Revisiting 2013 to Move Onward to 2014

If the year 2012 was the dormant period of EDGEKIT Computer Systems, the year 2013 proved to be a very productive and fruitful year for the company.

First, we have secured our commitment to the community by being the first and only professional support and service provider in the Philippines for OpenBSD and PostgreSQL, the foundation of our Weapon of Choice technology stack.

Second, we had a fruitful participation in the International Rice Research Institute organized hackathon, with which we gratefully had access to Microsoft Windows Azure and startup resources from Microsoft Philippines as well as having an opportunity to be one with the community of passionate hackers in the Philippines.

We couldn't have reached these milestones had it not been for our love ones, friends and assocites who keep inspiring us, namely the EDGEKIT founder's sons Joshua Mari Francis and Faith Lawrence, his better half, Angelique Therese, his sisters Josephine Marie and Mary Josette, his mother Josefina and aunts Emiliana and Dominga Harical in Ligao City, relatives in Southern Leyte, Dumaguete and Butuan City, the Mabanto family of Mandaue City, the Clerigo family of Canlaon City, the colleagues and former professors and students of the founder at Aquinas University of Legazpi. EDGEKIT Computer Systems is also grateful and thankful to Ariel Licas of arielicas.com, Tita Nel Vergara, Jorge Azurin, Jose Oscar Garcia, Joe Bert Lazarte, Marl Anthony Kallos, Ericson Jimenez, Julius Pastrana, Richard Gonzales, Christopher Coballes, Richard Bona, Jowie Oligario, Allan and Christine Asetre, Marlon Ifson, Jayson Reyes, Roberta Docil-Andaya, Celeste delos Santos, Jerome Fadriquela, Ed Dural, my Aquinas University design project team Arc Nazareno, Roderick Zuniga, Glenn Montiveros, Pedro Estrella, Christopher Cano, Jesus Corteza, Jomer Abino and the late Christopher Ballon.

Thank you very much to everyone who supported and visited us here at the EDGEKIT Computer Systems website, and see you again next year, 2014.

After Typhoon Yolanda: Life and Business Perspective

It's old news that the Philippines was ravaged by one of the most vicious typhoons in recent history. At this point, what's more important and valuable for us to realize is what we could have done better and how we could prepare for similar or worse situations in the future.

If you're aspiring to be into business or startup, there's something to learn from this aftermath as well.

A Tale of Two Hackathons

Having graduated from a provincial university rather than an institute in the capital city, I saw and experienced first hand the difficulty of farming. Ironically, given the vast agricultural challenges and opportunities of the country, many if not most of my countrymen would rather work eight or more hours in the office than to get their hands dirty to produce food on the table, while the Filipino farmers who toil the land for more than those office hours get little to nothing for their effort; Pareto may be in hell for this.

EDGEKIT: Sole OpenBSD Support and Consultancy Provider in the Philippines

In our passion and commitment to provide the best platform on which small- and medium-scale businesses should build their simple, secure and functional infrastructure, we at EDGEKIT Computer Systems are very happy and proud to announce that we are the sole OpenBSD support and consultancy provider in the Philippines as shown here, and we're very grateful to Sir Ariel Licas's blog for featuring us.

We have worked with and loved OpenBSD for some time now that we could sing the Beatles song "Two of Us", feeling the deep connection with the lines:

You and I have memories
Longer than the road that stretches out ahead

Along with that passion and commitment, OpenBSD is one of the core foundation on which we built our Weapon of Choice technology stack.

Contact us now for your free consultation.

Rise of the Personal Server

When Microsoft formulated the vision "A Computer in Every Home", they were acknowledging that the personal computing for the masses started by the likes of Apple was indeed an underpowered platform that will eventually work with and depend on far and away more powerful mainframes and supercomputers.

The late Steve Jobs and NeXT developed the platform called the personal workstation, arguably one of the most revolutionary and little known shift in computing history.

Here are EDGEKIT, we observed the rise of the personal server.

EDGEKIT: Official PostgreSQL Professional Service Provider in the Philippines

It's official and we're very proud to announce that EDGEKIT Computer Systems is now one of the recognized PostgreSQL professional services and support provider in Asia in general and specifically in the Philippines as listed here.

In our quest for designing and developing simple, secure and functional solutions, we have come to rely on and firmly believe in PostgreSQL that it became one of the foundation of our "Weapon of Choice" technology stack.

We will further our commitment to and exclusive support for PostgreSQL by providing high-quality installation, configuration, administration, and application design and development services.

Contact us now for your free consultation.

Entrepreneurial Journey Starter Kit

It's an old and overused cliche that "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" but nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to starting and running your startup business, and here are some of the pointers I came across recently that I hope you would find valuable.

But first a teaser clip:

 

A Brief Date with Windows 8

As a gift from my sister, I was able to buy a new laptop, and I can say I got a bargain with an HP ProBook 4445s; with nice specs and clean design, I call it my weapon of choice and am very happy with it. Depending on how you look at it, blessed or cursed, it's already installed with Windows 8.

For me it was a blessing, at least initially, since it's been some time since I last used a legitimate copy of Windows, add to that this is a brand new version, so support for new and related software is abundant. This is the first Windows version I used where I never encountered the dreaded and legendary its-a-feature-not-a-bug BSOD aka Blue Screen of Death, but it doesn't mean I never force rebooted it, there were still instances when it hangs but it was rare and the incidents were far in between. Frankly, I was starting to doubt whether free and open source platforms, like the gazillion GNU/Linux-based distributions and BSDs, will have anything worthwhile to offer when Windows 8 and its stability and performance improved.

Having no access to other legitimate proprietary software, I opted to use free and open source applications like LibreOffice, GIMP, Inkscape and the like. This is where PortableApps really shine and make the use of Windows 8 pleasurable for the time being.

A New Direction for EDGEKIT

I have been on a hiatus much longer than I hoped and expected. Through this post is my catharsis on what happened that it took me this long to post here again. Last 2012, I lost my sons, my ex-partner stealthily brought them abroad and it left me empty and lonely. My sons are after all my main reason for living.

Optimistically, I have to look forward beyond the horizon, and come to terms with the situation. My sons were not with me, but they can come back in the future if they choose to, or I can go where they are to get them back when I can again. Now, when I say "when I can again" the question that comes to mind is not just when, but also how. With those considerations in mind, I realized that all hope is not lost, and I have to keep moving forward and do what I know I can do while learning more.

Hence, as an appreciation to visitors and to serve a wider spectrum of viewers, this site will have a new direction: as a resource for small and medium-scale businesses, I myself am on a journey to be an entrepreneur. The journey, as they say, begins with the first step, and it's better we go on this journey together. We will still provide technical articles, but aside from that, we'll also highlight entrepreneurial resources and ideas. This is the mission that was already previously expressed but not explicitly fleshed out before. We will also have other authors and guest bloggers on board to make the site will have a wider but still focused audience.

And to my sons, Joshua Mari Francis and Faith Lawrence, you are always on my mind, every day, every moment, and I will always do better so you'll always be proud of me, your only daddy who miss you both very very much.