Sikat II team members in ritual dip // Photo by Lorenzo Mendoza

It was past 2pm Saturday, October 22 when the Philippines’ Sikat II of the World Solar Challenge made its way into the Victoria Square ceremonial finish line.

A contingent of Filipino community members in Adelaide and other supporters trooped to welcome the solar paneled Sikat II and the accompanying team as they approached the entrance from King William Street. An Official Philippine flag was held up high by two of the welcomers. Others waved flaglets.

“We made it!”

It was a statement caught in a euphoric moment. Everyone – arrivals and greeters – cheered.

The essence of having done the feat would not have been complete without the team members having taken the World Solar Challenge Ceremonial Finish Dip in the pool of water around the fountain.

The fountain is called ‘Fountain of Three Rivers’ and is located at the center of Victoria Square.

Following the lead of earlier finishers, the team members hurriedly emptied out their pockets of their wallets, gizmos and personal paraphernalia then jumped into the water. They took the Philippine flag and raised it over one of the fountain statues that has already been adorned with markers from earlier teams.

The World Solar Challenge is a showcase of an ongoing development of advanced automotive technology that promoted alternatives to conventional vehicle engines.

Solar car tests today probe the ultimate boundaries of energy efficiency and provide insights into everyday vehicle technology.

The World Solar Challenge was started in 1982 by solar pioneer Hans Tholstrup whose quest for solar energy saw him drive a home-built solar Quiet Achiever across Australia from North to South.

The solar panels utilised to draw out the most efficient electric vehicles possible are no more than six square meters.

Photos by Lorenzo Mendoza

Every two years teams from institutes all over the world come together to Australia to test and promote the “ultimate synergy of nature, motion and innovation”.

Sikat II was an ‘evolved’ version of Sinag I – the previous Philippine solar paneled vehicle to be in Australia’s biennial World Solar Panel Challenge.

In both vehicles, the driver was cocooned in that narrow – suffocating space around which the solar panel spread out to a wide span. There were three designated drivers to alternate.

The race kicked off from Darwin the other Sunday October 16 for a 3,021 kilometer race over Australia’s desert terrain. It is a race across the heart of Australia, referred by one Solar Panel Challenge team blog writer as a “hellish land where the only thing scarcer than water is a decent internet connection.”

But while other teams considered the race over the arid centre of Adelaide ‘gruelling’, the Pinoy team arrived at the Victoria Square from their obligatory stop at the Torrens Parade Grounds 500 meters down King William Road from the Park in high spirits.

A fair bit of drama during the second day held back the lead teams when bush fires raged in Tennant Creek and the Stuart Highway had to be closed to traffic.

Through the race, there were control points where a mandatory stop was part of the race rules.

In all these stops, the team was cheered, met and supported by a contingent of Filipino residents of the area.

Ramon Agustines, team manager and Philippine Solar Car Challenge Society’s delegate who drove the lead car for Sikat II was most impressed.

He spoke of his outback experience as a most amazing experience.

“It was very heart-warming to find very thoughtful support and all-out hospitality from Filipinos in the Australian outback. They did not only come to cheer, they came with home cooked meals and other things to make our stay comfortable and they even offered the use of their homes for accommodation and comfort.”

On Day 3 (October 18), a major glitch set back the team’s position in the race. The batteries of Sikat II caught fire and this caused the surrounding area to be cleared. When the fire brigade arrived, the batteries were removed safely from the car without incident.

In an interview with Jeremy Banks who was the designated provider of technical support for Sikat II, he spoke of his high regard for the team’s indomitable spirit that refused to be cowed by unexpected troubles through out the journey.

“They are a team that fill up your heart!” he said.

On Sunday, October 23, the Philippine Consulate General in Adelaide organized and hosted a luncheon for the team and its entourage.

Philippine Department of Education Secretary Brother Armin Luistro who swung by Adelaide from Melbourne to welcome the team on their arrival joined the luncheon. Event Filipino observer and Sydney resident Danilo Quisumbing also came to meet up with the team.

This year’s Veolia World Solar Challenge saw vehicles rely on just 3 sqm of gallium cells.

Veolia World Solar Challenge is run under the established regulations of the International Solarcar Federation.
To date, cost-wise, it may not yet be public-friendly in practicality and functionality.

There was an extra spring in my steps as I made my way to work as it was the day before I leave for a much-awaited holiday. I cheerily greeted “good morning all” as I found my way to my desk. Little did I know that I would have an unwelcomed visit by Mr Murphy.

