ECE License Renewal - Conversion

A few days ago, I visited the PRC office to renew my ECE license. This will be the first time Id actually get to renew my license. But how hard could it be?

Unfortunately for me, I had to wait until its 3 days before my license expires before I even decided to get on with the renewal. The process was made even more difficult with the fact that it is already the time for Nursing Registration. I had to battle it out with Nursing Graduates, Nursing Board Passers, and Repeat Takers of the Nursing Exam.

I would suggest if you do need to renew, choose a time where there will be no registration for any profession, personally Id think that will be mid-march, where everyone will be busy with graduation instead of taking the board. Lessons Learned!

You'd probably stumble into this page, because, you, just like me, wanted to be smart and find out what the requirements and steps are for renewing. That is, after finding that the PRC website is down.

ECE conversion

I just want to mention. ECE is no longer a valid profession. There is no longer a "C" rather there is just EE. Electrical Engineering? What is this? Its Electronics Engineering - EE? That's what I was renewing, and as mentioned by the guy who asked me to fill-up the renewal form (which is actually an oath form) I would have to place under the "profession" field, EE. "C" is no more.

This means to every ECE licensee, that once your license expires, you will not be able to renew your license as an ECE engineer. You'd need to go and "convert" your license. This is all according to RA 9292?

Besides from that, a new process in the renewal (who according to the attending PRC staff started March 2009) requires "EE" Licensees to be a member of IECEP. Should it not be IEEP now? since we lost the "C." And guess what? You couldn't apply for membership on the same place! You'd have to go to Ever-Recto. Luckily just a few minutes walk. But after standing in line for 20 minutes on a crowded humid room, that was not good to hear.

I wouldn't even start telling you how rude people would be, both the supposed professionals, and the PRC staff. Its something I already know that you know. So that's that.

Was it even all worth it? I am honestly not practicing my chosen profession. And I probably wanted to renew my license because I remembered all that sleepless nights preparing for the exam. I couldn't just let go. And its nice to have this card in your pocket. It is an official government ID. It had special privileges somehow (I remember how easy it was getting a passport just because I had a professional card).

Each of us may have their own reason to still want to have this. Even if this card is only valid or recognized within the country and nowhere else. I am still proud to have this card. It is a reminder of very sentimental memories.

So for my fellow ECE brothers, here are the thins you'd need to know and the steps in taking when Renewing your E"C"E License! Good Luck!

Requirements:

1. Ball pen.
2. Paste. So you can attach your photo to the renewal form.
3. Passport Size Photo White Background (with the PRC logo at the back).
For ECE, you do not need to be wearing a shirt with a collar, although its really up to you what photo you'd want on your license card.
4. Photocopy of your ECE License Card. TO be presented when you apply for IECEP membership renewal.
5. Photocopy of your IECEP membership certificate. Which will be given to you once you have renewed your membership.
4. Money. Prepare at least Php 3,000 to cover all expenses:

• 1050 for the IECEP membership
• 1050 for the License Renewal
• Approximately 50 for the Metered Stamp.
• Approximately 50 for the Notary Public.
• About 100-150 For Photo (If you didn't bring your own)
  
• About 300 for lunch and merienda.
  

Steps

1. Get a renewal form from the "Customer Service Window" which is just to the left of the entrance.
2. Fill-out the form and attach one passport size photo.
There will be usually people there ready to provide photo service inside PRC itself. Its digitized so they could print your photo and have it ready in about 10 minutes. 3. Get in line to pay for the metered stamp (which will cost about Php21.00, but you would need 2 so that's 42.00)
4. Have your Form Notarized. Which will costs anywhere between 40 - 50.
5. Renew IECEP membership.
You would need to go to Ever-Recto, 2nd Floor (A few blocks away from PRC) to apply for the renewal of the membership.
6. Present your renewal form, and the photocopy of your IECEP membership certificate to Window 16 (Receiving Area for Membership Renewal - Records Section). At this point the attendant will verify your records (which means checking if you have everything in order - they didn't actually check if I really have taken my exam and passed it)
7. Proceed to Cashier to pay the renewal fee.
8. Return to Window 16 and present the renewal form, the IECEP membership, and the receipt (from paying the renewal fees).
9. You will be given the claim form for your new ID which is usually dated one month from the day of your application. If you are in a hurry, I think there is an option for "rush ID" which means you ll get it the same day? Haven't really considered that and the only reason I thought it existed was I saw some nursing passers attempting to claim their *rushed id.
10. Claim your ID at Window 13.

