EACOMM Corporation Philippines » Articles

Artes de las Filipinas: Private Collections Book Signing and Launch at Nuvo City

admin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:26:28 +0000

EACOMM Corporation in cooperation with Nuvo City is inviting everyone to join us in celebrating a Book signing and launch event on December 12, 2009 6pm-8pm at the Nuvo City Lifestyle Center, E. Rodriguez corner Calle Industria, Bagumbayan, Quezon City for Artes de las Filipinas: Private Collections.

Event Partners include PAGCOR, Ambiance by Pido, and Indios Bravos.

For more information contact Ms. Maribel Garcia-Villanueva at +63 2 438 2986 or email info@artesdelasfilipinas.com.

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On selecting, projecting, and choice collecting

admin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:03:55 +0000

ORIGINAL ARTICLE AT: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=522841&publicationSubCategoryId=84

IN A NUTSHELL By Samantha King (The Philippine Star) Updated November 13, 2009 12:00 AM

Private Collections is the first book project of Artes de las Filipinas under EACOMM Corporation. The collection will be available in bookstores by December.

I don’t know the first thing about starting a purposeful collection. In another lifetime, I remember trying to out-hoard my kindergarten classmates in the savage world of sticker collecting… where we engaged in trade-offs and cemented deals that put even the most hardened hoodlums to shame. And that was it. These days, the only things I seem to be collecting are the dust settling on my mounds of unread reading matter. Which is why, in the near future, I’d actually like to start a collection of my own, and I mean a real collection — not just a random pile of objects, but a specialized and distinct pile of objects. In all honesty, I would love nothing more than to start off my grand collection with the acquisition of mind-blowing artworks from the great Filipino artists of our time. But since I’m not quite ready to give up any of my limbs just yet, I guess I can live with simply admiring those works from afar. Or up close, if you’ve managed to grab a copy of Christiane de la Paz’s book, Private Collections.

I’m being direct to the point when I say that this book is not for the faint of mind… or muscle, for that matter. Yes, the book is heavier than your average bowling ball, and yes, rupturing your spine whilst lugging it around is a possibility (if you don’t have proper motor function, perhaps). But for the impressive content of 1,111 artworks drawn from the art collections of 30 Filipino art collectors, coupled with insightful essays about their personalities and lives, their philosophies and tastes, their methods and reasons for collecting — not to mention the beautiful photographs of the artworks — you can forgive the book for being so darn heavy (and for being a bit on the pricey side as well).

Personally, I actually enjoyed Private Collections. Aside from the thoughtful organization of the art collectors according to who was at the start, middle and end of his or her collecting career, it was pleasantly surprising to see that the featured collections were not limited to the realm of “high art.” I was expecting the book to be loaded with stereotypical collections of the affluent upper class: traditional paintings, musty wooden sculptures, the erstwhile commissioned portrait… Well, all I can say is that De la Paz did a good job in selecting her featured collectors. The diversity is something to be applauded, and shamelessly envied, if I do say so myself. However, that’s another thing I admire about Private Collections — it isn’t pretentious. The book is a study and a labor of love on collecting, private collectors and private collections. It doesn’t presume to pass judgment on the tastes of these art connoisseurs, it merely seeks to share the stories behind these personas and their treasures, while providing valuable insight about our talented Filipino artists along the way. Nor does the book try to incite shameless envy, either. (Maybe that’s just me — darn those beautiful artworks!)

What it all boils down to is just as Francis Bacon once said: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” In the case of Private Collections, I suggest a preliminary taste of what it has to offer; maybe a quick flip through the pages to get a feel of what you’re getting into first. Only then may you proceed to heartily devour it. I guarantee three kilos of an appetizing read!

Animation Council of the Philippines launches Animahenasyon 2009

admin — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:55:31 +0000

The Animation Council of the Philippines, Inc. (ACPI) is calling all budding and professional animators from across the country to participate and submit their animated works to Animahenasyon 2009: 3^rd Pinoy Animation Festival, as it formally opens and accepts entries to this year’s festival. Entry forms may be downloaded from the ACPI web site at <http://www.animationcouncil.org>. The deadline for submission of entries is on September 15. Animahenasyon 2009 will be held from November 25 to 28 at the Gateway Mall Araneta Center.

