top 5 current news

case #8

1.Manila hostage crisis occurred when a dismissed Philippine National Police officer took over a tour bus in Rizal Park, Manila, Philippines on August 23, 2010. Disgruntled former senior inspector Rolando Mendoza, from the Manila Police District (MPD) hijacked a tour bus carrying 25 people (20 tourists and also a tour guide, all from Hong Kong, and four Filipinos) in an attempt to get his job back. He said that he was summarily dismissed without the opportunity to properly defend himself, and that all he wanted was a fair hearing.

Opinion/comment:
According to the reports, negotiations for the release of the hostages had been uneventful until violence erupted when Mendoza allegedly saw his brother on television, who was at the scene, being arrested and dragged away by the police. There were 15 Chinese tourists and a Filipino driver being held in the bus when the violence erupted. sad to say, It ended with a bloodbath.
It killed eight hostages and the lone hostage taker, a dismissed policeman named Roland Mendoza -- whom reports say resorted to the hostage taking to demand his reinstatement.
it was very sad, we do hope that this will never happen again.

2.Super typhoon Juan

State weather forecasters on Saturday said typhoon "Juan" (Megi) – predicted to become a super typhoon once it makes landfall in northern Luzon on Monday – signals the start of a series of powerful storms for the remaining three months of the year.

Typhoon juan maintained its strength as it moved slowly northwest out of the Philippines on Tuesday, leaving at least 10 people dead and 12 people injured, with estimates of over P1 billion in losses from damaged crop and property strewn in its wake.

Although the weather remains rainy and windy over much of northern and central Luzon, the worst of the storm has passed, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), which has downgraded storm signal warnings.

3. DLSU Bombing
Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Renato Corona said that the suspect in the bombing of Bar examinees last Sept. 26 in Manila "has no soul".The bombing incident injured 47 individuals, including law students and Bar examinees themselves.Corona said that the suspect in the bombing incident in front of the De La Salle University (DLSU) along Taft Avenue, Manila last September 26 on the last day of the Bar Examinations could be considered as "no soul".Corona disagreed with "speculations" that the bombing incident was triggered by a "fraternity war".The Chief Justice said that the authorities concerned had not yet established that the bombing incident was a result of the "fraternity war".A special committee, created by the SC, started on Monday its own investigation into the bombing incident.Corona gave them until Oct. 15 to submit its report and recommendation as to who should be held criminally responsible for the bombing incident.

Opinion/comment:

It is very sad that in the middle of a celebration, a tragedy would happen. The crowd gathered happily to celebrate the end of the just concluded Board Exam. Many were hurt, some were even badly injured flooding the hospital rooms. In fact, one of the students’ leg was badly damaged it has to be removed. Every year, they celebrate the end of board examination but no one knows that this would happen. And the one who is responsible to this incident must be in jail.

4.The Maguindanao massacre, also known as the Ampatuan massacre (after the town where the mass graves were found), occurred on the morning of November 23, 2009, in the town of Ampatuan in Maguindanao province, on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. While the victims were on their way to file a certificate of candidacy for Esmael Mangudadatu, vice mayor of Buluan town, they were kidnapped and brutally killed. Mangundadatu was challenging Datu Unsay mayor Andal Ampatuan, Jr., son of the incumbent Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan, Sr., in the forthcoming Maguindanao gubernatorial election,^[1] part of the national elections in 2010. The 57 people killed included Mangudadatu's wife, his two sisters, journalists, lawyers, aides, and motorists who were witnesses or were mistakenly identified as part of the convoy.

opinion/comments:
“It was really frustrating to hear about the evil people like them do those thing that very immoral. the details, facts are already out in the open, but still those people are still out there. Let us all pray that justice will be served as soon as possible, and such cruelty will never happen again.”

5.President Aquino Vows to Achieve More Beyond 100 Days

MANILA, Philippines (PNA) — President Benigno S. Aquino on Thursday said he is more determined to work harder to fulfill his promise of an honest government and a decent life for every Filipino.

