My wish for you guys is… not to meet silly people as described in Clientcopia. It’s not from the makers of the hits Overheard in New York or Overheard in the Office, but they’re all good stuff. Hit “Random” or click on the “Top 20″. Heck, you can even subscribe to the RSS feed.

We don’t want to do this full-page newspaper ad in color. It’s not about the money. We just don’t want the ad to attract too much attention

Client comment on a cover design for a governmental report of racial equality. “Can you use a blacker person? This guy is too light, and throw in an asian girl.”

we had just completed a website for a client and we wanted the client to make a final walkthrough so that they could give the green light for the launch. me : you can view the final version at the test location, http://www…. client : eeeuh can you print out every page for us for the final conformation? me : why? client : well the owner of the company (and apperently the only one who could give the green light for the launch!) refuses to use a computer. me : eeeuh ok

Client Comment when designing the cover of his company brochure – “make it internetty” Me Outloud – “Can you more fully describe ‘internetty’ to me.” Me In my mind – “I did not know that ‘internetty’ was a design style. I guess that means I should add a mouse pointer to the design…” Outcome – I added a mouse pointer to the design and he was happy.

Happy New Year, ACMers! Lapit na ang eleksyon!

Congratulations to the UPD Savers team for bagging the following awards at the recently concluded Trend Micro Tech Challenge:

• Third Place (overall) – PhP250000 cash prize (minus 20% prize tax, then divided by the number of members + coach?)
• Best Team Presentation (cheer)
• Best Teamwork

We’re proud of you guys!  Rock on!

[test post at up.acm.org]

FINALLY!!! After several months of waiting for your check to clear, the USD1000 from ACM is now with the officers (gave it to Ardee, witnessed by Ia and Riza). Gave PHP54,000 to them (just took the fees that I had to shoulder to have it cleared).

Anyway, what do we do with the money? Do we plan for a grand Xmas party???

Ever wanted to create your own mobile phone game? Or itching to get known and rewarded for your mad game development skills?

Then drop by the Mobigame 2005 Seminar to be held this Friday at UP Diliman. Mobigame is a mobile game development competition and training sponsored by MMOG Philippines and DLSU. Get to ask the questions which matter, get the facts straight about this unique test of talents. Hear from the personalities behind the competition. And of course, freebies await!

This leg of the Mobigame 2005 school tour is proudly hosted by the Philippines’ one and only award-winning Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter, UP ACM.

UPDATE (11/24/05): Competition mechanics can be found here.

The UP Diliman Team needs your support (and cheers!). Sign up at the audience list posted at the DCS bulletin board.

Clash of the Brains
November 24, 2005
College Competition (12:30 – 3:30 PM)
William Shaw Little Theater
De La Salle University

Schools:
Ateneo De Manila University
Far Eastern University
Mapua Technological Institute
University of the Philippines Diliman
University of Sto. Tomas

The UP Diliman Team:
Ardee Aram
Linda Sarmiento II
Michael Chua
Prem Rara

Coach:
Joyce Avestro

Good luck guys! UP ACM wishes you the best!

This fresh news has been brought to you by UP ACM’s C^3. Be a SIGBLOGger now!

Finally, after several months of waiting, MySQL 5.0 is here. What makes this release worthy of celebration?

As people would remember, there are two popular Open Source database systems that are usually implemented in student projects and UP’s IT infrastructure: PostGreSQL and MySQL. They have been branded as having niches, PostGreSQL’s would be at the enterprise, as set by the CRS Team and DEEERS. The main advantages of PostgreSQL in this aspect are the plethora of advanced database features such as table inheritance, views and triggers among others.

MySQL, on the other hand, had been thought of as the preference for personal and small to medium sized web applications due to its claim for speed and performance. Admittedly, the elephant (the logo of PostgreSQL) tramples the dolphin in data crunching and manipulation, but the dolphin (the icon that represents MySQL) gets much ahead in terms of speed. MySQL, or at least until version 4.x, lacks the features of PostgreSQL needed for enterprise use.

MySQL 5.0 is to change all of that.

