OF ALL THE HICKS AND HICCUPS

Hello guys! Almost a few hours left and we will be changing our calendars again, entirely. Another set of paperworks, another set of new chapters of our life, another set of everything that you can think of. But what matters most, is the capability of each person to move.

Move on, move forward.

As Robert Frost once said, In three words I can sum up everything I learned about life: it goes on.

Yep. Upon dealing with things, for example, risks, the most important thing to do is to move on, move forward. It may be easy to say, but moving on requires preparing for it. Much more like planning for it.

As for the business side, we have two (2) things that we need to consider and plan about:

Continuity of Business; and

Disaster Recovery.

These two are very different but work on a single purpose: moving forward. On the business setting, the show must go on, as Kuya Germs said, even if there are things that hampering the business operations to resume their normal activities such as natural disasters, or the like.

What must a certain individual do during these situations?

Well, a fully-equipped or prepared business establishement should have these things on mind. They should be able to:

Analyze, intercept organizational threats and its kinds;

Get a list of things that must be accomplished first prior to the event;

Locate management contact information;

Understand and execute instructions per personnel (where to go) in case a disaster happens;

Secure backup of data and any other information that is critical to the business;

Collaborate among all facets of the organization; and

Buy-in from everyone in the organization

Well, I don’t want to kill your excitement, but what I really wanted to tell in reference to all the items above would be: We should be able to maintain posture despite of the threats encountered by the business. It is about sustaining availability to the end users, while ensuring reliability of service despite of what happened, and recovery of assets should there be any losses.

Take note that Disaster Recovery is just a part of the whole continuity process, as it deals specifically on Disasters (such as Natural Disasters, Fire, Storm, etc.)

Now, to wrap things up, as we all wanted to move forward, keep in mind that in business, we do not only deliver the customer their needs, such as services. We must also think about the continuity of its business after sales, depending on the contract as it implies good customer support and profit as well.

Whatever happens, I'll just keep moving forward. Like an avalanche. - Michelle Plan

Hi guys!

It’s almost the end of the year, isn’t it! Apologies if I’m unable to write my blog entries nowadays. Hence, I’m trying to manage my time despite of all these things I had in my hands.

Now, this is something that I want to acknowledge, as time mismanagement could be a part what we had discussed last time, Risks. Let’s define it first:

Risk is a probability or threat of damage, injury, liability, loss, or any other negative occurrence that is caused by external or internal vulnerabilities, and that may be avoided through preemptive action. - http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/risk.html

Having said that, some miscalculations, or mis-allotments that involves time, can lead to loss, or the like if not mitigated properly. For example, in my case, there’s a risk that I may not catch up with today’s deadline, given that I don’t have much time left to finish all the tasks that I need to do. This one’s on me, don’t worry. Haha! Procrastinating me.

Now, according to 3rd law of Newton’s law of motion -  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Having said that, there would be equal actions should we make a move with regards to everything: from personal up to corporate or business actions; whether it is for your own good or for the sake of the company. There are risks everywhere and we cannot avoid it.

Now, what do we do? What can we do?

I’ll be a little kill-joy for now, but there really is a formula for calculating risk: It would be:

Risk = Threat x Vulnerability x Impact

Now now, don’t be threatened with that formula, but I want you to focus literally on the formula above. If you will read between the lines, the key on handling risk is to acknowledge that it is there: There’s a threat, there’s vulnerability and will be damage done according to its impact. That is Risk Acknowledgement.

Once you know what the risks are, it’s up to you: As that our professor discussed last time, there are five (5) things that you can do on risks:

1. Acceptance - Just accept it. Should the risk re-appear, just acknowledge and take in mind that there and there would be that type of thing as you go along. For example, business competitors.

2. Mitigate. - Throw it somewhere. Balance it (load balancers, hello) so that the business still continues.

3. Avoidance - Fight or flight, I guess? If you choose flight, then you must be avoiding something at all costs, for the protection of business. For example, loan sharks.

