Updates Updates

It’s been a while since my last SystemOne related post.  Here are some updates so far:

• An important part of our registration process is the updating of student checklist.  We have an online prototype application for this, but I found a very important glitch (several in fact) that makes it unuseable for the web processing.  I found out for example that it takes a long time to process a checklist with many entries especially in getting the recommended courses.   REGIST is still better for this job. Anyhow, a student who does not update his/her checklist increases the chance for him/her to have problems during preregistration/registration.
• To lessen our problems during registration, the ad hoc registration committee for the university ( OUR, the college secretaries and I) devised the SystemOne Form 1, which was discussed as “SOF 1″ in a report made by the CAS.  This quarter-sheet paper enables the student to add recommended courses even if the course is not yet in the proper schedule (ie. plan of study) as long as it is approved by his/her adviser.  One drawback for this is, each college secretary had to process this during registration which is really a hassle.  Pasaway talaga ang UPLB student.  UPLB seniors are especially lax during their last year.  The “SOF 1″ should have been used only during the preregistration period.
• I had to create several mini programs to clean up the database once the grades were in.  One drawback of the preregistration is: because we assumed that students will pass their current courses, WHICH is really a bad idea but we make do anyway.  The programs I created cleans up the recommended courses and slots of people who failed in their subjects.
• AS a result of the above:  during the registration, I had students contacting me why they lost some of their slots, apparently they forgot about the “agreement” that you don’t have the right to hold on to your slots if you flunk in your current subjects especially if they are prerequisites.  They wanted me to call their college secretaries, even their teachers, to confirm their grades.  A usual conversation goes this way:
  • Student:  Sir ba’t po nawala yung slot ko sa Subject X?
  •  Me:  Did you get an INC/4.0/5.0/U in a subject for the past sem? (esp. prerequisite).  [Note some students stop the conversation after this question. ]
  • Student: 4.0 po ako pero na remove ko na po noong <date here>.  [Note some removal grades were considered especially for subjects whose removal/completion grades were submitted early].
  • Me: [I check submitted data].   The grade is not here yet.
  • Student: Pero naremove/complete ko na po e, <grade here> po ang grade ko dun.
  • Me:  I wouldn’t know.  [I briefly explain the limits of my responsibility]  I only use what data they give me, and what they give me is what I have now.  I don’t change grades, because hey, I didn’t give you your grade and second I would need to see proof na pumasa ka nga, hindi yung sinasabi mo lang and that the proof is sent by your college secretary or the teacher.  Also, my responsibility is limited to maintaining the system and fixing technical problems.  Grade problems are not technical problems.
  • Student: Pero sir, kelangan ko yung slot na yun. “Paki”tawag naman po sa college secretary namin to get my grade, etc.. etc.. etc…
  • Me: [ Says outloud but not on the chat ] W*F it’s freaking SUNDAY (it was the first sunday of November back then)!  [I have been staying in at the office since Friday night - going home for personal sanitation].  I end up saying:  “Again that’s not my responsibility.  The only advice I can give you is to come here ASAP and see this problem fixed yourself.”
  • Student:  Not possible,  [W*F, e di wag!] I am far away from Los Banos…blah blah…what’s the point of being online…blah blah blah….
  • Me: [Sarcastic Mode] Well I already told you what to do.  [It was somewhat cruel but I said]  May you should not have gotten a 4.0 in the prerequisite.
  • Student: [Starting to b*tch up]  Blah blah blah…do you know how hard the subject is….  [Magtake ka din kaya ng CMSC subjects]….blah blah blah  ang yabang mo naman blah blah blah…..
  • Bottom line of this story:  You get a INC/4.0/5.0, it doesn’t really end up good for you, so suck it up and live with it.
• I had the chance to look under the hood again and looked up at my former student’s database code, and boy was it messy.  I really should see to the other database routines we have used, I cleaned up some and the performance came out better.  For example, I simplified and reduced the code for the conflict checking method, initial performance data indicates faster performance ( I have to recompute but 70+% better performance was noted).
• There was this stupid data import error that entirely ignored the T in TTh that is why the system saw TTh classes as only Th classes leading to some conflict errors especially for TTh classes.  The error was found to be made by the data importer.  Day schedules are denoted using integers which are the integer equivalent of the binary rep of the schedule.  For example: 101000  is 40 which means MW, 010100 is 20 which means TTh.  TTh classes were imported as 4 (which means Thursday only).  This error was detected almost midway into the registration week.
• I created a new and improved classlist printable format.
• I created PHP code to email students daily of their PS Form updates (or no updates) and implemented an email way of finalizing student schedules.  Apparently a great number of students do not read my PLEAS in the email.  I pleaded that they cannot use email to enlist in courses and yet here is a great number of emails doing just that and I swear I could have replied with all FLAME text.
• I bungled up a print batch leading to double printing of Form 5s (Just one batch) but I am writing this down to TAKE NOTE OF MY oversights.
• Some chap reported that it was possible that a student maybe enlisted in a subject that is not yet recommended for the student by copying a link in the web page and changing details of the link and inputting the link in the address bar of the browser.  I tried to replicate what he said but somehow, I cannot find a single random student where that happened to.  Unbeknowst to all, the things they see in the links are for crosschecking only.  The server remembers what you do and uses those information when doing something at least for the case of enlisting.
• I did not remove students who did not finalize their PS Forms from the classlists.  AGain another lesson of good intentions leading to mayhem.  I should have done exactly what was supposed to be done.
• On the last day, ONE of the greatest mishaps to an otherwise smooth week, I bungled up a query that messed up some of the classlists ( a great number of them actually) and we had to stay overnight the next day to fix this and delay the printing of the last batch of printing of Form 5s.  This caused a problem in the classlist printing, some departments actually complained.  I spent all week guarding against possible errors and attacks
• The lesson from the above is:  the greatest threat to the system is not some student who thinks he found a way to circumvent the system, nor a hacker — it is me.