In an effort to build an audience, awareness and development of original contents, ACPI puts together its flagship project through an annual animation festival called Animahenasyon that showcases original animated works of both aspiring and professional animators in the country through a competition.

The festival is composed of the professional and the student/amateur divisions that will have different running time categories: 1 to 5 minutes; 6 to 20 minutes, 21 to 60 minutes, and the full-animated feature (more than 60 minutes). There are also categories for music video, title sequence, public information, demo reel, and TV series. There will also be animated works in exhibition (full-length, special citation, and past Animahenasyon winners).

Last year’s grand prize winner of Animahenasyon is Love and Marriage, a jab at the folly of racial prejudice in marriage, as seen through the eyes of its Chinese-Filipino filmmaker Kenny Lynn Tai. Love and Marriage is a narrative musical cartoon that relates the story of Chinese-Filipino interracial marriage, and a comic take on this long-standing issue in the Chinese society captured in 7.5 minutes. Tai is graduated from De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde with a degree in Multimedia Arts, and is now a freelance animator.

This year’s Animahenasyon will feature a global animation forum where delegates from the continents of North America, Latin America, Canada, Australia and the Asia-Pacific will come to the country and showcase the latest trends and best practices from their respective countries in the field of animation, game development and the digital creative industry in general.

These foreign representatives will present the current state/condition of their industry and feature sample contents from their country. These delegates will also bring with them a group of people for possible business matching in the Philippines. The global animation forum shall provide a venue for exchange among animators, producers, industry supporters, and possible business opportunities

Animahenasyon 2009 will also include an investors’ forum where business seminars would be held in conjunction with business meetings. The forum will cover content sales and distribution, outsourcing, co-production, financing and even for education partnerships. This assumes a full day, divided into six sessions of 60 minutes each for presentation with an open forum. This component of Animahenasyon shall help set direction for the development of the animation industry.

Also part of Animahenasyon 2009 is the animation master classes/ workshops, and exhibit of works of this year’s lifetime achievement awardee Jose Zabala Santos, nephew of renowned artist Nonoy Marcelo.

Animahenasyon serves as a venue for Filipino animators to present their world-class ideas, and opens doors of opportunities for them to meet with and be inspired by the finest names in the industry. It also aims to create greater awareness of the Philippine animation industry and its contributions to the global entertainment business, while tapping locally produced content for promotion in animation markets here and abroad.

ACPI’s vision is to make Philippines as the prime provider of animation and content creation services to the global marketplace. On the other hand, ACPI’s mission is to be the center of excellence for animation and content creation services through building more efficient and effective collaborative business practices that will elevate the country’s economy and culture.

As an organized body, ACPI aims to promote the Filipino talent both locally and internationally. With the cooperation of its members as well as the Philippine government, it is envisioned that the member studios and schools will be considered competitive both creatively and technologically.

ACPI is a non-stock and non-profit organization whose member companies specialize mainly in, but not limited to, 2D, Flash or 3D animation. It aims to promote the animation industry globally with the intention of creating an identity for the Philippines to be considered amongst the preferred countries that service the animation industry.

For more information about Animahenasyon 2009, please call 483-9501, 8172727 local 108 or email the secretariat at animationcouncil@gmail.com, or visit www.animationcouncil.org.

Join us at Hiveguru.com

admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:15:55 +0000

HiveGuru is a recently launched (currently on Beta) Free Social Network for outsourcing professionals, consultants and freelancers. Members can post their professional profile and portfolio of works, network with other professionals and create and collaborate on projects.

It has six professional categories where you can join either as a service provider or as a service buyer:

* Software and Web Programming
* Design and Multimedia
* Sales and Marketing
* Writing and Translations
* Administrative Support
* Business Services

The system is unique in that it encourages more community involvement and collaboration by allowing the project manager to recruit for specific positions instead of bidding on the entire project.

