This year SFD 2009 is another history in the making. 3D Blender was formally introduced to students by the core member team of Pinoy Blender User Group. A demo was conducted and students were excited to discover what they can do using Blender. A Blender is a 3D graphics application released as free software under the GNU General Public License. An addition to the list of Open Source Software joining the yearly celebration of Software Freedom Day.

Last 4 years ago 2nd Software Freedom Day was held in Polytechnic University of the Philippines. I was also there to support the birth of Joomla! CMS. Back then opensource is never been so colorful, unlike today there are a lot of famous variaties of opensource application such as Content Management System, Graphic Software, LAMP easy setup, famous IDE & etc. On one part of my session during afternoon session of Dynamic/ Static CMS (Joomla!), I say to all students & professionals “You should be proud that you are here today. Opensource is more colorful than ever, more knowledge & oportunity for everyone”

See you in the next more event to come…

Some links:

http://www.cp-union.com/cpunion/

http://www.cp-union.com/cpunion/content/2009/06/22/software-freedom-day-2009

http://www.pinoyblender.com/

http://buko.pinoyblender.org/

http://www.joomla.org.ph

[View with PicLens]

Drupal day in ortigas w/ Joomla!PH & Pinoy Google Developer
Sep. 11, 2008 – 6:30 PM

VENUE
G2VC Innovation Center (Offices of Exist and Morp)
5th Floor, The Orient Square
F. Ortigas Road (formerly Emerald Ave.)
Ortigas Center, Pasig City

We will be discussing Joomla, Drupal and other open source CMS.
Special guest is Jay Aguilar, Pinoy developer who works at Google in California.

those who cannot attend can watch live video streaming: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/barcamp-manila

http://www.phpugph.com/talk/index.php/topic,5998.0.html

The Philippines is set to witness the next biggest event for the month of June besides Independence Day. On June 14, 2008, Filipino webmasters and amateurs alike will converge at the Engineering Library and Computer Science Building, Velaquez Street, UP Campus, Diliman, Quezon City to liberate not just Filipinos but every single individual in cyberspace. The event is dubbed as Joomla! Day Philippines.

Since knowledge in computer technology assures individual a competitive edge in the 21^st century, Joomla! Day Philippines is indeed as remarkable event for Filipinos as Independence Day (June 12). Joomla! is an award-winning free open source content management system (CMS) enabling professionals and amateurs to build and administer feature-rich, powerful web sites without having to have an extensive knowledge of web programming languages. It is designed to power simple personal homepages as well as complex corporate web applications.

Joomla! has been applied by individuals and institutions to manage online magazines and newspapers, school and church websites, personal or family homepage, small business websites, non-profit and organizational websites, etc.

The best things in life are free but things could still get better when they bring freedom. Joomla!, apart from being free (available to all under GPL license), precisely brings freedom to its end users. A Joomla! package is easy to install that even non-programmers can install the software up and have it running all by himself. All it takes to install and manage a Joomla! powered site is basic knowledge in word processing. Moreover, there are more than 150,000 friendly users and developers in the Joomla! community who will be very much willing to inform and assist.

For software developers, Joomla! features a powerful application framework to allow them to create sophisticated add-ons such as inventory control systems, data reporting tools, complex business directories, custom products, the possibilities are endless.

Born in cyberspace on August 17, 2005, the software was not named Joomla! until fifteen days later on September 1, 2005. Joomla! is the English spelling of the Swahili word jumla which means “all together” or “as a whole”. Joomla! has since lived up to the meaning of its Swahili equivalent, a large number of software developers, computer programmers, webmasters of the world have united rallied behind the software. Joomla! is broadly deployed worldwide with more than 3.5 million downloads.

Shortly after Joomla! was made the official name of the software, the Philippines celebrated Software Freedom Day at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) on September 10, 2005 joining the ranks of other nations in their quest for cyberspace freedom.

Come June 14, 2008, Filipinos online will once again express its commitment to the free software movement with the holding of the first-ever Joomla! Day Philippines – a great opportunity to learn and network with other Joomla! users and developers in the country. The conference will be attended by representatives from the Joomla! Core Team and Working Group, representatives from non-governmental organizations, local government units, and the business sector. Joomla! Day Philippines is another good reason to celebrate freedom after Philippine Independence Day. Don’t remove the Philippine flags just yet until June 14.

FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT www.joomla.org.ph

I arrive at the Market Market, The Mob at the exact time of 2:05 PM. At first I thought that I’m not going to make because the café was closed. There are a lot of gamers outside waiting for the guard to let them in. I decided to look for loading system first for me to call “Modtup” so I called up and he answered back “just wait me outside.” We went inside and I register, fill up some raffle coupons before I entered. Before the event started, everyone was given the chance to introduce themselves to the community. So far, this is the best and well organized Filipino IT organization meet up. This is because of the support of the community and some sponsor such as:

1. Allan Joseph Batac : PHPUGPH.COM Founder
2. Robert Locke : CEO-Mobius, VENUE + 5K
3. Zend Technologies, Zend Studio Pro 3 Licenses
4. Terence Pua : eskwela.com, 2K + 4 Shirts
5. Paul Hidalgo : hostking.ph, 3.5K worth of 2 Hosting Plan with Domain Name Reg.
6. Sergio Arroyo : President/COO – ascendant.com.ph, 2K Cash

Ubuntu 7.0.4 was introduced by Jerome Gotangco and he compared it to the previous releases. Developers of Eskwela.com encouraged the community to support the Filipino-owned IT products. TDD or Test Driven Development was discussed by Andre John Cruz, PHPUGPH.COM Administrator.

Food was served well, thanks to Kenny Rogers and some juice. During the event, a raffle draw was announced and some winners. Luckily I won 200 pesos. I shared the half of my price to my co-member of Joomla-PH namely Audienceone and Ericb. The event was ended up with picture taking and a promise by one of the sponsor that all of us in the community will be given a “PHP5 T-shirt” by Root in the next EB when AJ Batac will get back to the Philippines.

That’s all folks see yah in the next EB !!

The two day event of the 1st Philippine Conference on FOSS and E-Governance at the Shangrila Hotel, Mandaluyong City was a success to Pinoy Joomla User. It is also the first meet ups of Joomla pinoy since Joomla was born. Even we don’t have enough time for preparation still the event was a success.

Piloting free and Open Source Software (FOSS) using Open Standards in e-Governance Applications for Local Government Units (LGUs)

Manila, Philippines, March 7-8, 2007

The Joomla! team has been invited to speak on the national conference on FOSS and E-Governance in Manilla, The Philippines. The conference is envisioned to showcase the various FOSS applications developed for and used by local government units in the Philippines, and to discuss issues related to this process as well as to the adaptation of FOSS in supporting good e-governance. The two-day conference will bring together key organisations and experts in various strategic sectors in information and communications technology, development work, policy and local administration.

Johan Janssens, lead developer for 1.5 will represent the project on the conference. In his talk Johan will explore what government and civil society can learn and gain from the experiences of successful global and multi-cultural FOSS initiatives like Joomla! The conference is funded by the European Commission. Our thanks goes to the organizers for the invitation and to the European Commission for their support.