By Joel T. Fagsao

There will always come a period in the lifecycle of your enterprise where you have to take measures to move up or be left behind.  Today’s business climate more challenging and there’s no room for those who are complacent.   Decades ago, the business set-up had a very simple management structure.  Back then, businesses only required the owner to operate it.

Today is another story.  Current business models or today’s business set-up may become obsolete in a few more years.  For example, If you are in the retail business, and you happen to be in a growing community, getting goods from suppliers, marking them up and selling to your customers may no longer be enough.  At these times, you have to be more sensitive to the needs of your customers.  You also have to learn to start adding value- customers are now more informed, have a wider range of choices and demand value for their money.

So what do we mean by value chain?  A value chain involves several enterprises working together to satisfy the customer’s demand for a product or service.  For example, in the informal mining industry sector, to bring the final product-gold to the market, several actors play the part.  At the bottom of the chain is the miner who goes underground.  Along the way, several other actors work including the truck driver, the supplier of chemicals or basic necessities to support the miner until the gold is extracted and brought to the middleman.  If you are at the bottom of the chain, you tend to be doing the more difficult job.  Of course, somebody else has to do it but now is the time to adapt strategies to expand one’s influence on a larger scale and not be content to stay on one component of the entire chain.

So what then are the ways?  For one, the miner in the informal mining industry can invest in equipment and along that line, serve other fellow miner’s needs and eventually becoming the gold buyer.

In the education and training services sector, technical-vocational schools the looming implementation of the K to 12 policy (2 more years in high school) of the Aquino government is a warning bell.  The scenario includes a possible year wherein technical vocational schools and colleges will not have freshmen students.  The state colleges have no problem in this area because they are being supported by taxes.  The private sector however faces uncertainties-but as always, in difficult times, the enterprising spirit prevails.  The private education sector instead of sulking in a corner must face adversities head on and turn the situation instead into opportunities.

“CompTIA A+ certification validates foundation-level knowledge and skills necessary for a career in PC support. It is the starting point for a career. The international, vendor-neutral certification proves competence in areas such as installation, preventative maintenance, networking, security and troubleshooting.   CompTIA A+ certified technicians also have excellent customer service and communication skills to work with clients.”    Computer Hardware Technician students of Xijen College at the lab. A private technical vocational school that continues to offer the recommended required competencies based on the National Certification standards for computer technicians- could be stuck in the increasingly fast paced changes in the information technology industry.  We now have things like cloud computing, security concerns on the integrity of data in our storage devices, networking beyond the traditional local area networks- all the new developments in the computer industry must be met with updated, upgraded training programs.  Private technical schools must be given more freedom to chart their paths-all in the name of providing relevant and up to date training programs to prepare students for the demands of the workplace.  At the current set-up, it is mandatory for students enrolled in technical-vocational schools to take up national certification exams.  I have been advocating tech-vocational training in the field of Information Technology for the past twenty years and I long to see a time when the government liberalizes this sector and let the industry establish its own standards as dictated by real world demands for the entry level worker in the information technology sector.  At this point, Xijen College of Mountain Province is working on plans to enhance the computer technician curriculum along the line of the CompTIA- in the next two years, I hope to see our students take the CompTIA certification examinations.  After all, the CompTIA A+ certification is accredited by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).Here’s to a better Philippines in 2012.  Cheers!

by Joel T. Fagsao

So amazing! The plethora of services now available on the Internet is for the taking. Whether you are an entrepreneur, an office worker, a farmer, student, teaching or one running an academic institution, technologies available online are just simply great. You also don’t have to break a bank to get these services because some are free and could rival expensive commercial software. One service is Google Docs. Google continues to provide applications that could help you save a penny. In Google Docs you can do applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and even drawing. This service is free and you can open, edit files you created in Microsoft Word and other related MS Office software. The time has come when you no longer have to load your computers with software/applications. As long as you have online connection, you can always make use of readily available applications. This is called Software as a Service (SaS). With this system, you can work using applications or software available on demand. These applications are no longer limited by time and geographical boundaries. You can collaborate on a document with a co-worker wherever is the latter’s location. With Google Docs you can work on a document together. The Google Company has yet added another service called Google Cloud Connect. If you have MS Office (Word, Excel, etc.) in your computer, you can now save your work directly to your Google account at the docs section. This ends the worry of having to save on a flash drive and losing it to virus infection. While you work on your computer, you can set to synch your files to your Google account and on your hard drive in one click. Now when you lose your file on your computer’s storage device, you can still retrieve your file on Google Docs by logging on to your Google Account. Commercial software provider, Microsoft is no taking this sitting down, it also has offered a similar service called Windows Live (integrates Skydrive which gives you a whooping 25GB storage capacity online).