My first attempt to log on to start work failed; and up to the third time I got the message: “The system cannot log you on. Central Domain is not available”. Adrian, the guy in the next workstation suggested unplugging and plugging on cables to the computer. While we placed a call to the IT department, Craig, from the other end of the floor came over to do the same.

Ten minutes later, Warren from IT came along. After a few minutes trying to convince the computer to work, he declared: “Sorry, the motherboard is dead”. I thought how inconsiderate of that pc not to wait one more day before it decided to go to cyberspace heaven!

Ann got the spare office laptop for Warren to connect to the network. It turned out that the laptop has not been used for awhile. He said that there were 31 updates which had to be uploaded before I could use the laptop!

By now, I could feel my blood pressure rising. May be I should have taken something stronger than a cuppa tea while waiting for the laptop to be ready. I tried to control my nerves while finishing the status report which I needed to give my Audit Manager.

I had to do a last minute errand at lunch time so I left the laptop on, purposely not shutting it down so as not to annoy it. After the errand and lunch on the run, I eagerly went back to the unfinished report. However, the laptop was frozen!!! It took some time to convince it to work again.

The meeting with my Audit Manager was set at 4.45 p.m. Five minutes before then, I sent the status report to the printer. I rushed over to collect my print job. What print job! The printer was flashing the message: “Paper jam!” I had to get the admin ladies to clear the jam and after a few more minutes, I got my report printed.

By the time I went over to Len’s office, I was running five minutes late. I felt elated as I started talking through what I have covered in the audit. Five minutes into our discussion, the office was plunged into darkness! There was a fire alarm wailing and we tried to continue going through the report under an emergency bulb! But no good, we were told we had to leave. It was scary but I felt assured as a Pinay colleague, Jackie and our Director, Bill stayed to wait for me. We had to walk down fifteen floors!!!

What a day!! It certainly featured Murphy’s law: “What can go wrong, will go wrong”! Oh Mr Murphy, the crash course on your teaching was certainly not appreciated. I couldn’t say it was nice meeting you. I sure hope we don’t cross paths while I am on my holidays!

There was an extra spring in my steps as I made my way to work as it was the day before I leave for a much-awaited holiday. I cheerily greeted “good morning all” as I found my way to my desk. Little did I know that I would have an unwelcomed visit by Mr Murphy.

My first attempt to log on to start work failed; and up to the third time I got the message: “The system cannot log you on. Central Domain is not available”. Adrian, the guy in the next workstation suggested unplugging and plugging on cables to the computer. While we placed a call to the IT department, Craig, from the other end of the floor came over to do the same.

Ten minutes later, Warren from IT came along. After a few minutes trying to convince the computer to work, he declared: “Sorry, the motherboard is dead”. I thought how inconsiderate of that pc not to wait one more day before it decided to go to cyberspace heaven!

Ann got the spare office laptop for Warren to connect to the network. It turned out that the laptop has not been used for awhile. He said that there were 31 updates which had to be uploaded before I could use the laptop!

By now, I could feel my blood pressure rising. May be I should have taken something stronger than a cuppa tea while waiting for the laptop to be ready. I tried to control my nerves while finishing the status report which I needed to give my Audit Manager.

I had to do a last minute errand at lunch time so I left the laptop on, purposely not shutting it down so as not to annoy it. After the errand and lunch on the run, I eagerly went back to the unfinished report. However, the laptop was frozen!!! It took some time to convince it to work again.

The meeting with my Audit Manager was set at 4.45 p.m. Five minutes before then, I sent the status report to the printer. I rushed over to collect my print job. What print job! The printer was flashing the message: “Paper jam!” I had to get the admin ladies to clear the jam and after a few more minutes, I got my report printed.

By the time I went over to Len’s office, I was running five minutes late. I felt elated as I started talking through what I have covered in the audit. Five minutes into our discussion, the office was plunged into darkness! There was a fire alarm wailing and we tried to continue going through the report under an emergency bulb! But no good, we were told we had to leave. It was scary but I felt assured as a Pinay colleague, Jackie and our Director, Bill stayed to wait for me. We had to walk down fifteen floors!!!

What a day!! It certainly featured Murphy’s law: “What can go wrong, will go wrong”! Oh Mr Murphy, the crash course on your teaching was certainly not appreciated. I couldn’t say it was nice meeting you. I sure hope we don’t cross paths while I am on my holidays!

