Archive for August, 2007
iCNSQ Blogs has moved from iblog.cnsqonline.com to icnsq.cnsqonline.com. Still there are some bugs needed to be fixed. So Stay tune..
I was able to successfully upgrade wordpress from version 2.0.1 to version 2.2.2. Now I can now use the latest themes and add-ons.
By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines–Three-year-old Filipino firm TechFactors Inc. has developed “edutainment” software to make technology education interactive and fun for children.
Citing the lack of homegrown courseware, a group of academic experts and game developers from the University of the Philippines came together to form the company.
About 90,000 Filipino kids from 170 to 180 private schools nationwide use the company’s courseware, Jimmy Caro, chief academic officer of TechFactors Inc., told INQUIRER.net in a telephone interview.
The company’s edutainment software combines video games, laboratory simulation and other interactive exercises to make ICT education “fun and engaging,” he said.
The company has developed courseware modules for pre-schoolers, elementary, and high school students.
“There’s a need for schools to help kids prepare for college,” he said, adding that the interactive courses also derive topics from mathematics, science, and English as examples to help kids learn technology, Caro added.
Every student is provided two books and a CD that contains a year’s worth of ICT courseware. Teachers are also trained in the use of the courseware.
Asked how much the courseware package costs, Caro said, “It is cheaper than going to a popular fastfood [restaurant] in a month.”
Local schools that have bought the homegrown courseware include the Philippine Cultural High School in Binondo, Ateneo de Davao, University of San Carlos, Don Bosco in Pampanga, and the National College of Business and Arts.
“We hope what were doing will have an impact on ICT education among the Filipino children,” he said.
The Filipino software company is actively looking for venture capital to help them expand capacity and reach in the market.
“There’s still room for growth because of the big demand from schools,” Caro said.
By Peter Galli
from: PCMAG.com
SAN FRANCISCO—Windows Vista has probably created the single biggest opportunity for the Linux desktop to take market share, Cole Crawford, an IT strategist at Dell, said in an address titled, “The Linux Desktop—Fact, FUD or Fantasy?” at the annual LinuxWorld Conference & Expo here.
For example, a number of companies have moved back to Windows XP after deploying Vista, Crawford said, before quoting Scott Granneman, an author, entrepreneur and adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis, as saying, “To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just have to work on it.”
Microsoft has also owned the desktop for more than 15 years, Crawford said, “and so the only way for them to go is down. But Linux can only go up, and its growth potential is enormous. While Linux only has 1 percent of share on the desktop versus Microsoft’s more than 90 percent, that is changing, and the Linux desktop is expected to gain some share over the next two years,” he said.
The number of developers targeting Windows decreased by 12 percent in the last year, while their targeting of Linux has increased by 34 percent over the same period, recently released information from Evans Data shows, Crawford said.
The interoperability agreements that Microsoft has signed with Linux vendors, from Novell to Xandros and Linspire, have also had largely positive results so far, he said, adding that another plus was the fact that Linux development has shifted to a model in which a significant portion of the kernel is being developed by corporate entities.
On the downside, Crawford said, was the fact that no one actually owns the kernel and this makes SLAs (service-level agreements) more challenging.
Read the rest of this eWEEK story: Vista Aiding Linux Desktop, Strategist Says
Here are some blogging that I gathered around the ‘net.
1.) Do Blog Hopping: blog hopping means to visit blog links that are posted on other blogsites’ blog roll/links and at the same time include them on you blog roll/links areas
2.) CBOX shoutout box.: This tool is also a great way to increase blog traffic as well as to exchange links. You can get your own shout-out box on www. cbox.ws or make your own using this tutorial.
the Migration of iCNSQ Blogs is now complete and I now have re-posted all the previous post on this new server.
VS.
For those who follow the never ending bout between the two processor company giants, Here is the full coverage of CNET.com Check it out who wins this bout. The Battle is between AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 vs. Intel’s Core 2 Duo .
1. Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme will be the fastest processors available. Faster than the Pentium EE, thanks to new techniques like Smart Cache and Wide Dynamic Execution—and, according to preliminary results, faster than the AMD FX62.
2. Core 2 Duo overtakes the Pentium as the name in processors. Farewell Pentium: There will never be a Pentium 5, 6, or XX. A brief moment of silence, please.
3. For the first time, Intel has specifically created one unified Core architecture for all categories: Conroe (desktops), Merom (notebooks), and Woodcrest (workstation/servers). All are based on Intel’s Core technologies, and all three are 64-bit-capable dual-core processors with shared enhancements.
4. All three variations (Conroe, Merom, and Woodcrest) will provide more computing power and use less energy. This will help laptops extend their battery life. It will also enable system builders to come out with thinner desktops and workstations, since lower energy means less heat, which results in fewer fans hogging case space.
5. Expanding on that, lower power also means that the fans used will be slower, so your system will be quieter. With more PCs landing in the living room or in quiet dens, “quiet” is more important than ever.
6. Core 2 Duo is, for now, engineered to drop right into some current Pentium D/EE (LGA775) motherboards (with some BIOS/Firmware updates). This will make upgraders happy—especially those who bought the latest and greatest PC last summer—and system manufacturers, who don’t need to buy a bunch of different parts (and won’t have to learn the intricacies of a new socket)—yet.
7. Multitasking moves to the next level. With Core 2 Duo’s virtualization technology, you can turn one physical PC into several virtual systems, all running different applications and OSs. For example, theoretically you could run an FTP server on one, a Web server on another, have a database running on a third, and still be playing a game or surfing on a fourth. This is a boon for developers who want to keep “clean” virtual machines running.
8. Today, only business PCs have the TPM 1.2 protection chip built in. With Core 2 Duo, all PCs will be protected. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) protects your passwords, logons, and personal data at a hardware level from hackers, spyware, and identity thieves.
9. About the lame code-naming convention: Conroe, Merom, and Woodcrest don’t exactly call to mind “speed” or “kickin’ performance.” Intel’s desktop and workstation CPU design offices are in Oregon, California, and Texas, so it makes sense that the towns of Conroe (Texas) and Woodcrest (California) are represented in Intel’s code names. And Merom? That’s an ancient lake in Israel, so two guesses where the laptop chips are engineered.
10. When can you get one? Intel wants its Core 2 Duo processors in systems within a few weeks of the official launch, which rumor mills have as the last week of July. Look for systems in early August.
article by: Joel Santo Domingo