Green Campus Computing!

Green Computing

~the study and practice of efficient and eco-friendly computing resources.

URLS:

http://www.uoregon.edu/~recycle/GreenComputing/GreenCompGuide_text.htm
http://green.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Computing
http://www.foursquareinnovations.co.uk/software_development_and_ebusiness_articles/green_computing_tips.html
http://www.uoregon.edu/~recycle/GreenComputing/GreenCompGuide_text.htm
http://www.foursquareinnovations.co.uk/software_development_and_ebusiness_articles/green_computing_tips.html

“Think Green”

Change your computer habits to use less energy and save money.

The growing use of computers has caused a dramatic increase in energy consumption especially in our school. Here in our University every office, colleges, library and laboratory have computers and printers. More and more computers are purchased and put to use, but it’s not just the number of computers that is driving energy consumption upward. The way that we use computers also adds to the increasing energy burden.

As you observe here in our school, computers are continuously running even if it isn’t in use. In our computer laboratory, not all the time all computer units are used but you can see it is on even no one uses it.

Every time we leave computers or lights on we waste electricity. Burning fossil fuels generates most of our electricity and it also emits pollutants, sulfur, and carbon dioxide into the air. These emissions can cause respiratory disease, smog, acid rain and global climate change.

Common Computer Myths:

Myth: It is bad to turn off the computer.
Truth: Computers are now designed to handle 40,000 on/off cycles. This is considerably more cycles than the average user will initiate in the computer’s 5-7 year life span. Turning your computer off helps reduce heat stress and wear on the system.

Myth: Turning your computer off uses more energy than leaving it on.
Truth: The surge of power used by a CPU to boot up is far less than the energy used by the unit when left on for over 3 minutes.

Myth: Screen savers save energy.
Truth: Screen savers were originally designed to help protect the life span of monochrome monitors which are now technologically obsolete. Most screen savers do not save energy unless they actually turn off the screen or, in the case of laptops, turn off the back light.

Myth: Network connections are lost when a PC goes into low-power/sleep mode.
Truth: Newer computers are designed to sleep on networks to prevent loss of data or connection. CPU’s with Wake on LAN (WOL) technology built-in to network cards can be left in sleep mode overnight to wake-up and receive data packets sent to the unit.

Tips and Tricks to Green Computing

• Power off your monitor when not in use instead of using screensavers
• Enable the standby/sleep mode and power management settings
• Power computers down on weekends and evenings
• Turn off all devices until you are ready to use them (scanners, speakers, printers)
• Don’t power your computer on until you are ready to use it
• Select dark backgrounds for your screen display. Do not use bright displays, which consume more power
• Review documents and emails onscreen instead of printing them out
• Use double sided printing functions

Create a “Green” Machine:

Enable Power Management Features:

Windows 98/ME/2000/XP

• Select Start> Settings> Control Panel> and Display.
• Select the Screen Saver tab. Choose a predominantly black screen saver and set it to wait for 5 minutes
• Click on Settings or Power to reach the power management settings
• Click the Shut Off Monitor box and set for 10 minutes
• Click Ok or Apply.
• Set Turn off hard disks for 15 minutes (or less)

· Set System standby for 30 minutes (or less)

· Click Ok or Apply.

The computers we all use day in and day out are huge energy wasters, unless we know how to manage them responsibly. It is simple way that we can help and suggest to apply to our University is by using sleep mode, avoiding screensavers, and remembering to always shut down your computer when you aren’t using it for an extended period of time, are all small actions that have big benefits.

Our school computer users should activate sleep mode on a regular basis. Sleep mode does no damage to the computer; it simply turns off your monitor after a period of inactivity. Pressing a key or clicking the mouse reactivates the monitor. Additionally, screensavers do not save energy, contrary to popular myth. In fact, screensavers can actually use twice as much energy as the computer would use without a screensaver. These screen saver programs also involve system interaction with your CPU that results in additional energy consumption. A blank screen saver is slightly better but even that only reduces monitor energy consumption by a few percent, but still it benefits us. And don’t forget to turn your computer off when you aren’t returning to it soon!

