When Boredom Strikes

All right, so I've been around Cebu City for at least three months now, and I've noticed something interesting. Most of the time I've spent here in Cebu has been in Asiatown I.T. Park and I've noticed only three coffee shops worth noting around here: Figaro, Bo's Coffee and Starbucks and I've got to say, why is Bo's even here?

I understand Starbucks, having great coffee and all, plus the superficial social status one gets for being regularly there or some other crap of an excuse. Trust me, you wouldn't want to go there for Wi-Fi because they charge 100 an hour, but bottom-line-- it's great coffee.

Figaro on the other hand, has a lot of people with laptops since they offer free Wi-Fi. They also have great coffee but I wouldn't say it was better than Starbucks.

So going back to my question: why is Bo's even here? First of all, they don't make great coffee at all. They usually give coffee without sugar-- seeing as its roasted coffee, they don't even point out that people can get sugar, otherwise I wouldn't have always had a bitter experience-- every time.

So much for the coffee, sure they have Wi-Fi, but they'd charge you 30 pesos for every hour you charge, that's 2-3 times more the rate of even decent internet cafes.

So, if you're on the indifference curve between Figaro and Starbucks, I would suggest deciding what's more important for you, the "social"-ness of Starbucks, or the free Wi-Fi and still great tasting coffee of Figaro.

Do yourself a favor and not go to Bo's.

There are other ways to improve network security, and it comes in the form of security mechanisms. These security measures are more focused on prevention rather than a "cure". Among the most common security mechanisms are cryptography, access control lists, and authentication.

Cryptography - involves taking clearly understandable information and translating it into a ciphered (i.e. coded) unintelligible form using an algorithm and a key. Anyone who intercepts the information may find out which algorithm the source used; but without the key, it cannot be translated.

Access-control-lists(ACLs)- these are usually implemented in the router-level of the network, albeit a layer-3 and layer-2 mechanism. Any computer trying to access the network will be checked according to and(/or) its MAC address in reference to the access control list. If it does not coincide with the allowed addresses therein, it is denied access to the network.

Authentication - is basically trying to let a user identify himself, usually by use of a password, key card, or in more extreme cases, biometrics. If the user cannot provide the necessary information, he is denied access.

A neophyte network administrator may have his/her network vulnerable to most any kind of attack if he/she has no knowledge whatsoever on network security. There are plenty of things that could happen to your network. The following are the most common types of network attacks.

Denial of Service Attack (DoS) - An attack against a computer or network that attempts to limit or prevent access to the Internet by flooding it with requests (for a webpage or online resource) or email (causing the email system to overload). Denial of service attacks are usually done by "zombie" clusters, a cluster of computers under the hacker's control by way of malware, which then flood the network with requests.

Trojan - “Trojan horse”; a reference to the story of the Trojan War, a piece of malware (such as a virus program) contained within a legitimate program. The purpose of the Trojan can be wide, but the distribution approach is to attempt to have the user willingly install the host program to gain access to the victim’s computer.

Virus - A computer virus is a type of malicious software that can make copies of itself and infect a computer with or without the user's permission. The effects of such viruses may range from recurring messages in the form of dialog boxes to the deletion of files and may even corrupt the operating system itself.

Password Cracking - may be used with a program, or the more deliberate "brute-force" cracking wherein the attacker manually tries to make repeated random attempts to gain access to the network.

IP Spoofing - The manipulation of Internet packed routing data to impersonate a different machine. This is usually observed in DoS attacks in an effort to conceal the identity of the attacker.

Without the proper training and knowledge, any network administrator could leave his network open to all kinds of attacks.

Today I learned quite a few things from my dad. It turns out that we needed to make a network map of some sort which included a database of all the network devices in the company.

We initially deduced that we would have to go with html to make regions of our network map clickable—which would in turn then show another page containing all the information about that device: who's connected to which port, the number of ports as well as the IP addresses and the MAC addresses.

It turns out that there's this thing called FileMaker, and it does WYSIWYG what most of us would type on a terminal for several hours just to code tables and links and scripts on a regular DBMS—sort of like visually object-oriented DBMS. The first thing that ran through my head as he explained the basics of the program to us was "Oh man, the things I can do with this!"

Like all the good things in life, there is a little caveat—a $150 price tag. Good thing that the company legally owns the software we're using; I don't even want to know what we can ILLEGALLY do with this software.

Despite all that it turns out that IF we are able to pull this off, we could very well be on our way to have a portable online implementation of network documentation that can be so easy to use so as long as the user knows the details of the topology of the network.

Hopefully we'll finish soon and then I'll be able to upload a little something-something that doesn't actually contain sensitive information about the company my dad works for.

So, hope to see you soon.

Pasensya talaga sa wikang gagamitin ko, sapagkat ni minsan hindi na ako nakapagsulat sa wika ng bayan. Subukan ko lang na umakda ng kung anong pinagiisip ko ngayon—na hindi palaban sa karaniwang chenes-chenes churvaloo na lagi kong ginagamit sa pagsalita sa tagalong. :D

Noon pa man ay hindi ko namalayan na ang dami ko na palang nagawa sa buhay; kahit pipitchugi lang akong tao sa mundo, ginagawa ko talaga ang lahat na nakakaya ko para tumulong sa kahit sinong taong pumupunta sakin. Ngunit nang ako'y magmuni-muni sa mga pinagdaanan ko, napatanto ako sa isang realidad na lagi kong ipinagwalang bahala: na nakalimutan ko nang ingatan ang sarili ko. At sa ngayon, na ako na ay nagkamali at lumampas na sa punto na wala na talaga akong magagawa, saka lang ako napagtanto na hindi talaga babalik ang oras na lumipas—lalo na pag ako'y nagkakamali.

Kung tutuusin, mayroon naman talagang paraan na lutasin ang problema kahit tayo ay nagkakamali na; kaso lang talaga pag walang kusa, hindi natin makikita kung paano gawan ng solusyon ang ating mga pagsubok sa buhay. Doon ako nagkamali. Inisip ko na hindi ko na kailangan sumikap pa dahil ang laki ng pagtingin ko sa sarili ko, ni hindi ko inisip na limitado talaga ang lahat ng tao ay karaniwanng hindi perpekto.

At ngayon, andito na ako sa kasakuluyan; hindi mapakali dahil sa dami kong gagawin pag simulan na ang regular na klase. Hahakbangin ko naman ang di pamilyar na kapaligiran. Sana akoy inyong ipagdasal sa Panginoon.

Filipinos all over the world who watch American Idol may have been dismayed over Ramiele Malubay's elimination from the contest.

I say boo hoo. "She had it coming" so goes a song from Chicago. This Filipina American Idol contestant made it to the top 9, which pales in comparison to Jasmine Trias. I believe the only reason she came that far is because she was sitting on pretty. Pretty cute is more like it. Look at the picture. Ain't she pwetty cyute? Awww....

Disappointment after disappointment, it was eventually obvious that her lucky streak was coming to an end. She had a beautiful and big voice, to be sure; it's just that her song selection and her ineptitude to show her voice range simply left her as a stagnant contestant utterly unable to progress.

Judge Randy Jackson correctly predicted that she was the one to go home, while Simon said that "America got it right this time", referring to the bottom three including Brook White and Kristy Leigh Cook.

At least Danny Noriega is nowhere to be seen. One Sanjaya is enough. Please.