Mr. Dimpz Blog

Green Campus Computing..


Green energy is the term used to describe sources of energy that are considered to be environmentally friendly and non-polluting, such as geothermal, wind, solar, and hydro.Green energy sources are often considered "green" because they are perceived to lower carbon emissions and create less pollution.

Green energy is commonly thought of in the context of electricity, mechanical power, heating and cogeneration. Consumers, businesses, and organizations may purchase green energy in order to support further development, help reduce the environmental impacts of conventional electricity generation, and increase their nation’s energy independence. Renewable energy certificates (green certificates or green tags) have been one way for consumers and businesses to support green energy.

Energy-Efficient Lighting Tips:

* Use natural daylight when possible.
* If you spend a lot of time working at a computer, consider reducing the overall brightness level in your room to enhance CRT screen visibility.
* Report any lighting problems to your Zone Maintenance office. This might include a burned-out lamp, defective occupancy sensor, or a flickering bulb.
* Turn off the lights in classrooms, offices, and restrooms when the rooms are not being occupied.
* Consider using desk lamps ("task lighting") and reducing overhead lighting in the room.
* If your building has areas where "occupancy sensors" are being used to turn lights on and off (such as in conference rooms, rest rooms, and hallways), please cooperate with their use.
* Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs where possible.

Energy Conservation in the Laboratory

* Keep fume hood sashes closed when not in use. Fume hoods operate in a vacuum by drawing room air and any undesirable fumes through the cabinet and exhausting it out the building's exhaust stack. In almost all laboratories on campus, the room air being exhausted is 100% fresh outside air. Fresh air is very expensive to heat or cool. Lowering the sash (the glass window) when the fume hood is not in use reduces the amount of conditioned air exhausted.
* A Bio-Safety cabinet is another type of fume hood; it filters the air rather then exhausting it. This type of fume hood uses a recycling-air vent, which does not necessarily need to be kept on at all times. Remember to turn off the fan when not in use.
* When using running water for cooling or condenser systems, remember to turn off the valve when finished.
* If possible, use a cooling system with a re-circulating pump as opposed to running once through water.
* Turn off all equipment when not in use. This includes everything from hot plates to lights to computers.
* Keep the hallway door shut as much as possible. This is not only a safety measure, but it helps balance the air system in the laboratory.
* When using automatic glassware washers, wait until you have a full load before operating.
* Maintain refrigerators and freezers by keeping coils clean and doors properly sealed.
* If refrigerator or freezer is over 8 years old, consider upgrading to a newer more energy-efficient model.
* Do not place refrigerators or freezers next to room thermostats.
* Consolidate contents of refrigerators or freezers--a full freezer is more efficient to keep cold than a half empty freezer. Turn off the empty, unused appliance.

Energy Efficient Computing

* Do not leave your computer running overnight and on weekends. Also, wait until you are ready to use it before you turn it on.
* A modest amount of turning on and off will not harm the computer or monitor. The life of a monitor is related to the amount of time it is in use, not the number of on and off cycles.
* Try to plan your computer-related activities so you can do them all at once, keeping the computer off at other times.
* Do not turn on the printer until you are ready to print. Printers consume energy even while they are idling.
* Do not print out copies of email unless necessary.
* If you spend a large amount of time at your computer, consider reducing the light level in your office. This may improve CRT (cathode ray tube) screen visibility as well as save energy.
* Most computer equipment now comes with power management features. If your computer has these features, make sure they are activated.
* The best screen saver is no screen saver at all - turn off your monitor when you are not using it. This option is second best only to turning off your computer all together.
* Use "paperless" methods of communication such as email and fax-modems.
* When typing documents, especially drafts, use a smaller font and decrease the spacing between lines, or reformat to keep your document to as few pages as possible, especially when typing drafts.
* Review your document on the screen instead of printing a draft. If you must print a draft, use the blank back side of used paper.
* Use a printer that can print double-sided documents. When making copies, use double-sided copying.
* Always buy and use recycled-content paper. Look for papers with 50-100% post-consumer waste and non-chlorine bleached. Also, recycle your paper when done.
* Buy a monitor only as large as you really need. Although a large monitor might seem more attractive, you should remember that a 17-inch monitor uses 40 percent more energy than a 14-inch monitor. Also, the higher the resolution, the more energy it needs.
* Ink-jet printers, though a little slower than laser printers, use 80 to 90 percent less energy.
* Request recycled/recyclable packaging from your computer vendor.
* Buy vegetable (or non-petroleum-based) inks. These printer inks are made from renewable resources; require fewer hazardous solvents; and in many cases produce brighter, cleaner colors.

How the university can adopt this concept?