We have common misconception that a computer’s life is shortened by turning it on and off has led some to leave computers on all the time. Others are hesitant to switch their computers on and off a couple times during their workday despite only using this equipment or unit.

Computers generate heat and require additional cooling which adds to energy costs, that’s why most of our computer laboratory has air-condition which contribute for energy consumption. I encourage all computer users to enable their Power Management Features. And lets thanks to the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA), personal computer systems purchased today can be easy on energy. These “Energy Star” computers and monitors can be programmed to automatically “power-down” to a low power state when they are not being used. These efficiency gains can be achieved without any sacrifice in computing performance.

The EPA has estimated that providing computers with “sleep mode” reduces their energy use by 60 to 70 percent – and ultimately could save enough electricity each year to power Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, cut electric bills by $2 billion, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of 5 million cars.

How Much Energy Does Your Computer System Use?

A typical desktop PC system is comprised of the computer itself (the CPU or the “box”), a monitor, and printer. Your CPU may require approximately 100 watts of electrical power. Add 50-150 watts for a 15-17 inch monitor, proportionately more for larger monitors. The power requirements of conventional laser printers can be as much as 100 watts or more when printing though much less if idling in a “sleep mode.” Ink jet printers use as little as 12 watts while printing and 5 watts while idling.

We also suggest to do some Campus E-Waste Recycling in our school, in which the University of Oregon done to their campus.

Campus E-Waste Recycling:
Do you have old and unused electronics stored away? Our University should now recycles:
· CPUs, Monitors, and Printers · Floppy Disks and Compact Discs · Toner Cartridges and Ink Jets · Cell Phones, Palm Pilots (PDA’s) · 2-Way Radios/Beepers/Pagers · Audio and Video Tapes

Think about this:

A desktop computer left on for a full year would release 1500 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It would take up to 500 trees to offset that amount of carbon. Just by changing your computing habits, you can save significantly on pollution and energy costs. (According to the Harvard Green Campus Initiative)

A computer left continuously running will emit 2161 pounds of CO2 in a year and cost $45 a year to power at $0.0372 per kWh. A major cause of global warming.

Turning a computer off at night so it runs only 8 hours a day computes to a reduction of 810 kWh per year, or a 67% yearly savings.

Some specific suggestions that we can implement to our school:

• Unless you require immediate access to e-mail or other Internet services, break the habit of turning on all your computer equipment as soon as you enter the office each day.
• If practical, informally group your computer activities and try to do then during one or two parts of the day, leaving the computer off at other times.
• Avoid using the switch on a power strip to turn on all your equipment.
• If you use a laser printer, don’t turn your printer on until you are ready to print.
• Turn off your entire computer system (CPU, monitor and printer) or at least your monitor and printer when you go to lunch or will be out of office for a meeting or an errand.
• For “computer servers” which must be on to serve network functions, explore ways to turn servers off at night.
• If monitors are not needed for “servers” to operate, keep server monitors off. If server monitor is needed during the day, at least turn it off at night and weekends.

The energy saving suggestions listed above are appropriate for many campus PC users, some of the suggestions may be inappropriate for certain computer applications or work situations. To come up with the good planning to Green Computing to our University, staffs and all computer users should discuss possible energy conservation measures to determine which steps can be taken without harming productivity.

Our energy conservation program will not work without everybody’s help. Let’s all be an energy educator and gently remind our classmates and instructors to save energy by changing their computer habits.

Other Green Computing Practices that can be adopt to our School:

You can take a giant step toward environmentally responsible or “green” computing by conserving energy with your computer. But green computing involves other important steps as well. These pertain to paper use, toner cartridges, disposal of old computer equipment and purchasing decisions when considering new computer equipment.

Reducing Paper Waste
Rather than creating a paperless office, computer use has vastly increased paper consumption and paper waste. Here are some suggestions for reducing waste:

• Print as little as possible.