4. Transference - Usage or purchasing of insurance policies to cover up the said risk or situation. Nice choice, isn’t it? You’re passing the risk to the one that is capable.

5. Rejection - Ignorance, somewhat similar to Acceptance, but you just ignored the situation and still pushed your plans. For example, building a carinderia stall on top of five (5) existing carinderia stalls. Who cares, we have unli-rice anyway?

It’s been a while since I posted something like this. I was busy in work and at the same time, I took the e-commerce class last month. T’was fun, and full of information, most especially about the emerging technologies and creating an e-commerce presence.

With all those items, yep - there is one thing that concerns me: security. Given that my presence requires confidential information (as my site enables virtual payments), then how will I ensure that my site is secured in a sense?

Then my professor said something as he was discussing security service and mechanisms:

You cannot protect everything from everyone. - Sir Justin Pineda

The quote above started it all.

This itself is a scary one. Though it is an inconvenient truth.

There are not enough resources and money in the world to totally mitigate all the risks. - Sir Justin Pineda

Of course- I will be stressed, and as well as the others, if I switch my concern on everything that cannot be controlled at the same time, especially when we talk about Information Security. Though I must keep in mind that at least I must consider protecting the most important data first, then it will follow.

It’s a good thing because first and foremost: Awareness is the key. Having said that, I asked myself: where to start? At least I should have known the overview or introduction of information security and its concepts, such as:

Existing architectures;

Services and mechanisms,

Authentications and authorizations, and the like.

I must also consider tackling legal issues (Data Privacies), that’s one of the issues in the world that I don’t want to interfere of because it is scare. Have you guys seen those identity-theft movies such as The Net (and The Net 2.0)? They are insane but is possible to happen because of the capabilities of technology that we have today.

To wrap my infobox, I must align my concerns to these items at the end of the day:

Implement Confidentiality; wherein I must protect my customers’ data from unauthorized disclosure;

Ensure Integrity; wherein I must protect any modification from the data that has been provided in my system; and

Promis Availability - wherein I must ensure that my site is always accessible and is protected from any denial of service attacks.

Good morning, readers! This will be my last entry for my learning logs this semester. Since this will be a final one, I made a little twist on how I write this one. It’s a bit self-centric, as I observed some realizations with regards to this last session that we had last Saturday, October 28.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy reading my entry. Here goes - 

If you've found some way to educate yourself about engineering, stocks, or whatever it is, good employers will have some type of exam or interview and see a sample of your work. - Bill Gates

As the first reporter started, I accepted the fact that our final exams had begun, literally. I’m still drowsy due to lack of sleep. It’s still me, the usual “me” guy since college- trying to finish everything just to catch up with the deadline. I barely made it, but to the extent of my efforts, I didn’t. 

I am confident about my presentation but I don’t know what to expect - Hence I will be delivering this presentation considering all the items that I have learned from the whole MIS engagement. As I wrote my proposal, “Competitive Advantage” is on my mind as I want to leverage the stance of our company with regards to software development.  

I know that there’s an issue and I want to lead the resolution for it.

Now, as my mates continued their presentation- I am surprised on the contents that they presented. It is precise- complete; almost perfect that it really supports the need of implying an information system solution on their selected business companies. I learned a lot from them, specially from Sir Jim, who presented (and actually clarified my questions) about Gap Analysis.

And there goes my turn- 

Here goes nothing, I said. 

I did a marketing stint, a small assistance from our company’s avp presentation for me to lay the foundation of Red Core to my classmates. I tried to illustrate every single pain point that exists on our current business process. I know, because we’re the ones who are experiencing it.

What is your next move, human?

- Juts, 2017 (Me while watching Dragonball Super)

Ahh, ‘tis a very informative day, indeed as we continued our discussion on our Management Information System. Various topics have been discussed by my colleagues slash classmates - which equates on a very important topic: How will you react on situations, knowing that you are a manager of a company - yet you have competitors around the market?

Strategos - a greek word, meaning ‘Military General’. This really stirred up my mood with regards to our discussion. If I am going to put my shoes as a military general of a big company- what would be my next move?