A free application called Picasa enables you to concentrate color on one aspect of an image.

If you have a business and would want to have a free website, you can check out Google Site. Google site provides a 100 MB free account for individuals, organizations who want to have their own websites. This semester, we integrated lessons on how to create a website with Google Site in our web design and development class at Xijen College of Mountain Province. This will prepare students in our province to explore and get exposure to as many website creation platforms. Students at Xijen College are alos exposed to WordPress and Joomla- website development applications which are in the open source category. By open source, we mean, anyone with knowledge of programming can help in the improvement, testing, adding new features of a software or application. The application is then available for download and use by anyone.

Already, Charlene Fadchal-Lidua, alumnae of Xijen College developed the official website of Bauko Local Government unit with the use of the WordPress platform. Had Charlene used a commercial web design software like Adobe Creative Suite, the Bauko Local Government has to shell out P89,052.00 to buy the software, another commercial web design software like Dreamweaver costs P15,934.00.

These things may sound unfamiliar to some readers especially in some of the municipalities that do not yet have access to the Internet. Education and the right information will solve this in time. Xijen College is doing its share of exploring, testing and finally integrating non commercial applications into the curriculum of the college’s Information Technology students

Finally, here’s one that can help you save a few pesos of load on your mobile phone. If you have a G-mail account under Google, you can send up text messages to your contact’s mobile phones for free. The text message recipients can also reply at no cost (read: no deduction from your load or your contact’s current load). To use this feature, log on to your G-mail account look for the Send SMS feature at the left side. Enter your contact’s mobile number, type in your text message and press the enter key to send the message.

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

XijEN Computer Lab maintains a 1 student to 1 computer ratio.

In my Website Design and Development class, I share my observations in the semesters that I handled this class at Xijen College of Mountain Province.

The Website Design covers not only the technical side of designing a website, but I also wanted my students to be conscious of the content of the site.  Before I go on, a website is usually a representation of what an institution, a person, a business, a government agency, a private firm, a place or country is all about.  A website combines text, video, audio and photographs to enhance the appearance of pages (called web page) within the site.  Basically the aim of a website is to provide information.  A website visitor is a term used to describe someone who visits your website. To be able to get to a website, you have to type the “address” or search for it in the popular search engine tool, “Google.”    An example of a website address is www.xijen.com.  The three w’s stand for World Wide Web-describing the service of the Internet (which is the infrastructure) which refers to a world of websites each with its own set of pages called web pages.  Xijen is the name of the organization, in this case the college and com stands for commercial.  I prefer not to use .edu (educational institution) because .com is the more popular “tag” for websites.  I mean people automatically associate .com to be related to websites; seldom do we say .edu, .org or .net.

So who does the job of working and developing somebody’s website?  Well this was the objective of the website design course offered at Xijen College.  It is about being able to learn to develop a website until “publication” stage on the World Wide Web-just like working on a newspaper-until it goes to the printing press for its final form.

There is this one argument about a web page design and development course.   If one is to learn about web page design, shall he or she not concentrate on the aesthetic side of bringing to “life” the website’s contents?  It’s true, your website might look great in terms of graphics and colors, but if the content is trash, visitors to your website can move on to another site at the click of a mouse-just like your TV remote control that easily lets you switch channels.  In the real world, a company may have a separate team of workers focused on updating the contents of the website.  After all, a website is the showcase of a company or website owner.  A badly designed website reflects the “kind” of organization, institution, company or person behind that website.  The web site development team consists of those handling the “technical” side (the programming, the structure and other bangs and whistles).  With the team are writers, editors who work on the contents.  In fact even our local papers have a separate department doing the “website” equivalent of the papers.