The Filipino Australian's first homepage

The Filipino Australian opened on June 8, 2005 (formal launch date, June 12, 2005), and after six years, we are happy to report that we are on track to what we have set as our objectives. These are,

> To report, and comment where required, on the day’s events

> To join the community in celebrating Philippine culture and heritage, and the accomplishments of our kababayans

> To provide a talking point and a forum where views and ideas can be shared and exchanged.

Over the six years The Filipino Australian has been online, it has undergone a number of changes ~ in design, layout and reporting platform. It has added sections. And deleted some to reflect changing readers’ and market preferences. But our main task has remained focused on “promoting the Filipino Australian community to a dominant position in multicultural Australia.”

Six years ago, we wrote “the task is not easy. But it can be done. With assets that we, Filipino Australians, already possess — world-class skills and expertise, creativity, resourcefulness, and industry— all that we need is to work together, trust each other and help enhance each other’s potentials. Let the Filipino spirit fly, let it compete effectively, and let it flourish in the wider and global community.”

Today, we still hold the same beliefs, philosophy and core values.

Thanks for your support, we continue to enjoy the regular readership of our thousands of kababayans and friends not only from Australia but also from other countries. Thanks for your loyalty, our corporate sponsors including government agencies continue to partner with us as we pursue our goal in promoting the Filipino Australian community to the wider community.

Mabuhay!

Social networking site Facebook has reportedly more than 663 million users as at end of last month with the United States, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Turkey, India, Mexico, Philippines, France, Italy and Germany having the largest number of users.

The United States has 155,231,120 people with Facebook accounts, and the Philippines has 23,169,300 users.

Although Australia is not in the Top 10, on a per head basis it is positioned as number 8 with 5,409,900 Facebook users representing 24.9% of its 21 million population.

With this number of users in Facebook not to mention other social networking sites, one wonders how many of the users are aware of the privacy practices of their host sites? How many have even bothered to read through the sites’ privacy statements before signing up? How many are aware of their privacy rights? And if they are, what actions have they taken to protect their personal information?

Privacy issues have always been an issue in the internet. There are websites which with the use of tracking scripts may not be privacy compliant. There are also websites that do not publish their privacy policies, how they obtain users’ personal information and what they do with the users’ information.

Privacy policy post, March 30, 2009

Privacy policy post, March 30, 2009

Last year, Facebook was severely criticised for its privacy practices. Facebook was reported to have been not only sharing users’ personal data with advertisers, but sharing the information without the users’ knowledge or consent.

“The information included usernames and ID numbers that could be traced back to individual profiles. Large advertising companies including Google’s DoubleClick and Yahoo’s Right Media were identified as having received the information although they claim to have not made use of it.

“The information could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person’s real name, age, hometown and occupation.”

It was not until the Wall Street Journal stepped in when Facebook stopped sharing the data, the report said.

The world is not wanting of privacy legislations. Australia for example has legislations governing privacy practices as well as anti-spamming. But over and above legislations, there is a need to educate internet users. In a couple of earlier blog posts, we noted the initiatives taken by the Australian Communications and Media Authority on the importance of public education in anti-spamming and we reported “best privacy practices.”

Recently, the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities has launched a range of programs and initiatives to promote awareness of privacy issues.

APPA is the principal forum for privacy authorities in the Asia Pacific Region “to form partnerships and exchange ideas about privacy regulation, new technologies and the management of privacy enquiries and complaints.” Its member-countries are Australia, British Columbia, Canada, Hong Kong, Korea, Mexico, and New Zealand.

One recent initiative taken by APPA was to designate this week, 1-7 May, Privacy Awareness Week.

“It’s sometimes easy to disclose more information about ourselves than we need to,” said Chairman Chris Chapman of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, adding that ACMA fully supports APPA’s awareness initiative.

“Your personal information is yours alone and you are generally under no obligation to hand it over to anyone without knowing what they are going to do with it.”

To mark Privacy Awareness Week, the ACMA is providing a suite of resources for teachers, parents and teens on e-security, keeping personal information safe and identity theft. The ACMA also provides important privacy information about smartphones and why you should treat your mobile phone like you would your wallet.

To protect your personal information, here are APPA’s top tips for social networking:

1. Know the privacy policy and settings of the social networking sites you use

2. Think about the information you share and how it’s being used, eg, what might a future employer or partner think if they read it?

3. Remember, the internet lets your information be collected and shared easily. The harmless information you post could be added to the mix, creating a full profile about you. Who might see it?

