Into the Digital Light

Since the beginning, the Internet Café Industry in the Philippines has faced numerous challenges in its operations.   From an unfavorable business image in the community, tightening government regulations, a cut-throat competition to unbelievable low rental rates it has managed to survive and prosper.   In its height in 2008, it was estimated that there was a total of 100,000 internet cafes operating all over the country.   Mostly these are mom and pop operations with an average of 10 computer units per shop catering to gaming requirements of teenagers in the community. In 2020 the internet café owners found themselves facing a formidable foe, Covid19, that could change the manner they operate their business and their survival. It’s a Numbers Game           We have to understand first the nature of is operations so that we could relate it to the challenges it faces during this pandemic. It has always been a numbers ...

Yesterday, I posted a picture in Facebook of myself demonstrating the use of an interactive whiteboard to a group of teachers.  I was quite surprised that a number of my friends like the picture and the response that I got from it.  It reminded me of a totally different experience about 2 years back when I was working for a company that sells interactive whiteboard which totally freaked me out. As part of our marketing campaign for our product, we had invited a number of school administrators for a training seminar on the new technologies that could be used for the K to 12  program that was to be implemented by the Department of Education.  At the end of the presentation a school administrator asked “Why should we use that considering that a blackboard could also create the same result?”  I really could not remember what I answered back, it could have been in the line of “you are an old ignoramus that's why you are not appreciating this” that she was really...

Its been quite a while since I used a Linux operating system. I've been working for a computer hardware company for several years and mostly we are using Windows in our daily operations. Every now and then I've installed an Ubuntu system just to try it out but after Lucid Lynx it seems that they are coming out with some weird stuff that it totally turned me off in using it.

The other day I was assigned to do a presentation to a group of graduating college students in one of the big colleges in Manila. The resource speaker ahead of me is working for a company that publishes resumes online . He was there to encourage the participants to create their free account and start uploading their personal details to their personalize d website. Employers would have access to these websites and hopefully they would be called for a job int e rview. Our presentations should last only an hour but he extended his presentation for another 30 minutes showing the participants every detail on how to upload their information in their personalized page. I really don't mind the inconvenience of waiting for another 30 minutes for him to finish his presentation for it gave me time to think if th is kind of service is still relevant in today's digital workplace.

After a 10 month work sabbatical I was asked to return to Redfox Technologies as its project lead.  September 30 was the day I started my journey of commuting daily from my hometown of Imus, Cavite to New Manila in Quezon City.  It’s about a two to three hour one way commute daily depending on the traffic conditions.  Before it was quite easy to go to work, all that I had to do was just wait for the bus on our main highway and sleep the rest of the way to Cubao. Then repeat the process again in going home in the evening.  The travel time was so long that I actually feel refreshed from sleeping on the bus. Now that the Metro Manila Development Council (MMDA) has imposed the ban for buses coming from Cavite from entering Metro Manila it has become more challenging if not tiring. The Morning Commute – the morning commute is not much of a problem.  I have resolved that I will leave home early so that I could beat the morning rush hour and just spend a few la...

Doing a Free and Open Source presentation on Software Freedom Day could be a nightmare to some resource speakers.  It is similar to eating “Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans” in the Harry Potter series since you would never really know the composition of the audience till you get there. Last year I had to improvised since I believed that the presentation that I prepared was too complicated for the audience to take notice off. I ended up with a 40 minute presentation with one slide that only tells about the title of my topic and my name (well, actually two if you count the next slide that contains my email account so that they could add me to their Facebook account).