From their site (http://dev.mysql.com/):

MySQL 5.0 Key Features

* Stored Procedures (not bad, not bad)
* Triggers
* Views (at long last!)
* Information Schema
* Archive Storage Engine

If only it can implement table inheritance for me… =)

“To most programmers, Lisp seems like an entirely alien language at first- One thing that I think the Lisp community has failed to do is convince other programmers that this strangeness is not an arbitrary obstacle, but a necessary adjustment that imparts great power to programmers that would otherwise be unattainable. The alien Lisp mascot and quirky logo designs are designed to accentuate the awesome (and, to most people, alien) power that Lisp languages have- At the same time, they show how fun Lisp programming tends to be and that Lisp has wide appeal far beyond the stuffy academia it is sometimes wrongly associated with.”

I couldn’t resist. When do you ever get to take Lisp lightly? I’m glad I survived it partially unscathed!

But Barski’s right though: give Lisp a chance. Like Math, you can’t let your fear of it overwhelm you. It won’t run short of your expectations, and will cause you twice the stress if you let it take over you.

I’ll post it at another blog. Eventually…

2005 Trend Micro Tech Challenge Finalists

Teams: Savers, UPBibo, Vulcan
Coaches: Susan Pancho-Festin, Sanjay Risbud, TJ Vergel de Dios

Congratulations! They will compete in the final round at Crowne Plaza Hotel at Ortigas on November 22-24 where they will vie for the PhP1,000,000.00 grand prize. Good luck guys!

———-

ACM-ICPC Asia Regional Programming Contest – Manila 2005

Teams: Booroongoo, Decided, Team Roger, UP BisDak, UP Team of Artistic Engineers, UP Wet
Coaches: Riza Batista, Mike Samson

You may not have brought the bacon home, but we’re still proud of you guys! Among the local schools who had at least two teams, only the UP Diliman and DLSU Manila teams were able to solve at least one problem (walang bokya, ika nga)!

———-

2006 BPI-DOST Science Awards

Awardee: Geo Lubaton
Finalists: Mai Sibayan, Carlos Lasa
Coach: Joyce Avestro

Hooray! Finally, after eight years (nine if 2006), DCS produced a BPI awardee once again! BTW, the last DCS awardee was Cattleya Sanchez, BCS 1997. Past BPI science awardees of DCS include Amelita Martija-Donaldson and Joanne Jill Olazo.

———-

Coming soon:
Clash of the Brains
MIT-PESO
HSBC Young IT Entrepreneur Awards
Undergraduate Research Competition

Congratulations! Win or lose, this world class organization is proud of you guys! Mabuhay!

It is my second time to be a member of the board of judges for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Competition here in Manila. The first one was several years ago at the University of Asia and the Pacific and the second was this afternoon at the Ateneo de Manila University.

Topping the 99 teams are teams from Ateneo de Manila University, University of Tokyo and if I am not mistaken, University of Hong Kong (sorry if it is another university but I am sure that they’re from Hong Kong).

One of the UP teams, however, came in at a dismal fourth among local teams with Ateneo de Manila on first and third and De La Salle University on second. Better luck next time, guys! I reckon you need more serious training sessions for next year’s competition.

Three questions were submitted by judges from the University of the Philippines, 4 from De La Salle and one from Ateneo de Manila University. I submitted one of the 3 questions from UP and although the board judged it as the sole easy problem among all the problems fielded, it became one of the more difficult one to solve. I found it rather absurd considering how easy it was! Heck, the one from a colleague got even more correct solutions and to think that we considered his problem as medium-difficult. I guess looks can really be deceiving…

The question now is — how many among the 17 teams who solved my problem came from UP Diliman? I think out of the 6 teams from UP Diliman, 1 came home without even solving one! Ha – coaches, you better tell who these students are…

Anyway – good luck next time! And one more thing, the answers to some of the problems are sometimes too simple and/or obvious that people would rather resort to more complicated ways of solving them.

CROSSROADS’ MISSION: to provide accessible articles related to computer science, a forum for students to share their research, and to introduce the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

What is the ACM Crossroads Student Magazine?

C – Career advice from Jack Wilson, ACM’s career consultant
R – Read by more than 20,000 people
O – Official ACM international magazine for students
S – Security and Networking columns each month
S – Students publish the magazine and website
R – Respectable website with information on Java, C++, and more
O – Objective articles written by students, for students
A – Association with ACM, a highly respected professional organization
D – Demand the best from students and professionals alike
S – Service to the profession of computer science

These are a few qualities which define CROSSROADS. Participate in ACM Crossroads today!

http://www.acm.org/crossroads/doc/liaison/flier2.pdf