Things get more interesting as we go along. With the consideration of my own business per se as an example - the discussions that we had enables us to position my company in such a way that it’ll gain a competitive advantage on the market.

To win a battle, we must know our enemies first. Appear strong when you are weak, and weak when you are strong - Sun Tzu

This came into my mind as we discussed the strategies, considerations, and the must-knows that we obtained on all the reports made by my colleagues. From project planning, marketing (I liked the discussion about mobile commerce,  extending up to multimedia platforms and virtual reality!

The most part I liked would be the clarification made by our professor regarding SCM (Supply-chain Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) - that was a clear definition that has been brought by sir Mike (hi sir!) as my colleague finished discussing the important of ERP on a certain company.

SCM focuses on information, from products up to finances, whilst ERP focuses on materials, per se (as it evolved from MRP, remember?)

Hence, to conclude all of this - it goes back to square one : Strategy. Yes, I know now the considerations that I must partake to leverage my business inside the market, but do I know how to predict my competitor’s next move, as well as mine?

It’s really satisfying knowing that you learned something new today. 

Hey there- apologies for taking some time, I’m unable to post some learnings due to time constraints. Anyway, here I am again for a new set of entry that I called, the beginning.

Why did I name it that way?

be·gin·ning - ajd, New; or Inexperienced; noun: the point of time or space at which something starts.

Perfect. One of the words that I can use to describe what I saw as I took the advantage to explore more about a certain topic, or agenda, or a subject. 

I’ve been an avid fan of tweaking devices - specifically laptops and/or personal computers. With the help of my father, as a child (well, semi, I was in grade three then), he showed me various way on fixing them from malfunctioning hard drives to removing trojans and malwares.

As I continued my career as a computer scientist (nucks, computer science daw kasi), we’ve been taught concepts about operating systems on one of our subjects in college - up to hands on about removing and installing hardware and software components. I’ve been grateful, but for me, it’s still not enough.

The question still relies on my head - why install this operating system? Why can’t I install this operating system?

What is an operating system? How does it work?

So many questions, so many questions.

As I worked in the industry, my exploration about operating systems have been stalled due to a shift of priorities. My primary focus is on programming - what I have remains the same after five, or six years, regarding operating systems.

As we deploy solutions to our clients on my early years - Me and my team were experiencing compatibility issues upon rollout. Honestly speaking - preparations with regards to operating system compatibility is on the minimum as we assumed that they are all the same regardless of the CPU architecture and the like. I remember that one afernoon that I’m firing a demo for a client - but has been postponed due to architecture incompatibilities: I need to create a new installer that is capable of running on different architectures. Still - I don’t understand the difference between the two, aside from the capability to support larger memory values for x64 systems.

I wonder, I wonder. My question continues.

That’s why - it is of a blessing in disguise that despite that I took the advantage and learn more about operating systems. Of all the aspects I got - specifically on threads, which I use on programming to execute asynchronous tasks; process deadlocks: which explains why my computer hangs frequently because of long waiting times; virtual memory (which I really applied on my local unit - I have two (2) 8gb flash drives assisting my system unit right now using Windows ReadyBoost) - there’s many to mention but then again - 

This is just the beginning.

I would like to personally thank Prof. Mike for all the advice that he shared as we conduct classes - the clarity and guidelines, and the like.

That’s it for now, and I’ll see you guys on my next learning log post. Ciao!

Ha! One of the interesting debates we had on our Advanced OS subject. Of course, I’ve been troubleshooting PCs for a couple of years, and had an avid experience on exterminating trojans that slow down the computers that my client owns. I even endured a heavily-armed malware that I got due to installation of apps that I thought is free back then. (well, I seek for help from my father most of the time to remove them, haha)

I’m able to identify and remove these viruses using an antivirus.

But, as part of discussion, some of my classmates mentioned that the need of an antivirus is minimal to none. But why? 

