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:

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MaleStude says: “systemone is stupidity…”

FemaleStude replys with: “as in buset talaga”

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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:

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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).”

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

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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.

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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:

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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

 

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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?] >:)