Review and modify documents on the screen and use print preview. Minimize the number of hard copies and paper drafts you make. Instead of printing, save information to disks.

• Recycle waste paper.

You may use the back page of the paper as a draft.

• Buy and use recycled paper in your printers and copiers.

From an environmental point of view, the best recycled paper is 100 percent post consumer recycled content.

• Save e-mail whenever possible and avoid needless printing of e-mail messages.
• Use e-mail instead of faxes or send faxes directly from your computer to eliminate the need for a hard copy.

When you must fax using hard copies, save paper using a “sticky” fax address note and not a cover sheet.

• On larger documents, use smaller font sizes (consistent with readability) to save paper.
• If your printer prints a test page whenever it is turned on, disable this unnecessary feature.
• Before recycling paper, which has print on only one side, set it aside for use as scrap paper or in printing drafts.
• When documents are printed or copied, use double-sided printing and copying. If possible, use the multiple pages per sheet option on printer properties.
• When general information-type documents must be shared within an office, try circulating them instead of making an individual copy for each person. This can also be done easily by e-mail.

Above this tips and practices can be adopt to in our school. We are not focus on how we save energy but also in paper waste. All colleges use printers for printing purposes. And we all know some of the staffs irresponsibly use paper when doing printing which causes in paper wastages. I think we should implement this, it really benefits us.

We as a student, with this information stated above and our own little way to save the environment is in our hands. Lets work together to save mother earth!

2010 Automated Election

AUTOMATION ON 2010?

Philippine Election 2010 Computerization is one of the subject that has been discussed today. And as read articled and search the I had knew that the COMELEC has received 7 proposal from different companies with their technical and commercial offer. And now the question that I have in mind is, are we Filipinos ready for the Philippine Election 2010 Computerization?, Some may say “Yes, we can.” and some may argue that we cannot do it. But I believe that we have to make it on a level by level approach. As an example the COMELEC should implement it first with Luzon or either NCR, just to make trial for this kind of system. I don’t think it will be easy to make it in the whole country with in the remaining time which is less than a year of preparation. I know that there are no such perfect program that cannot be hacked (we, as an IT student should already knew that.). As of this time it is still impossible to have a perfect system. But at least they can make the system with high security that it will be impossible for a hacker to do it on a specified time. For my opinion, the government should try to do the automation and be automated. We are already in the computer stage; let’s make use of the technology for our benefits. I would prefer to have a computerized election and counting rather than having a manual counting that will take weeks just to know the winner. The implementation of the automated polls in 2010 will definitely make the election faster, easier and more accurate, if it done properly. However, we have yet to prove its effectiveness and efficiency upon its implementation. Thus, we need to consider some points. First, it must be implemented with safeguards against anomalies. Second is the accessibility of the technology to all. Third, the process of submission and retrieval of data must be confidential and confined to the proper officials who will cast the votes. I may support for any type of poll automation as long as it would reduce fraud and speed up the election. Also we might prevent the manipulation of the votes. If you just think there is always a possibility of fraud in any whichever system they prefer to use, either in manual or automated elections in 2010. With automation, we will drastically minimize the impact of human intervention in the process. And the automation will definitely speed up the electoral process. Election in the precinct level counting done within an hour, at the local level are expected to come out within a day and those at the national level would be known in about two days only. The government had already spent money for this automation project. The COMELEC has asked for Php 11.3 billion for the cost of funding this project. But how can we make this system easy to use. Many countries had gone with this kind of election system and they experience some problems implementing this. In Florida they had designed a voting machine which led to 13%not casting their vote for their desired representative. The touch-screen interface was inconsistent, leading to confusion and a phenomenon known as “banner blindness” (def. The tendency of web visitors to ignore banner ads, even when banners contain information visitors are actively seeking.). In Finland, the lack of clear instructions and once again, a poorly designed process led to 232 voters (out of 12,234) not finishing the voting process. These voters failed to notice that they had to “validate” their votes after making their picks. These numbers may not seem significant. But if you’re running a nationwide election, with millions of votes to process, these errors will increase in scale. Imagine the situation here in the Philippines, as election sore losers and naysayers have yet another reason to keep the new officials from simply getting down to business. Although, we automate the elections it does not mean all problems on manual system will go away. However, if we look at the experience of the United States and other countries who automated their elections, the old problem still persists and new problem crop up. An election watchdog has urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to conduct an audit of the results of the August 11 poll in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which is the first to be automated in the history of the COMELEC. They said the use of optical mark readers (OMR) and direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines in the ARMM election does not guarantee an error-free electoral exercise. Errors in automated elections systems : Machine problems cited in the EIRS database include uninitialized machines, uncounted/lost votes, candidates/choices reverses, contests not counted, wrong winner comes out, voting more than once, votes exceeding total number of voters, negative votes and unauthorized software replacement. Also software errors, hardware errors, environmental stresses, human errors, poor/flawed design and even malicious tampering could account for the persistence of errors in automated elections systems. • Uninitialized machines - meant voting machines failed to produce "zero count" printouts when the polling places opened. This is the electronic equivalent of ballot boxes stuffed with ballots even before the voting has started • Uncounted/lost votes - votes were simply "lost" or uncounted while in some cases, whole contests were not being counted. To minimize errors in the actual count, vendors (such as Smartmatic-SAHI) should use technology to enhance the transparency of the counting process by printing hard copies of the election returns. Precinct results should be posted on the Internet while maintaining the public count at the precinct level. COMELEC should consider using double-entry accounting methods for election tallies, which is usually used by businesses to balance its books. He said using double-entry accounting methods during elections would be more expensive and time-consuming but would also allow post-election auditing and help authorities detect canvassing fraud more easily. Automation will minimize problems usually encountered during elections, it does not guarantee a fraud-free election. More than a technological problem, election fraud is really a social problem and therefore calls for social solutions, supported by technological means. The only effective social solution to fraud in elections is eternal vigilance and punishment for the cheats. I really up to us if this coming automated election would work. We also need to cooperate for us to secure our votes are counted!

