PHL among least IT-competitive countries — survey

An international survey has ranked the Philippines among the countries with the lowest competitiveness in the field of information technology (IT).


In the recently released IT Industry Competitiveness Index, which measures the extent by which countries are capable of supporting a strong IT production sector, the Philippines ranked 52nd out of 66 countries. 


The Philippines, together with Bangladesh, also received a zero grade in terms of creating an environment for Research and Development (R&D) in the IT industry. The United States, Finland, and Singapore topped the index.


The IT Industry Competitiveness Index survey was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit of the Business Software Alliance (BSA).


No surprise


Economist Cid Terosa from the University of the Asia and the Pacific said it was “not surprising" for the Philippines to have low rankings in IT competitiveness.


“There are no highly trained IT professionals here. We also have very low allocations for IT. Sa budget, palaging naiiwan ito because it is not an immediate priority," he said in a phone interview with GMA News Online Monday.


He added that the administration of President Benigno Aquino III has yet to tap public-private partnerships (PPP) to improve the country’s IT infrastructure.


“Sad to say, wala ito sa list of PPP project. Ang mga nandoon lang ay education projects and other infrastructure," Terosa said.


Terosa said that the government should invest in IT to respond to the demands of the modern world. “We are in the age of information technology. IT should really be a priority, especially training IT professionals," he said.


Increase funding


Senator Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Senate science and technology committee, explained that there is a need to increase government funding to build the country's capacity to innovate for development.


He pointed out that although the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommends countries to spend at least one percent of their respective total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for R&D, the Philippine government had spent in 2009 a meager 0.12 percent of GDP for R&D.


“We have a lot of catching up to do," he said.


Angara said he will push for at least P322 million in dedicated funding for "innovation clusters" when Congress resumes plenary deliberations on the proposed 2012 national budget in November.


He explained that clusters will bring together the academe, industry, and government into groups that will adapt and develop usable technologies to address the country's pressing challenges on food security, climate change, energy use, and sustainable exploitation of resources.


"[The] P322 million is still far inadequate but it is a good start as it amounts to dedicated and pure R&D funding," Angara said. 


"The government can no longer afford to be a passive actor here. It must be the source of change. It should provide the impetus to industry and academe to come together in collaborative work. The government must demonstrate that it can lead the country's R&D efforts in a decisive, single-minded and purposeful way," he added.


source: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/237106/technology/phl-among-least-it-competitive-countries-survey

Who Is Your Audience?

Understanding the type of people who visit your site is a very
important task because you can use that information to enhance your
site to suit them. As a result, you will gain more loyal returning
visitors that come back again and again for more.


What is the age level and what kind of knowledge does your audience
have? A layman might linger around a general site on gardening, but
a professional botanist might turn his nose at the very same site.
Similarly, a regular person will leave a site filled with astronomy
abstracts but a well educated university graduate will find that
site interesting.


Take your audience's emotional state into consideration when
building your site. If a very irritated visitor searches for a
solution and comes across your site, you will want to make sure you
offer the solution right up front and sell or promote your product
to him second. In this way, the visitor will put his trust in you
for offering the solution to his problems and is more likely to buy
your product when you offer it to him after that.


When you design the layout for your site, you have to take into
account the characteristics of your audience. Are they old or young
people? Are they looking for trends or are they just looking for
information served without any icing on the cake? For example,
introducing a new, exciting game with a simple, straightforward
black text against white background page will definitely turn
prospects away. Make sure your design suits your site's general
theme.


Try to sprinkle colloquial language in your sites sparingly where
you see fit and you will create a sense that your audience is on
common ground with you. This in turn builds a trusting relationship
between you and your audience, which will come in useful should you
want to market a product to your audience.

