A blog of an engineer and aspiring scientist

Home

Building Integrated PhotoVoltaic

June 15, 2010
BIPV is a relatively new field of engineering and it is not yet mature. it’s immature nature can be trace to a fact that no comprehensive training program exist in order for it to be offered in engineering courses. It’s something that I have to learn while at the same time hold on to what I already know previously. I just hope that I can juggle my work and my thesis in order to catch on to the opportunity that it can bring me too.
Posted by profaranda at 3:55 pm | permalink | Add comment

Learning again

June 7, 2010
Well, it’ been almost two months since I last post my blog and it will be more irregular as I stopped teaching for now. It’s been two months since I entered the industry and several adjustments have to be made not only in my lifestyle but also in my knowledge bank. I still miss teaching and definitely I have to teach because that is the only way to be sharp. But I’m also learning a lot. I have learned a lot using autoCAD since the last time I taught it in a subject called CAE (CENCOMP in old lasallian eng vocabulary). I’m now studying about BIPV or Building Integrated PhotoVoltaic which is the integration of solar panels in the design of structures. I’m also helping some TIP-QC students in their outreach regarding the design of picohydro (I’m also grateful to kuya Obeth for his input, GreenHeat too have Hydro engineering capabilities).
 
Personally, I’m also learning how to look at myself more deeply. I need to exercise more financial awareness and wisdom far greater that what my dad has shown to us (Now this is where I miss him badly!) Aranda Engineering Tech. Ltd. is also in its birth pain (I know its not bad to abort businesses…) but at least it has some very promising clients.
 
While I cannot promise a regular dose of blog for these time I just realized I haveshould continue to write. I have to express what I have learned in order to help myself reflect more on to this and also allow people to express their thoughts on what I’m going through
Posted by profaranda at 8:48 am | permalink | Add comment

Quo Vadis

April 28, 2010

It’s been nearly a month now since I start my work in GreenHeat. I have entered the relatively unheard world of renewable energy (A lot has been said about green engineering from many professional organizations and so far none came to AMORE-3 launching and this is where the action is). I’m starting to find my place in this work and so far I still have little to do since the WASH program doesnt started yet. basically I’m helping out in doing CAD works for our newly launched commercial application (can’t tell you yet the particulars)but lately I have been asking, is it still worth to continue my MS? lately I am starting to have my misgivings on it, I started on a wrong foot. (Guys, if you are planning to get MA or MS please know first what you really want and make sure that nyou can afford to stop working). Many of my friends said that I have almost arrived just finish the thesis and just bear it out. But the sad truth is I am not happy anymore and I dont get any fulfillment. My family on the other hand said that I must finish this to honor my father’s sacrifices but one fact remains: I am not bounded to no one and even my dad give me the permission to stop if I have to. Another thing to consider is I lost my adviser’s confidence and definitely it would not be healthy for me to do it anymore.

Posted by profaranda at 12:52 pm | permalink | Add comment

I’m back!!! and so sorry

April 23, 2010

Its been a while since I last wrote on my blog (luckily I’m not somebody but for my students who religiously follow this I’M VERY VERY SORRY). Well since I ended the sentence with an apology might just as well offer my apologies to my students and colleagues. I was not able to finish my masters thesis on time so I have to leave TIP-QC. I hope to return someday and give back to God and Country. To SPCWD friends I’m also sorry for it took me a long time to do it but I still stand for my commitment to you (Thank yo to Engr. Aligato and Mr. De Roma for bearing with me) but I assure you that I’ll give something this June.

I’ll leave school for now but I’ll be back. The the last of the SOLV Tiger is not done yet

Posted by profaranda at 1:29 pm | permalink | Add comment

Integral Hell

January 6, 2010

Fluid mechanics is a math intensive subject. In my third year of teaching I have decided to raise the bar by integrating advance mathematics in my subject. The problem is I haven’t prepared my math. In this problem in which I have to integrate a number that would required a major integration my weakness soon began to manifest. I have nearly forgotten my integrals already (For a modeler this is a no no.) In order to attain my resolution to be one of the best Fluid Mechanics teacher in the country I have to improve many things my math included.

I dont teach Calculus and its been three years since I last handled differential equations but fortunately I have many friends both here and Tarlac who can help me

Posted by profaranda at 8:17 pm | permalink | Add comment

UBUNTU experience 3.2

December 19, 2009

I can now use GLOBE TATTOO on my Ubuntu Linux. Thanks for the author of this blog ivy http://poisonjin.livejournal.com/ for the instructions. It was not as hard as I thought. I still can´t run Smart Bro ZTE but I´m currently working on it. Thanks to Dr. Leizel Fallarna for lending me her globe broadband. It was a worthy endeavor

Posted by profaranda at 2:27 am | permalink | Add comment

New Breeze

November 25, 2009

It has been a while since I last wrote in this blog. I was not able to write for a while because I have to finish my PICE paper and awith it brought new sense of personal morphing.. I also recently acquired a new hobby which is collecting pencils as well as tinkering with computer programs such as ELMER, Euler, Model Builder and Vensim. It was quite fun collecting pencils although I have realized that how lucky I was since I can spare money collecting various pencils while many cannot even afford to buy quality pens ( I also collect those shoddy ones and I´m also willing to exchange quality pens for rare and imported pens even though they are actually shoddy). A student of mine is actually into this hobby and I´m looking forward for some exchanges with her.