After all that here are what we plan to do:

•  Change the waitlist system to the following:  A student can only be waitlisted to one specific section OR to the so called universal waitlist which will enlist the student to the first available slot that frees up or created.
• I will yet suggest this and I hope my bosses will agree:  A “FORFEIT” button.  Let me explain this part:
  • REGIST distributes slots in its most optimal way it can process.
  • It tries to distribute limited number of slots to many students, and tries to give good standing students full load.
  • There are still some parts that we need to change in REGIST most especially in the case where students are given over the required load.
  • Aside from the above, it tries to give slots to students the best it can.
  • HEre is a what we want to happen:  I, personally, go for a complaint-free system.  Of course when you complain about things like this it usually means you do not understand what the events were that lead you to the current situation.
  • Now, 4 students are given 15, 12, 9, 6 units.  Now we find out that :you give units to students and they will complain:  you give them less than the required because there is no other choice at the moment–THEY COMPLAIN.  YOu give them full load — THEY COMPLAIN (i.e. all GE for example because again there is no other choice).  YOu give them over load — THEY COMPLAIN ( hell, go cancel! that’s what the SystemOne OCM for right?).
  • So with the four students, if any of them want to complain, they click the FORFEIT button.  That means they don’t like what is given to them that they did not go through hell to get.  What happens is, their slots are redistributed to other students.
  • So if say the 9-unit holder presses the button and his slots are useable by the 15-unit holder and 12-unit holder, we get two students who get say 18 units who are now less like to complain, leaving 2 students who will surely complain.
  • Notice the difference: before we have 4 complainants, after only 2.
• I hear students are still blaming me for their misfortunes i.e. on their slots.  I think I am now exasperated to even argue to the fact that I don’t have anything to do with their getting less than what they want.   How out of place is it that I (or “SystemOne” for that matter) get to be blamed when you are #1 in the waitlist and it seems not to be changing.  Maintaining and managing a computerized system is really hard that’s for sure.  The only fun I get is of course I can be my sarcastic self and call them “misinformed” or the more sarcastic and fun version : “studid”.  I am sorry I can’t help myself and not say it.

Break From My Routine To Criticise the UP Lamp Posts

To anyone who has been to UPLB recently: have you seen the new lamp posts? I think it is part of the preparation for the Centenial Celebration.

Green metal posts with a circle with the acronym “UP” on it.

Funny how you would read it the letters as “up” (as in higher altitude) but then again the ‘P’ is lower than the ‘U’. So it’s like “up” but it’s going down. Kind of like saying the opposite of what you feel: you say your happy when in fact your sad, you say you feel up when you actually feel……..errr…. I believe it’s what they call irony.

I don’t know about people and their thing with symbols, but hey we have the winged carabao (pegarao) and I believe there is a positive connotation to that symbol. The oblation is also a symbol and it has a positive connotation also.

It just strikes me as somewhat odd though how this two letters seem to make me feel going down. *Sigh*

Maybe through this blog I would like to have a formal protest and change that circle thingie on the lamp posts.

Any reason why it is yellow though?

…And Their Answer is Preregistration…

A semester ago I was asked to give my supposed professional assessment on what they wanted: Preregistration in place of REGIST. That meant students will preregister in courses assuming they PASS their currently taken courses. I actually wrote a written explanation printed in initially 15 pages. I toned it down to 9 pages. I had it in a folder which I took to the Chancellor’s office. The former registrar was also invited.

This is what they wanted: let students preregister SO we can predict “more accurately” the demand SO we can hire more teachers before the next semester starts if needed SO we can open new sections etc.

Prof. Dorado and I had the same prognosis. She has worked with the registration “problem” longer than me, I have only looked at it at a technical/observational point of view. The previous members (college secretaries) of the Committee on Computerization of Registration have in a long ago meeting agreed REGIST is doing its job as it is designed, it’s just that the things that happen outside the computer results to deficient and sometimes even bad data. So to me, it’s like blaming the wrong thing, judging the innocent.

I’m implementing the “service” in software and to me, it doesn’t make sense to be implementing a service that makes its users do MORE than they should. I mean everybody begins with no slots and they “compete” online. Sure they can chose their sections (as if there was that much good choices) but all of them will do everything from nothing. What we had currently then was a system where more than 50% no longer need to do anything, with the modifications we would be implementing, they would just need to login and finalize OR make minor changes if needed.

On the issue of “better demand prediction”, preregistration is no different from what REGIST does. They are both WRONG in that they assume that students PASS all their courses. The only difference is you involve ALL students in preregistration just so we can make the WRONG prediction. REGIST involves the maintainer/user of the software and the data they have to make the WRONG prediction. My point being, why don’t we just improve the one that involves lesser people? I mean would you like to involve many probable “sources” of error?

Sure, sure, they discussed the oh so Utopian view of students choosing who they want to be with in class, that they are responsible for their own schedules etc etc. As I said Utopian. The registration problem requires realistic measures. Sure fantasies are welcome, but we don’t have the resources to support such fantasies. I don’t see why we bother.

I am drawn to this problem because I am fascinated by the fact that we are the only university I know of that tries to automate its registration problem to the point where majority of students do not have to worry about their registration especially those who are deserving. The goal being you just run the program and if you did good the last semester, you are prioritized and your registration is a breeze. And then they wanted to remove that.

ANd also, WHY did they want us to do more? We already have a system we are improving, why don’t we continue with it? So many years of efforts have been put into it. I joined because I think it’s good we have some sort of LONG TERM GOAL.

I tried to explain the system in the simplest terms I can think of. I thought they understood my so called “professional” assessment why prereg will not fly and why we should go on with our LONG TERM GOAL. I thought they took my assessment to heart judging from their own conclusion to look at the things that happen outside of the system that affects its performance. I did not hand in the report I made, I was so happy I made a point that I trashed it after I went back to my office room.

After the first run of the OCM, we had this meeting. They alleged that they wanted some way to correctly predict demand. And again they suggested Preregistration to BE the answer. I think they forgot about the system that already makes the prediction. They alleged it is wrong. I tried to make a point that IF we correct the student records, we remove some of the errors.

At the middle of the semester, the OUR releases demand prediction and they respond with their department’s schedules according to what they can offer. The OUR runs REGIST to find out we have a deficit in slots, they are expected to respond again to change their offerings. Some of them respond, most don’t. This semester, departments were somewhat “prevented” from offering more because the teachers will not get overload pay. They say it’s a UP-wide directive to save money. I say, WHY THE HELL ARE WE ‘SAVING UP’ THIS WAY WHEN THERE AREN’T ENOUGH TEACHERS TO DO THE WORK?