Our university can simply adopt green campus computing by simply educating the students about what is "green campus computing" and the benefits it brings to us. Our university should implement policies and regulations in conserving energy, and do orientations about the right ways of using personal computers and any other related devices. And lastly, take good care of our environment. In this simple way, we can conserve energy.





References:

http://www.energymanagement.umich.edu/utilities/energy_management/computing/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_energy
http://ecenter.colorado.edu/energy/projects/green_computing.html

How the Philippines Can in Lead Election Automation?

If the Philippine government ever gets down to automating elections in the Philippines, it has a chance to show the rest of the world how to do it. That’s because there’s already a lot of established “wisdom”, and the mistakes of other countries to learn from.

Ready for 2010?

In short, by looking from the mistakes of other countries, Philippine election officials can learn how to run automated elections properly. Primarily by designing election machines that make sense to the average Filipino voter, and relying on the results of sustained testing for any necessary revisions to the system.
Unfortunately, since the need for testing is crucial—unless you consider chaos on Election Day acceptable—a properly automated election system may not be ready by 2010. Yet no matter how clear the benefits of automated elections are for Philippine politics, it’s more important to get things right the first time. That’s much better than coming out with a system that will provide election automation critics with more ammunition.


Automated 2010 Elections, all set

The Commission on Elections, after a month long bidding, will award the P11.3 billion contract for the automation of 2010 elections probably this week.
Comelec’s Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) chairman Ferdinand Rafanan said they will make the SBAC report and its recommendation to the Commission en banc. The awarding of contract will be upon the decision of the en banc whether they will approve it or not.
“We are all systems go for 2010 poll automation,” Rafanan added.
The SBAC will make a recommendation for Smartmatic-Total Information Management, the bidder capable for the 2010 automation project.
The SBAC Technical Working Group did the technical evaluation and finished them last Saturday.
Smartmatic-TIM consortium successfully passed all 26 technical criteria, however, there are still few documents that must be verified for post qualification of eligibility of documents.
In terms of figures, Smartmatic-TIM only bid for P7.191 billion, P4 billion below the total contract amount.
“The P4 billion will go to Comelec savings. Those are only figures and will only be disposed by the Department of Budget and Management for approved projects,” said Rafanan.

The Advantages of Voting Online or automated election

* Saved Ballot Templates eliminate the need to configure elections from scratch. Just do it once, then save that ballot configuration, and in subsequent years, specify only the names of the candidates.

* Reduced costs are enjoyed when the expenses of printing and mailing paper ballots are lessened or even eliminated.

* Email Solicitation adds value by soliciting an email address from voters without one already on record.

* Email Reminders helps increase voter participation by reminding those who’ve not voted to do so.

* Email Validation brings added value to your online election ensuring the validity of your voters’ email addresses.

* Ballot Scrubbing ensures no ballot is spoiled due to anything not in compliance with your voting rules.

* Ballot Shuffling randomly orders the candidates’ names on each request of the ballot so all candidates get a fair chance at prime name placement on the ballot. Shuffling may be enabled on some positions and not others.

* On-demand Paper Ballots simplify hybrid elections by allowing an election administrator to generate a voter-specific paper ballot that honors all the election settings just as web ballots do.

* Automated Tallying removes human fallibility from the tabulation and delivers the results within seconds of the close of the election.

* Comprehensive Reporting instantly provides you with informative day-by-day statistics about your election beyond just who won, demonstrated at the Sample Election Results page.

* Archived Election Results means all previous election results are readily available without having to dig through old records.

* Ability to correct mistakes allows candidate selections to be altered prior to final ballot submission.

The Disadvantages of having an Automated Election

Tallying is done at the city/municipal level. Ballot boxes leave precincts without voters knowing results at the precinct level
• Ballot box switching is possible

• Tallying is internal and voters will not be able to trace to the source

• There may be cases where more entries are marked in a ballot than are allowed. It will be difficult to fairly resolve issues arising from this situation.

• On the other hand, there may also be cases when there are less markings on the ballot. It is very easy to add markings in such cases.

• To achieve high quality readability, it is currently required that the ballot paper be of thicker substance and should not be folded. This means new ballot boxes will need to be designed and produced, adding to the cost.


My opinion on automated election this coming 2010:


Having this Automated Election this coming 2010 has advantages and disadvantages. Automated election could somehow help the smoothen the process of the election and easier and not so complicated when it comes to vote counting. It will ensure faster results than the manual counting thus winners will be proclaimed in less than a time. The Proposal for having an automated election is good in the sense that is fast and accurate.
It will be easier to determine who will be put in the position. It will also be an advantage on the part of voters because the voting system is organized. It will also bring out the result faster. And automated election will decrease fraud and more or les other forms of stealing and buying votes. But it has also its disadvantages; it is very costly because service provider here in invests a lot to insure that this technology will really work. It will also create hard work for government to send and pay people to of course educate people on how to participate and use this kind of election process and it’s not that easy. Because not all of Filipino voters are engaged and introduced to computer technology. This will not also ensure 100 percent accuracy and righteous counting of votes because there is still human intervention in this process.