In his report on his first 100 days in office, the President said the trust the people have given his administration has inspired him to achieve more.

“Hinding-hindi po tayo titigil sa tuwid na landas. Unti-unti na pong natupad ang ating mga pangarap (We will not stop to take the right path. Our dreams are slowly taking shape; our goals are slowly being achieved),” the President said.

He said his determination to rid the bureaucracy of corruption is paying off -- business confidence is back and the economy is stronger.

Among the great strides he took in his first 100 days included the issuance of Executive Order #7 ordering the suspension of all privileges of officials of 122 government-owned and -controlled corporations and government financial institutions that resulted in savings of P2.5 million.

The Philippines’ winning the case on the Ninoy Aquino International Airport 3 also saved the government P43.4 billion, he said.

The President’s order to stop negotiated contracts with the Department of Public Works and Highways and the re-bidding of urgently-needed projects also saved the government P934.1 million.

He said his order to defer the purchase of a helicopter for the Department of Defense due to allegations that it favors one company allowed the government to set aside P3.6 billion.

The President said he has ordered a thorough study on the P18.5 billion Laguna de Bay project to avoid waste of money.

The Chief Executive noted that weather forecasting has improved from the every-six-hour update to an hourly, more focused weather update when he ordered the change in the stewardship of the country’s weather bureau and saved the government billions of pesos.

“Lahat po iyan naibalik natin sa kaban ng bayan,” the President said adding that the benefits derived from an improved economy will be given back to the people through projects that will uplift their lives

According to the President subsidies for agricultural inputs that made the rich richer and the poor poorer and funds for projects such as the Kalayaan Barangay at Kilos Asenso were transferred to projects that will really benefit the poor.

Some P11 billion were poured into education, health and other pro-poor projects.

The 2011 Reform Budget reflects all of these with the increase in the budget allocation for the Department of Education from P175 billion to P207.3 billion, to build 13,147 new classrooms and hire 10,000 new teachers.

The Department of Health budget increased to P33.3 billion from P29.3 billion so as to strengthen the National Health Insurance program while the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s budget more than doubled from P15.6 billion to P34.3 billion.

The conditional cash transfer program was also strengthened and expanded from one million families to 2.3 million families covered in 2011.

The President stressed that his priority is to create more jobs. He said the $ 2.4 billion in investments he got from his recent US trip will create 43,600 new jobs. And, if the investment climate will be friendlier, more investors will be coming into the country.

Ways to keep your Computer Safe

1. Use groups and permissions

Groups and permissions are a technical aspect of the filesystem inherited from Unix systems, but they're still useful. Each user can be a member of any number of groups, and a group is just a special kind of user.

Most distros use groups to restrict access to specific hardware. It's a file, folder or device's permissions that configure how that device could be accessed. Right-click on the file in a file manager, and click on Properties to see its permissions. Then change the parameters to restrict access to key files and devices.

2. Check for unused accounts

If you've been using your current installation for some time, the chances are you've created more than one user account. This could have been to accommodate other people who use your machine, but it could also be to satisfy installation requirements for applications.

The SqueezeCenter media streaming tool, for instance, needs to be run from its own user account. This is both good and bad. It ensures that applications such as SqueezeCenter have complete control over their own files and processes and, if the worst happens, those processes can only ever damage their own files. However, it becomes easy to lose track of how many users you have, and each of those accounts has some kind of access to your system.

If you're running an SSH server, for example, it may be possible for a hacker to connect to SqueezeCenter's account without your knowledge. Most distributions include their own user management tool.

3. Don't use root for everything

One of the defining characteristics that differentiates Linux from Windows is that standard user accounts can't destroy the integrity of the operating system - you have to be running as the system administrator to do that.

Even though you may routinely use the root account for system administration tasks, it's important that those tasks are kept separate from day-to-day monotony and desktop management.