ANyways, when the grades come in, the demand is updated again SINCE students DON’T ALWAYS PASS and they are asked to respond with the new demand.

They have a point though, the time span by which the events above happen is somewhat tight. They wanted more time to ‘decide’. Were’nt there enough time during the first release of the demand prediction? Oh wait, they claim its not ACCURATE. What PREDICTION is  ACCURATE?

So they decide to have prereg again so they can respond with the demand prediction earlier. However, it must be noted EARLY means error-ridden because the prediction you are going to make is based on shaky assumptions.

ALSO, I tried to make this point: USERS (students) will do more. They will login at least twice or thrice (if you failed): once to preregister, another time to check after the grades are submitted, and third to confirm during the registration period.

I insisted on US still using REGIST though to do the initial distribution of slots given “initial offerings”. The only problem is the priority numbers would be all 1 (for graduating) and 2 (for good standing) because we assume they will pass their courses. I suggested we use current priority numbers (except for those graduating). This complicates this much. I cannot agree to people beginning with no slots because some people will have some “difficulty” doing their transactions online. Also increasing the transactions required will of course means longer time online AND here I am still solving the performance problems we encountered.

On the work-side, the undermanned OUR will do more. ANd here I am thinking working hard is not the answer: we should work smart.

This move severely goes against my common sense. They called me ‘emotional’ about my work and they told me there are somethings I can’t see from their point of view. Yes, I am emotional, but on the second point, I would want to say the same about them. There are contingencies and requirements they still have not answered to and have not looked into. I began to not say anything. I mean, they completely forgot about my explanation once before, I don’t think any of my protestations and assessments have any value. I mean it’s “pseudo-politicians” vs me the worker.

Now I need to add add-ons to the current modules because we are doing MORE steps now. This is aside from the bug fixes and re-configurations I still need to do. I say, value-added service for an unmaterially rewarding job.

In as much as I am a part of the organization, I can do no less but to do my best to support what they want even if I don’t agree to the concept. I look at it as some way to see if I am wrong about my assessment and learn from it. I am anxious to see if their idea works.

I’d like to make it clear though, students — don’t blame me if you don’t like preregistration.

PS 1. Interesting to note, 2 out of the 3 people who spoke in favor of prereg are newly appointed people. They were’nt there when the committee made and debated on the plans and issues of the reg process.

“SystemOne Sucks”

Seen this in places in the Web, but not so much to stop things from moving on.

For all of you out there, we are still using only one module: the OCM (Online Change of Matriculation). Maybe you meant the OCM sucked? Or perhaps the whole registration process sucked?

One must understand though that from my viewpoint and our current condition: there is no pleasing everybody.

One critic (posted in a forum) says “pahirap yang SystemOne na yan e!” He/She goes on to support his statement by saying “may klase pa din ng friday pero lab na lang ngayon kasi parang lahat e 1.5 hrs na. kahit ge.”

Uhhmmmmmmm….OK…..Uhmmmmmmmmm…..

Some others just posted the above title as is in their shoutboxes and such. Ok, if that works for you it is fine by me.

It got blamed for some people not getting slots initially or for their courses scheduled at the “wrong” times. I can forgive most, I mean some comments are made out of ignorance. Some people just plainly like to “bitch” up (even if they are males), again if that works for you, it’s fine by me. I mean I work to get positive results, I don’t know what you intend to do, “bitch” up until someone notices you and do something? I mean I noticed some of you but I’m not doing anything. The first time I did that, the girl, I was supposedly to help in some way, made a comment that didn’t even penetrate my bone-and-marshmallow armor (but learned the lesson of not listening to my good intentions) saying I was “epal” or something.

Go ahead and blog them comments, I am reading most of them thanks to Google but those aren’t addressed to me or to SystemOne in some way, so I just read them. It’s good though you have somewhere to release tension and stress .

People who wanted to solve their problems, some of them I aided, but there was no making me into a superperson and help them all (I apologize to those who asked for but didn’t get my help).

The number of people who did not complain much greatly outnumbers people who did. I mean most of the happy people didn’t have blogs to bitch up in (not that they needed to do that though). So, I guess that’s enough motivation to move on.

I tell you things that sucked though:

• I suck at server setup. The first day experience really eats me up from the inside, but at least I’m doing “some” things about it.
• The previous Summer term sucked. I mean the not paying of honorarium or overload pay or what not, turned the university into a ghost town. If the Summer term was like the previous ones, the scarcity of slots would have been lessened for the first semester.
• [General] It sucked that our budget is not enough to ensure the “existence” of real teachers in UP hence “more slots”. [ I mean I'm just an imposter , I can't even finish my MS Thesis on time, so no I am not a real teacher. >:) ]
• It sucked that some people who make the schedules didn’t check if they were “correct”. It sucks a little bit that they don’t communicate with each other to ensure that students in their departments who need to take courses in the other department have somewhere to fit in.
• [Specific] People who bring their relatives to help them bitch up “suck”. That goes double to those whose relatives try to lecture us on offering enough. WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH. How about you tell your sons and daughters to come and teach here AND not tell them there is money abroad?
• [Specific] Someone from the department offering a course whose lecture duration was weirdly incorrect came to my office while I was attending to a line of students looking at me as if it was my fault and was so demanding. I mean, you are far older and therefore I must be respectful, but that kind of behaviour sucked.
• [Specific] People who say “SystemOne sucks” (and don’t even try to understand the whole system) and don’t tell me what exactly sucks, suck. Maybe you meant: OCM sucked? I mean, I can arrogantly say, the idea of SystemOne I don’t think you can understand, so next time be specific.
• [Specific] People who forgot their passwords and people who “accidentally” clicked buttons. I mean, what the hell! Are you playing MineSweeper on the OCM web page now?
• It also sucked that some deserving students didn’t get full load. There weren’t enough slots or nothing to fit your schedule. You were already prioritized in REGIST (I assume) but it can only do so much.
• It sucked that students do not follow or even realize they have a PLAN OF COURSEWORK!
• In the above comment, that is because people flunk subjects and [RANT] it sucks that I teach at UP on a low salary and I PAY TAXES. If only I can chose who or what my taxes will go to, but no. People call themselves “ISKOLAR” ng bayan. WTH. Flunking subjects should be made a form of corruption at least for those who flunk subjects because they are always absent or don’t listen to the teachers and such. Maybe this TOFI will make students value their education more, some (more) good may come out of it.
• So if you don’t have enough slots for any given semester, stop and think that it may be your KARMA before blaming something else.