I´m still learning the ropes of ELMER as well as Euler, Model Builder and Vensim. Since it is an integgral part of my thesis vensim is what I´m mastering now. I can´t believe that it made me more conscious of the causal relationship than writing it on paper. ELMER will be next because it is very useful in fluid mechanics.

Posted by profaranda at 2:56 am | permalink | Add comment

My ubuntu experience 3.1

I am presently writing this in my favorite Arabic restaurant. The food is great, the ambiance is very Arabic as though I am writing inside a bar in Lebanon and looking at the other tables beautiful Arabic and Iranian women free of their head gears while I savor my food with Rai music as a background – Anyway before I get lost I will have to relate my traumatic experience using UBUNTU 9.10.

I have no idea that in the initial release of the Karmic Koala there is one crucial bug that hit me big time - the WiFi is not working properly. Since I have a paper to submit that moment I am already mad at myself for being inside a helpless situation (Dr. Terante is already sharpening his knife to slit my throat). Thankfully my sioti came to the rescue and directed me to a cafe where they allow LAN cable to be connected to your laptop (I wonder how Dr. Terante look like that time and his expression of relief). I was able to do some updates that fix this problem but there is still more. The word ¨hang¨ is not part of the Linux vocabulary but it is now. This is the only distro that I´ve experienced this. My OpenOffice.org crashes from time to time before this update was made and I caused considerable delays in my paper.

I still don´t know how many bugs still lurks in my laptop but on the plus side my WinE is already working quite well. I have already installed STRAN which was timely since I am already teaching matrix analysis of structures. ProgeCAD is nearly trouble free and does not crash. Caesar 3 and EPANET are still running flawlessly. VENSIM is also trouble free, which enable me to run my model. But before I celebrate at my small victory against Windows there are still some issue regarding the HEC suite (It still doesn´t work) and the Linux version of HEC-HMS has graphics problem (the window size is not optimal I can´t click buttons below) and the WinE website is still clueless on the problem (they are also clueless about the HEC programs either).

So far my story here can´t exactly be described as a walk in the park but it opened my eyes on some opportunities. I have decided to learn programming so I can contribute to the development of UBUNTU and WinE. Oh by the way, the WiFi in this Arabic restaurant sucks (maybe Hezbollah is tapping into it I can´t say for sure) at least the food is great thereby preventing me from getting pissed. I have to close now before I forgot that I´m in Manila not Beirut.

Posted by profaranda at 2:46 am | permalink | Add comment

ubuntu experience 3.0

November 8, 2009
It was quite a while since I made my post. I have recently formatted my Laptop and installed ubuntu 9.10 and it has a lot of difference with the 8.10 version even though the gui was similar (on the surface) Tried the new version of kubuntu too before going back to the Gnome desktop environment. The KDE desktop was very difficult to handle and someone transitioning to linux on windows will definitely regret the experience (and maybe even abandon LINUX when he or she was thrust into kubuntu).
 
Iḿ presently downloading the WINE layering tool but I believe the last time I believe it got infected with windows based virus and therefor started to malfunction. overall the integrity of the OS is still the same but the emulator I believe was busted. Iḿ still verifying if my hunch is true but from what Iḿ reading right now it seems that WinE is vulnerable to windows virus after all. Iĺl try to work out progeCAD and HEC programs in this wine package but for now Iĺl have to be more carefull in accessing files directly from my windows based programs to my studentś USB
 
My media player has dramatically improved from the 8.10 version. gone were the days when the movie black out and tweaking the sidebar for that. I seems to play flawlessly. 
 