EACOMM Corporation will be posting any project requirements tagged for freelance/outsource work in HiveGuru.com so we encourage everyone to join and bid on our various on-going and future projects!

Help us spread the word! Sign up for an account and invite your friends to join HiveGuru.com!

Simple Page Cache Script for PHP

admin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:41:47 +0000

For dynamic websites, database queries take up a significant amount of the CPU resources of your servers. For medium to high traffic websites in shared or virtual hosting services, this could mean significant loss of traffic due to too much database queries or over use of shared CPU time. As such, it is quite useful to have some sort of cache system for your dynamic pages, particularly those with content that don’t change too much or too often anyway.

Below is a very simple and generic cache script for PHP web pages which you can copy-paste and use almost instantly in your website. What is does is store an instance of the dynamically generated web page as an HTML file and it then counter checks with a predefined time period that you set whether to display the cached instance or to dynamically generate the page again. The longer the time period between dynamic generation, the greater the savings in terms of CPU usage and database queries.

1. First create a folder in your hosting account where you’ll be housing the cached data. In this example the cache folder is located at http://www.yourdomain.com/cache

2. Next, copy-paste the script below at the start of the PHP page you want cached. We are assuming here that the dynamically generated page is utilizing the GET variable “id”, such as: http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?id=XXXX:

ob_start(); //turn on output buffering for PHP

//check if variable id is present and is an integer, if not, redirect to homepage
if ($_GET['id']==”" or !is_numeric($_GET['id']))
{
header(”location:index.php”);
}
$id=$_GET['id'];

//absolute path to cache file. For simplicity the cached version of the page is saved as the ID number
$cachefile = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].”/cache/$id.html”;
//duration before the cache is refreshed in seconds. Setting below is for a 3 day cache. Change as you see fit.

$cachetime = 259200;

// Serve from the cache if it is younger than $cachetime

if (file_exists($cachefile) && (time() – $cachetime
< filemtime($cachefile)))
{

include($cachefile); //display the cache file

// if cache is display, exit the script
exit;

}

//if cache is not present or is too old, run the rest of the script……

//place a time stamp on the cache to easily check when a page was last cached…you can place this a meta variable in your HTML header i.e. ”/>
$cachedate=date(”F d Y H:i:s”);

//THE REST OF YOUR PHP AND HTML CODE GOES HERE…………….

3. At the bottom of your PHP page, copy-paste the code below:
//define the cache file name
$cachefile = "cache/$id.html";
// open the cache file for writing
$fp = fopen($cachefile, 'w');
// save the contents of output buffer to the file
fwrite($fp, ob_get_contents());
// close the file
fclose($fp);
// Send the output to the browser
ob_end_flush();
?>

4. You’re done! Upload and update your PHP file.

Pinoy animation Europe-bound

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:46:21 +0000

By Marinel Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:19:00 05/19/2009

Filed Under: Animation, Entertainment (general)

FULL ARTICLE: http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/entertainment/entertainment/view/20090519-205979/Pinoy_animation_Europe-bound

MANILA, Philippines—The Animation Council of the Philippines, an organization that specializes in 2D and 3D animation, is gearing up for a road show in Europe late this year, according to its president, Weng Bagadion.

“This will include the Spanish, Italian, French, German and British markets. We plan to showcase the winners of Animahenasyon,” Bagadion told Inquirer Entertainment.

The two-year-old Animahenasyon Pinoy Animation Festival, which aims to provide original content in this genre, is one of ACPI’s major projects. Last year’s grand prize winner was “Love and Marriage,” a music video on interracial relationships, by Kenny Lyn Tai.

“It has been a successful two years in terms of entries,” Bagadion said. “We brought the winners to the Hong Kong Filmart in March. We want to do this on a bigger scale.”

The ACPI brought 10 member companies to the Hong Kong Filmart, where they had the chance to negotiate with prospective buyers. As a result, Cutting Edge Productions’ “Dayo sa Mundo ng Elementalia” will soon be screened in the former British colony, said ACPI executive director Michael Kho Lim.