So how do you get students to learn the intricacies of designing a website and also be wary of the content of the site?  The thing I observed among my students is their handicap in writing.  I asked if they still do “theme” writing in their elementary years-some answered yes, a majority said, they do not remember doing it most often.  In my time, we did theme writing everyday and the teachers really made an effort to mark out our grammatical errors or try to rearrange our “thought” flow on the topics that we write.  To try to help out, I shared some writing tips and forced them to read articles-to the point of placing newspapers in the school lobby and not the library to encourage them to read while hanging out.  In the succeeding sessions, I let them work on their writing skills using WordPress.  WordPress provides a free platform to do a blog.  A blog is a short cut of web log.  To log means to write, describe an experience, share a thought or opinion.  But again there was another obstacle to face.  Some students had difficulty composing directly on the computer.  Some have to write their thoughts first on paper, after which encode it on the computer.  It is as if the brain is not yet wired to your fingers on a keyboard-which does away with pen and paper.  It was a matter of getting used to doing the “writing” with the keyboard as the pen.  So practice we did each session forcing the brain to “accept” the new writing tool.  It really needs tons of patience.  Next is the motivation factor.  I let them link their “written pieces” (blogs) on their Facebook accounts and the words of encouragement and congratulatory messages that they received from friends is motivation enough.  The fact that they have their names as authors of their blogs written is similar to the feeling of having an article on a newspaper published with your name as the author.  (To be continued next week.).

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

Why did they not think of that?  I was lining up at the ATM booth and observed as the security guard assisted an elderly woman verify if the money booth has something for her.  Grandma cannot read and write and so she puts her full trust in letting the guard enter the PIN number and do the verification.  I do not have any doubts on the trustworthiness of the guard as I have seen our senior citizens being assisted by the guards so many times already.  The thing is, the guard could concentrate more on his primary duty-that of securing the bank if only all bank clients are able to transact alone without assistance.  Alas technology makes it more difficult for the non techie to navigate complicated (to them) transactions that requires at least basic literacy skills.  In India however, it is technology that adjusts to the limitations of their citizens.  In some places in India, ATMs have been designed to accept bio metric scans as a replacement of the PIN.  Instead of entering an ATM card and the PIN number-a press of the thumb on the ATM’s screen (touch screen) is all that is needed to authenticate the transaction.  Then the whole week’s wages is spewed by the machine.  Now why didn’t GSIS, Mega Link’s bright boys do that in the first place? That would have been service placed several notches higher.  

LED Lights

First we had the ordinary light bulb, followed by CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs.  The main purpose of the heavy promotion of CFLs was energy efficiency versus the ordinary bulb.  Then the “green” advocates cried oops…something’s not right.  Yes, something is not right with CFLs.  CFLs contain mercury and are a problem when spent CFLs are disposed.  Not all provinces, cities and municipalities have the capacity to dispose CFLs properly.  Enter into the picture; Light Emitting Diodes otherwise known as LED are coming in to replace CFLs.  LED bulbs are more energy efficient than the CFLs but are not yet in mass production.  You only see them in flashlights (rechargeable) proliferating in our sidewalks and vendor’s stands.  In other countries though, LED lamps are becoming the standard. A few ads are being placed in newspapers flaunting that the LED bulbs can replace even our halogen lamps that light up our tennis and basketball courts.  Cost is still an issue but the promise of a 50,000 hour lifespan for each bulb is a worthy investment.  LED lamps are also great energy savers.  For example a 5 watt LED bulb is the equivalent of a 50 watts incandescent bulb.  Besides cutting your energy bills, the white light of the LED lamps are cooler on the eyes.  Still going further, I hope to see the day when solar powered lamps become the norm.  For now, I will put to the test a solar powered garden lamp that set me back five hundred bucks.  It automatically lights up when darkness sets in.  The brightness is just fine, but I’m taking note of how long it will last.  The downside of using solar powered lighting fixture and other solar powered gadgets is the price.  Solar panels are still expensive and without government subsidy- solar panels will not be as common as the TV set in most homes for now.