http://www.ask.com/bar?q=automation+of+election+in+philippnes&page=1&qsrc=0&ab=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftechnogra.ph%2F20090303%2Fsections%2Feditorial%2Fhow-the-philippines-can-in-lead-election-automation%2F
http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/banner_blindness/

COMDDAP 2009

COMDDAP Davao
creating IT… growing IT… winning IT…
July 2-4, 2009

COMDDAP Davao held at Apo View Hotel. This said event promotes new technology in the market. Also, they had sessions that help IT people, web developer etc. gain new ideas and knowledge in their fields. I had attended 3 of their sessions or seminars; HP Thin Client, Windows Server 2008 and Open Source for Business Application.
I was pretty amaze with this new technology HP (Hewlett Packard) presented, The Thin Clients. In this session, the speaker was Leonard Zapa, the Market Development Manager in Remote Client Solutions Group. Actually he was promoted this HP new contraption, what its functions and how will it benefits the buyer for its purpose. Thin Client is a computing device desktop and a solid state device. It does not have hard drive on it. According to the exhibitor, it is more reliable, stable and last longer compare to the thick desktop we usually have.
With its structure, it is thinner compare to our desk top. It has 8 USB ports, 2 of its port is place inside of it for the purpose to secure USB cannot be detached by accident. What good with this is that you don’t need for anti-virus because once it is detected it automatically shuts downs and reboots and remove viruses.
Below are the benefits that Thin Clients offers:
Enhance Security
Easy Manageability
Environment Friendly
Lower Over-all Cost
Thin Client saves power consumption, 80% lower of your energy expenses. Users can save up to 11watts to 20 watts. It has minimal heat generated which requires less cooling that’s why Thin Client does not have fan inside of it. And because of its thin structure it really saves space.
Here below are the factors to be considered in analyzing the total cost of ownership in which Mr. Zapa mentioned:

Hard ware cost
Power consumption
Heat dissipate
Space saving
You really find this pretty amazing because of the features it offers.

