MANTECH PAPER 05- My I.T. Issue: Evolution of PLaying - Online Gaming

I remember back when I was in Grade School, when you have a gameboy -- you are cool! Your classmates will try and borrow your gameboy. After a few years, Nintendo released the gameboy slim, then the gameboy color™, gameboy advanced and finally the nintendo ds. Other companies also released their game consoles such as the psp, playstations, gamecube, xbox etc.

It's like the companies release the same game consoles over and over again, plus, most of the game play is still the same. You kill the boss, and finish the game. These companies earn money by selling their game consoles. After a few years, there were these interactive pc games such as Counterstrike, Starcraft etc. A few months came by, I remember, I was in high school then, Level Up games™ introduced the concept of "Level up".
Level Up! is the first online game publisher for the Philippines. Their mission is to bring online computer gaming and its communities to greater heights, through the introduction of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs).


These games will allow individuals from all over the country, and different walks of life, to interact in dynamic, virtual communities.
Level Up! is proud to be the distributor of the country's first ever localized MMOGs: Oz World from Oz Intermedia, Ragnarok Online by Gravity Corp, Freestyle from JCEntertainment, RF Online from CCR of Korea, Pangya from HanbitSoft, Flyff from Aeonsoft, Khan from Mirinae and Perfect World, created by Beijing Perfect World Technology, China. The Philippine versions of these games hope to give users a uniquely Filipino experience.

These are some of the offers of Level up games. The first few months of "Ragnarok" (the first mmorpg of Level-up) was free. It was for promotional reasons and to attract gamers. The concept of Level up is a great strategy, it simply means to kill monsters, level up, collect awesome items, dominate other players etc. Ragnarok seems to represent human nature which is endless desire for power, fame and domination. So after people became familiar with ragnarok, Level Up™ release game cards in which gamers can purchase if they want to play ragnarok.

Mmorpg then became so famous that other games and online communities started to emerge. Many people became hooked up and are still attracting new gamers. These gamers spend money and take time just to improve their characters. Online gaming is a big I.T. Issue taking the world by storm. The success of MMORPG is not just because of a good game play, awesome graphics but I think it is because the interaction of gamers with other gamers, tt revolutionized the way people play.



References: http://levelupgames.ph/games.php

Mantech Blog 15 - BASIC NEEDS: Food, Water, Clothing, Shelter and Prepaid Credits?!

Technology evolved and advancements are continuing to pursue itself in the name of competition amongst businesses, compete for the top spot in the market, make a name for itself and gain the trust of the people. I will narrow down my example to the communication business. Communication is important among people wether its personal or for business purposes. Advancements in communication started when the invention of cellphones revolutionized "wireless" communication.


Another few years and SMS or the Short Message Service came to be. It enables you to communicate by using short messages and is affordable by anyone. Invention of multimedia phones came and soon MMS arrived. It enables you to send Multimedia Content to another multimedia enabled phone. It made people happy and soon more cellphone subscribers are growing exponentially. Cellphone companies saw this coming and invented new ways to gobble up a subscriber's load.


Example: They trick people in leaking out their cellphone credits thru "free" subscription. They send a message telling people that they are giving away "free" ringing tone, ringback tone, mms, celebrity textmate etc but at the end of the message, you get to subscription with them for either a P30/week deduction of your prepaid credits. Then, they made the "share-a-load/pasa load" and "Unlimited Texting". It seemed nice but the service is terrible.


There were several times when I tried to share my load but Globe send me that there was something wrong in the system and so I have to try again next time but guess what? They deducted credits even though my transaction wasn't succesful. Another incident in Unlimited texting, Globe failed to text me that my Unlimited texting was over. I have no much problem in Globe's delayed msgs but I can't use Unlimited texting unless they send me a service message telling me that my Unlimited texting was over.


Globe, Smart, Sun, Talk and Text, and Touch Mobile saw the importance of communication, especially in our country. I learned that we're the texting capital of the world and these companies will stop at nothing until we are dry. They invent useless technology but it's up to us to be responsible and choose the right enhancement suited for our everyday lives.

MANTECH BLOG 14 - BUSINESSES PROCESSES AND THE LEGACY SYSTEMS

I learned in my Database subject about this topic. Legacy systems are considered to be potentially problematic by many software engineers for several reasons. Legacy systems often run on obsolete (and usually slow) hardware, and sometimes spare parts for such computers become increasingly difficult to obtain.

These systems are often hard to maintain, improve, and expand because there is a general lack of understanding of the system. The designers of the system may have left the organization, leaving no one left to explain how it works. Such a lack of understanding can be seen by documentation or manuals getting lost over the years. Integration with newer systems may also be difficult because new software may use completely different technologies and may not be compatible.

Despite these problems, business organizations can have good reasons for keeping a legacy system, such as:

>The costs of redesigning the system are prohibitive because it is large, and/or complex.

>The system requires close to 100% availability, so it cannot be taken out of service, and the cost of designing a new system with a similar availability level is high.

>The way the system works is not well understood. A situation like this can occur when the designers of the system have left the organization, and the system has either not been fully documented or such documentation has been lost.

Last reason is: the current system works satisfactorily, and the owner sees no reason for changing it; or in other words, re-learning a new system would have a high cost in lost time and money.

MANTECH BOG 13: Cellphones: The EVOLUTION

Not so long time ago, cellphones are use to make calls and keep time. I remember they added an extra feature, the SMS or Short Message Service which killed the pocketbell industry. I remember when I had my first cellphone. It was a Nokia 5110, it has many extra added features like customize ringing tone, games and the changing of cellphone covers.

After a few months, Nokia released the Nokia 3210 which lets you compose a ringing tone then it didn't take long before the colored cellphones were invented, then camera phones, mp3 phones and finally the 3G phones. I noticed that most people prefer cellphones instead of buying mp3 players. But what makes evolution of cellphones so succesful that it attracts many people to change their cellphone unit almost every month?

For me, I think that cellphones are now rapidly evolving to become a PDA to becoming a Computer because of so many extra added features like wi-fi acces, memory card, camera, etc. Cellphones are also handy and compact that people can bring it anywhere and use its function. Lastly, cellphones are beautifully design to match different people and their lifestyle. Nokia and the other companies are rapidly evolving their products to outwit one another. This is clearly an example of a technology that succesfuly evolved but it killed other inferior technology.