CODENAME: FILNET

Filipiniana.net was finally launched on the web last September 27, 2006 and it is now available for public access 24/7. Filipiniana.net is a research portal that concentrates on Philippine studies.It will serve researchers, librarians and scholars all over the world to find documents that pertains to the Philippines. In other words, It will be the central repository of rare images and documents that can be search to our database through the internet. Thus, giving the tagline "Philippine studies at your fingertips." The Brain and heart of Filipiniana.net The database of processed documents and digitized images is the core product of Filipiniana.net. It provides wide arcane of scholarly researched materials from the 15th century to contemporary period. Filipiniana.net had digitized historical documents and rare photographs that are hardly seen in our regular history textbooks. All of these comprises the brain and heart FIlipiniana.net and called it the "Digital Libr...

After eights months of conceptualization and development, Filipiniana.net was known to the public when it introduces the site during the 19th IAHA Conference at Hotel Intercontinental in Makati City last Nov. 25, 2006. The International Association of Historians in Asia conducts a conference to gather all historians in Asia Pacific. This year, it back to its roots as the Philippines serve as its host to this annual event and just in time for us to share what Filipiniana.net is all about. Historians who wants to know more about the Philippines will be enlightened on what the digital library can do to facilitate their research on Philippine studies in a simple click of a mouse. At the moment, we have showed the following features of our digilib, image database and community building facility: highlighted keywords search keywords page result shortcut footnotes and end notes in every documents executive summary and subheadings in a document TOC type navigation at the sidebar opening ...

The soft-launch of Filipiniana.net is fast approaching and revisions has to be finalized. My tech team are already preparing for it and only the go signal from the top awaits for another interface design that our user can't wait. I have posted 3 design studies to our project development site for all our editors and consultants to study and comments. The debates only goes undecided without clear judgement or concrete decision on why they want the changes. So, I let our publisher decide and talk to him about what he wanted for the site. He talked on web standards and wanted to adapt the web 2.0 format of the site. He wanted a public participation on the site. The forum and blog that we had created is not enough for him. He wants something more. Simplified the main page and put more contents to the database. He wants the site to be finished before our soft-launch. The tech team has only 3 days to make the necessary changes and I'm very thankful that I have a very dedicated java ...

For the past eight months of Filnet operations, Skype becomes our official carrier to transmit our messages, send files and video call anywhere in the world. We usually conduct simultaneous meeting with online commuters as we process, decide and build the website online. Our consultants and other content developers are telecommuters.Having Skype we're able to cut down telecommunications cost because its FREE!. This technological advancement that runs over VoIP is a necessity for a start up like us. It facilitates our videoconferencing needs and to keep in contact with our boss when he is out of the country for a business trip. Our computer units are always has an active skype account that he can contact from time to time. Taking advantage to Skype services can benefits lots of businesses from SMEs to multinational companies. But having these internet based telecommunication facility doesn't come free at all. You still need decent computer with a DSL connection to m...

Our publisher arrives today from New York after 6 months of business trip to Europe and US. His network of contacts who had same passion for historical documents on the Philippines gives way for another historical find for Filipiniana.net. It has been posted and discussed by some historians in Filipiniana Blogsphere and as promised, another Filipino treasure had returned to his mother land. This is considered as one of the lost remains of 2, 000 book initially published by Rizal in Berlin that was sequestered by Spanish friars. The "Noli and Fili" will be unveiled to the public during Filipiniana.net's diorama presentation and exhibit at the 2nd Philippines-Spain Tribuna Conference to be slated here in Manila on November 27-28, 2006 where respected dignitaries of both countries are expected to grace the occassion. For us at Filipiniana.net , this is the more than just a "pasalubong" that we can have, above all its existence and bringing it back to the...

" The History Conference in Tacloban proved not only to be a great venue for introducing Filipiniana.net but also for getting to know what are some of current Philippine historians' interests in research and for hobnobbing with those who do research, write, teach, question matters of history. " , this is Ms. Pacheco's salutation in her email when she gives her report to the Team on her travails as she presented Filnet infront of 130 participants in Tacloban City last October 26, 2006. Attendees were mostly historians and teachers from different provinces in the Visayas region. They had showed their interest and eagerness for questions related on the site. Good thing is, they had appreciated what we are doing by helping historians and researchers to have a venue that is interactive, community driven and becoming their own research portal. According to them, the site will changed the way they do research. It will be their gateway or portal that wil...