Feel free to add things that suck via your comments.

Peace out y’all. >;)

Things To Do

I need to do several things before the second semester, all of which are in the hopes of making the SystemOne server performance better.

Here are my constraints: I can’t scale vertically because well, there is no money for it, I can’t ask for additional server RAM because from last time the 2GB memory wasn’t maxed out. The current settings are still OK in that the Apache Web Server did not need to do paging, I still need to see though after we recompile it to increase max connections if we need larger memory. The other thing would be budget constraints, our development motto ever since its conception was to work with what we have and what we have is not much but we can make do.

The above scenario would also mean we can’t scale horizontally (i.e. have another server, ergo a server farm), because well the goal is to save money. It would be nice if we had a load balanced setup, we could cater to more users at the same time. I hear the other campus had four servers for enlistment services, I read from a reply to a blog somewhere, Zeon servers I believe. Of course that makes me a bit envious, they even employed/paid programmers to do their thing. We’ll they started paying me about a year and a half ago, P36K per year as a Project Development Assistant, you take off 20% for tax, and divide by 12 for the monthly rate (or was it 36 divide by twelve minus some random amount of tax?). And the work is to help develop the process (more of an analyst work) and the software not necessarily do the programming itself, but then, from the start we have had this sense of volunteerism in doing this so I will stop talking about the money.

I don’t think however that money would be a problem, it is the process of acquiring things that we NEED. I mean, we have allotted less than 200K (i don’t remember exact figure) for the server that we have now, but we waited for two failed bids and then the third and final step of finding the best deal just to get what we want. Yes, it’s the bidding that kills. Everything procured in government agencies (UP included) go through a bidding process. You announce that you need SOMETHING (through the media), and hope that suppliers take up the challenge of giving the product cheap and acceptable to the agency. Bidding fails if no one takes up the challenge of bidding or there are too few bidders.

So what happens is, you tell people what you need, then you wait two months OR MORE for the first bidding. It fails because apparently suppliers who cater to the government are either crazy enough OR desperate to sell. So it fails the first time and then you reissue the bidding a second time and then wait two months OR MORE again to gather prospective bidders, only to find out that again it fails and so you resort to the last step which is to find the best deal that you can have. The SystemOne server was procured in that way, we waited for at least a year to have it and we had to use standard desktop PCs for servers for the meantime. By the time it arrived, a new model was out with basically the same price. Arrgg. When it arrived though, I made myself content with the fact that we can move on for real.

This system makes us as a government and as a people shortsighted. I mean, the purpose of the bidding is to get the cheapest and not necessarily the best deal. We are so adamant on trusting our lives to the lowest bidder. Sometimes the lowest bidder runs away from the deal without completing it, just like what happened to the PhySci ICS wing/extension, perhaps awakened from the fact that there was no profit in the deal. It is no wonder then that one time I made one of my students do something on the whiteboard, he stumbled and fell through a termite eaten plywood floorboard. I would imagine that wouldn’t have happened if we invested enough for our safety and peace of mind. It will be of no wonder to me if the server we procured or any of the materials we procure through this system will suddenly fail when you need them the most.

But I digress.

Much of the performance tweaks and activities I will do would be on the software used and the module codes:

• Server software tweaks. Need to research on performance optimization of three servers namely Apache Web Server, Apache Tomcat and the database server. I wonder if I can request UP to purchase an enterprise application server like WebSphere so I can replace the first two servers with one? It defeats the goal of developing and deploying cheaply though, but I’d like to install something bought and not freely downloaded and used for a change .
• Apache Web Server recompilation. Increase max clients to 512, it says somewhere 256 max is hardcoded so what you do is change the source code, modify one of the constants to 512 and recompile. I would think this would need more memory though so I’ll see where I can “borrow” one if need be.
• Paul (our net admin) has setup OR is to setup a dedicated database server (for general purpose), so I think it be a good idea to have the SystemOne database server hosted at that host.
• Research more performance optimization on the Tomcat app server. Perhaps there’s a book I can buy on this one.
• Research advanced MySQL database server setup and performance tweaks. Perhaps there’s a book also. Or is it high time to migrate to, say, PostgreSQL? I think Oracle would have been great, but too costly, I mean “academic license” might not apply to SystemOne.
• For some reason, the subject conflict resolution service (web service)/algorithm failed for certain data, esp. classes scheduled on Tues-Thursday but not all. Both subjects being checked for conflict have laboratory classes, the laboratory class of subject A should be in conflict with the lecture class of B but is detected as no conflict. Now if I could just remember which former student I can bang this Mace of Face Disruption +5….
• I need to do extensive testing to all services, not only for the bug above, but all algorithms used in SystemOne web services.
• Compile the response times of each requested service from the logs and identify services that need performance boost. Tools in the shed include database query optimization and some other clever ways to make things go faster [like changing them totally >:) ]
• Update the fees database. The Assessment feature of the OCM failed because it had like data from years ago. Also, the assessment computation service need to be updated because 2007-xxxxx guys have a new rate.
• Apparently, during their time, the first SystemOne web programmer-students, they weren’t taught about the beauty of NOT using HTML IDEs and having clean and not too verbose HTML code. I was only interested on having their code working so I didn’t put much weight on supposedly good practices of scripting/programming. I didn’t even check if their Java code followed the usual conventions. I acted the “usual” client and based my evaluation on what I saw as “working”. I come to regret that oversight. SO now, I have to clean up after them. I believe they know what they should have done, almost all of them are in the industry now where they are paid to code cleanly and efficiently, but then again, why would I have pressured the “unpaid” volunteers? I only pressured them so they can graduate. Performance wasn’t the issue back then, proof of concept was all it was.
• Chop the “big” web pages into separate pages, redo some of the graphics so response time is lessened. In fact, I have this want of updating the look and feel of the SystemOne webpages. AJAX ringing my bell.
• Add a more “secure” security layer to the web services. Ok, this will slow things a bit but I think I have avoided this issue long enough already.
• Create new applications to manage and monitor data. I have always relied on the bare necessities (i.e. console programs, SQL queries etc.), I think I should make my life and the one who will take over [if ever] much easier. A warning when I login that Math courses with recitation are “overenlisting” would be a nice jolt.
• Design the Recommended-Courses-For-Next-Semeste-Application so we can preprocess recommended courses before hand with input from the student. This will make the enlistment process lesser headache next time.

