iLLuMiNaTa - The Enlighten One's

Identify an information environment of your choice and write an essay to address the following questions: (3000 words).

• What should be your role within this environment?

• How can the principles of information organization and representation help you in performing this role?

• What are the challenges facing you in performing the role? How will you address these challenges?

I find this topic very ambiguous, at first, I thought this topic means evaluating some information environment group yet I was wrong. After some inquiry about this topic here is my reply to this post.

Looking back to the days before my high school graduation, I am so interested to be an “interior designer” in the future. Yeah! To be an INTERIOR DESIGNER! After searching what universities offer such course but sadly, I found not even one here in Davao. I feel so sad during that time. It’s so funny how I chose to take up Bachelor of Science in Information Technology in college. Knowing the fact that it is so unrelated with interior designing made me laugh, what made me decide to take up this course? Well, one of the career guidance conducted by Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in their presentation they list the top 10 most in demand jobs abroad and the top 1 among all other is IT specialist may it be programmer, web designer etc. all related to the Information Technology. After assessing myself if I really want to take up the said course and I said yes. I took the USEPAT or the University of Southeastern Philippines Admission Test, passed it, interviewed by our instructor of this subject (lolz), admit myself to this university and yes, I am now a certified IT student!!!(Hooray!)

To be an official student in this university is not easy, it’s quite tough. But, as time passed by, being a student in this university specifically under the Institute of Computing is tougher. It gives you a lot of pressure, sleepless night, formulating your algorithm even in your dreams and it’s very challenging! Indeed very, very, very challenging! I can sometimes say that programming is killing me! (haha!) Well, I am still alive and kicking, surviving, striving to a good programmer or analyst someday.

Going back to our topic, the information environment I chose is two, first, is the university I am currently in and the second one is my dream company where I will work in the future.

This is the definition of Information Environment I found in the internet, it is any organization having information system circulating in their environment. A lot structures nowadays, adopts this concept since we are living now in the world where computers (Information Technology) is the most commonly used in any establishment.

The information environment is the aggregate of individuals, organizations, and systems that collect, process, disseminate, or act on information. The actors include leaders, decision makers, individuals, and organizations. Resources include the materials and systems employed to collect, analyze, apply, or disseminate information. The information environment is where humans and automated systems observe, orient, decide, and act upon information, and is therefore the principal environment of decision making. Even though the information environment is considered distinct, it resides within each of the four domains. The information environment is made up of three interrelated dimensions: physical, informational, and cognitive.

This university I am currently in contributes a lot in developing a young programmer or an IT Analyst. One of the university mission is to able to produce competitive graduates and for them to be able to attain that said mission they hire the best instructors to train, to supervise, to instruct, to develop proficient graduates to be deploy in different fields and in our case in IT world. As an Information Technology student, we are to deal with IT people and IT world. The two meets at a common point which is business. We will be the bridge of the IT world and business may it be a construction business, trucking business, banking business etc. When I say IT world, I mean global affiliation of organizations that are capable to compete with each other.

So how can the principles of information organization and representation help me in performing this role? There are three principles of knowledge organization that I have known of. First is that, knowledge needs to be organized for communities. Second is that, in designing tools to support the organization of knowledge, guiding principle must be that of user orientation and predominant usage. And lastly, standardization and networking provide infrastructures, which facilitate effective and efficient access to information and documents.

What are the challenges I may encounter in performing my role? There are so many aspects to be consider first would be the readiness of the organization to adopt changes, second is the resources to be able to made these changes possible (all possible resources may it be skills, intellect, staff etc.), third is the integrity and security of the of the system, fourth is the cooperation of the human resources to these changes, fourth is the time – the timeliness of the said project and lastly the financial issues, let’s not be hypocrite to be able to establish, develop, maintain and implement an information system requires financial support and remember this is costly.

If there are obstacle that hinders you from doing what is supposed to be done think of these quotations.

“If you can’t go under, go over;
If you can’t go through, go round.
If you can’t go right, go left;
If you can’t get an angle, take two plates and make it.
If you haven’t the right material, go get it.
If you can’t find it, make substitutions;
If you can’t substitute, improvise; if you can’t improvise, make an innovation; but above all, get the job done!”

There’s no such thing as IMPOSSIBLE, only CHALLENGING.

If want thing to be done so badly, there are many ways how to kill a cat. Stop complaining. Start doing what should be done. Utilize your time wisely. Be responsible with your actions.

Subject: Assignment 2 (Due: July 7, 2009, before 01:00pm) Fri Jun 19, 2009 9:30 am

Based on the organization(s) that you visited, what do you think are the risks associated with business and IS/IT change? (1000 words)

(Before anything else I would to apologize for the late reply post regarding this topic.)