Some users find the constant stream of password requests that accompany any system administration task annoying, and decide to continually connect as root. This practice is a little like disabling the earth connection in electronic music equipment to stop any ground-loop hum being heard: it will certainly fix the problem, but you could die.

The more time you spend as root, the more likely it becomes that you're going to make a mistake, and the same is true as always being root on the command line. The only solution is not to be tempted to run as root for everything.

4. Control CD Burners and External Media

CD/DVD Burners, Flash drives and cell phones make data incredibly portable. So portable that critical company data could walk right out the front door snuggly tucked away on the flash drive of a temp, or in the iPod of an unhappy employee. Just like the Internet, if they don't need it to do their jobs, don't give it to them. Here's a link for free tools to turn off USB ports and CD burners.

5. Limit Employee Computer Use

If your employees have unfettered web access from their computers, you're probably inviting trouble if they don't need web access to perform their job duties. Appliances like Untangle can easily block, limit or monitor web activity by each user. For a cheap alternative, check my blog my post from back in January about a free and effective web blocking tool built right into Internet Explorer called Content Advisor.

6. Lock the screen when away from the computer

Imagine the scene: you are logged into a website (perhaps checking your credit card
balance, or seeing how many people have poked you today) in the coffee shop, when the
barista tells you your drink is ready. You won’t be far away and you can still see the
laptop, so it is not going to get stolen... but while you’re up, the nice girl on the next table
makes a few notes on a napkin, and by the time you get home your credit card is a few
hundred pounds lighter.

7. Automatic logout

The last item in this discussion of Mac OS X features to improve physical security is also
the least, because it offers little additional security at a cost of some convenience. In the
Security preference pane you can configure the Mac to log you out automatically if you
are not active for a certain amount of time. The problem with that is that the inactivity
time gives bad guys a chance to use the computer, while locking the screen (or even
shutting the computer down) would stop them from being able to do that.

8. Be Vigilant

Even if the email is from someone you know, if you are not expecting an attachment, don't open it. If the email includes a web link, are you sure you need to click it? If a sales guy shows up and wants to show you files he has on his flash drive, politely decline. A couple of years ago a colleague and I were interviewing local developers for a relatively small database project. As he twirled his shiny keychain flash drive on his finger, he offered to copy the data files so he could take a closer look at home and get back to us. Suffice to say we declined and said we'd get back to him.

9. Routine Maintenance

Back in the I Love You, Nimda and Melissa Virus days we pulled a few all nighters cleaning machine after machine that were infected, not because they did not have anti-virus software, but because they lacked the latest Microsoft patch that plugged a security hole. For workstations we recommend setting Windows Update to automatic. As needed the computer will receive and install needed Microsoft security and software updates. Make sure that your anti-virus is configured the same way. For servers, I recommend configuring it to download the updates, but let me choose when to install them. This way I can do the updates after hours or on the weekend so, if there are problems, I have plenty of time to fix it before people start showing up for work.

10. Make a boot disk on a CD or floppy disk.

In case your computer is damaged or compromised by a malicious program you will at least be able to boot your computer with the boot disk. You will need to make this boot disk before you experience a hostile breach of your system.

Consumer Act of the Philippines

The Philippine government adopted RA 7394 (Consumer Act of the Philippines of 1991) as the legal basis for consumer protection in the country. The law embodies the state policy on the protection of consumers and establishes standards of conduct for business and industry in the country.

The Consumer act of the philippines will help a lot to the people who are fund of having a business, because this act will protect and provide the rights of the consumer to there needs. There have been marked improvements in regulations alongside increased revenues for banks. The Filipino government has enacted multiple laws regulating the financial industry as well as protecting consumers. However, significant institutional overlap exists, which is not easy to unravel. Client protection appears to occupy a very important position in the banking and financial sector, at least with regards to microfinance. By this law, there is a great framework for protecting consumers from financial woes and providing them with fair treatment.

How new Technology is rewiring our BRAINS?

What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people?

These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they're coming from brain scientists.