SO aside from my long overdue thesis I will do those [makes me think twice].

How One Can Help:

Some people have already come forward, eager to have their hands on this monster and I am very thankful. Almost all of them want to help on the technical side though so I think when I want a new feature done, I can ask them to do it for me.

If any of our alumni can donate, say a new server [*wink wink starry eye], or books that can help or enterprise server software [*wink wink starry eye], that would be good.

Or someone who can donate a generator. They told me a generator will be on standby in case of power failure. WHERE WAS IT? Now I remember I have an axe to grind.

Or someone who can donate a better UPS, say a dedicated UPS for the SystemOne server that can last say an hour during power failure.

Or if you know someone who owns something and want to “advertise” in SystemOne and wants to “pay” the volunteers to do their stuff [*wink wink including me wink wink] or buy the things we think we need, that would be nice also.

If you are not any of the above, you can do the following:

• Report any errors/bugs immediately.
• Give useful suggestions, relay good ideas that you think will be beneficial to all students in their usage of SystemOne applications.
• Not turn to a much older person (say your female parent) to come and b*tch up on us when we’re trying to solve problems unless you’re 16 years and below and too young to understand the ways of the real world.
• Not forget your password.
• Make sure you’re records are up to date. I mean you shouldn’t trust your own record to be handled well by two or three people in a chain.
• Be part of the solvers in any way you can. I won’t stop you though if you want to be a brat like some people I know. UP students should consider the opportunities and the possibilities of and from the things we do.

+..Of the past week ..+

For one week:

• I’ve become the most cursed, most “invectivised” and perhaps most ridiculed person in UPLB.   Oh yes, I should be in the Guiness book.  Of any blame put on the UPLB SystemOne Online Change of Matriculation would be blamed on me, that goes to show our level of maturity of the users.  Can’t blame them though, the misconfiguration is definitely my fault and I already apologized for that, no need to be sulking about it and move on.

• I left my WoW server to be with another server. It’s not as glamorous as the WoW server, and I might just as well stayed at home and played all day long, but no, I left that hedonistic gamer lifestyle to pursue an idea. Oh yes, it WoW was like a mistress, but I left her for someone who needed me and I stood by her the whole time, afraid something bad happens if I be far away. Now that last week’s affairs are over, at least for my part, I came back to my WoW server, maybe I’m on a relapse, but it’s strange to think, I just don’t feel like a Dwarf Hunter with a Rare scorpid for a pet anymore.  No matter how much I want to try and play all day, I play WoW like I taste bland food I end up tasting a little.
• For the whole week, my office room became my home, and my apartment became my public bathroom. I had this division/barricade installed in our office room because my roommates have been dragged into this madness. Carla, who is nearest the door, may have felt like a receptionist, everytime people comes to see me they ask her who this ‘Duldulao’ /Dulds fellow is. Except during those power outages, my Ubuntu box and Miko’s PC were open the whole time, it’s good they did not crash out on me because that would have driven me real mad.
• Except when I had to go home for hygienic purposes, I’m either at my office room, pacing the hallway or checking up on the server in the network room. I realize I did not venture that far from those places all this time. I had my food either brought to me or I brought into the office on the way from home. Strangest thing though, I lost my appetite the whole time, the cats and probably mice that became my roommates ate all of them from the trash bin because I remember putting the stale food in and discover the last stale food I put in it is gone.
• What is the longest period that you did not sleep? Counting from the June , about 8:00 in the morning up to Tuesday, 4:00 AM, then I woke up at 6 to go at it again, and had just about one hour sleep every day ever since. It’s the data given to me, those were the root of my concerns and the cause of my troubles. I assumed they were correct and most of it are. I have not realized nor analyzed the restrictions and rules bound on those data especially on recommended courses would cause problems. I didn’t have time to plan on what to do for the Assisted Enlistment Area, thus the first day chaos. I dragged my whole institute into this, and I thank them for the valuable support they have given. The following enlistment days, some level of order have been enforced. I am also thankful some students (some of them my former students) and some people from the USC, CAS CSC came to help also.
• I might have to go check on a gastro doctor. My stomach seemed to have had an out of body experience all those time. Now that the ball is no longer with me, it decides to come back and I am voraciously hungry ever since.
• My Internet Messenger contact list grew considerably. My GAIM went like 32 chat tabs and more and I have to cycle through all of them. I had the speakers and earphones disconnected, I swear I heard a beep chorus. I’m being called by people I do not know.
• My Inbox got full of messages, I had to answera little over 500 messages in one sitting. Then with the current issues and such, I forgot about that inbox altogether starting wednesday.
• I specifically asked for people with pleasing personalities from each department to help with the Assisted Enlistment. They delivered of course but I have had not the chance to see them in action myself, only during when I had to notify them about something and I thank them for their time and effort. It bothered me though that our lab aircon gunked out.
• My sister who is in Japan for a PHD (she graduated inUPLB also) checked in to remind me our parent’s wedding anniv was last week and I totally forgot about it, I remembered my Ma had a text message and I didn’t bother to answer. In one of my resting hours she asks me “Do you have hazzard pay?” To which I answered “Almost half of UPLB probably hate me by now, yeah, and no hazzard pay.” The two students who were with me at the time asking me on an unrelated project, kind of asked how much I make as an instructor. I told them my payslip is on display at may table. It never really was about the money.
• I had to do damage control on the misconceptions of people and of course on the effect of loading incomplete or faulty data. I reminded myself to continue writing that Disaster REcovery Manual for Computerized Enlistment I always stop writing about. People tend to blame the first thing that they see. One student blogged for example “SystemOne gave just 9 units…”. I would have liked to have replied, “The OCM did not assign those units for you. IT just displayed what was distributed to you beforehand and now you have the chance to change it.” There is this one guy also who blogged on lining up on the Assisted Enlistment Area to check on a petitioned subject,  I would like to have replied “Aren’t you supposed to be lining up at the department teaching the course?”  Apparently, to him, it is the software’s/system’s fault that the department has not yet responded to the request.  I might just as well say “whattanoob!” [Devilish laughter].
• Other notable blog entries: “SystemOne U R Goin Down”.  “…The entire student population of UPLB wants to SCREW it!”  Really now.  Isn’t that a bit exaggerated?  I mean you fail to note “I” am a member of the student population.  What does that make me?   The people who are content with it don’t blog about it, I mean most blogs are about incessant rants of people who have nothing but rants.  It is nice to receive amidst all the troubles, reassuring virtual-tap-on-the-shoulders delivered in one liner emails.  It made want to smile and want to go at it more.
• It’s a bother to explain to people about the university’s resource problems.  All you students can bring all your mothers to pressure the university to giving more sections AND WE WILL STILL HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM.  Who’s going to teach you?  I mean what the hell, it would be best if you bring your parents and have them donate money for use as salary for teachers.  That would be nice, instead of having them reprimand people as if they have the power.
• I thank all those who came to support our efforts, those who volunteered to do something to make a burden much lighter.  I feel I came out of this ordeal with a sense of victory.  Despite the glitches and the temporary failures, I personally proved this thing can work.  It is nice to think that while we were rowing this boat, some came to help us paddle.  Others just rocked the boat and that wanted me personally to paddle more.  I know that we will do this again, because to not do this now that we have momentum would be a big misstep to us as an organization.  TO the boat rockers, how’s about we just get them off the boat next time  >:)  [Devilish grin] .
• I’m a sucker at crowd management.  It is good people in my institute and the OUR are there to compensate for that skill lacking.
• All in all, I am content at what happened, a learning experience is always a welcome experience.  We identified problems we can only see in action [ that things in theory isn't what they are in reality ],  and already have solutions in mind for those problems.  We identified some weak points and we will be addressing them in due time.  I don’t know what we might have sacrificed here, I am sure there were some who were left in the water, but then, what change does not happen without sacrifice?
• To those who still are not convinced about anything, I ask you to have a step back and leave your preconceived notions for a moment to see a big picture.  The name “SystemOne” has a very big picture behind it, a very big idea.  The OCM you see is just a small portion of it.  Behind that big idea is a target: you.  I will be explaining soon enough in a separate forum, what this picture is and what it means to you.