When there is a change a risk is expected and business world is not an exception to this aspect. In business, taking risk is not new strategy if want to improve and to be able to compete to the fast evolving world of technology. An efficient strategy to be able to cope up with this scheme, changing or implementing an Information System is advisable.

What is an Information System?

Everything will be clearer if I’ll define first what an Information System is. So, according to our class discussion an Information System is more than technology, more than a computerized system that enables to automate all business processes. An information System is the combination of PEOPLEWARE + HARDWARE + SOFTWARE. It focuses in three dimensions which are the management, organization and technology.

Why Information System?

Business world is a very competitive phase of the real situation of today’s living. To be able to have an edge with other business firm, having an Information System is a great help. With this, an organization can automate its business processes, it is very useful in coordinating organization’s activities, how it support the decision making, synchronization of knowledge from different management levels, functions and business firms. This also gives more importance to the customer relationship; automate the flow of information to manage and coordination of the organization to its other business partner if any.

What are the risks associated with IS/IT change?

• Integrity risk, this refers to the information being vulnerable. While developing a new system the information is expose and a great possibility that it is incomplete, inaccurate and unreliable. The organization sets the standard requirements and policies to be use in the process of development of the said system thus data gathering must be collected cautiously, for this affects the system consistency. This aspect should not be bypass, for this may result to IT failure.

• Organizational risks, pertain to the resistance of the people within the organization to use the available technology. The end-users may find reluctant to operate it due to unfamiliarity of the system. The users and technology should cooperate hand in hand in this way we can say the system is fully utilized and the IT benefit is maximized.

• According to what I have read from the internet another risk is the business risks. This focuses on the financial or the monetary risks in an organization. Changing the Information System of an organization requires a lot of resources in the process as well as time yet the results or the success is not guaranteed. This attempt may improve the functionalities, efficiency and competence of the company’s system yet it may also pull it down resulting to bankruptcy.

• Security jeopardy is another thing to be considered. In here, the exposure of the significant and confidential information is at stake. There must be an access control and data manipulation restriction especially to those hackers which are not authorized to gain access to the company’s information.

• Another threat that must be considered is the Technical Risks. Here, we are talking about the capable of the end user of manipulating the said information system. It is said to be the one of the reasons why implementing an Information System in an organization fails because of the end-users. Lacking of the capability, skills, knowledge and ability to maximize the functions of the designed system and how to use it, the system would be useless and will only a liability to the organization. Thus, this requires intensive training and orientation of the system to all its users, which also means this will another process for the organization to make and this also include some financial aspects.

On the assumption that you heard/read the SONA of the President last month, (July 2000), identify at least 3 areas related to ICT and identify how these areas can improve our quality of life.

Our president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made her last SONA (State of the Nation Address) last July 27, 2009. In here, she reported to the Filipino people the achievements, developments, advancements and growth take place within her administration.

I based my answer to this topic from an article I downloaded from the internet, similar to how she delivered it live to the public.

Kung noong nakaraan, lumakas ang electronics, today, we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth. Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall in accordance with the state of the world economy. But BPO remains resilient. With earnings of six billion dollars and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity. Let us have a Department of ICT.

ICT Philippines is the newest savvy job hub for Information Communications and Technology virtuosos. The site functions as a marketing talent pool for the ICT professionals, and the companies that seek to employ them. The object is to assist the clients with the resources to hire the most qualified Information Communications and technology, and to provide these professionals with the best opportunities in their respective fields. Being in the IT Industry, we are exposed to the constant change in the needs of companies and recruiters in the industry. Our field of specialty and exposure to the highly-skilled IT professionals enable us to reach hard to find and exceptional experienced candidates and companies.

As a country in the path of typhoons and in the Pacific Rim of Fire, we must be prepared as the latest technology permits to anticipate natural calamities when that is possible; to extend immediate and effective relief when it is not; the mapping of flood-and-landslide-prone areas is almost complete. Early warning, forecasting and monitoring systems have been improved, with weather-tracking facilities in Subic, Tagaytay, Mactan, Mindanao, Pampanga.

This development is very useful to us, knowing that we are located in the Pacific and we one of the victims of most natural calamities. Early detections of the incoming typhoons and earthquake, made us all ready for it, enable us to make some precautions and preparations, and permit us to make important decisions in advance. Simulating the possible effects of these calamities will save lives and properties.

Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone. We need to amend the Commonwealth-era Public Service Law. And we need to do it now.

I personally experienced this one, where unsolicited promo directly sends ring tunes and mms, without my approval or without my consent to download it or subscribe to there ads. Here, after sending the uncalled services they automatically cut off your current load balance to the equivalent cost. I consider this circumstance as a virtual thief of our resources that supposedly are use in more important matter. All kinds of stealing is a crime and so this one should be given considerations and the government must act on it and make the right move to protect its people from this virtual thief.