To make this road show possible, Bagadion said, the group asked the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), of which ACPI is a member, to help shoulder part of the expenses.

Please Visit: http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/entertainment/entertainment/view/20090519-205979/Pinoy_animation_Europe-bound – for the full article.

EACOMM releases Fixed Asset Management Software

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 05:35:17 +0000

EACOMM Corporation Philippines is proud to release the first of a series of MS Access-based small-medium scale business applications developed in partnership with AQMA Tech Solutions, a software development studio focused on business software development and IT consultancy.

AQIL MAGNUS Fixed Asset Management Software addresses both administrative and accounting needs as to maintaining fixed asset records. AQMA-AMS follows standard accounting procedure as defined by the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). The software maintains a database of fixed assets and automatically computes for depreciation expense (via straight-line depreciation method) and computes for the asset’s book value. The software also allows the user to properly assign the asset to a specific department/ employee / and even to a specific location for easy administrative handling. This asset assignment feature allows for the proper allocation of depreciation expense for accounting report purposes.

AQIL MAGNUS takes into account the asset’s date of purchase, asset life span (in months), salvage value, purchase price with or without the Value Added Tax (VAT Rate), before it computes for the depreciation expense per month.
AQIL MAGNUS has the 4 basic Asset Types (Equipment, Furniture, Leasehold Improvement, and Computers) and it offers the flexibility of further classifying assets with the Asset Class and Asset Subclass level of classification.
The software comes with 4 modules: System Module, Administrative, Accounting, and Reports Module.

System Module – includes database customization commands, table set-up, User creation/password setting, plus other system-related functions.
Administrative Module – includes Asset Record creation, Assignment of Assets to Departments/Employees/Location, Selling an Asset, and Writing-off an Asset.
Accounting Module – includes depreciation expense and book value computations. Computations can be done in an aggregate level, at the department level, or at the employee level. Asset depreciation begins on the month following the asset’s date of purchased.
Reports Module – includes built-in reports that list assets by company, by department, by employee, and by location.

AQIL MAGNUS has the following special features:

User Log-in/Log-out to determine access rights
User creation with built in User Types (Admin, Accounting Staff, Admin Staff)
Table purging to reset database contents
Built-in reports
Database/Record maintenance capabilities
Customizable codes to fit your asset tagging procedures
User-friendly and ready to use

For customization, AQIL MAGNUS can be modified to fit client’s specific needs. Examples of customizations may include: (a) changing the asset depreciation method; (b) User Types customization; (c) Log-in/out monitoring; (d) additional reports; (e) color-customization; plus any other customization that the client may require.

We are currently offering a Trial Version for download which allows up to thirty (30) log-ins. For the trial, please use USERNAME: User, Name PASSWORD: password. Note that the application requires MS Access 2003 or higher to run.

DOWNLOAD AQMA-AMS NOW!

For comments, suggestions or further information regarding this product please contact:
EACOMM Integrated Solutions Division
11th Floor CyberOne Bldg.
Eastwood Cyberpark
Bagumbayan, Quezon City
Philippines, 1110
Tel: +63 2 438 2986
Fax: +63 2 912 6745
Email: solutions@eacomm.com

Google Maps Integration with PhilippineCompanies.com

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:59:18 +0000

We’ve been planning to integrate Google Maps with our Philippine Business directory/locator website since it was launched 2 years ago. However, we found the accuracy of the Philippine maps far from perfect, with very obvious descrepancies between the map-view and satellite views. This has changed in the past few months as can be seen by this fantastic street-view of Makati’s Central Business District (check out how even the one-way roads are labelled!).

As such, we’ve finally decided to have Google Map viewer in the company profile pages of PhilippineCompanies.com. The system works by using Googe Maps’ Geocoding facility to determine the Latitude and Longitude of a location using the address information we have in our database. Accuracy is up to street level within Metro Manila and other major cities while the rest of the country would be on the municipal-level. We’re currently working on trying to improve the querying system as well as the way addresses are stored for Philippine Companies so that we can maximize the accuracy as we pass data to Google Maps. This is a daunting task however, with a database fast approaching 50,000 companies. As such, we’ve allowed visitors to edit map locations by pin-pointing the exact business location in the website’s registration page.