Devil’s Advocate: How To Hack To Somebody Else’s SystemOne Account

I got to write many posts because, I think I need to share events that transpire.  For this post, I will tell you how to hack into another person’s account.

I don’t know and I can’t think of a scheme right now how you could get rich out of it, only that you should consider, UPLB has a very slot deficit for many subjects, ergo, too little slots for so many people will lead to competition and ultimately desperation, you don’t know when the other person’s slot becomes a survival instinct.  My intentions however, so I can make it clear and avoid  misconceptions, is to scare the hell out of your people to change your passwords to less obvious and more sophistication with a good measure of mystery.

Of course the first thing you need from a person is his/her student number.  Of course, contact number is important if you plan to trick or seduce him or her to telling you their passwords.  But if you’re the somewhat shy type,  student number will suffice.

•  You need to know their names, full names.  Because most people are afraid of complications, afraid to forget and some people are just so vain, you put all of them together you get high probability that the other’s person’s password is his/her name,  Try first name ALL CAPS, firstname small caps, both names concatenated, nickname, etc, etc.
• You need to know people around them Part 1: Lover’s names, husband’s, childrens’.
• You need to know people around them Part 2:Their favorite taiwakoreachinese soap actor/actress.  Favorite reality tv character, etc.
• You need to know people around them Part 3:  Befriend their friends and no dummy, the password is not their names, you just ask for it directly since you are now in the circle .   A great majority of SystemOne users let share their passwords with close acquaintances as if it was toothbrush….no wait…as if it wasspare change.
• Try sequential keyboard combinations that does not require the finger to tap far.
• Try their birthdays in full number form.
• And lastly, because the rule is minimum password length of 6.  The number of characters of passwords for users is 6 to 8.  You just do the darn math and count how many 6-character passwords you can type on the keyboard.
• More on this later/.

Technical Drool #1: How To Setup The Server

I have made several missteps already that may have affected the sanity of my users, for which I will atone for in code.

June 9. Start of the Enlistment. 700 users immediately use the service within the first 10 minutes. Next twenty minutes sloooowwwwwdddoooowwwwnnnn. I can imagine my irate users. My GAIM starts to popup. One contact. Then two. Then three. Then another just added me as a contact followed by a former student and then another contact. Before I knew it, my GAIM is one big conference room with everybody throwing something at you. It’s freaking 12:30 in the morningwhy are you people still up! [DevilMe: You're still up! Wait...you're not a person...snicker]

I begin to palpitate and then DevilMe says: What are you thumping for? Let ‘em blabber till they shrivel and d**!

Better get to the bottom of this before it get’s worse. First place to go to: Web Server configuration…But wait…I already maxed out the web server configuration this summer, that seemed to solve the problem back then. What’s wrong now?

Text messages. Vibrating phone.

I check processing logs: password verification : 10531.34 ms (or something like that). OMG. What’s slowing you down X? (I’m temporarily naming the SystemOne server X).

Another TExt message. Unknown number.

Try a restart [ AngelMe : "Within 30 minutes of reboot? " ]. It’s always fast after restart. [AngelMe: "Are you gonna restart forever?"]. Good point.

“Sir, nawala systemone, what’s up ?”. My cholesterol.

“Sir Server Down, when will it be back?” Let’s toss a coin. If it’s heads it’s not back yet,tails it’s not back yet.

I research more stuff on Apache Web Server configuration and do some changes. It seemd to work a little. Time to look at the other parts. The only solution left for me that is undoable at the moment is to recompile the web server to accept more than 256 connections at a time. Arrgg..

On the background my inbox begins to fill up. Better read some of those. Email about recommended courses being wrong. Email about someone’s recommended courses being wrong. Email about getting help on enlisting on a subject because he/she is graduating. Email about someone’s recommended courses being wrong….isn’t that the same person? WT. I realize I’m sugar high. Those two small bottles of mountain dew seemed to be 10 cups of coffee.

Cellphone rings. Miss call. Unread messages again. Students. Answer some.

Web Service server configuration. Already maxed out. Any changes I do to it will not do much.

Then it hit. Oh yeah! I loaded new data and I didn’t INDEX my database tables. Loginpasswordaccessdatabasetypetypetypetypetypetypetype. Done. Chomp on the burger I haven’t touch in two hours. The pasta and the onion rings would be rotting by now.

