JITS Election Of Officers

The annual election of officers that would lead the school to glory is here once again... Here are the complete lineup for the FSP and SEC parties...

FSP







SEC

Goodbye Ma'am Lyn, Sir Jay... Hello New CCs

"Informatics? ...IT Global School. With my more than a year stay @ Informatics, all I can say is thanks a lot for the experience, for the learnings and for having me as once part of it.Godspeed Informatics. I wish you all the best!"
-Ma. Lyn Brigoli Bayaban


"I would like to say thanks to Informatics for giving me the opportunity to show what I am capable of in doing things at my work as a Course Consultant. I've learned a lot and I'm sure gonna miss the people, especially the students and clients."
-Alvin Jay Abregonde

The new CCs



Mr. Michael Ponce
CC for almost a month
"Informatics is an international institution that offers me to enter the open gate that has a wide and green environment for my career advancement to widen my IT horizon."

Ms. Krystel Taboso
CC for 4 days
"Looking for an international IT school? Informatics is the answer. Best school among all. Course Consultant? Am one of them. Just a new CC, but as I have experienced, I can say that this school can be my eye-opener towards success. Thanks a lot in advanced. God speed and keep up the good work!! =) Keep kicking guys!! =)"

Mr. Rommel Lloyd Fortich
CC for 2 months
"Informatics is a global IT school that is recognized worldwide... In just 2 months working for Informatics, it taught me a lot... Thanks Informatics for giving me a chance to expand and widen my IT knowledge... More Power!"

Ms. Naivette Jane Acar
CC for 2 months
"Informatics is a global IT school that offers international standard in IT education. For just two months of working here I must say that it was a great and challenging experience. I've learned a lot and imprived a lot. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you Informatics."

Informatics New Sofa

Recently, Informatics Computer Institute in Sm installed a new sofa at the lobby!


This is a new hangout for students and faculty alike...

Informatics General Assembly

Informatics recently had a General Assembly for the benefit of students. Rules were explained and generally, what the students will expect and will be expected of them in Informatics.

Canon Summer 07

Canon recently concluded its Canon Summer 07 exhibit at the Lower Ground Floor of SM City Cebu. They were offering great discounts and freebies to every Canon product purchase!


Exhibited here are Photo DV DC210, DC220, DC230, DC22 and the DC50.


Shown here are Canon printers: iP3300, iP1700 and the MP160.


Here are Canon's latest Digital Cameras...


Top of the line digital cameras of Canon: The Poweshot A640, TX1 and Powershot A630.


The best in digital photography... Canon EOS cameras... Shown here are EOS30D and EOS400D!


May Ann and Scarlet models the MP810 printer.

Google Changing The Face Of Dating

DATING used to be largely a matter of spenf\ding time with a love interest, discovering the good, the bad and the ugly in person. If you were lucky, friends helped fill in some of the blanks.

These days, the Internet - and the ability to check people out before they ever meet up - has forever changed the rules.

For better or worse, "googling" your date has become standard practice. "I often tell my freinds that are still in the dating sphere to use the power of Google to their advantage," says Katie Laird, a 24-year-old Web marketing professional and self-proclaimed "social software geek" from Houston.

The results can be enlightening, surprising - and sometimes, a little disturbing. So Laird's advice also comes with a warning: "Don't google what you can't handle."

Here is the voice of experience. In her dating life, she regularly did online research on her dates and turned up, among other things, "bizarre" fetishes and a guy who was fascinated with vampires.

"Not my scene at all," Laird says, "and nothing I would've ever guessed over an initial meeting and beer."

She also had to contend with an on-again, off-again boyfriend who googled her on a daily basis to try and track her every move. The story did end happily, however, when she met her future husband online.

In some ways, having a social networking page - or pages - has become the new calling card. It's a way for people to check out photos and find out what they have in common, even when they've already met in person.

That was the case for Brad White, a 23-year-old recent college grad in Chicago, who met his current girlfriend through friends at a bar - and immediately looked her up on Facebook. "The commonality of our music taste and friends is what prompted me to ask her out," White says, "obviously, besides the attraction."