Next session that I had attended was the Windows Server 2008. The exhibitor of this seminar was Lee L. Gorospe, a Technical Trainer of EDUPRO Inc. He discussed the following area in Windows Server 2008:
Active Directory Roles
Active Directory Rights Management Service
Read Only Domain Controller
Hyper V
Network Access Protection
Server Core

AD RMS (Active Directory Rights Management Service) is an information protection technology that works with AD RMS-enabled applications. This is to help safeguard digital information from unauthorized use. AD RMS is used as to restrict access to an organization’s intellectual property, limit the actions users can perform on content of the data or information and limit the risk of content being exposed outside the organization.
The good thing with this AD RMS is that if you want to protect sensitive files on MS Word, MS Excel or in MS Power Point it has features to set the rights to view, change or edit and print a particular file. You can even set its validity period. File can be set its expiration for its protection. Also in e-mails in the MS Outlook, you can restrict it from being sent it to the Internet and from being taken outside of the company especially the confidential e-mails of a company.

RODC (Read Only Domain Controller) is an option for deploying a new Domain Controller. This is recommended for Sites that are lacking IT personnel and security. Also this is the solution for Sites/Office that has no or poor physical server security.

Virtualization (Hyper V) is used to reduce costs, increases hardware utilization, optimizes the infrastructure and Improves server availability. It has the capabilities to bit locker (seamless, secure data encryption), live backup (Volume Shadow Service integration) and support for full or Server Core installations.
NAS (Network Access Protection) is a platform that enforces compliance with health requirements for network access or communication by the use of Internet Protocol security (IPsec). With this security to an unauthorized access would restrict.
Server Core, we need this to reduce the attack and servicing surface area. And it increases reliability and security and servers are optimized by role are easier to manage and maintain. It really benefits us by minimal server installation. This requires less disk space. It also saves money and time and assures more secure servers.

The last session I had attended was the Open Source for Business Application. Ben Aligre, a Project Manager of Spin Web, was the lecturer of this session. In this session we were just few, most of the people were web developer or IT people. He gave a situation to them on how many days would be able to create web site for ANCHOR recipe and how much it would cost for the to make this site. But before they gave their answer, Sir Ben started the discussion. Open Source is an approach to the decision develop, it is no vendor lock in the source is open and free to use. It is license software that is free for distribution and access to the source. I was confused the difference by the Free Software to Open Source, but one of my friends who had already enrolled the subject of FOS or Free Open Source explained it. According to her, there was confusion with the word of “free”. Because when you heard the “free software” they find it as cheap, worthless and useless. And that’s why they change it to Open Source. There are softwares that are non-proprietary or do not need license. These softwares are Lime wire, Transmission, Ubuntu, Open Office, Mozilla Fire fox, Thunder Bird, Pidgin, Gimshop, VLC and many more. After the discussion, they had talked the situation; many had answered 30 days or more but for Sir Aligre and company assumed that they can make it within 15 days with less expenses. It because no need for you to purchase software instead you just have to use open source software.

Assignment 2

ANFLOCOR Damosa

Background:

The rise of the ANFLO Group business empire started from a vision of one man, Don Antonio O. Floirendo, Sr., or AOF, as he is fondly called by his employees. AOF's business acumen, inspired by his foresight and gut-feel, enabled him to build a business conglomerate which is proudly Mindanao based.

As the number of companies grew, the need to organize a company that would be entasked to manage the vast business empire became inevitable. Thus in 1977 ANFLO MANAGEMENT & INVESTMENT CORPORATION or ANFLOCOR was organized.

Today, ANFLOCOR manages several companies engaged in growing and exporting of bananas and pineapples, real estate development and leasing, beach resort operation, manufacturing of corrugated boxes, plastic products and labels, processing and/or supplying fresh meat products, growing of citrus fruits, trucking, arrastre and stevedoring, cold storage rental, automotive dealership, financing, retailing, breeding of race horses, hog raising and production of bottled preserves.