The lesser evil? - Downgrading Windows Vista to Windows XP

Quite recently I joined a number of people finding themselves with a useless laptop because it had windows vista installed. So I opted to get rid of it and have Windows XP instead. Choose the lesser evil so to speak.












Much to my disappointment, I realized that this is one of those laptops whose hard drive is not detected by Windows XP.

The lesser evil?

Those are large teeth I said. The better to eat you with, it said back.

So XP set-up didn't detect my laptop hard drive. No biggie. Ive done this before. Normally there would be options on the laptop BIOS that will allow me to turn off a feature or allow the hard drive to emulate a much lesser advanced hard drive. They had none.

The Harddrive has somehow a newer SATA controller model that windows does not recognize. Normally you can go to the BIOS to either choose an option to have the Controller emulate an IDE controller allowing Windows XP to be able to detect it using the drivers it had that came with Set-up

The Crusade.

So I guess I had no choice. I had to look for that hard drive driver. (I'm starting to believe they placed "hard" to mock everyone). Where better to find it then from the manufacturers website Yah? No! They didn't have it.

I spent one whole day surfing the web attempting to find that SATA controller driver from forum to forum. Trying a number of potential Sata controller drivers that seem promising. No such luck.

I'm starting to resign myself to using Windows Vista. To save myself from all the pain.

The next day gave me renewed strength, and my resolve to to have Windows XP instead is more stronger than it had been. So I tried again, and I did find some vague references to going to intel's website and download the required drivers from them.

Suddenly it made sense you needed the drivers for the controller, and who made the controller? It is actually part of the Chipset. And I checked out the Model of the Chipset on the laptop and searched for it.

The chipset is actually Intel and they did have some drivers specially packaged so you could use it during your Windows XP installation.

Old Tools.

So, im just so glad I held on to this external floppy drive. Cause, as most people would know who have taken the same path as mine, you need to have a floppy drive to load the drivers during windows XP set-up.










At the start of loading Windows XP set-up, you need to press F6 to load a third-party scsi or raid driver, it is at this point will you be able to load the proper controller drivers to have XP detect the hard drive.

Had to scrounge out the old library of diskettes finding almost all of them unreadable. All I needed was one. And alas, I found my Grail. The one that will hold the Sata drivers.

Welcome!

Once I loaded the drivers and press continue on Windows XP Set-up, I crossed my fingers, and you wouldn't believe the joy I felt actually seeing the whole set-up process continue. A lil bit teary eyed there actually when I finally saw the Windows XP screen loading up.

Teary-eyed.

So it had big teeth it said. Never knew, it's hidden its claws.

Yep. Had tears. That's because getting windows XP on the laptop is just the start oif the problem. Now I'd have to find the drivers for everything else for Windows XP.

Lesser Evil. indeed.

How did I do it?

Well from all the things Ive experienced trying to rid myself of Windows Vista, Id like to say that I'd rather do away with Windows altogether. Probably get me a MAC. Probably won't happen. So for all of you who is suffering as much as I did, here is how I did it...

1. Determine the Chipset Model of your Machine.
If it is intel, you are in luck! Because Intel actually has those drivers ready. As if anticipating you'd need it!
2. After finding the Intel Chipset Model, find the Driver Download, choose to download the Intel Matrix Storage Manager.
3. Download the one that says "Floppy Configuration Utility" and extract those to a diskette.
4. Load Windows XP setup and press F6.
5. It will give you a list of drivers.
It is very important that you choose the AHCI driver instead of the SATA RAID drivers. (Wont work if you chose the wrong one)
6. Continue with Set-up!
7. Enjoy surfing the net trying to find those drivers.

Finding the drivers is a whole different story. To make a loong story short. I found a blog that had all the drivers I needed. If you just happen to have the same laptop model as I have (Toshiba Satellite U305) then you can go here.