If you were hired by the university president as an IT consultant, what would you suggest (technology, infrastructure, innovations, steps, processes, etc) in order for the internet connectivity be improved? (3000words)

Assuming that I am hired by the university president as an IT consultant, and the task given to me is to improve the internet connection. In an organization we are in, knowing that we have limited resources, it is advisable and recommended to maximize our resources where we have to limit expenditures, and it also means that we have limited ways on how to improve the connection of the internet in our beloved organization. Let’s just assume that we have all we need to implement this project. In connection to the topic, the following are my suggestions on how we can improve internet connectivity in our university; this is based on some articles I have read from the internet and my own experience and understanding.

To start, let us examine first the internet connection we have right now, our facilities or conditions of our computers as well as the network. As a member of this university, I have had use the computer laboratory or the so called “nodal” for only a minimal number of times for the following reasons:

1) Slow or should I say very slow internet connection.
2) The number of students falling in line to use the laboratory.
3) The number of computers available.
4) Restricted access of some sites.
5) Vast number of viruses residing in our computer laboratory.
6) Old and faulty hardware

What I have mentioned above are based on what I have observed and those are the problems I found, that must be given consideration in developing, recommendations that leads to improvement of the university connectivity.

Discussing the problems I have observed, we currently have a very slow internet connection this is may due to the that we have a not maximized the bandwidth usage, and we are aware that the allocated bandwidth we currently have, is not enough for the number of computers in the university, to be more specific I will state the users of the said topic, we have the students who uses the laboratory and the university virtual library and to mention, those students bringing their laptops with them, the faculties and school staffs. For we have a limited number of computers, it is expected that not all students can avail the said service where many of us choose to go to the nearest internet café with faster internet speed and no site restrictions. I also observed that our computer laboratory is like a lair of computer viruses which also contributes to slowing down of connections. And also, we have faulty and old hardware presents in our computer networks. These also a great factor that must be given attention, for its one of the main reasons why we have slow pace connectivity, to elaborate further internet connection depends on the capability of computers, we cant have a fast connection when we have an old and outdated hardware, and also UTP cables must be check and replace if necessary ‘coz this also slows down the connection for some interference maybe present and if needed use repeaters.

I suggest the following to speed up university’s internet connection:

1. Perform some computer maintenance. Run Disk Defrag, a scan disk, a virus scan, a malware scan, and clear your recycle bin. An unusually slow Internet connection experience is often the only sign that your computer is infected with viruses or other malware. Delete old files and temporary files. Never allow the free space on your C: drive to be less than 10% of the total size or twice the installed RAM (which ever is larger). A well maintained PC will operate much better than a PC that has never had any maintenance. Google or your local computer repair store should be able to help you with this if you don't know how.
2. Reset Your Home Network. Sometimes restarting your home network if you have one will drastically increase the speed of your connection.
3. Optimize your cache or temporary Internet files. These files improve your Internet connection performance by not downloading the same file over and over. When a web site puts their logo graphic on every page your computer only downloads it when it changes. If you delete the temporary files it must be downloaded again. if you disable the cache, it must be downloaded every time you view a page that uses it. This can be done by opening Internet Explorer, clicking on "Tools" at the top and choosing "Internet Options". On the General tab, click the "Settings" button next to Temporary Internet Files. Set Check for newer versions to "Automatically". Set amount of disk space to use to 2% of your total disk size or 512 MB, which ever is smaller. On Firefox, click "Tools" then "Options," and go to the privacy tab. Then click on the Cache tab within this.
4. Never bypass your router. Most routers include a firewall that is very difficult for hackers to defeat. If you don't need to use Wireless then hook your computer directly to your router. Routers will only slow down your connection by a few Milli-seconds. You won't notice the difference but the hackers will.
5. If you are using a Wireless router, make sure it doesn't conflict with a cordless phone or wireless camera. Wireless routers come in two varieties; 802.11bg (2.4Ghz) or 802.11a (5.8Ghz) If you are using a 2.4Ghz Cordless phone and 2.4Ghz Wireless router then your Internet connection speed will slow while you use the cordless phone. The same is true of wireless security cameras. Check on your phone and camera, if it's 900Mhz then it's fine. If it says 2.4Ghz or 5.8Ghz then it could be the cause of your slow connection speed while they're in use.
6. Call your Internet service provider (ISP). Sometimes you just have bad service. They can usually tell if your connection is substandard without having a technician come to your home. Just be nice and ask.
7. Upgrade your computer. If your computer is slow, it doesn't matter how fast your Internet connection is, the whole thing will just seem slow. You can only access the Internet as fast as your PC will allow you to.
8. Replace your old cable modem. Any solid-state electronics will degrade over time due to accumulated heat damage. Your broadband modem will have a harder and harder time 'concentrating' on maintaining a good connection as it gets older (signal to noise ratios will go down, and the number of resend requests for the same packet will go up). An after-market cable modem as opposed to a cable-company modem will frequently offer a better connection.
9. Often your connection speed is slow because other programs are using it. To test if other programs are accessing the Internet without your knowing, Click Start, Click Run. Type "cmd" (without quotes). Type "netstat -b 5 > activity.txt". After a minute or so, hold down Ctrl and press C. This has created a file with a list of all programs using your Internet connection. Type activity.txt to open the file and view the program list. Ctrl Alt Delete and open up the Task Manager. Go to the process menu and delete those processes that are stealing your valuable bandwidth. (NOTE: Deleting processes may cause certain programs to not function properly)
10. After you have tried all this try your connection again and see if it's running any faster.
11. Caching proxy server. A proxy server can reply to service requests without contacting the specified server, by retrieving content saved from a previous request, made by the same client or even other clients. This is called caching. Caching proxies keep local copies of frequently requested resources, allowing large organizations to significantly reduce their upstream bandwidth usage and cost, while significantly increasing performance
12. Proxy Servers. A proxy server is a kind of buffer between your computer and the Internet resources you are accessing. They accumulate and save files that are most often requested by thousands of Internet users in a special database, called “cache”. Therefore, proxy servers are able to increase the speed of your connection to the Internet. The cache of a proxy server may already contain information you need by the time of your request, making it possible for the proxy to deliver it immediately. The overall increase in performance may be very high. Also, proxy servers can help in cases when some owners of the Internet resources impose some restrictions on users from certain countries or geographical regions. In addition to that,
    among proxy servers there are so called anonymous proxy servers that hide your IP address thereby saving you from vulnerabilities concerned with it.