Buhay Graduating Student (1st Semester)

Mahirap pala ang maging isang graduating student. Hindi biro ang hirap na kailangan mong gawin para lang makapasa ng mga requirements na sobrang demanding dahil it's PASS or FAIL ang kalalabasan.
1st Semester pa lang, hirap na ako lalo na yung bandang patapos na dahil nga sa mga requirements. Mostly ng mga courses eh ang OJT ay sa 2nd Semester pero iba sa amin dahil mas konti ang holidays (daw) sa 1st semester at para mahabol namin ang 680 hours na kailangan namin tapusin. Nag-OJT ako sa school na rin namin kasi hindi ako pinayagan na mag-OJT sa labas dahil may hindi pa akong nakuhang subject salamat sa bagsak ko na subject noong 3rd year ako pero maganda naman yung binigay sa akin na office dahil in-assign ako sa Systems Administration. Demanding yung pinagawa sa akin na system dahil isang Ticketing System ang ginawa ko at akala ko noong una eh baka hindi ko matapos pero as of the moment 98% na syang gumagana at nagagamit na nung office namin yung system. Iba pa yung requirements ng office sa requirements nung subject dahil kailangan kong gumawa ng daily journal (or parang Dear Diary ang drama) dahil kailangan daw nilang malaman kung may ginagawa at kung may natutunan kami pero hindi ko masyado nagawa yun dahil masyadong toxic yung system na ginawa ko.

Nag-enjoy lang ako sa pinapagawa sa akin dahil ang dami kong natutunan in-terms of programming (PHP, SQL, Javascript at jQuery yung mga language na ginamit ko) at networking dahil mostly ng ginagawa ng mga boss ko eh sa network connections ng Internet sa aming campus. Toxic pero enjoy dahil hindi naman istrikto yung mga boss ko at mababait sila.
Dumating ang October at naalala namin na may mga requirements na kailangang gawin kaya dahil dyan at salamat sa aming pagiging utak-Pinoy, ginawa namin lahat ng mga requirements namin last last week at this week yung deadline. Revisions dito, revisions dyan. Gastos dito, gastos dyan. Problema dito, problema dyan. Sumagi na rin sa isip ko na sumuko na pero kailangan kong tapusin ito dahil gusto kong maka-graduate na matapos na ito.
After naming gumastos ng halos Php 5000, nag-sayang ng almost 1000 pages ng coupon bond, 190 hours of total hours of sleep last week at this week at halos masiraan ng ulo, tapos na rin ang paghihirap namin dahil isang requirement na lang yung kailangan na lang namin at tapos na sya!
Worth it lahat ng mga gastos, puyat at mga nasayang dahil fulfilling na may natapos kami pero lagi kong sinasabi sa mga ka-grupo ko,

"Guys, 1st sem pa lang. This is just the start. May 2nd sem pa at mas madugo yun."

Totoo nga yung sinabi ko pero mag-eenjoy muna akong matulog, kumain, procrastinate at gawin lahat ng gusto ko dahil baka hindi ko na magawa yan next sem.

Back to the Old Theme

I deactivated my Macbuntu theme to prepare for the new OS upgrade

Alternative Solution.

Heto ang aking Alternative Solution para sa On-The-Job Training ko para sa office namin.

It’s a Ticketing System where all the problems are reported from simple to hard problems that can jeopardize ones technology life. Kailangan ng office namin (System Administration) itong klase ng system para alam nila kung may problem within the network or system kasi our school is running 90 mbps internet speed plus U.S. connection kaya tuwang-tuwa yung iba na manood sa Hulu, Nexflix at kung ano-ano pa na pwede mong ma-access na hindi basta-basta ma-access ng mga users dito sa Philippines.

The system is up and running at ginagamit na nila ito to report slow internet connection, packet loss and etc.

I’m proud na nagawa ko ito alongside with my partner at masarap pakinggan na ang job description mo eh “Senior Programmer”. #LOLS!

If you have any questions about Web Development, PHP, SQL and other related things, don’t hesitate to comment or email me.:D

5 Important Rules in Website Design

When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to
make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of
thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally
have a very beautiful image with words like "welcome" or "click here to enter". In fact,
they are just that -- pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a
reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without
the splash page.

2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements
so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable
content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel
that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a
young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or
multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave
your site.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure
they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able
to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse
your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will
want to make sure they're not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website.
If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or
muting controls would work fine.

I hope this has given you an insight of some of the biggest mistakes web designers often
make.

Steve Jobs, Rest in Peace.

Web Dev Projects: Snapshots

Created the profile page and the user can edit his information thru a link that I’ve created and he will be redirected to a page where he can edit his information. The user can also upload his profile image.