The UP Board of Regents has approved the offering of the Graduate Certificate in Distance Education (GCDE) by the UP Open University’s Faculty of Education for professionals who are looking for a formal introduction to the field of distance education (DE), including e-learning, and graduate-level training in developing and managing DE and e-learning programs.

GCDE graduates are expected to be able to participate in the development and delivery of distance education programs that are underpinned by effective pedagogy and appropriate and sustainable use of technology.

Entry to the GCDE program is through the MDE program. Detailed information about the GCDE and the MDE, including program and admission requirements, can be found at https://sites.google.com/a/upou.edu.ph/master-of-distance-education-program/home. General information on application procedures can be found at http://www.upou.edu.ph/admission/requirements.htm.

For pre-application advice, please contact the Faculty of Education (fed@upou.edu.ph) or the Office of the University Registrar (admission@upou. edu.ph).

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When it was first implemented, a lot has been written about Entrecard's sponsored ads and the intrusion of CPC ads. Based on various posts, it has become obvious that bloggers are divided on the first issue, while majority loathe the lack of deterrent for intrusive ads.

It is understandable why many dislike the impropriety that forces them to be directed to landing page with lots of CPA and CPC ads on it, but it has not been directly explained by some bloggers why they don't care much about the first issue.

Months later, majority of those who did not leave Entrecard seems to have accepted the logic behind the site's business model and sponsored programs. This could be due to less critical and open minded recognition of the following items:

First off, the company behind Entrecard has to make money in order for it to survive and sustain its operations. One of those strategies is to attract advertisers to make an investment for the services that they offer and that service includes taking 15 percent of their entire ad network inventory for sponsors. The income that will be generated will be used to cover overhead expenses, which is not cheap nowadays.

Some would tend to think that Entrecard has no right to do this since a blog is a personal property of its owner who has the right to supervise whatever is contained on the site. I am not a lawyer or a legal expert so you can enlighten me on this further, but when the owner of the site applied for Entrecard membership and posted the widget on their site, that right does not cover what that widget will contain.

Now, the blog owner was given limited form of control on what the contents of the widget will be, but it does not mean Entrecard could not impose their own conditions on how the widget will be used. In fact, the Terms and Conditions of being an Entrecard member clearly stated that:

"Entrecard reserves the right to use a percentage of the network's ad inventory to serve sponsor ads."

If the owner wants to reestablish full control of the ads in their Entrecard widgets, then they can always opt to pay US$ 50.00. Nobody is forcing them to do this though. Once they paid the amount, bloggers will have an option to decline any Sponsor ads from Entrecard for whatever reason.

For those who are not bothered by these sponsored ads, which will be evenly distributed throughout the network, life goes on at Entrecard. Some bloggers I talked to think that it only became a bloated issue for some members because it was implemented without much consultation. If this was adopted early or when the new management took over from Graham Langdon, then many would have been accustomed to the idea already.

But the bottom line is that members decided to be part of a free service of Entrecard to generate traffic and increase their blog's ranking. Entrecard never promised that those visitors will be converted to subscribers or readers nor did they say anything about not promoting sponsored ads, so let’s just give them more flexibility to do what they do best, which is to provide a social networking platform, an advertising network and a marketplace for many aspiring bloggers.

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For entrepreneurs who cater to the needs of their younger clients, they should know that music is no longer the number one way for young people to define themselves. According to an Australian survey released on 11 October 2010, young people have now embraced social networks such as Facebook as a primary venue to express themselves.

Asked "What defines you?" the most popular response from young adults was "my friends", pipping music for the first time in the seven-year history of the annual Urban Market Research study.

"That came to us as a bit of a surprise," said Dion Appel, chief executive of the LifeLounge Group, which commissioned the survey of more than 1,750 Australians aged 16 to 30.

"What's not a surprise is the popularity of Facebook. But I suppose how that's influencing how young people actually define themselves is a pretty powerful insight.

"They are relying a lot more on friends to help define themselves."

Facebook was the number one website visited by those polled, with a massive 47 per cent saying they spent five or more hours each week on the social networking site.

And while every young adult had at least one email address, this method of communication was on the wane, according to the study conducted with Sweeney Research.

Young adults associate email more with their professional or school life than their personal affairs and so prefer to communicate with peers via Facebook, text messaging, Skype and Instant Messenger, Appel said.

