrar verifies student’s record.
13. Student proceeds to the Librarian.
14. Librarian checks for the Library Card and validates it.
15. Student is officially enrolled.

Exception Conditions:
If student has incomplete requirements (clearance, school ID, receipts for the payment of local fees and tuition fees, and COR), student must comply it first.

The student must first pay the local fees before he proceed to the adviser for the evaluation of grades. The adviser evaluates the grades and releases the PRF (Pre-enrollment Form). Then the student can now proceed to the encoder for the encoding of subjects. The encoder issues the COR (Certificate of Registration). The student may now pay his tuition fees to the cashier. The cashier will issue the student’s receipt. The student proceeds to the registrar for the validation or requirements and for the registrar to confim the student’s enrollment.Finally, the student proceeds to the library for the validation of library card.