Filipiniana.net was presented in two venues. One is at Leyte Normal Universities in Tacloban City for the Convention on Local and National History and at the workshop on "The Use of Filipiniana Materials in Philippine Libraries and Information Centers" at the Ortigas Foundation Library held last October 26 and 27, 2006 respectively. This is the first time, Filipiniana.net was presented to the public after its goes online last Sept. 27, 2006 amidst the typhoon Milenyo strikes the Philippine islands. I was present at the Librarian Seminar to help our presentor and editor-in-chief for their technical requirements. We we're also backed-up by two technology consultant and content specialist to assist us. The presentation goes well and its overwhelming. The audience got curious about what we are doing and they are very interested with the features they can get from the site. Questions has been raised and I have found out that really its true that many librarians are in...

For the past weeks after the launching, the filnet team are so busy for some revisions that our publisher wants to accomplished. He had seen some glitches and mistakes on some documents we are presenting to the site. He was so concerned with how the site would be use by the end user. The browse panel and has to be revised and have added more features. He was quite happy now with how the database interprets search results although for us in the technical team, more have to be done to make it more reliable and work fast. The homepage also had to change. He wants it to be simplier but functional. Filipiniana.net according to him will focus on the searchability of documents being processed and give the user an instant access to the internal pages of the site. So, aside from the technical development of the site. The content team are finalizing documents for uploading to the database. So, this is just a beginning for Filipiniana.net more to follow...more challenges ahead.

Around 10 pm ( New York ) (10:15 am Philippines ) and the team are about to go for a lunch out celebration when my iMac rings. GAV is on Skype and probably had already checked the site. We're right, he's so excited and he really appreciated our effort to put Filipiniana.net up. He was so happy with the result specially with how the database works. Well, finally, we got something to show to the world of what we are working lately. Sleepless night is part of it and this is just the beginning. What we need now is to tweak more on the design part of the pages. Yes, I admit that it was not really so cool. It just so happen that we are concentrated more on the database part and additional features we can integrate to the site. The last minute retouching of the main page makes it unbalance in the sense that some of its contents are really just a filler for vacant space. GAV suggested a better solution. Make it as simple as " Apple's site". Yes, It was like a magi...

T'was a time boggling and stressful day for the group as we started our countdown launch. We should come up with the final version of the site and should be online by September 27 (New York date) at all cost. Our publisher who is currently in New York is dying to see the webpage up. And he doesn't care if we have the final content or not. He rather want to see it incomplete rather than nothing to see at all. For the record, I have uploaded our initial teaser page last January this year and he can no longer wait to see it after 6 months. He want to see it so we can have his personal perusal to the site. His friends and international business contacts were already waiting for that page to be uploaded to see what we can offer. This would determine how serious we are with the project and he doesn't want to disappoint them with the target deadline. He personally marketed the site abroad, researched and gathered all the materials and sent it back to us here in Manila. Hi...

As we on the verge of site development, my publisher come up with the idea of Wiki. He asked me if that vision would be possible. He receives positive remarks from us and he tackles his plan to create a wiki counterpart of the popular Wikipedia . So, as we build for the Philippine's first ever Wiki project, we have to research on its fundamental structure. Know also why it gains popular and how the whole site works. Now, I have able to identify my primary concern- designing a wiki. Open - a page could be found incomplete, poorly organized so any reader can edit it as they see fit. Incremental - Pages can cite other pages, including pages that have not been written yet. Organic - The structure and text content of the site are open to editing and evolution. Mundane - A small number of (irregular) text conventions will provide access to the most useful page markup. Universal - The mechanisms of editing and organizing are the same as those of writing so that any writer is ...

Philippine History is our main concern.The mission is very simple. Free books and manuscript to all Filipinos. Our knowledge on our country's history is drastically decreasing and little did we know, we are already being carried away by the influence of the western industrialized countries. They use modern technology to attract us and love their country much as we know about our native land. We are going to a direction that paves us to know less about us and that is what we are trying to protect our youth and rebuild that same passion through our little means. Our editorial team were composed of those who has passion for studies on Philippine history. We will reinvent the way we do research on data that pertains on the study of the Philippines. Rare books and manuscript will be available for general public to help them become more knowledgable on the very land where they came from. Although my team are concern on the technical development of the project, the nationalistic spirit...

At last it Works! After weeks of research on the best way to put this CMS online, i finally made it. I have tried virtual hosting via the Xserve and done some domain aliasing to forward the port to 8200 to 80 but it doesn't work. So, after tweaking and testing the available services on our firewall system. The NAT (Network Translation Protocol) made the twist. Our ISP provided us a public IPs to use for our servers. I enable the NAT from our firewall to redirect or echo the ping to the actual IP of our server (Xserve). The 8200 port was recognized instead of 80 that enable connection from the outside access our CMS page. Online Content Specialist and Editors can now access and collaborate with our ongoing documents processing.