4. Sharing information with just a few people doesn’t stop it reaching a wider audience; be aware who might pass things on

5. Before you post and tag pictures of someone else, ask for their consent – and request that they do the same to you

6. Set up ‘friend’ groups to control the access different people in your life have to your personal details

7. Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know

8. Location based check-ins can be risky. Do you really want everyone to know that no-one’s home?

This article is also posted at SPAMWATCHERS.

Social networking site Facebook has reportedly more than 663 million users as at end of last month with the United States, Indonesia, United Kingdom, Turkey, India, Mexico, Philippines, France, Italy and Germany having the largest number of users.

The United States has 155,231,120 people with Facebook accounts, and the Philippines has 23,169,300 users.

Although Australia is not in the Top 10, on a per head basis it is positioned as number 8 with 5,409,900 Facebook users representing 24.9% of its 21 million population.

With this number of users in Facebook not to mention other social networking sites, one wonders how many of the users are aware of the privacy practices of their host sites? How many have even bothered to read through the sites’ privacy statements before signing up? How many are aware of their privacy rights? And if they are, what actions have they taken to protect their personal information?

Privacy issues have always been an issue in the internet. There are websites which with the use of tracking scripts may not be privacy compliant. There are also websites that do not publish their privacy policies, how they obtain users’ personal information and what they do with the users’ information.

Privacy policy post, March 30, 2009

Last year, Facebook was severely criticised for its privacy practices. Facebook was reported to have been not only sharing users’ personal data with advertisers, but sharing the information without the users’ knowledge or consent.

“The information included usernames and ID numbers that could be traced back to individual profiles. Large advertising companies including Google’s DoubleClick and Yahoo’s Right Media were identified as having received the information although they claim to have not made use of it.

“The information could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person’s real name, age, hometown and occupation.”

It was not until the Wall Street Journal stepped in when Facebook stopped sharing the data, the report said.

The world is not wanting of privacy legislations. Australia for example has legislations governing privacy practices as well as anti-spamming. But over and above legislations, there is a need to educate internet users. In a couple of earlier blog posts, we noted the initiatives taken by the Australian Communications and Media Authority on the importance of public education in anti-spamming and we reported “best privacy practices.”

Recently, the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities has launched a range of programs and initiatives to promote awareness of privacy issues.

APPA is the principal forum for privacy authorities in the Asia Pacific Region “to form partnerships and exchange ideas about privacy regulation, new technologies and the management of privacy enquiries and complaints.” Its member-countries are Australia, British Columbia, Canada, Hong Kong, Korea, Mexico, and New Zealand.

One recent initiative taken by APPA was to designate this week, 1-7 May, Privacy Awareness Week.

“It’s sometimes easy to disclose more information about ourselves than we need to,” said Chairman Chris Chapman of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, adding that ACMA fully supports APPA’s awareness initiative.

“Your personal information is yours alone and you are generally under no obligation to hand it over to anyone without knowing what they are going to do with it.”

To mark Privacy Awareness Week, the ACMA is providing a suite of resources for teachers, parents and teens on e-security, keeping personal information safe and identity theft. The ACMA also provides important privacy information about smartphones and why you should treat your mobile phone like you would your wallet.

To protect your personal information, here are APPA’s top tips for social networking:

1. Know the privacy policy and settings of the social networking sites you use

2. Think about the information you share and how it’s being used, eg, what might a future employer or partner think if they read it?

3. Remember, the internet lets your information be collected and shared easily. The harmless information you post could be added to the mix, creating a full profile about you. Who might see it?

4. Sharing information with just a few people doesn’t stop it reaching a wider audience; be aware who might pass things on

5. Before you post and tag pictures of someone else, ask for their consent – and request that they do the same to you

6. Set up ‘friend’ groups to control the access different people in your life have to your personal details

7. Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know

8. Location based check-ins can be risky. Do you really want everyone to know that no-one’s home?

This article is also posted at SPAMWATCHERS.

Michelle with Minister Conroy and Jeremy and Blake McBride at Riverstone Library which will be the first local library in Sydney to benefit from the rollout of the NBN

Senator Conroy joined Labor Candidate for Greenway Michelle Rowland in Riverstone yesterday to discuss the benefits of NBN to local economy.

The Gillard Labor Government reported that the “rollout of the NBN is progressing well with the first customers already online in Tasmania. Twenty-four communities on the mainland have been ear-marked as the next areas for the rollout, including Riverstone, and regional backbone links are also being laid.”

Ms Rowland said people in Western Sydney had put up with expensive, patchy broadband services for years, but the NBN would put an end to that once and for all.

