DepEd thinks using internet technology will combat the lack of classroom materials.

Under the program, students will listen or download lectures and reading materials for particular subjects as well as take examinations as part of the curriculum.

Each grade and year level will have its own channel and will cover all subjects in the curriculum with each subject consisting of a 20-minute interactive computer lecture and 40-minute classroom lecture. The lectures conducted through the computer could be replayed as they would be stored in the computer to be set up in the multi-media classroom. Cyber education would partially solve the present shortage in books and teachers.

The project will initially include 3,000 schools but would exclude those that are in first and second-class cities added Lapus.

The DepEd hopes to implement the project in 37,000 schools within a three-year period. Source: PIA

The idea is good. But what about implementation? What I'm afraid of is that these computers will end up covered in thick plastics as to avoid getting destroyed by the students. Students learn to use these things fast. How about the teachers? And in cases that these computers starts to break down, how about tech support?

I don't how many of these computers will go the way of the multicabs distributed to each barangays in Iloilo City for the purpose of combating crimes and better mobilization.

JC, a former colleague in a BPO company I worked before, gave me a heads up a couple of weeks ago about her new company Virtulance. They're looking for programmers and webmasters.

JC having worked for 3 different BPO companies in 3 different positions before, surely knows the ins and the outs of the business. Being surrounded by developers, she has better understanding of the plight of programmers. She might have learned something from us.

Then there's this talk among us hard headed employees about putting up an ideal company for programmers. Where programmers will be treated with respect they deserve. That day has come, JC launched Virtulance last June 4, 2007 and also set to launch another (PerProject) soon.

Virtulance is uses traditional BPO setup while PerProject caters to programmers who fancy working for themselves like freelancers. Last time I talk to JC, I gathered that they're paying competitive salaries. When I say competitive, I mean 15K-20K. I'm not really sure, though.

So if you need to jumpstart that career in IT, no better time to go about it than now. Head up to their site www.virtulance.com and tell the recruiter you were sent by the good admin of MyIloilo.com.

To those who have deadlines to meet and clients to maintain, no amount of reasoning can make the world stop and wait for you to finish. For each day that we are fed with crappy internet connection, we lose customers. We lose revenue. If this will keep going on for another month, I'll probably lose my job.

I'm afraid the threshold is closer than I thought. Inquirer reports that repairs to quake-hit asia internet cables are delayed again which would take until the end of February to finish blaming bad weather and other technical difficulties.

We're having technical difficulties too. Servers dying due to high usage. There are things that needed ironing and they're not going to wait. In other parts of the world, business is usual. They tend to view things from their own perspective. They're not concerned how our internet connection here are. They're concerned about how their business is doing. If we couldn't show reliability in terms of service, we couldn't stop them from getting it elsewhere. Programmers in India will happily do my work for half my pay. Yeah, my clients will love that.

As if internet dependent industries in Asia haven't lost considerable amount of productivity and revenue from the damaged submarine data cables, newly discovered damage to the cables leaves us no choice but to lose more productivity.

Newly discovered earthquake damage to undersea cables and bad weather could delay the complete restoration of Asian Internet services until next month, telecom officials said Wednesday.

Ever wonder if you should be paying for your online earnings? Checkout PinoyMoneyTalk.com and visit their forum about the topic to read how those people earning online feels about paying taxes.

The following are some texts I found from the site that seem to explain the legalities better. Not being a lawyer, I can't say they're conclusive. I just see them as a guide.

Javier Vicente Rufino suggests we should make internet as reliable as electricity after the recent Taiwan quake exposed how vulnerable we are. Most parts of Southeast Asia was disconnected to the world when the submarine cables connecting us to the rest of the world was massively damaged by a seismic activity.

Javier Vicente Rufino, chief editor of inquirer.net, the Philippines' largest news website, said this week's earthquake showed the vulnerability of his archipelagic nation.

"We are dependent on a rather few number of cables," said the editor whose servers are based in the US. "Are there alternate ways of accessing the Internet? Because what it basically shows is our links to the outside are rather few."

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan. Submarine cables connecting us to international networks is broken.

A "fiber break" in the major submarine cables linking the Philippines to the international network caused a nationwide disruption in Internet and telephone services, local telecommunications company said Wednesday.

The Philippines' links to the Internet were damaged following a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Taiwan early Wednesday. Via Inquirer.net