The new ubuntu update tool was more user friendly and a few minutes practice is what I need to fully familiarize myself. All i need is a good wifi connection to update my OS and download some tools to make my laptop more effective.
Posted by profaranda at 1:44 am | permalink | Add comment

Marooned

September 29, 2009

I just can’t believe what happened last saturday. it was the rainiest day of my life. Am downloading HEC-FDA and trying to do something out of what happened

Posted by profaranda at 2:38 am | permalink | Add comment

my ubuntu experience 2.0

I’m having problems with my IntelliCAD based programs running on WinE. The cursur has a tendency to disappear in the middle of work and I can’t figure out whether the problem is in the hardware or WinE itself. I’ve tried ProgeCAD and ZWCAD and both are having the same problem. Why is that so? Haven’t relayed this to the WineHQ website but I have to do this ASAP for I need this software as much as possible because my migration from windows based CAD is not complete yet. (I have written this piece prior to conducting additional research but just before I post this I have found out that the performance of CAD has deteriorated somewhat from satisfactory in previous versions to garbage at the latest release of WinE, which is what I have right now in my laptop)

I can’t run the STRAN4 installer in WinE. Whenever I click on the setup.exe file it just stays there. Nothing except for that blue background that is typical of any install programs. GRASP is working well in WinE except that the cursor can’t snap to the grid which causes some irritation to my mood when working on something.

As far as gaming is concerned I don’t have any problem running my legacy software here like Caesar 3, Age of Empire 2 and StarCraft. These things work well seamlessly. I just dont know if it can handle SIM City 4 although I don’t have time for games lately and I prefer something that can be finished in one sitting.

Posted by profaranda at 2:34 am | permalink | Add comment

TIP-QC @ UP-ACES NCEQ

September 20, 2009
TIP-QC did a much better performance compared to last year when it managed to enter the final round of UP-ACES NCEQ held last Sept 19 in UP Diliman. The teams bannered by Kurt Montemor and Rommel Ubalde (Roster A) and Mico Cruzado and Efraim halog (Roster B) manage to improve the year on year performance of the school by hurlding least expected questions in the said contest. It also serves as a tune up game for the upcoming PICE-NCR Regional CE Quiz elimination which will be hosted by TIP-QC. The coaches for the TIP team includes Engr. Rhonnie Estores and Edison Dizon,  last years standout who substituted for Engr. Hadji Aranda who is still nursing an ear infection. more on http://picetipqc.i.ph
Posted by profaranda at 3:31 pm | permalink | Add comment

PICE-Tarlac Blood Letting

  

(photo courtesy of Engr. Connie Lagman)

Last September 18 2009 PICE-Tarlac Chapter organized a blood letting drive at the Tarlac State University (TSU) in connection with the Civil Engineering Week Celebration. The event was supproted by the Philippine National Red Cross - Tarlac Chapter, The City Government of Tarlac and the TSU-College of Engineering. Indeed a bloody day that is.

Posted by profaranda at 2:50 pm | permalink | Add comment

Aranda and Marquez on TSU CE week

September 6, 2009
Instructor Hadji Peejay Aranda and Dr. Amelia Marquez of FEATI University will speak at the CE seminar on Sept 14 2009 at the Tarlac State University in Tarlac City. Engr. Aranda will talk about spreadsheet application in Civil Engineering while Dr. Marquez will talk about construction phases. There will also be a short promotion of the Calculator Techniques book written by Engr Romeo Tolentino by Mr. Edison Dizon a co author of the book.
Posted by profaranda at 5:43 pm | permalink | Add comment

My Ubuntu Experience

I recently switch my OS to Ubuntu 8.10 around two weeks ago and I prepare myself for a whole new experience. The notion that I’m “isolating” myself is not exactly an issue although the necessity to be online to get the necessary updates is a must. The experience is not new to me since I tried to run my old desktop PC (P3 450 RAM 128) using Xubuntu. The installation work fine but when I tried to update I inadvertedly press random of them at the synaptice file manager which caused errors and forcing me to abandon my project. But the good thing is I learned much from Linux and when I brought my laptop ( 2nd hand Toshiba ) I decided to try it since it has wireless capability. I decided on  this gamble even though I’m very aware that I won’t be able to use many engineering applications which normally runs on Windows such as CAD and SWMM
 
My linux experience got a lot better when I discover Wine emulator. This program which emulates the windows environment in LINUX has enable me to use my favorite modeling tools such as STELLA, ProgeCAD, EPANET and SWMM while at the same time allow me to explore Linux based softwares such as QCAD and the Linux fork of EPANET. The kinks however are the following
 
1. Wine operates as if it is a computer within a computer. There is a virtual C: disk which also uses memory
2. for help files to run, an internet browser should also be installed within the WINE environment. This also applies to Adobe acrobat reader to be installed in order to read PDF help files when you press the buttons or icons within the window.
 
I consider these kinks as not so serious but for some who have a lot of expectations this could mean a serious matter. I’ll post some updates sooner, it takes time to be familiar with a new OS
Posted by profaranda at 4:39 pm | permalink | Add comment

My New home

September 2, 2009

Its been a while since I last contemplated to have a new cyberhome that can really fit my requirement to express myself and communicate some official business. What I like here is the fact that I enjoyed the time customizing this site. It’s like moving in a new home and cleaning it up before bringing you family. I do hope to enjoy my stay here and I look forward to writing some things that can be meaningful to others

Posted by profaranda at 10:46 pm | permalink | Add comment