Filipiniana.Net aspires to be the premier research website on the Philippines. The heart of the site is an electronic archive of digitized documents and images. Each is carefully indexed making the entire collection fully searchable and accessible. Advance search is possible through the use of knowledge maps and subject directories instead of simple catalogs. A more sophisticated search is possible with the use of a thesaurus-based indexing system where the relationships among keywords and key phrases are organized to yield more relevant and context specific results. Annotations and contributions from experts, researchers and budding historians can similarly be integrated in the collection. As a dedicated research portal, it will provide advanced research tools such as bookmarks, virtual clips boards and e-journals. The site will also feature virtual briefcases and virtual bibliographic documentation agents that will make source referencing a breeze. On line dictionaries, glossarie...

Before i should try installing TEI on Mac platform i have to test it on windows. I have found out out in order to run the installer, javac.exe is needed to run the installer teiPublisherInstall20050507.jar. So, research and documentation is needed for successful installation of the package. I have first to determine if javac.exe is present on my windows system so have to use command line terminal by typing javac -version and enter. Its not available so i download the JDK lastest version at http://java.sun.com. I have to download Sun Download Manager v.1.3 for windows- a special utility for sun's software downloads because JDK download got an error. Bad day, it has also a dead link..shuks!

Our saga over open source applications for CMS never ends. After Filnet's collaboration with the Philippine Gutenberg Project , its webmaster ( Jeroen Hellingman ) who also happens to run http://www.bohol.ph/ generously gave us his practical advice on the ongoing development of Filnet. He even gave us some files he had already process so we can have something to start with. One thing that give us another way to think around is his TEI platform for publishing. Since I have already started with the development of Plone (this is the sample site i made) now i have to tweak around and look what at the core of the TEI who run such big database site such as the Guttenberg project. Well,i know that theres so many other CMS available in the open source arena but we have to practically adapt applications that are already proven and used by other organizations. Besides, we should always follow the International Standards to make it available in a cross repository sites online. So after ...

One of the major reason for the development of the Content Management System is Collaboration . After weeks of configuration and investigation how the Plone works, I have successfully set-up an initial ARTICLES and the BLOG folder. Have assign users access privileges, folders and so on. I have also created a BLOG folder to be able members/users of the site get updated on the ongoing process and activities of FILNET project. I just don't know how can I be able to update the blog from time to time. The ARTICLES folder is the list of documents on process and to be processed. This is the page where content specialist/writers and editors collaborate with the project. From here, they can start exchanging comments if necessary. My next move is to be able to figure out how to make this available at port:80 so i can publish it to the web. The Plone resides on port 8200 by default. I have to figure out how this would work behind Apache . This facility would be advantageous for our content ...

Another email arrive today. At this moment GAV wants to collaborate on a type of project that he envisions. He likes the work of Project Gutenberg , a site that digitizing public domain books. He wants to replicate the project but only to concentrate on Filipiniana books. He also wants to give away books for FREE. He wants to share his personal treasure to Filipinos by digitizing all his collection. With this collaboration thing in mind, he found the site of its Philippine counter part— The Gutenberg Philippines . He found some of his rare collections on that site and was already digitized. He wants to do exact same thing and getting him as a partner or consultant for this project is a good start. Its curator, Jeroen Hellingman was a Dutch who was married to a Filipina and was also running the site about Bohol . He feel in love not just to his wife but also to the Philippines. He has a comprehensive collection of books on Bohol and expanded his e-library to other collections on the...

This day, i tried migrating the site to a new server. We have purchased an Xserve server that runs on a Mac platform and trying to figure out how to back up the previous from my older server. There is a documentation instruction available on moving Plone site, but there is still some glitch that could cause a major breakdown to what I have started and I don't want to gamble unless I am sure of what I am doing. It is not easy as drag and drop thing so, i have decided to reinstall the package again and reconstruct what I have started for almost a month. Well, that's how it should go when you're not familiar with the application. You need to be careful with all your steps. And once you have mastered how it works, everything will goes smooth and easy.

One of the major requirement given to us to process document is by using Content Management System (CMS). This is a simultaneous process and editing of documents or manuscript by multiple registered members of the group. I have already heard this concept but I have never tried or use any of them. GAV introduce us with Plone —an open source CMS. He downloaded it and gave us instruction how to do it. On my initial research on the product, I have found out that it is an opensource application for developers. Plone runs under Zope Server and was coded using Phyton . I'm not a hard coder and I cant really understand some of its language. It's good that everything are built in one package, meaning you are given something as template to work with. All you have to do is to customized to your liking and little tweak in the internal part of the program syntax and structures. I have tested it on my Mac simultaneously with a PC. I want to know how it behaves on both platform. I wanna ...