While violent video games have gotten a lot of public attention, some current concerns go well beyond that. Some scientists think the wired world may be changing the way we read, learn and interact with each other.

There are no firm answers yet. But Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist at UCLA, argues that daily exposure to digital technologies such as the internet and smart phones can alter how the brain works.

When the brain spends more time on technology-related tasks and less time exposed to other people, it drifts away from fundamental social skills like reading facial expressions during conversation, Small asserts.

So brain circuits involved in face-to-face contact can become weaker, he suggests. That may lead to social awkwardness, an inability to interpret nonverbal messages, isolation and less interest in traditional classroom learning.

Small says the effect is strongest in so-called digital natives - people in their teens and 20s who have been "digitally hard-wired since toddlerhood." He thinks it's important to help the digital natives improve their social skills and older people - digital immigrants - improve their technology skills.

What is I.T outsourcing?

Outsourcing of IT processes - this may range from infrastructure, to software development, maintenance and support.

Outsourcing - is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company.

The concept of taking internal company functions and paying an outside firm to handle them. Outsourcing is done to save money, improve quality, or free company resources for other activities. Outsourcing was first done in the data-processing industry and has spread to areas, including telemessaging and call centers. Outsourcing is the wave of the future.

The definition of outsourcing, basically started in the late 80's, is certainly correct. frequently, the exact operations (people, equipment, etc.) were sold to an outside party to run. So in data processing for example, the entire computer department became owned/employed by say IBM who ran it at a fixed cost, or all accounting functions were taken over by an outside firm for a specified fee. It was thought the original company didn't have to deal w

ith employee issues, benefits, etc.

Advantages of Outsourcing

The benefits of outsourcing are:

Less capital expenditure - For example, by outsourcing information technology requirements, a company does not have to buy expensive hardware and software.

Less management headache - For example, by outsourcing business process such as accounting, a company no longer has to hire and manage accounting personnel.

Focus on core competencies - Outsourcing non-core related processes will allow a business to focus more on it's core competencies and strengths, giving it a competitive advantage.

Disadvantages of Outsourcing

Before deciding on outsourcing your company's business process, keep in mind the disadvantages of outsourcing:

Less managerial control - It may be harder to manage the outsourcing service provider as compared to managing your own employees.

Outsourcing company goes out of business - If your outsourcing service provide goes bankrupt or out of business, your company will have to quickly transition to a new service provider or take the process back in-house.

May be more expensive - Sometimes it is cheaper to keep a process in-house as compared to outsourcing.

Security and confidentiality issues - If your company is outsourcing business processes such as payroll, confidential information such as salary will be known to the outsourcing service provider.

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. It is the largest of the networking sites, with the runner up being MySpace. It began as a college networking website and has expanded to include anyone and everyone.

Facebook - a popular name among those who are so into it. Individuals who have an account in Facebook are now using more of their time to socialize with other people amidst the distance and lack of time. And even if a community like Facebook serves numerous advantages, it also proves to have certain disadvantages as well. There are now series of improvements in the system just to make up with the shortcomings. Arguments regarding the different advantages and disadvantages of Facebook are stated below.

Facebook was founded by 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and originally called thefacebook. It was quickly successful on campus and expanded beyond Harvard into other Ivy League schools. With the phenomenon growing in popularity, Zuckerberg enlisted two other students, Duston Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, to assist. Within months, thefacebook became a nationwide college networking website.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Facebook

Advantages
· Allows user search for new and old friends
· Accessible to chosen universities having a high level of security
· Makes it less awkward when communicating with strangers or people you are not familiar with
· Love attraction - can be used as a dating service system
· Makes it easier to join groups having similar likes and dislikes
· Allows members to check students who are taking the same class, living within the same area, or coming from the same academy

Disadvantages
· Overcrowding
· Weakening long distance relationship
· Unsupported by physical adjacency
· Contributes wide-range procrastination
· Rampant addiction
· Stalking is possible
· Acquaintances be labeled as friends


The Characteristics of Facebook

1. Facebook doesn’t begin the conversation, it enhances it – If you’re a new or low profile brand looking to increase awareness, Facebook can be a great way to do it. But it comes with extreme diminishing returns, and this goes double with brands that are already well established. Brands that seem to generate interest and report success with Facebook do so with the understanding that most of their users are already on Facebook.