Tips

• Call your ISP and have them verify all of your TCP/IP settings if you are concerned. Ask them to verify that your Proxy settings are correct.
• Don't expect dial up or high speed lite service to be fast. The Internet is primarily geared towards Broadband Connections. Sometimes, you have to wait a little.
• Download programs that make browsing faster:
• Loband.org is a browser inside of a browser that loads web pages without the images.
• Firefox and Opera both have options to disable images.
• In Firefox, you can also use extensions such as NoScript that let you block scripts and plug-ins that would otherwise slow things down a lot.
• If you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox, try downloading Google Web Accelerator. It is meant to speed up broadband connections, but it can also slow your Internet connection. Try enabling it and disabling it and see when your Internet connection runs faster.
• If you are using Firefox, download the Fasterfox extension and Firetune.
• Reduce the amount of programs running that use your Internet connection (Instant Messengers, RSS Feeders, and MS Applications set to send Internet data)
• Google Accessible Is designed to search pages in order of how clean they are of junk. This will bring up pages that are usually not only easy to read, but are quick to load.

• Upgrade your RAM. This will not only improve your regular computer use, but it will affect the speed of your Internet connection because your computer works faster.
• Use the Stop button to stop loading pages once you've gotten what you want.
• Some times malware on your computer can eat up your bandwidth. Make sure you have an up-to-date malware protection program.
• Most Internet Providers have flaky DNS servers (no citation necessary, it's a given) - so, instead of using those provided by your ISP, switch your DNS servers to use those of OpenDNS. OpenDNS is far faster, and more reliable, simply using 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 as your domain name servers will speed up most flaky DNS problems (may even speed up your networking since OpenDNS has large caches).
• Look into running your own local DNS server on your network. Some newer routers may include their own nameserver, otherwise, check into AnalogX.com's DNSCache program, it works great to hold commonly accessed domain names in the "cache" so that the IP addresses do not have to be looked up everytime you navigate to a new page.

Warnings

• Viruses and malware can often use up your bandwidth and slow down your Internet connection. Make sure you have protection against this. Many ISP's will provide software for this. Make sure your anti-virus and malware scanners are up-to-date.
• Bypassing the router will leave you more vulnerable to attacks because you no longer have the built-in firewall from your router protecting you.
• Watch out for scams that claim to make your Internet go a lot faster for free. They may tell you to download their program, which usually has a lot of other hidden programs attached that might steal your identity.

Those are my cost effective, brilliant and I guess efficient ideas on how to improve the internet connection of the university. However it does not end there, we must orient the users of this project. Proper usage of computers and connection must be reminded. Everything will be useless and all the efforts will be futile if the users is not responsible enough on how to fully utilized, maintained and managed this internet connection.