“This region has been a broadband backwater,” Ms Rowland said.

The company also undertook to pay the ACMA $22,000 for the alleged violation.

Continue…

Screenshot of ACMA Anti-Spamming webpage

The Federal Court in Brisbane today imposed $6.5 million dollars in penalties against two respondents in an SMS spamming case.

The respondents were identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) as Jobspy Pty Ltd and Scott Mark Moles with $4 million and $2.5 million in penalties, respectively.

Today’s decision is a follow through of a landmark court decision handed in last 23 October by the Federal Court in Brisbane.

In that decision, also reported in by SPAMWATCHERS, an affiliate website of The Filipino Australian, imposed $15.75 million in penalties against Mobilegate Ltd and Winning Bid Pty Ltd following the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s first court action taken against unsolicited SMS messages.

On today’s decision, Mr Chris Chapman, Chairman of the ACMA, said: “This case once again highlights the willingness of the ACMA to pursue, to the full extent of its powers, individuals and companies that systematically operate in breach of the Spam Act.

“This matter should also serve as a warning to all parties involved in sending commercial electronic messages that non-compliance with the Spam Act can carry with it very significant consequences.”

A hearing in relation to the final respondent in the case is due to resume in the Federal Court in Brisbane in February next year, the ACMA reported.

The alleged breach arose from a marketing campaign where VHA together with two other companies, media agency New Dialogue and content aggregator Big Mobile, promoted certain Coca-Cola products through SMS.

In the ACMA media release, ACMA Chairman Chris Chapman said: ‘The ACMA considers that well resourced companies should be compliance leaders. There is no excuse for them to fall short in their obligations under the Spam Act for SMS marketing campaigns.’

In addition to the financial penalty, VHA also offered to undertake the apppointment of an auditor to monitor and report Spam Act compliance. It has also undertaken to provide Spam Act training for its employees.

The ACMA also accepted enforceable undertakings from New Dialogue and Big Mobile in relation to the coca-Cola marketing campaign.

New Dialogue has paid $22,000 in accordance with its enforceable undertaking. Big Mobile has undertaken to pay compensation to each recipient of any SMS message that breaches the Spam Act during the term of the enforceable undertaking of 12 months.

Following the ACMA’s findings, a formal warning has also been issued to Coca-Cola South Pacific for causing commercial electronic messages to be sent without an unsubscribe facility and not providing contact information, as required under the Spam Act.

Source: SPAMWATCHERS

Daily updates of the independent spam-tracking organisation, The Spamhaus Project, are like a “Who’s Who?” in world economy and industrial power.

The United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and Japan. Yes, they are all there. Except Australia.

How Australia has been able to elude the Top 10 list is not due to its relatively smaller population size. Population does not have anything to do with a country being a spam haven. The world’s second populous country, India, with 1.17 billion people next only to China’s 1.33 billion people is also not in the Top 10.

It is spam laws and their enforcement which matter. Continue reading…

Mr Chris Chapman, Chairman of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, welcomed the initiative saying, ‘This is another good example of the mobile telecommunications industry working with Telstra, as the Emergency Call Person for Triple Zero, to develop industry-wide solutions to tackle the problem of non-genuine calls to Triple Zero.’

Telstra, given its experience as the Emergency Call Person, has advised that handling of genuine calls is being increasingly compromised by the need to deal with non-genuine calls or calls that do not relate to time critical or life threatening emergencies.

Under the industry initiative, developed in consultation with the ACMA, mobile handsets from which repeated non-genuine calls are made to Triple Zero operators may be blocked across all mobile networks from being able to make calls. Progressive steps will be taken to formally warn the owner of the mobile handset before the handset is blocked, in addition to the caller details being provided to police as appropriate.

All blocked mobile handsets will be placed on a register managed by the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association. A similar industry-wide blocking process and register exists for mobile handsets that have been reported lost or stolen.

Triple Zero should only be dialled in emergencies that are life-threatening or time-critical situations requiring a rapid response from police, fire or ambulance services.

Calls to Triple Zero will not be blocked under the initial handset blocking process. However, the ACMA and industry will conduct a review of the industry warning and handset blocking process after six months. This will review the trigger level for initiating the blocking and give consideration to extending the blocking process to include Triple Zero calls by fully disabling the handset.

This initiative has the support of emergency services organisations nationally – police, fire and ambulance services.

In Australia, making vexatious calls to Triple Zero is a serious offence under the Criminal Code Act 1995.

Source: Australian Communications and Media Authority