With improved Google Map accuracy for the Philippines, we’re very excited in offering possible new Map-related Web Services in the weeks and months to come!

EACOMM Corporation is now offering Cluster/Grid-Server Hosting

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:49:54 +0000

EACOMM Corporation is proud to announce it is now offering Managed Cluster Server Web Hosting for its web clients. This is in addition to EACOMM’s current shared and dedicated hosting services. Cluster Server Hosting (or sometimes called Cloud or Grid Hosting) means that your website is hosted not on one server but is sharing the resources of dozens if not hundreds of servers with other sites hosted in the cluster. This provides the following distinct advantages:

Reduced Downtime – By not being dependent on just one single computer, the risk of downtime is greatly reduced. For shared hosting, your website is hosted in a single server with a couple of hundred other websites and as such if that server goes down so does your website. By being hosted in a cluster, a single hardware failure will not mean your site will go down!
Real-time Scalability – One of the greatest advantages of a cluster-hosted website is the ability to scale resources in real-time. For example, if your blog/news website has some breaking news that goes viral, the Cluster Server will automatically provide the resources to ensure that your blog doesn’t crash due to the sudden increase in web traffic. On regular shared hosting environments, the massive increase of traffic will greatly slow your website or worse force your provider to shutdown your site so as not to affect their other clients residing on the same server as you.
Cheaper than Dedicated Hosting – As you’re still sharing resources with other clients, cluster hosting is a lot more cost effective than dedicated hosting where you have full control of your own server. Cluster Server Hosting is a ‘middle ground’ from dirt-cheap shared hosting costing as less than Php 250.00/month and dedicated hosting that costs upwards of Php 5,000.00/month.

EACOMM offers managed grid-server hosting (meaning you don’t need to fiddle with any control panels or setups as we’ll do all the configuration for you and change them on your request) starting at just Php 880.00/month* with the following specifications:

20 GB 50GB of hosting space
500GB monthly bandwidth
50 email addresses
99.9% assured up-time
Free domain name registration
FTP/SSH Access
Web-based e-mail
Web-based database management
LAMP/Ruby on Rails-ready
CPU/Bandwidth Overcharge: Php 7.50 per excess GB or CPU-cycle at the end of the month
Cluster Servers located in US-based Tier IV Data Centers
Phone/Email Support from EACOMM Corporation

For more information email us at info@eacomm.com or give us a call at +63 2 438 2986

*Minimum subscription contract of one (1) year

EACOMM to introduce Biometric Security Integration in its products soon…

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:03:46 +0000

The use of biometrics for secure access has become prevalent in recent years. Biometrics refers to the utilization of “unique” physical or behavioral characteristics to identify a specific person. The most popular application is for a fingerprint lock used for door access (such as the examples in the previous link) or for computer security such as those used for laptops and desktops. These function by using a small scanner to detect the minute patterns unique in each of our fingers (the forefinger is typically used in biometric systems as opposed to the thumb which is used in ‘traditional’ fingerprint recording). However, biometric security also includes Iris Recognition currently popular in high security areas such as data centers and even Voice Pattern Recognition which can be used to verify identity remotely such as over the phone.

Fingerprint locks and other biometric devices provide several advantages, the most obvious of which is that you no longer need a key to open the door, thus avoiding the classic problem of losing a key and locking yourself out (or in). It is also a lot simpler to use, say for access for the disabled or even small children. Lastly, as these locks are digital in nature, integration to a variety of software applications (i.e. access logs and employee time records) is a lot simpler than traditional systems.

EACOMM Corporation’s Integrated Solutions Division is currently exploring a variety of projects utilizing biometric security. This includes integration of biometric door access devices with its suite of web based SME office management software (particularly its upcoming HR/Payroll system) and the exploration of over-the-phone identification using Voice Pattern Recognition utilizing an Asterisk PBX System (“My name is John, and my Voice is my Password”). As technology in this area progresses in the next few years, expect biometric detection to be present in more aspects of our lives.