References:

http://electionwatch.ph/
http://www.electionsonline.us/advantages.htm
http://www.transparentelections.ph/site/content/view/19/38/
http://technogra.ph/20090303/sections/editorial/how-the-philippines-can-in-lead-election-automation/

Based on the organization(s) that you visited, what do you think are the risks associated with business and IS/IT change?


Our adopted company was Dole Philippines, Founded in Hawaii in 1851, Dole Food Company, Inc., with 2007 revenues of $6.9 billion, is the world's largest producer and marketer of high-quality fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. Dole markets a growing line of packaged and frozen foods, and is a produce industry leader in nutrition education and research. The Company does business in more than 90 countries and employs, on average, 36,000 full-time, regular employees and 23,000 full-time seasonal or temporary employees, worldwide.

As the world's largest producer and marketer of high quality fresh fruit and fresh vegetables and with a growing line of packaged and frozen foods, the DOLE brand is synonymous with high quality standards and satisfaction. Dole has earned this reputation over the last 154 years thanks to its unwavering commitment to fulfill its customers' needs and consumers' expectations in the critical areas of quality assurance, food safety, traceability, environmental responsibility and social accountability.

First, we define Information System (IS)
In a general sense, the term Information System (IS) refers to a system of people, data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization, and it includes the organization's manual and automated processes. In a narrow sense, the term information system (or computer-based information system) refers to the specific application software that is used to store data records in a computer system and automates some of the information-processing activities of the organization. Computer-based information systems are in the field of information technology. The discipline of business process modelling describes the business processes supported by information systems.

During our interview for assignment 1 with the MIS Internal programmer of Dole Philippines, We also discussed the risk associated with business and IT/IS change.We prepare some questions for her to answer and these are the list of risk that she mentioned.

User

When changing the information system of company, programmers must consider the end users. End users a person or group that is one of the ultimate consumers or users that a system has been designed for.

Sometimes users will find it difficult to understand the new system implemented. So, when you implement a new system it should be a user friendly for the user to easily understand and operate. This is very important because a system that is poorly designed and cannot be use effectively by end users does not meet the goal or requirements of the company.

System Failure

Failure with regards to the changes in the system of business or in an organization is a serious mistake and a threat to the company. Changes can lead to success or sometimes it can lead to failure. An example of this failure is associated with the system, it is called System Failure. System is the brain of the company. It keeps information needed by the company to assess its performance and help them make decisions. So if the system fails all operations are affected especially if this system is designed to be used by all the departments. If this is the case, then the changes will lead to the failure of the company.

Financial Risk or Cost

is normally any risk associated with any form of financing. Risk is probability of unfavorable condition; in financial sector it is the probability of actual return being less than expected return. There will be uncertainty in every business.

Security Risk

describes employing the concept of risk to the security risk management paradigm to make a particular determination of security orientated events.
is the demarcation of risk, into the security silo, from the broader enterprise risk management framework for the purposes of isolating and analyzing unique events, outcomes and consequences.
Security risk is often, quantitatively, represented as any event that compromises the assets, operations and objectives of an organization. 'Event', in the security paradigm, comprises those undertaken by actors intentionally for purposes that adversely affect the organization.

Data corruption

Data corruption refers to errors in computer data that occur during transmission or retrieval, introducing unintended changes to the original data. Computer storage and transmission systems use a number of measures to provide data integrity, the lack of errors. In general, when there is a Data Corruption, the file containing that data would be inaccessible, and the system or the related application will give an error. For example, if a Microsoft Word file is corrupted, when you try to open that file with MS Word, you will get an error message, and the file would not be opened. Some programs can give a suggestion to repair the file automatically (after the error), and some programs cannot repair it. It depends on the level of corruption, and the in-built functionality of the application to handle the error. There are various causes of the corruption.
Data corruption during transmission has a variety of causes. Interruption of data transmission causes information loss.
If you are going to change the information system of the company you have to plan what type of system you are going to change. You have to consider the factors and issues regarding the change before you implement it. Some of those factors to consider are:
Do you want to change the database?
Are you going to change or upgrade the system?
What type of language will be used for the new system?
The MIS Programmer said that whatever the data is in the system before change, it will be the same data that the users will be able to see or to access.

In general, changing information system has many risks to consider. Because
when changing the system it is the same in developing or improving a new system.


references:

http://dole.com/CompanyInfo/Company_Index.jsp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_risk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_risk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_corruption