Wait check logs. The numbers went down a bit. That seem to work. Note To Self: Always INDEX after database data loading.

“SIR how can I enroll in PE 2? It doesn’t seem to be working!” I checked. It wasn’t. I reply that I will solve the problem within the day, for the mean time don’t touch them PEs.

“SIR can the subject I took last time be substituted to my GE so it won’t become an extra subject?” Errr, isn’t that somebody else’s job?

I post messages on the SystemOne home page. I realize now it’s looking like a chat log of me talking to nobody.

I check the auth log. The usual dictionary-attacker logs. Don’t they ever stop?

More messages on my GAIM. I answered some and then one student say asked if the server went down.

WT*?

I check logs: get recommended courses 290453.34 ms. Huh? 1002344 ms. HUh? 30 seconds. HUH?

“Sir I can’t login, did you change my password?”

“Sir my slots disappeared!”

Vibrating phone.

“SIR! WHAT’s HAPPENING!”

“SIR! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!”

Uh-oh. I want my mommy.

Better check again. And then I remembered: DATABASE SERVER SETUP!

Ouch, it was using the default low-resource setting. Didn’t I use the larger configurations this summer? I think I did. Perhaps it reverted during upgrade?

Googlegoooglegoooglegooogle. ReadreadreadreadfastfastfastfastAhhhthereitisalttabtypetypetypetypebackup originalcopynewconfigurationfile.

Now let’s try you out. Ahhhh…smaller numbers…that’s good.

Then my former student asks if we will be reverting to the manual way, to which I replied, if we do that because of one (or two) server crash [ sic because of my stupidity], we’re all a bunch of losers. Would I be driving myself sleepless crazy just to go back to pen-and-paper-walk-around-the campus-way?

I wonder why it’s smaller now…maybe my users got so mad, they’d be outside my office with pickaxes tomorrow…..

2.45 ms. 45 ms. 69 ms. Hmmm…. Heaven…. X breathing smoothly…
Maybe…or maybe these last minute reconfigurations that I didn’t have to do if I thought of them before I even did this, worked. I’ll see tomorrow.

I get a brief reprieve from my worries. This may yet be the last thing that I write >:). I will look into the mirror when and if I get home and assess myself if I need psychiatric help.

POSTSCRIPT.

I remember how I woke up this morning, funny I did not remember falling asleep. I was woken up by Mam Jo who came in my room to tell me that the new Registrar, Mam Myrna C, was outside knocking. The last time I checked the clock conscious it was 6:45. Now my system clock says a little past 8. I sleept a good one hour. It may have been the sugar high but I felt I slept longer than one hour. I let the new registrar in. It was too late to notice I hadn’t trashed the half eaten burger and the pasta I failed to eat because my gracious housemate didn’t take out plastic utensils with the food. Sir Jimmy, Assistant to the CAS College Secretary and colleague also arrived.

We talked some stuff on things to do and while talking I wondered if what I did four hours ago is still working.

Time to check logs.

Verify student 100000000ms.

I was too light headed to react. What now?

Restart.

Talk some more strategies. And stuff. Sir Jimmy buys me coffee and breakfast. Wow. I hadn’t eaten anything substantial yesterday and still I only crave coffee today.

I was thinking what did I miss? I check memory usage. This server has 2GB memory and its using only over a half. What did I miss? It slowed down while I slept.

More messages on my GAIM messenger. PE 2 complaints come in. Ok will resolve that first. Tita Cecil reminds me that PE 2 options are contained in the Checklist data. Ok so I said to myself, I will create a Java program to get the……..Java………….ringing a bell……….

I smiled secretly while the two higherups in my office are talking.

What is the one thing I thought I was best working in and yet I forget its most important features? Java. One big slap to my face.

The Java Virtual Machine runs programs in a sandboxed environment. It only uses a preset memory size (heap). I check the logs for memory related errors. And then the I see the culprit. The Web server that handles web services for SystemOne is essentially a Java program.

The answer that eluded me was: Runtime options. I needed to increase the memory allocation for the server. I did it before in another project why did I not do it here?

Silent cry.

Restart. And all throughout the day it never registered those large processing times. A little bliss. We live.

I go back to writing that PE 2 farming program.

Students, grduate and undergrads, started to arrive, the graduate school seemed to have workday on a Saturday. Might as well decrease the people who want to kill me.

Interlude: Knowing Your Intended Users 2

This event happened a little on the period before the summer period started.

A somewhat familiar but somehow I can’t place female person comes to my room. As I was being always called on at the time I assumed student and by the looks, a GS student (Graduate School student).

She introduces herself as a GS students, from the first spoken words, a hint of sarcasm. Or was it self-importance? I couldn’t tell the difference.

She tells me she has been to my office before and I was not there. It was a busy week everybody calls up to check on something, I am inclined to respond and I’m going to where they want me offices to fix and discuss and etc. I couldn’t tell her that of course. Did I mention she was sarcastic sort of mataray?

I ask how can I help her. She proceeded with straight barrage of sarcasm and perhaps annoyance that she’s from work and she has to come back to my office to enrol in something, why has she not been told about this…

[Cutscene: DevilMe and AngelMe says in unison: "Who the **ll are you?", Me: Switching to: No Reaction Mode]

… why were there no announcements …

[Cutscene: AngelMe: but there were! Do you want individualized pamphlets ? I'm sorry most of the money we have went to buying the most important parts...so we used billboards and the UP website to announce, cheaper and not waste much paper...]

… she has to come from name-of-place … why they did not tell her that today was half-day working day, she should have gone home instead, she talking about all of us being busy [ and I'm not?]

[Cutscene: DevilMe: You don't have friends to tell you? No friends at all? Do I not look busy to you? Oh gosh. ]

[Cutscene: Me: I was reopening the program I used to enroll the previous student who came to my office, I already am in the part where I can put here in the intended classlist ]

…she has toblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…

[Cutscene: DevilMe, AngelMe in unison: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah with matching hand puppet movement]

…blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…..

[Cutscene: Me : ..I stopped clicking, typing, moved the mouse cursor to the 'X' button]

In one of her pauses I spoke, that there were announcements made in college boards and website and we were to use this a year ago if not for the storm and that rumors about it, which we have depended upon, has spread since then.