***

Another innovation in the tech world is achieving transparency in government transactions.  The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has started the ball rolling.  The DILG website at www.dilg.gov.ph publishes the status of funds of each attached agency.  DILG and the rest of the government agencies could be more transparent when fund utilization of the local units (provinces, municipalities and cities) are also published.  LGUs could also follow suit by publishing where fund allotments have been spent.  Meanwhile, if you want to find out where your congressman’s pork has been spent, you can log on to www.congress.gov.ph and boom!  You have very limited information, not all of the Philippine’s members of congress projects funded from their pork barrel are not listed.  Now that’s what we call transparency.  Only in the Philippines!

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

Yes, indeed it is quite an amusing title for a tech column.  “Remember the Milk” is a popular idiom in the Western world.  It is simply about finding a means not to forget to buy milk despite having it on your grocery list.  Today, “Remember the Milk” is now a name adapted for a service on the Internet that promises to manage your day to day activities.  Found at http://www.rememberthemilk.com, the online service lets you enter activities, work and other items you would not want to miss doing on a particular day.  Say, you would want to be reminded that that on July 25, 2010, at 10:00 A.M. you have an important call to make.  By entering this reminder on rememberthemilk.com, the service will remind you in many ways possible.  You can set the service to let you receive reminders via email, SMS (to your mobile phone) or instant messenger such as Google Talk, ICQ, Skype, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu or Yahoo.  You can further set it to remind you an hour earlier or hours before the set time and date that a task is due.  It is like having a personal assistant (in person it could be your mother or your boss) who gets to remind you of an important appointment or activity to be done.  I put the service to the test and it works well as it has promised.  I got e-mail reminders in my Google account, an instant message in my Google Talk (chat service) and on my mobile phone (Smart).  There is a problem though with the SMS.  While I do receive the reminder message, it is not provided in its complete form.  You have to reply by pressing G to view the entire reminder-message or B to block the message.  I pressed G and I got the message “not yet in service…” The message continues to inform that you will be charged P2.50 for receiving the full text of the message.  Still even if the initial SMS provides a truncated message, you get this for free.

Now you can go a step further by setting a personalized Google Page and integrating Remember the Milk.  This is a good way to get organized if you have a Google e-mail account.  First, log on to www.google.com/ig  then sign in with your Google e-mail address and your password.  When you are now at the iGoogle page, make this your homepage by selecting the command line “make iGoogle my homepage.”  Now, to personalize your iGoogle page, click on Add Staff, type remember the milk in the search for gadgets box.  Click on Remember the Milk and select the Add it Now button.  Select the back to iGoogle home and sign up on the Remember the Milk registration box.  From there you can now set tasks, activities you want to be reminded of.  Since you set google.com.ig as your home page, the next time you fire your browser; it will bring you to the default page (iGoogle).  Sign in with your Google mail account and this becomes your dashboard to all the things you need to work better.  Your iGoogle page depending on the items you added may have your Calendar, preview of your e-mail (so you don’t have to open it every time you want to access your mail and of course reminders from Remember the Milk.

You can also set the theme of your iGoogle page and select from hundreds of themes available. Remember the Milk when integrated with iGoogle makes for a neat work dashboard.  You have everything you need to be reminded of, a preview of your e-mail and even a chat box and more.  The Internet continues to provide better integrated services to make tasks easier to manage.  You can discover more features of Remember the Milk by exploring it further.  For now, it is enough that I get reminders on my mobile phone (the initial free truncated reminder message) and through my e-mail.

Tech Talk
Joel T. Fagsao

WordPress is another application that will surely excite those who want to set up a website without necessarily writing code.  I will try to make things in this column as simple as possible for those who do not have a hint of what I am writing about, those who know to use a computer and those who just play Solitaire on the computer.  Writing about information technology is quite a challenge since everyone is not in the same level of understanding when it comes to this topic.  Well, I will just have to try and write about computers and related applications and developments in technologies –since this is the direction we are heading.  Who would have thought that in last month’s election we made history by participating in computerized elections?  Who would have thought that from now on, our retirees must know how to use the ATM machine-to get their pension instead of a check arriving in one’s mail box?  Of course the mobile phone-your new status symbol is proof that most of us have embraced information technology.