In our visit in ANFLOCOR, We were entertained by their ANFLOCOR Senior Manager- IT & Management Services, Mr. Giovanni T. Pimentel. I had learned that their system started using a COBOL. And for their Company’s advantages they had decided to convert their language into Visual Basic 6.0. And because of the need of improvement to their system performance, they shifted to new system. Their current system is run by Visual Basic dot Net. Having this system to their company is a big help in the controls to their business process. Systems are internally developed by their Internal Programmers. He shared that they never experience major problem with their system but they also incident for file corruption and power interruption. With this they secured their data or information by having back up in a daily basis and done off side just like at EMCOR. Back up files is also in other building.

He mentioned that they also encountered risks on changing IS or systems in their company. Challenge to orient their staffs for the new system, they need to train the users of the new system on its function and also how to trouble shoot. They need to purchase software requires for their system conversion. This would be costly, purchasing proprietary software. Also, it takes long time to change IS/IT on a company, as what Mr. Giovanni said they have to make Information System Plan. He also enumerated their steps to be considered on changing IT/IS system; planning, organizing, execute and measure. For his there always business continuity plans.

Photo with Mr. Giovanni T. Pimentel

Visitation ID at ANFLOCOR

EMCOR Bajada

This is the continuation in my first assignment. Because we were not able to have a further discussion in our first visit to EMCOR Bajada, head office, we made a follow up visit there to us to be able gain more knowledge to their system with relates to this study.

The day after our first visit, we had left a questionnaire supposedly to be answered by the MIS manager and Sir Alex (we’re not able to ask his full name because of little time he gave us) but unfortunately they were not able to answer it. But the secretary called the EDP department to seek for approval if we could able to interview their system analyst, luckily he permitted us. After in HRD department we went to the next building to meet Mr. Marcelino Vistal Jr., EMCOR Inc. System Analyst.

It was 1991 when they had their first system run at DOS Base Clipper. But because of system can no longer accommodate transaction and also experience corruption of files, they decided to upgrade and change it into that run GUI in 1995.

Now, most of all process data are computerized or systemized. They have their general HR system, payroll system etc. Having this all system gives advantage to their company. In decision making, information’s needed can be collected in faster way. Also if they have to present a report, they can easily have the data required, compared to manually system they had reports were done one month delay because of time consuming of data gathering and the accuracy were at stake. With this, they can less their manpower because the big help of computerized systems. And because of their systems are in-house support it is cheaper compare in outsource.

It has also a disadvantage having computerized systems in their company. One of he mentioned was the costly connection. They pay 400,000Php monthly for the connection. Also, the maintenance of their computers adds to expenses. To connect all systems they had nationwide they had to buy server to be able to interconnect all their branch systems. The server they had in their department cost 30 million, in which 150 servers connected here in 110 branches in Mindanao.

He had enumerated the steps on how they plan on having their system; gather information, analysis, coding, debugging, implementation, testing and also the maintenance (they considered if the system is in a capacity). For security purposes, they had to back up all their files in daily, weekly, monthly and end of the year for the entire year of data. And back up done off side means in the other building. They also restrict their employee on the data they are going to access that’s why employees have their on user account to avoid intrusion to the company important documents and files.

And now, EMCOR are planning to improve their system. They have converted their old system to a new one with the help of SAP (I had already mention this to my first posted assignment). But the risks they encountered in changing their system are as follows.

• It takes long time for it to convert to one language to another.

And according to him, one of their systems that they had converted took almost a year and until now it has not yet finish.

They must specify what are needed data or information must be move to the new system.

• It is costly.

Because EMCOR considered as one of the big company here in the Philippines they have many systems interconnected that are needed to convert. So, they have decided to let SAP help them for the conversion.

• Training to the staffs that use the new system.

There must be a necessary training for the IT staff and the general staff to run the information system. It also included here how they trouble shoot the system if problem occur. Since it is new system, a new way of operating the system and it must be study well the function of the system.

photo with Mr. Marcelino Vistal Jr., EMCOR Inc. System Analyst.

EMCOR's Server

http://www.anflocor.com/company.html