There is no way around it: viruses do exist, trojans do infiltrate your PC, and most users will act to guard against them. With software, but also with sensible behavior online. Malware relies partly on users doing the hard work for them. Most of the time you know when you are straying into the murkier waters of the internet. Do you ever think that your good behavior is enough to protect you from attacks, and that antivirus software is not necessary?

Quoted from this blog, http://blog.emsisoft.com/2014/12/08/40-reasons-why-you-dont-need-an-antivirus/, I agree.

But then again, my professor said - it depends on how you’re using the workstation:

If the workstation is isolated, does local work and is not connected to the internet, then an antivirus is not needed (unless we have members that gratefully insert their flashdrives that has been infected then that’s another story to tell); and

If the workstation connects to the internet then you definitely need an antivirus.

For my personal opinion, regardless of the state of the workstation, it is important for the units to be protected. Prevention is better than cure, for this case. Remember, it is important for a system to tolerate faults, and having an antivirus is one step away to fulfill that one.

Sad truth is, this discussion is applicable only to Windows users. Linux and Mac OSx users are exempted.

Oh life.

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Since then, I’ve been an avid fan of gaming, not only on console but I play most games on a PC setup. My father is a computer enthusiast (we have the same bachelors also) and since then, he allowed me to play games on his PC when I was a kid.

I remember playing speedster, a racing game that resembles Rush Hour. As a kid, of course, the feeling of intense pressure while navigating through the roads pressured by a limited amount of time is lit! 

There’s another game, called Pandemonium, which is an RPG game that consists of puzzles and big spiders that will block your way thru success.

Nowadays, gaming platform in all aspects and areas has evolved. The immense graphics and overwhelming game experience is of top notch and they still keep on improving. How I wish I can multitask back then, listening to our Good ‘ol WinAmp while playing that Warcraft (first edition) on my rig.

Computers back then cannot multi-task. You have to end the existing process that is running before you switch to another. We can’t blame ourselves because it’s designed that way- Single Thread, Single Process. The operating system that we use back then (It’s MS Dos, or Win 3.1 as well) does not support multi-tasking.

I’m not able to understand the concept back then, but again, I learned something from my Advanced OS class: It’s good that we now enjoy the benefits of parallelism.

In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed. It contains the program code and its current activity. Depending on the operating system, a process may be made up of multiple threads of execution that execute instructions concurrently.

This is very beneficial to the likes of us, mainly because we’re bound to do multiple things at the same time: surf the net while listening to Spotify, while editing some research papers and doing powerpoint presentations, and of course chatting with our friends and love ones. (I can play DotA at the same time too). 

My professor once said that you can’t really multi-task or do same things together at the same time. Yes you’re opening sooo many applications but your priority and focus is still on one. Ha, I like that. We can also apply that concept about “pag-ibig”. Hahaha!

So much for that, I now understand the use of that thread snippet code on one of our projects that handles its syncing capabilities.

So, you thought that the equations you solved from your Physics class and those integral set of problems from your Algebra class will be left behind after you graduated from college?

You’re wrong.

Our computers understand mathematical models that have a closed form solution, meaning it uses equations in order to track changes and/or movement inside the operating system- from the data that it serves up to functionalities that it conducts.

Wow. Just Wow.

How?

As I learned - these artifacts are called analytic models. It describes a collection of measured and computed behaviors of different elements over a finite period of time within the computer system- workloads, hardware, software, everything : all are calculated exactly using analytical solutions.

For example, a fault-prepared system uses the fault trees as its failure anticipation mechanism in order to jot down component failures which leads to system takedown - more like a root-cause analysis (fishbone diagram), well in this case, inside an operating system.

Now, if you see the tree above, it anticipates any possible sources on an event. That’s where analytic modeling falls. It is exact, its number is appropriate, and most of the time, problems require mathematical and/or numeric equations for it to be able to be solved.

This post is a continuation of my curiosity and its adventures. You see, I really appreciate things that give me new ideas and/or learnings, such as attending my classes on Graduate School. I always wondered if I’ll be getting something new that will be added to my knowledge gained from the industry. And yes, I’m correct. 

Learning continues and won’t stop on where I am.