2.They are non-interruptive – Think about all the times you have non-marketing oriented folks tell you why they are on Facebook. I’ll bet more often than not, you hear something to the effect that “it’s a great way to keep in touch with friends and family”. At its core, Facebook is a communication medium. As a marketer, you ultimately either enhance or diminish its effectiveness.

3.They integrate multiple social mediums – Perhaps I’m overstating this, but trying to silo your social endeavors diminishes engagement. But we all know silo-ing an operation is part and partial to large organizations with many moving parts.

4.They use Facebook to create evangelists – Badges, apps, fanpages…all of these things are ways to turn your existing base into your own built in brand evangelizing army. For a large brand, the value to having a ‘friend’ on Facebook isn’t that one friend…it’s the 120 or so friends that friend happens to have.


Can you use Facebook in E-Commerce?

Yes, Between music, virtual gifting, gaming and retail goods, Facebook is turning into a virtual online mall of sorts. We’ve written about Payvment, a startup that allows anyone to create and operate a retail storefront on Facebook. Today, Payvment is launching an innovative new feature for storefront owners on Facebook: the ability for retailers to provide instant discounts and coupons to users that become Fans or “Like” their Facebook page.

Another compelling feature of Payvment’s e-commerce app is the ability to allow shoppers to carry their goods with them across thousands of Payvment-powered storefronts on Facebook. It makes shopping on Facebook almost like shopping at Target, where you can visit multiple departments and buy all of your diverse purchases at once. Users can also add comments and reviews to Payvment-enabled storefronts.


The Importance of Facebook today

The kind of power and supremacy Facebook has seized today is not unseen or concealed to anyone. It has become a part and parcel of our day to day lives. For a common man who isn't much aware of online industry, considers it to be a platform to get in touch with friends and family, buy things and gain some cool information at the same time. But, for internet marketers Facebook is like a goldmine. Today, almost every single existent grown up individual has an active profile on Facebook, and this is the key for internet marketers like you and me.

Facebook is like a free marketing resource. All you have to do is make the right use of it. It is the best platform to make the public aware about your business and service. It has visitors, whom you have to attract with your tactics and ploys. Let your imagination take the charge, and try developing more unique ways of earning through Facebook.

What is google?

Case # 1

It is a highly successful internet business.
Recently they had broaden there scope with a
multitrade of new tool.

Have you ever wondered what is the meaning of Google? Where did the name google come from? What does google stand for? Google is the name of internet’s most popular search engine and the word Google is derived from GOOGOL.

Googol is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, “Mathematics and the Imagination” by Kasner and James Newman. Google’s play on the term reflects the company’s mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.”

Services of google they offer

Advertise your business with Google AdWords

Google AdWords lets you promote your business alongside relevant Google search results and on our advertising network. Reach people looking for information about your products and services online. Easily control your budget and target prospects geographically


Maximize revenue from your online content

Google AdSense enables website publishers of all sizes to display relevant ads on their online content and earn money. AdSense supports a wide variety of online media including websites, mobile, video, games and feeds.

Increase website conversions and marketing ROI
Use Google Analytics easy-to-understand reports to make measurable improvements to campaigns and websites. Learn which keywords, sites and locations bring high-value traffic, and be more informed about how visitors are reacting to your site's content.


What makes google unique?

Although known mainly for being a popular search engine, Google has many other features that make it unique, such as Gmail, the web-based e-mail that offered 1 gigabyte of e-mail storage. This limit has recently increased to over 2.6 Gb. The idea behind it is that people really don't need to delete their e-mails because it would take many e-mails to hit this limit, and users can search through their old e-mails through a special search feature.

