by Jovie Cabais | May 30, 2010 | Tech Updates
Auza.Net, the pioneering information technology firm in Bohol, holds the first Auza.Net Web Design Contest currently participated by 17 students from the three universities in Tagbilaran City. Contest entries are still accepted until June 30, 2010. Final judging and announcement of winners will be held during the Sandugo festival in July. The contestants are required to find an actual company or organization as sponsor in order to join. The contestant will develop the website design for the sponsor and if the contestant wins the contest, the sponsor will get a 1 year free subscription to Auza.Net’s Website Management Service. The contestant will win a cash prize of Php5,000. Contest entries should comply to the following requirements: 1. Must be based on core installation of WordPress from www.wordpress.org version 2.9.2. 2. Template design should be based on any of the existing WordPress templates found on the WordPress website 3. Template code of the final design must not be significantly different from the original template except for the graphics and CSS 4. Domain name for the sponsor should be either currently owned by the sponsor or is unregistered. 5. Must work using PHP5 and MySQL5 and must be installable on Auza.Net web hosting server 6. Should not require extra browser plugins. Only Flash plugin is allowed 7. Should only use WordPress plugins installable from the WordPress administrator interface Entries will be judged as follows: 1. Compliance to requirements: 40% 2. Relevance to sponsor’s line of business: 10% 3. Aesthetics and user friendliness: 30% 4. Popularity: 20% After the contest entry is submitted, the contestant may ask friends and family to vote...
by Jovie Cabais | May 23, 2010 | Tech Updates
The past week was very interesting with losing candidates complaining of election fraud caused by the alleged reprogramming of the PCOS machines. The supposed proof of such fraud are the dates and times on the PCOS machines not matching exactly with actual dates, and the ‘koala bear’ witness who claimed he was involved in the election fraud. One candidate claimed that there is fraud because the random manual audit did not match with PCOS count on 4 out of 5 machines but he wouldn’t say how much discrepancy was there. Another claimed that transmissions of the results were intercepted and a different set of results was transmitted. While such allegations are easy to make, the evidence of such alleged cheating should be presented at the proper forum. Also, they should take into consideration that a potential evidence, like the incorrect dates recorded, cannot be refuted. Even if the dates are not exactly correct, if the results submitted matched the election returns, then there is no cheating. The dates on the PCOS machines may not have been set to the exact time but its primary purpose is to record the sequence of events and in that case, it doesn’t need the exact dates because you only need to know how long is the period between events. Reprogramming the PCOS machines would require highly technical skills and such reprogramming has to be done in a very short period of time. Any one trying to do this must have deep pockets, close contacts with COMELEC and Smartmatic, PNP and military and are able to corrupt the volunteers of the PPCRV, pole watchers...
by Jovie Cabais | May 16, 2010 | Tech Updates
Auza.net hosted websites www.dyrdam.com and www.boholnewsdaily.com recorded user traffic several times than normal daily traffic due to the interest of many Boholanos around the world on the first automated elections on May 10, 2010. DYRD-AM Worldwide Broadcas peaked at almost 5,000 page views in a 24 hour period between May 10 to 11 when it started to publish the unofficial tally of the COMELEC results based on the official website that published the precinct counts. This number of page views is 20 times higher that normal. Most users did not notice slowdown of the sites. This unprecedented capabilityof Auza.net hosted websites to survive usage spikes is proof of the company’s robust server infrustructure hosted at a US facility. When Boholanos needed to get information about the elections, the websites did their job. Share...
by Jovie Cabais | May 16, 2010 | Tech Updates
Various doomsday predictions were quickly proven wrong at the close of the elections on May 10, 2010 when results started pouring into COMELEC and PPRCV servers. The swift counting due to the implementation of the PCOS machines and other technologies employed by COMELEC and Smartmatic gave no time at all for dagdag-bawas operations which would have been quite easy to do in the previous elections. The random manual audit (RMA) also has shown no significant variations from the PCOS counts. Only one more unofficial check remains: To review if the precincts included in the RMA are not significantly different compared to those not audited. So far though, the election results are looking credible and the PCOS machines proved to be accurate in the counting. The country was given positive feedback by foreign observers and the US and UK congratulated us for the successful elections. However, even with the successful automation of the ballot counting, the clustered precincts suffered long lines and delays because the queue of voters was not managed well. Each set of BEIs had different methods of managing the queue. The fastest moving queues where those given priority numbers from 1 to about 1000. The slowest were those processed in batch of 10s or 20s. The queue management was dismal in most precincts. We hope that in the next election, priority numbers should be part of the election materials to be distributed by COMELEC. This is a low tech solution for a low tech problem. Also, a holding room beside the precinct would be good also because it allows the voters who are about to enter the...
by admin | May 12, 2010 | Announcements
Auza.net hosted websites www.dyrdam.com and www.boholnewsdaily.com recorded user traffic several times than normal daily traffic due to the interest of many Boholanos around the world on the first automated elections on May 10, 2010 DYRD-AM Worldwide Broadcast peaked 7200 page views on May 10 2000 users online and 5000 thousand clicks on the play button of the live and recorded broadcasts. This is at least 5 times normal daily traffic. Bohol News Daily peaked at almost 5000 page views in a 24 hour period between May 10 to 11 when it started to publish the unofficial tally of the COMELEC results based on the official website that published the precinct counts. This number of page views is 20 times higher than normal. Most users did not notice slowdown of the sites. This unprecended capability of Auza.Net hosted websites to survive usage spikes is proof of the company’s robust server infrastructure hosted at a US facility. When the Boholanos needed to get information about the elections, the websites did their...