The details people find also can provide a few talking points to get past the initial awkwardness of a first date - though not everyone likes to admit that they've done their research.

"It seems like in contemporary dating, it's this elaborate dance between two people who already know a lot of what their date is talking about, but they can't admit it," says David Silver, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of San Francisco who studies online culture.

"You nod your head with curiosity, but you already know what they're going to say."

Even he is amazed at the level of information that can be dug up these days.

With a little creativity and Internet savvy, a person can find anything from blog postings to new stories that might include personal details - and whether people are telling the truth about their age and where they've lived.

It helps to know some basic details upfront, such as e-mail address that could help turn up an online nickname; some go as far as paying for an online background check.

Often, though, informationis almost too easy to find.

MaryBeth Moore discovered that after she got a call from a guy her mother's hairdresser suggested as a good match. At first, Moore was game. But then she checked out his MySpace page and found photos showing him naked in a bath tub.

"Don't worry - I canceled the date," says Moore, who's 24 and lives in West Palm Beach, Florida.

There's also the problem of mistaken identity.

Lisa Philips, a 31-year-old San Franciscan, was not pleased for instance, when a search of online images turned up photos of a porn star who shares her name. She can laugh about it now.

"But it's definitely NOT the first impression I want to make with my dates," she says. "Very embarrassing."

It's a big reason people should take the information they find online "with a grain of salt," says Dr. Paul Dobransky, a Chicago-based psychiatrist and author of "The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love."

He says there's nothing wrong with doing a little online homework - but thinks the focus should remain on face-to-face interaction to make a final judgment.

"Our minds are more made for in-person, slow contact in getting to know one another," Dobransky says.

In the end, Danielle Martinetti says online research really only helps to a point, anyway. "The crazy stuff usually becomes apparent on the actual date," the 30-year-old New Yorker says.

"No amount of online searching is going to tell you that a person has issues with his mother, loves to be described as a George Clooney look-alike, has an overzealous obsession with hand sanitizer, or that he prefers to sit facing the door in a restaurant 'just in case.'"

Edited by Antonio Francisco R. Java
for SCI TECH of Cebu Daily News
Wednesday, 11-April-2007 page22

East Versus West

Gaming companies know there are at least 2 major markets for Massively Multiplayer Online gaming. You've got the Western market dominated by Everquest in past years and World of Warcraft more recently while the Eastern or Pan-Asian market looking more anime-ish with titles like Legend of Mir II and Lineage II.

While shooter games like cCounterstrike and strategy titles like Warcraft 3 have proven popular regardless of language or ethnicity, the realm of MMO's show a sharp divide of tastes and philosophies between the 2 major markets.

Western gamers tend to log in from home and bear the label of gaming geek. Eastern gamers are regular folks who trek to huge gaming cafes for their MMO fix and tend to include the popular kids too. Costs in the Western countries are also higher with a tendency to make payments by credit card. Around here, cheap prepaid is the way to go.

This divide has led to some fairly spectacular failures in MMO launches; sharp lessons to international game publishers looking to establish solid user bases in areas outside their home country.

Invisible Borders
The fantasy MMO Final Fantasy XI would be a good case of point. This game was a big success in Japan but got a lukewarm from reviewers and players in the United States. Our own Ragnarok Online that was a moderate success in Asia and become king-of-the-hill for the longest time here managed to get clobbered when it tried to penetrate the UU. And this was even with decent reviews backing it up.

On the sci-fi end of things, EVE Online and Star Wars: Galaxies aren't even blips on the MMO radar here in Asia. And this is pretty sad as both games are incredibly rich and immersive experiences with mature online cultures that offer more than endless hacking through mobs of monsters.

It's like there's an invisible border between the Western gaming market and Asia. Not too many MMO games can successfully cross this border though there have been notable exceptions.

Blizzard's World of Warcraft is the unbeatable juggernaut for MMO's these days and it seems that around half of all its players are in China. We even have groups of dedicated players here despite having to get the game from outside and playing on foreign servers.