Basically, electronic gadgets-the products of today’s information age take inspiration from what is already there.  For example, the camera is an offshoot of what the eye can do.  Indeed the camera is a poor copy of the human eye, but the camera enhances its functions, ensures storage of images we may forget in the future and put in hard copy things that remind us in the lives that we lead. (E.g. high school class photo seen again after 20 years).

So there, many things have developed in terms of technology and we may yet see more things to come in the years ahead.

Going back now to what I talked about in the first lines of this column, what is WordPress?  WordPress is software that helps you do your blog.  What is a blog?  The computer glossary of terms defines a blog as short for Web Log.  A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”  Let’s just say it’s like writing topics in your theme notebook or daily journal.  The only difference is that the writing gets to be published online-meaning on the Word Wide Web.  Most blogs focus on one topic and gain followers (readers).  So if you want to start writing and have this particular itch to let others read what you write, then a blog is the most practical way to publish what you write.  Now here’s where WordPress comes in.  WordPress is acts just like your theme notebook or paper where you do your writing.  The thing with WordPress is free.  You can also avail of a free space at www.wordpress.org where you can park your series of write ups (which is the blog).

Let’s explore the features of WordPress.  WordPress is more than blogging software.  It has a lot of plug-ins.  By plug-in we mean we can add a lot of features just like a car-where you can add a lot of accessories.  WordPress is more than blog software.  It can also rival other web site development applications.  Ease of use and simplicity is the best feature of WordPress.  Once installed, you can go on writing right away.  Basically, if you have the money, you can rent a space (called web hosting) where your blog can be stored and published on the World Wide Web.  Then you can pay for a domain name registration (just like registering your business name).  A domain name is your identifying name in the Word Wide Web.  An example of a domain name is www.xijen.com where WWW means World Wide Web, xijen is the name of an organization, .com means commercial.  The rule here is when somebody has already registered a domain name; it becomes exclusive to that registrant.  So if you wish to register a domain name for your use, you pay a fee of five hundred pesos annually.  The web hosting can set you back from 1,000 pesos and up renewable each year.  The web host is a service that stores your website.  The web host also takes care of your being connected to the World Wide Web.  But if you still cannot comprehend this particular level of website publishing, you can still have an option.  WordPress provides a free space for you (just like providing you a free room to stay) to park your website and publishes your blogs so that others may be able to access what you write online.   This is free and it can be had at www.wordpress.com.  The downside is that you cannot have domain name like www.myonlylove.com because WordPress will be attached to your domain name like these:  www.myonlylove.wordpress.com.  As you get comfortable with WordPress you can start adding features such as photo slideshow, an e-commerce section and many more.  Eventually it will no longer be a plain and simple blog site but rather a website with all the whistles.

WordPress is part the course in Web Page Design and Development at XijenCollege every after 5:00 P.M. Tuesdays and Thursdays.  For details, contact 09081511870.

Xijen College Online

 Welcome to the Xijen College Online Program.  Courses in the Online College Program are delivered in Distance Education (DE) primarily using the Internet.   Students enrolled in the program must have access to a computer with Internet connection.  A visit to an Internet café will be your lowest cost alternative to access your lessons online.

 Program Requirements:

1. A.        E-mail address-you need an email address to enroll in the online courses.

 You can use your existing email address or you can opt to register for the free email service of Xijen (powered by Google).  If you already have an e-mail address you can proceed directly to section B.  To register for an email address at Xijen:

 Text your preferred username to tech support at 0920 903 1948.

1. Wait for confirmation of your username and password.
2.  Start your Internet browser (ie, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera) and log on to www.xijen.com/elearning
3. Click on Quick Link to Xijen G-Mail, this is found on the topmost box on the site’s front page. (see illustration).  You can also access your email portal directly at https://www.google.com/a/xijen

4.   This is now your email portal:

1.  Enter your username and password.
2. Change your given password. 

Here’s how to change your password:

• Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Accounts tab.
• Click Google Account settings.
• In the new window, click Change password under the Personal information option.
• Enter your current password and your new password.
• Make sure you create a unique password to help keep someone from breaking in to your account. Here are a few tips for creating your password, and keeping it safe:
• Never tell anyone your password.
• Never write down your password. Even though your password will look random to others, think of a way to remember it so that you don’t have to write it down.
• Change your password periodically.
• Don’t choose a dictionary word as your password. Be creative.
• Include punctuation marks. Mix capital and lowercase letters. Use numbers. A variety of characters makes it harder to guess a password.

