Teaching technology works

One of the many ways technology works is when companies reach out to young minds. One of these tech companies is Cisco... and their program, Cisco Networking Academy.



Today, Cisco Systems, Inc., based in San Jose, California, has more than 60,000 employees and is one of the world’s leading technology company.

It’s range of business solutions include such brand names like Cisco, Linksys, WebEx, IronPort, and Scientific Atlanta.

How did the company get its name? It was derived from a famous city which Chief and I visited last year. Yup, San Francisco.

The company was founded in 1984 by Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple. Both worked in computer operations staff at Stanford University and was later joined by Richard Troiano.

Cisco was the first company to successfully sell routers supporting multiple network protocols. The company became public in 1990.

Today, thousands of young minds benefits from online courses, interactive tools, and lab activities through the Cisco Learning Academy. Many hope to become certifications from Cisco, which jumpstarts their career here and abroad in various ICT positions in virtually every type of industry.

This program is celebrating the beginning of its 10th year of success. You can visit this website https://www.academynetspace.com/

Photos from www.cisco.com

12 million on-line videos viewed!

The digital world continues to expand in numbers and figures as more Americans viewed 12 billion videos online last May 2008. According to comScore, Fox Interactive Media gained an increase in market share on videos viewed at MySpace.com

May 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, reported an increase of 45% from last year. Our guess is a good as mine as which site accounted for more video viewed. Google sites had most videos viewed with 4.2 billion videos. I can’t imagine how many on-line hours that translates to. This represented 35% of all videos viewed.

Yup, YouTube.com accounted for more than 98% of all video viewed. The first videos were probably uploaded around February 2005, when three former Paypal employees (Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim) created YouTube. It is estimated around 100 million vidoes are hosted on their website! And growing every hour with around ten hours of video uploaded every minute.

In second place is Fox Interactive. They had 778 million videos (6.4 percent), which was showed a 1.3 share points versus April.


Yahoo! Sites (3rd) with 347 million followed by Microsoft Sites (4th) with 246 million. Yahoo was founded by two young Stanford University graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994. Your guess is a good as mine as to how many yahoo addresses we have. I have four!

At Hulu.com, which is a joint venture of NBC and Fox debuted in 10th position with 88 million videos being viewed. Please note that this site features full-length broadcast TV programs.

Other major findings from May 2008 revealed that The average online video viewer watched 228 minutes of video. Me? Not even an hour of on-line video viewing time. Hehehe.

Plus, around 82.2 million viewers watched 4.1 billion videos on YouTube.com or around 50.4 videos per viewer. The duration of the average online video was 2.7 minutes.

You can visit http://www.comscore.com for more on-line news and updates.

iPhone Searches

According to data from the comScore Marketer service, 1.3 million people conducted 6.9 million searches for iPhone-related terms in April 2008.

The news release says that the search term iPhone generated nearly 1.5 million search. Wow! And that includes my own search for iPhone. I did ask my cousin Patrick Velez, before he visited Manila a couple of weeks ago, about an iPhone. Unfortunately, he had flown to Manila even before it was launched in the States. Now, I need to talk to Senco Link Technologies to get my iPhone.

There was really a lot of speculation and rumors about the entry of the new iPhone into the market, even before Apple CEO Steve Jobs before he spoke publicly about it.

Can you imagine if that 1.3 million translates into actual purchases? All these searches indicate intent to purchase and again demonstrate that Internet technology works.

Now 45

I attended a Asian Institute of Management conference this morning at the SMX, Mall of Asia. It was all about the country being competitive. Now, we are Number 45 in the Competitive Rankings.

Eill upload data and research findings soon.

Adobe Acrobat Innovates

Together with the Adobe team from Singapore, the EON agency launched the new Adobe Acrobat 9 software to the Philippine market. The media launch event was held at Makati Shangrila Hotel, in the heart of the Makati Central Business District,




Two experts from Adobe Acrobat Singapore easily explained and described the new advantages and benefits of Adobe Acrobat.





Our media guests listened eagerly at the innovations. Photo shows (from left to right) Yammie from Net 25, Edison Ong from Manila Bulletin, Christine Sendin from EON (who is attending her first media event) and a blogger from Good News Phils.


Lawrence Casiraya of Inquirer.net askes a question. Lawrence, probably, knows me well as he caught the episode of "Mel and Joey" last November 2007.


And that's me on the left hosting the program, after the product demonstration. Now, three lucky media guests get a chance to win a nice laptop bag. Marian, a young journalist from Manila Times, Kim Bernardo of NBN Channel and a blogger won.

But really, ultimately, all the users of Adobe Acrobat wins as they enjoy the innovative benefits of the latest version of Adobe Acrobat. It is more interactive, much easier to navigate and greater compatibility.

Black or white? Or grey?

Remember this scene from Mission Impossible? Ethan Hunt (played by Tom Cruise) repels from the ceiling. He is just a few inches from the floor. His mission - to hack into CIA computer. Photo from the movie.

Whichever side of the law, there are the tools or technology available for anyone around the globe to break into computer systems and websites. This is hacking, the unauthorized break-in into a communications network like the Internet.

Black and White Hats
In the early days of the Internet and Silicon Valley, hacking had an artistic characteristic. To qualify as a hack, the feat must be “imbued with innovation, style and technical virtuosity.”

There are two (sometimes three) types of hackers. The good guys are the white hats. They are ethically and legally opposed to the attack and abuse of computer systems. The early white hats came from the first hackers at MIT and the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley. They maintained the values and principles of openness and sharing, or more simply, a better world. A white hat is sometimes a bad guy turned good and nows works for IT companies or even government. He tests security measures, fixes security problems, and makes sure the bad guys can’t hack into these systems.

Then, there are black hats. They are driven by the challenge or curiosity (or the money) to shutdown down a website or even a government. A black hat maliciously exploits vulnerabilities to his advantage. Many black hats argue individual freedom over security, accessibility over privacy. Others simply just want to get their names in mass media or blogosphere. Or just want to have fun.

In early 80s, there were six teenage hackers in Milwaukee known as the “414s.” They sound like a new wave band. Remember, the B52s? They hacked into computer systems of laboratories, banks and even a cancer center in Canada and the United States. They quickly caught the attention of media. A 17-year-old Neal Patrick became the spokesman for the “414s” which led to a cover story in the September 1983 issue Newsweek entitled "Beware: Hackers at play." The young hackers were quoted as “just having fun.”

In-between black and white is a grey hat. He is also a skilled hacker who sometimes acts legally and illegally.

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