Me : “…I don’t know what the prerequisites are to your intended course, I don’t have your student record (which was true), maybe you need to get a COI from your Instructor first”.

Graduate students are given a special consideration you see, they can enroll in any graduate level course, it’s their responsibility to follow their own plan of coursework which they constantly change to follow their needs [but this has changed now, the GS now gives me their recommended courses based on their current plan].

And so I proceeded to click on the ‘X’ button of the program that I used to enroll another GS student in the same course she is to enroll in not 20 minutes ago. Buh bye. I was about to backup the database anyway when she appeared, I was to have my late lunch again also.

She stops talking and leave. Smirk on my face. Sorry, you made yourself not likeable. I am not paid enough, not that I am asking to be paid, to be your emotional dumping ground. Oh wait, with the programming, developing, fixing, maintaining, clerking, enlisting that I do? The a little increase to my low salary does not cover those in the “assissting” description. Maybe you want to get enlisted by somebody else? Oh no wait, the OUR is too busy with the graduation now, there is only me left to handle the summer registration. Isn’t that a bit unfortunate?

I throw my own frustrations away and get back to work. I just ordered takeout, which I discovered later, I did not eat.

She came back some days later, I enrolled her this time. She apologized for her behaviour the previous encounter. I just said Ok. A little mustered smile.

If you were this student, let’s imagine us trading places. That’s how you felt, this is how I felt.

Oh yes there were other encounter including me being blamed for not offering enough slots, for me NOT updating the site because someone is “WAITLISTED” and she expects to have slots after, me for the site being down [because there was a blackout inside UP], and the whole lot. I’d say this encounter was the most unique.

Interlude: Knowing Your Intended Users 1

For me, the “software developer” and the “programmer” are two different roles. The software developer, for me, is someone who is in to the details of the problem you are solving, which is not limited to just software but also the “users”. Yes, users, are also sometimes if not most, part of OR ARE the problem. [As a note, SystemOne is developed by a committee composed of the OUR, the College Secretaries, and some faculty and staff from ICS and all previous offices involved.] I will tell you here one of my brushes with two supposed users.

Here’s what I assumed of SystemOne’s users especially the students: intelligent, adaptive, insightful and to balance things out, apathetic, uncooperative, and will complain a lot.

The Internet/WWW is a two bladed thing, while you can use it to whack somebody, the same can be said to you. SO one day I was interested if someone has blogged on SystemOne and see what they think of it. Google, the ever handy tool, gave a few. One that piqued my interest is a public-can-comment entry for the purposes of false security I will assign the name MaleStude and FemaleStude as a subsitute to their userids in a popular Fr**ndst*r-like-but-they-say-is-better service:

I came to the site with these entries:

——————–

MaleStude says: “systemone is stupidity…”

FemaleStude replys with: “as in buset talaga”

——————–

My good intentions and I of course are naturally curious as to what caused this “outcry”. Wanting some answers I created an account in this popular Fr**ndst*r-like-but-they-say-is-better service just to ask a question:

—————————-

I say: “Can you guys be more specific on what part of systemone is ’stupidity’? Or what you did not like? Critics are always welcome (the constructive ones).”

—————————-

It wasn’t long after I got a reply, just about an hour or so the page refreshed with a reply:

—————————-

FemaleStude says: sino ka ba? kami kasi ni <real-name-of-MaleStude>, mag-brods kami niyan, nagkakaintindihan na kami sa simpleng sagot nya, hindi vague samin yun.

—————————-

I smirked, WTH?. Ok these guys know something that I don’t know, I mean WE developers don’t know. But what? Wanting closure, I again replied and gave hints on who I am, I mean they are so smart I assumed they knew who I was after. The reply was so much like an apology stating that if there were someone who will apologize for whatever discomfort done to them by the system, I would be the first one. I am after all the most “visible” person on this project everything will be blamed to me in the long run. I somewhat begged one more time to tell me what their problem is.

I waited….and waited….refreshed….refreshed…and then the page said it was no longer available [or something, it went private]. Ohhhhkeyyyy number one. I ended up with “Oh well, if that makes you happy”. I sent a private message, this time with a hint of sarcasm. Never got a reply back. I forgot, oh wow (starry eyes) they’re so intelligent.

I forgot about the whole thing and then one day in April or May (I forgot) in comes to my office a girl whose name on the ID closely matched FemaleStude’s userid AND oh yes, the pictures. No doubt it was her.

Funny thing was, she came into the office to request being added to the active list of students for the next semester, being on LOA or something the previous sem.

A little pause…Ohhhhhkeyyyyy number two. My innerselves said: “WT*! Here you are agreeing to someone about our system being stupid AND YOU! You’re not even one of the “official” intended users! The nerve.” Right then and there I wanted to show her the site and ask what is stupid but I had invisible straightjacket. I just waited for her to leave and conclude it was a case of you’ll-always-agree-to-what-your-buddy-says-even-if-you-haven’t-tried-it-yourself.

Her site is up once again and I laughed and choked at what I saw:

—————————–

MaleStude says: systemone is stupidity…

FemaleStude replies: as in buset talaga

The space where my first reply should have been: Reply deleted at the request of the thread owner.

FemaileStude replies: sino ka ba? kami kasi ni <real-name-of-MaleStude>, mag-brods kami niyan, nagkakaintindihan na kami sa simpleng sagot nya, hindi vague samin yun.

The space where my second pseudo-apology reply have been: Reply deleted at the request of the thread owner.

FemaleStude says: brod, ang daming epal sa mundo. share ko lang

 

—————————

Ohhhkeyyyyyyyy number 3. Well, good thing about the web, they can post their opinions, I can post mine. If you think I’m feeling combative now, yes I am, as I am fulfilling a promise to those who helped make the programs (my former students): they will at least feel the feeling of that what they made are being used by others they dedicated the work to and not just shelf items. So to see it being blasphemed for apparently no reason wonders me a lot.

I laughed so hard my AngelMe just laughed and DevilMe somehow dared me how fast can I type “DELETE FROM <database-table-of-allowed-users> WHERE USERNAME=<username of target>”. Haha. Dare me. Epal pala ha. You can start searching your subjects June 13. Hahahaha. Joke. Seriously. Joke. [Is there such a thing as Serious Joke?] >:)