 B.  ENROLL IN YOUR COURSE

Aside from enrolling in an online course, we have to formally enroll in our online learning portal.  To do this:

1.  Log on to www.xijen.com/elearning and click on Login (found at the top corner, right side)

1.  Click on the Create New Account Button
2. This is how your account enrollment page will look like, fill in the information required

1. Follow the instructions provided and log on to your email account, confirm your registration.
2. You will be brought to the xijen.com/elearning portal.
3. Click on log-in, enter your username and password
4. Scroll down to My Courses
5. Look for your enrolled course (ex.  Entrepreneurship, Certificate Course:  Staring and Managing a Small Enterprise
6. Enter your enrollment Key (supplied via a call or text message from 0920 903 1948
7. You can now access your lessons.
8. If you have a problem in enrollment please contact 0920 903 1948.

1. C.       Supplemental Materials

Supplemental materials in hard copy format are provided.  For those who opt to return the materials after the course, you can make a deposit.  The deposit made shall be refunded upon return of the materials.

Other supplemental materials (pop sheets) shall be separately charged at two pesos a copy.  Billing shall be provided at the end of the course.

Course Description:

This is also known as Computer Technician course.  The course focuses on computer maintenance, local area network installations and maintenance, software set-up, diagnosing and troubleshooting computer hardware problems.

Future Jobs:

• Computer hardware maintenance technician
• Local area network technician
• Internet cafe operator
• Trainer
• Computer Lab maintenance technician
• Business Center Operator

Course Duration:  2 Years (plus 1 required summer term)

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Course Name:  Computer Secretarial

Course Description:

The computer secretarial course gives the student strong foundation in shorthand and transcription, computer literacy skills, keyboarding, records management and communication skills- all of these to prepare the students work as world class secretaries for commercial and business establishment, marketing/sales and service-oriented firms, government and non-government organizations.

Future Jobs:

A secretary may work as either of the following:

Ø  Clerk

Ø  Record keeper

Ø  Encoder/typist

Ø  Receptionist

Ø  Executive/ assistant secretary

Ø  Stenographer

Ø  Office worker

Ø  Bookkeeper

Ø  Instructor

Course Duration: 2 years and one summer term

The Bachelor of Science in Information Technology (BSIT) program is designed to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to work effectively in the field of information technology. Students learn the theory and principles essential to address real world business opportunities and challenges. It instruct students in core competencies in the areas of problem solving and programming, networks and communications systems, databases, Internet and Web technologies, security, project management, PC assembly, PC repair and maintenance, software installation, electronics along with a foundation in business concepts and technical communication.

The curriculum is designed to produce graduates ready to function in information technology positions with the competencies, skills, and attitudes necessary for success in the workplace. It is intended to prepare the graduate for careers in a continually evolving field.

Goals: The overarching goal of the program is to prepare students as “information technologists” and professionals who can assist general users, including individuals and organizations, in evaluating needs and solving problems related to information technology (IT), as well as in applying IT effectively in a global work environment driven by rapidly changing technology.

Primary Educational Objective of the Program

1. Produce graduates who can enter into and advance in the professions of IT, management information systems, and business administration, as well as continue their education and obtain advanced degrees in these and related fields.

2. With regard to program outcomes, graduates must be able to evaluate current and emerging technologies; identify user needs; design user-friendly interfaces; apply, configure, and manage these technologies; assess their impacts on individuals, organizations, and the environment; and apply fundamental business concepts and strategies.

Career Options:

• Programmer
• Project Leader
• System Analyst/Designer
• Database Administrator
• Database Designer
• Webpage Designer
• Instructor

Course Duration: 4 Years