Anyway, going back, as you see on my last blog post regarding Windows ReadyBoost, I’ve been bothered by my mind again, delivering too much confusing regarding this defrag thing. 

My childhood has been ruined because before I attended my saturday class, I knew that this Disk Defragmenter is used to clean any dirty / bad sectors on my disk so that it can function a little-less-like-new. But then again, my professor stated that..

“Disk defragmenter compacts your files to free up space.”

Then I was like, wait what? 

But then again, my confusion has been boosted further by the next reporter that discussed about Fragmentation:

Fragmentation is a phenomenon that happens in a computer memory (such as RAM) that causes wastage and inefficiency of use of the remaining space.

Now, as I sit at the front of my computer, I ran my Disk Defragmenter. As it ran, I mentioned something: “Go ahead and compact my files. I’ll be needing that free space that you’ll give me afterwards for my design project”. With this, I asked myself: If de-fragmenting of disks are possible, how ‘bout de-fragmenting of memories as well? (I’m still frustrated with my 4gb setup + ReadyBoost).

Then suddenly, brownout.

Here I am again guys, delivering another personal experience (well, let me re-iterate on that: theoretical-content-that-has-been-applied-personally) with regards to my learning on my Advanced OS subject.

To be honest, I’m a bit frustrated on my current desktop setup: Yes it’s an i5 6th gen, but I only have 4gigs of ram. 4gigs. wow. It’s struggling when I’m doing some business (i.e. Tarpaulin layouts and it’s only 3x4!) or playing some games (like DotA 2 or even Watchdogs)

Now, my classmate and professor discussed something about Paging. To give you guys a bit of idea, here’s what Paging is and what are the benefits of it:

Paging: 

Memory management scheme that eliminates the need for contiguous allocation of physical memory.

This scheme permits the physical address space of a process to be non – contiguous ( sharing a common border )

Now- my curiousity has been triggered: someone on my class asked if it is possible to increase my PC’s RAM virtually using a flash disk?

I knew something about ReadyBoost (since Windows 7 if i’m not mistaken) but not actually tried it.

Upon reaching home, I immediately tried ReadyBoost using my 8g and 4g unused flash drives and voila! A significant increase in performance has been noted from my unit since last saturday.

To learn more about ReadyBoost, click here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff356869.aspx

To learn more about paging and its technical queries, click here: http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/operating-system-paging/

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Have you ever struggled on your math subjects on your college and/or highschool days? Why are we required to solve complex formulas just to obtain a simple result?

Honest to goodness, I don’t know the answer.

But what I know is, in order to achieve results in general, we must conduct certain procedures. If I am going to relate our conversation into computing terms, its efficiency rely mostly on its hardware capabilities. The computer should be able to maximize its resources to achieve optimum performance.

Here at the office, it is normal for us to create complex reports (using VBA). We’ve allotted some time that is dedicated on waiting. Waiting for it to produce results at a longer pace because of large instructions that are being loaded into the tool. 

Of course, large set of complex instructions require more time to be processed, resulting into larger latency and wait times. This is why, if we’re processing / building applications that produce data, let’s say an excel-based system (or any other complex systems that require enormous amount of data to be processed), consider the items below:

Does my PC supports multiprocessor capabilities?

Is my code optimized and/or can still be refactored?

Moving my discussion aside- have you heard about cryptocurrencies and its mining features? I’m reading articles on the net regarding the mining machines that they use: mostly are equipped with a number of GPUs (Graphic Cards, and what I mean are the most powerful ones) to “mine”. Why? GPUs have their own set of microprocessors that are designed for complex computing (and it is way too fast that your i5 or Ryzen). 

Interested about mining? Well that’s another story - but still is part of computing complexity.

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As a child, I’ve been taught by my father to fix some problems when a certain problem comes up on our computer/s.

While fixing, I asked my father: Pa, should I install Windows or Ubuntu?

Yung windows ang i-install mo, unless gusto mong mabaliw sa mga sasauluhin mong command lines asdf asdf *some non-understandable terminologies here*

So siguro nga baliw na ako ngayon, because I’m able to manage linux-based systems. Hindi ko pa nga lamang nakukwento uli sa kanya.