Common GroundWhile it would stand to reason that each country would have its own tastes in gaming, the Philippine gaming setting is a unique mix in the region. Prior to Level-Up's entry and launch of Ragnarok Online, our gaming culture was limited to playing at home and some cafes that had computers strong enough to handle decent games. We had some exposure to Japanese games but the preference was strongly Western due to language barriers.

Ragnarok Online changed all that as we Pinoys finally had access to Korean content that we could understand. Since then, the inevitable domino effect has led the Philippines to become a major market for Asian gaming and a testing ground for new international publishers trying to develop new gaming markets.

Our solid preference for English games makes us ideal for English localizations of various Chinese, Japanese and Korean games. Originally, these localizations are expensive as they're done for US and some Euroean markets with attendant translation costs. Our own Pinoy game translator costs less and the newly localized game can immediately make money in a market that's proven traditionally friendly to Asian MMO's.

As it stands, the Philippines sits squarely between 2 major philosophies of MMO gaming and takes the best from both. We love the level grinding in World of Warcraft and can still meet up with friends for a number of games for an hour or two of Ragnarok, RAN or whichever suits the barkada's fancy. We already enjoy gatekeeper status for a number of games attempting to cross the invisible border. If more gaming companies could see the potential of the Philippines as a testing ground, there would be fewer localization failures for MMO's. Now if only the Western game publishers would realize that.


By Badong G. Reyes
For The REC Room of Cebu Daily News
02-April-2007 page 18

Lenovo Booth

Lenovo, the leader in PC vending in the Asia Pacific, exhibited at the Lowe Ground Floor of SM City Cebu last 29-March-2007 to 01-April-2007 to promote its latest notebooks and PCs.

Lenovo Y300 Php73,295.00
First ever face recognition technology in the Lenovo Y300 makes your face your password.

The world's first notebook equipped with Face Recognition Technology, the Lenovo Y300 uses advanced biometric recognition software and an integrated camera to only allow system access once it has authorized your face. It also recognises multiple users so that you can provide your family and friends with access. Other impressive features include a shuttle Control, one-touch recovery, superior graphics and Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology.


Lenovo Q Series Php60,195.00
Switch from music to movies instantly with the jog dial on the Lenovo Q Series.

With just a quick turn of the jog dial on the Lenovo Q Series, you can switch between music, movies, photos and TV. You don't even need to boot up your operating system. As a complete multimedia system that's fast and easy to use, it also features a one-touch recovery key, silent mode operation and a powerful Intel Pentium D Processor.


Lenovo Y400 Php71,495.00
The new Lenovo Y400 with built-in subwoofer. Light body, heavy bass.

The Lenovo Y400 notebook comes with a subwoofer and stronger output stereo speakers for a superior audio experience. The added convenience of the unique shuttle control lets you shift from games to music to movies - all at the touch of a button. Other impressive features include a one-touch recovery key, superior graphics for games and Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology.


Lenovo H Series Php30,095
Enjoy complete protection from both computer and human viruses with the Lenovo H Series

Whether it's an unfriendly email attachment or the common cold, the Lenovo H Series desktop protects both your data and your health. Our one-key recovery helps you recover the operating system if the PC should ever be hit by a virus or suffer a system crash. The keyboard is made from a special material that inhibits bacterial growth, so harmful germs have less chance of being spread.

Lenovo is an innovative, international technology company formed as a result of the acquisition by the Lenovo Group of the IBM Personal Computing Division. As a global leader in the PC market, we develop, manufacture and market cutting-edge, reliable, high-quality PC products and value-added professional services that provide customers around the world with smarter ways to be productive and competitive. We base our success on our customers achieving their goals: productivity in business and enhancement of personal life. Lenovo's headquarters is in North CArolina, US. We have 21,000 employees serving customers in 160 countries and R&D facilities in Raleigh(N Carolina, US); Beijing (China) and Yamato (Japan).