Also, a new Google Video store offering movies for downloading and viewing on a Google Video Player has been released. Filmmakers can set the price of the movie and the "copy protection" level in order to give viewers more variety than was previously available. What makes the Google search special is the unique advertising on each search page. After entering a search query, the AdWords program pops up relevant ads on the side of the results. For example, if someone searched "formal dresses," the right side of the results page would have a list of ads that contained the word "dress" in them to attract the user to their sponsors' sites.
Posted by sieweh


How competitive are they in the market?

Google Analytics has now been around for some time. Google Analytics is a free web application that helps web masters learn everything they want to know about how their visitors found their site and how they interact with their site. They are able to focus on their marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve their site to convert more visitors.But what can Google get in return: Competitive Market Research regarding the Search marketplace.Using Google Analytics Aggregated data Google can collect statistics regarding other search engines and how they refer you to sites.In effect what keywords they refer, vs. what keywords others refer. They also can get raw counts in the number of unique visitors and total visitors by referrer.


How have they used information Technology to their advantage?
Google's advantage is more of a company philosophy than a technical
advantage. Thus far they have simply remembered what works on the
Internet. Some history.

Back in the days of Yore, (lets see that was a whole 8 years ago
maybe), search engines weren't very good. They were better than
nothing, but trying to find things took quite a bit of skill or a
large sense of humor. You could put in a query and almost anything
would come up, and that anything would number in the 10,000's. A
Researcher on the web could use plus and minus signs, quotes and AND
OR logic to wade through the results, getting a bit better listings
for his query, but for the average user, it was still a mess.

META keyword tags were then used, because the thought was "You know
what your page is about, so you tell us" and that worked a little
better for a while until the marketing people got a hold of the idea.
Any marketing person will tell you that it is better to have your
company name show up as much as possible, than to only show up when
it's relevant. "Keep your product in view" is the thought there, so
webmasters started putting all kinds of keywords in their META tags,
and descriptions. Not based on the contents of the page but on the
popularity of the keywords used for searches.


How competitive google in the international market?

Having studied Google abroad somewhat significantly, I believe this article provides a very naïve view on Google’s success abroad. Absolutely, Google, as any American company, needs to be extremely aware of the impression they make when entering foreign grounds, as the risk as being seen as arrogant – the ugly American – is omnipresent. And, yes, Google should continue to grow their in-country teams significantly in order to best overcome cultural and sales hurdles and take advantage of unique opportunities and the gigantic world market that is growing at a quicker pace than the U.S. market.Recent stats point to European e-commerce in a position to surge past U.S. e-commerce.Yet, don’t attempt to fool anyone here: Google has enormous international market share. Though I’m on a plane and not able to access these stats immediately, I believe that Google has approximately a 10-point higher share of search in Europe than they do in the States. I attended an online and multi-channel retail conference in London earlier this year, and Google was constantly mentioned, and never in a bad light. I am attempting to arrange a dinner in Paris later this year or early next with top French e-commerce companies, and Google is the likely sponsor, due to their relationship with the French agency that I am in contact with and their relationship with the likely invitees. Google is dominant in most countries, with their distant following to Baidu in China and the Russian example in the article notable exceptions.


Who are the Competitors of Google?

Despite their similarities, Teoma and Wisenut are looking to cut into Google’s dominance by carving up search results in slightly different ways. Each service says it has cracked the formula for delivering germane results in a way that is faster and more cost-efficient. And each is frantically working to amass the largest database of searchable documents to outstrip Google’s lead in the marketplace with more than 1.3 billion indexed pages.

Although the technology looks promising, Teoma and Wisenut may have some difficulty wooing partners away from more established players, search experts said. “Teoma’s technology looks very good, and its results are relevant,” said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com. “That’s hopeful because if they are trying to compete with Google they’re not at an immediate disadvantage. But its big weakness is that its database isn’t very large...Their real challenge will be to win new customers, and it’s going to be harder to try to convince some of them that they should come away from Google.”