I shared this to you guys, because this came in to my mind earlier as we discussed about implementations of operating systems earlier. Good thing to know, implementing of operating systems will base on what you really need and what are you going to do:

It depends on the user. In this case, a non-technical user (for example, my mom who wants to use my computer for video calls in the overseas); and

It depends on where the unit will be used. (Serving applications and managing networks are factors, too)

Now, when someone asks you for a favor and help him/her install an operating system to their units, then you must consider the things above, as well as the specifications of his/her unit. Maririnig mo nanaman ito for sure:

“‘Diba IT / CS ka? Pareformat naman ng PC ko oh”

Have you found yourself sitting on your desk with your computer, doing some research papers (wait, I’ll be more specific: You’re trying to finish a paper that is due for tomorrow’s reporting while listening to music) and then suddenly your computer just hangs on you?

Hassle, ‘di ba?

In layman’s term, we would be hearing advises about restarting our units, or just cry because you didn’t save and your files are now unrecoverable, but honest to goodness - we can’t do anything but wait.

But in terms of Operating Systems, our systems have achieved a state that we call, deadlock.

Dead-lock; a set of blocked processes each holding a resource and waiting to acquire a resource held by another process.

Okay, I need some time to process this. I believe you too. :)

 What happens if we run an applicaiton (I.E, Spotify?)

Each application that runs on our computers are, or can be represented as processes.

Each process, of course are being handled by resources, which handles or manages the execution of methods that are defined on that process.

Processes commonly has calls that give results, or signal calls when execution has been done. 

Now, What happens of two or processes are both waiting for results?

May poreber sa deadlock. Poreber waiting for something that won’t happen or finish.

In relation to my kwento above, here’s an example (we commonly see this on Windows XP users, hehe) :

Our CPUs are capable of detecting process deadlocks. Once reached, a user is then prompted by a message like the one above, enabling to terminate the process that has been halted, resulting to a miserable mis-meeting of deadlines because of my procrastination. Aray.

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So, the next time you’re doing some important work/s, just don’t forget to save your work often to avoid loss of data, as the systems that we are using has its limits, specially if we’re running intensive applications that produces results. Believe me, I’ve been there a lot of times, hindi pa rin natuto, but it works.

Disclaimer: 

I’ll be posting a ton of learning logs for this week so stay tuned!

It’s been a while since I posted something here on my blog, and IT IS my first time to post something that is career-related. See, this is what I like about pursuing my graduate school studies - I have the chance to learn more things on top of my experience on the industry.

So what do we have here- ah yes, I want to share something about my learnings regarding Distributed Systems.

Some quick bits for my post:

Little do I know that Sites can be considered as location of the processor?

Processors can also be called as:

Nodes

Hosts

If we’re going to implement solutions on context systems, then considering a distributed system as a part of solution should be also on top of our priority as solutions provider. Why?

We should enable our systems, specifically the servers to be as fault-ready as possible. And this is the primary concern of having distributed systems:

It enables Resource Sharing

Capability to process information on a distributed database

It speeds up computation

By sharing of loads, more of load balancing

Reliability is on top priority

The capability to detect site failures, or reiterite when site fails

Communication

Distributed systems can be used as a communication platform not only to send messages but to send warnings and signals as well

There are two (2) types of Distributed Systems.

Network Operating Systems

Distributed Operating Systems

Network operating systems, commonly are implemented on a LAN-based setup (even on WAN-based).

For example, there is a company that is deployed on a building. All the files are being stored on a local shared drive, accessible by all the users connected to it. Users are aware that there are multiple instances of systems that are connected.

Distributed Operating Systems

Commonly used by web systems. Assisted by a load balancer, these type of systems team up to handle computation of complex queries. Users are not aware that there is another system that assists the processing of data.

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So next time that our team (or your team) will implement a new solution for a certain client, we must take into consideration (but not totally go for it) and discuss topics about distributed systems.