Our publisher GAV is on constant connection to our team. He usually goes online everyday and we talk on many things that concern web publishing. We started enumerating web standards that need to comply, talk on online library system, contact resource person and find experts on this type of project. In other words, mostly, our discussions goes with all his visions for the project. I don't want to discuss on its editorial content rather I want my blog tackles more on the technical road map on this project. He emailed us documents which contains a manuscript done on MS Word and was converted to XML . These files were styled by him and will serve as our template for document processing. This is a form of formatting text which provide HTML tags to execute particular actions such as hyperlinking and inserting images to a document. This XML files will be used when we go for an interchange process with libraries. His vision is very ambitious that I think can only be realized after ...

Since, my transfer to this project and becomes one of its leading team, the transition from my previous work is inevitable and also to consider my newly annointed one : ) be familiar of the nature of my work then. From time to time he called me and ask me questions pertaining to my previous assignment (deadlines and back logs). Well, I am use to this, and this is my 4th time that i have been transferred to handle new position and assignments. I feel like I'm a military man who's destination is being carried whenever he's service is needed. A critical project such as this, needs key personnel to accomplished its mission..Tama ba ako?

An announcement has been made and I was called at the management office. They want my immediate transfer and be part of the team. I have to assume new position and this is more challenging to me. I like challenges and I know I will love this.. This is just in time to make me concentrate on this project. Then, after two days, GAV contacted me thru Skype and announced ask me if I have already transfered my table..well I know he got something to do with my immediate promotion... So long after weeks of discussion with my Spanish editor, and with initial pages as a start, FILIPINIANA.NET fly on the web on this day. We still have no contents yet. Just a plain and simple site for introduction of who we are and what we are planning to do. What is important according to my boss is we are going live. I receive an email while I'm jotting this note and i quote him " Congrats on the splash page, finally Filipiniana.net is a reality!"

That's January 30 when i wrote a comprehensive report on web development as our guidelines on the ventures for online publishing. I have to embarked some ideas to the members of the team on the first requirements that we should consider as we plan our first step on this project. It was forwarded in PDF format via email in New York so my boss GAV will have some ideas on what we are doing back here in Manila. He is very eager to start with the project as soon as possible and he always keep in touch with us via videoconference tool of Skype . He is the type who always wants to see instant results of his ideas. So, while waiting for his response, I am scouting for a new host for our websites. I am planning to have upgrade our existing bandwidth and web space to accommodate the FILNET project. With this, I am looking for a host who offers more flexibility on its Cpanel and i'm glad i have found Bigbytes.Net . I have applied for a 1GB subscription plan and good to know it has more ...

Finally I see the light at the end of the tunnel over email discussion. GAV wants to put an imprint of our current publishing company and at the same time published his personal collections on the net. This time we talk about the web and at instant he wants us to create a portal or an online library of his historical collection. This is more on Philippine rare books and images that he acquired while he stayed in New York for more than a two decades. And now, he is bringing these to the Philippines and let Filipinos enjoy it for FREE. Whew, this sounds so exciting— a very unique vision of a publisher. Giving away books and images on the net is a work of Philanthropist. Do I get it? hmmm.. there might be something wrong..well lets wait for more details on my next post.

It started as logo project way back last week of November 2005. A name that is very pinoy to us and common word we encounter when we read something about our history. At first, I ask myself what is this all about. Why we should come up with such a name and add a common web extension to make it as web company or something? Well, i don't know. I'm a bit confused..demoralized may be. Know what? I am working in a big publishing firm and having a name of a department or division with a web extensions ( such as .net ) is something new to us. What I have in mind right now is may be we are going into Online Publishing which is one of the trends on the web. If we do this today at least its not yet too late. The boom of online publishing in the Philippines is only on its prime and we have the edge because of our foundation on publishing. For now, I need is to personally talk to sir GAV and ask him what is this for and what are his intensions. They are now starting to build a team an...

I am currently doing a nationalistic endeavor as a developer of a site that soon to make a history on its own :) This is the FILNET Project which has a vision to be the prime resource portal on Philippine studies. As we go on with its development side, I rather make this blog to serve as my online journal on the ups and down of the project as we go along side by side with the process of its development. So allow me to go back few months ago and discuss how it started. Now, my problem is how to maintain this page and how would be able to have time jotting these notes and at the same time coding the road to history .