With a simple status update on their social networking pages, young people can "just put in how they are feeling and let technology deliver the messages" without needing to dig up people's email addresses, he said.

The research also confirms that most young people have a frantic digital life, with more than 80 per cent "doing other things" while surfing the Internet or posting on social networks -- like watching television or messaging.

But the barrage of information is also forcing youngsters to take some time out by "pressing pause" on the multimedia deluge, the survey said.

The most popular offline pastime was reading, with about 56 percent of those interviewed doing this for at least an hour a week. Cooking and going to art exhibitions were also popular.

"They are certainly not switching off. The one thing they claim they can't live without is the Internet. So what they are doing is just pausing momentarily and taking a breath," Appel said.

However he said social media were definitely on the rise.

"There are a number of ways for young people to get their kudos, or as we call it urban capital, and this is largely through social media now. They've got a voice that they can really properly broadcast in ways they have not been able to do in the past."

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The world's biggest book fair in Frankfurt is used to seeing some big book launches, but none came larger than a six-by-nine-foot (two-by-three-meter) Atlas unveiled on 6 October 2010.

Yours for a cool 100,000 dollars, Australian publisher Gordon Cheers said that the last book even close in size to his 128-page volume was the Klencke Atlas, produced in 1660 as a gift for Charles II of England.

"But that was about one foot smaller than this," Cheers proudly told AFP. "This is the first time a book this size has ever been seen."

Just to turn a page takes all his strength and the book took people three hours to get into position for visitors to the Frankfurt Book Fair, which runs until Sunday.

This makes his Atlas the antithesis of this year's book fair, which is devoted to smart, mobile content.

"It's all about creating a legacy," the Sydney-based publisher said. "Today, everything is digital and it's gone in a second. This will still be around in 500 years."

The book took around a month to produce and Cheers is limiting the print run of his monster Atlas to 31. He has already sold two volumes to museums in the United Arab Emirates and is confident he will sell the whole lot.

Cheers worked for British publishing giants Penguin and then Random House, but neither firm was interested in his project, so he left to found his own company, he said.

The book contains maps of whole continents, as well as sharp images of famous sites collaged together from 1,000 individual pictures.

As far as he knows, no one else is producing books on this scale.

"I think we're the only ones crazy enough," quipped Cheers.

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Tupperware Brands Philippines, a direct selling company, recently reiterated its commitment to strengthening its position as one of the biggest direct selling companies in the country with the launch of its new line of fragrances, food storage solutions, and baby care products and the introduction of its latest roster of celebrity endorsers.

According to Tupperware Brands Philippines president Perry Mogar, the launch is part of the company's directive to adopt a more aggressive marketing strategy by leveraging on the strength of the company’s top-of-the-line brands.

"We want to strengthen our position in the industry as one of the best and largest companies, and so we're putting more emphasis on our star brands such as the fragrance and baby care lines. Of course, the food storage line, which remains our flagship product, has been given a wider range of product offerings for the enjoyment of our customers and to provide more income opportunities for dealers," revealed Mogar.

The use of high-profile celebrities has also been given more highlight this year to build the company’s brands and communicate the superior quality of their products. This following the recent successful launch of Bea Alonzo as the company’s new endorser for its premier cosmetics brand, Colour Collection.

Communicating Tupperware Brands' goal of becoming a direct selling company with unmatched star power are the new celebrity endorsers: one of today’s most-sought-after actors Sam Milby, talented young actress Maja Salvador, and versatile actor-turned-chef Marvin Agustin.

Milby and Salvador are the new faces of Tupperware Brands’ men’s and women’s fragrance lines. The two have also launched their own signature scents that promise to translate to more positive digits in the fragrance category.

Agustin, meanwhile, adds credibility to the Tupperware food container line as he shares his passion for food and health and his own inspiring Tupperware story to the growing number of Tupperware dealers across the country.

With the introduction of new products, Tupperware Brands aims to continue its winning streak in the local direct selling arena. The company continues to post positive gains in the local market, thanks to the continuous increase in sales of its bestselling beauty and baby products.

With the local Tupperware company's continued success, the Philippines has become one of the biggest markets in the Asia Pacific region for the global Tupperware company. Despite the global recession, the continuous soar of revenues generated from Tupperware franchises all over the world, including the Philippines, has contributed to the global company’s positive revenues last year of US$ 2.1 billion.

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