Philippines, Technology News & Reviews
Aside from the 19-year old Toshiba laptop, I got more shots of other old stuff at the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication.
Brownie Chiquita
Kodak Camera
circa 1959
Philips Multi-Band Tube Radio
circa 1950
Bell & Howell Autoload Projector
circa June 1965
And the not-so-old Sony Betamax Recorder:
Good times. Good times.
Search the Earth with Google Earth to win your own car! Yup, you’re very own Mazda CX-7 if you can find it. Google teamed up with Mazda for this competition and is giving away 7 cars on top of Apple Powerbook®, a Magellan® Roadmate 800 Navigation System or a 30 GB Video iPod®.
Just download Google Earth and start searching for your prizes.
The catch? It’sopen only to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and the District of Columbia who are at least eighteen (18) years old and licensed drivers at the time of entry.
But that shouldn’t stop you from helping out your cousin or other relatives in the States, right?
{ via schmula }
[tags]Google, Mazda, search, google earth, contest[/tags]
A new image hosting service backed by CNet has just launched and it’s called All You Can Upload.
It has no file size limitations and supports .gif, .jpeg and .png formats. No registration is needed so all you have to do is go to allyoucanupload.webshots.com.
This new service is targetting online spaces, such as online auctions (eBay), blogs (Blogger, TypePad), message boards, online classifieds, and social networking sites (Xanga, MySpace).
If you look at the upload page, it can upload 3 images at a time and has an option to resize the images to predetermined dimensions with suggestions as to which sizes are best for what type of sites, a commendable feature.
[tags]image hosting, uploads, free space, online storage[/tags]
Been trying to figure out how one of my desktops PC connected to two ISPs — Smart Bro and PLDT myDSL. The myDSL is connected to a router and hooked up with the other PCs while Smart Bro is hooked up directly into this one desktop. Now, if we wanted to play Warcaft 3 on the network, only my laptop and the other PC can join so I am thinking that by adding a second LAN card and hooking it up to the router, this PC will also be part of the network.
Is that possible? I haven’t tried it though. If both can’t work at the same time, maybe I’ll just disable one while using the other.
Any better arrangement for this?
I was at a client the whole afternoon and their office has this section for very old stuff like cameras, videocams, radios and laptops.
So this one is for sale:
A Toshiba J-3100GT with a 386SX CPU, 8MB hard drive and 1MB RAM running MS DOS.
And they said it still runs fine until now after 19 years. Tough huh?
Any bids?
I’m sure you’ve heard of this project by now but for those who haven’t, OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is basically just your feed subscription list and “Share your OPML” is a site that gathers a community of subscription lists, in OPML format, and aggregate them in interesting ways.
The idea is similar to Technorati Favorites only more popular with readers considering the top blog in TF only has 472 people while SyO has 1,086. Still, not a lot for both though.
Share your OPML has some interesting features though, like the “Most Prolific Subscribers” (the top guy has 8,104 feed subscriptions) and “Who Subscribe to” which shows you who are the people who subscribed to a particular blog.
[tags]rss, feeds, opml, syndication, aggregator[/tags]
Along with the upgrades that I just discovered, PLDT also rebranded their residential broadband packages:
So, they did deliver on the promise they made earlier this year, though it took them 4 months to do so.
The new packages are as follows:
PLDT myDSL Xperience : 384 Kbps at Php 999/month
PLDT myDSL Xcite : 768 Kbps at Php 1,995/month
PLDT myDSL Xcel : 2 Mbps at Php 3,000/month
PLDT myDSL F2H : 5 Mbps at Php 5,000/month
The PLDT myDSL F2H may soon be available in areas of Ayala Alabang, Forbes Park, Essensa and Dasmarinas Village due to some fiber optic cables already in place.
This could be the start of a more affordable high-speed broadband in the Philippines (across all ISPs).
I’ve been wondering why almost 2 weeks now, my DSL connection has been acting up on me. It connects just fine but in a few minutes, there’s no internet then it comes back again then gone another minute. When I called up the customer rep the other day to downgrade my account, I explained to them that one of the reasons why I wanted to downgrade wast the broken promise they made last January.
Just now, while experience the same irritating problem with the dsl going on and off, I tried to check on my bandwidth speed at PLDTPlay and got this:
I couldn’t believe at first by I also tried other broadband speed test sites:
TestMy. net : 787 Kbps or 0.79 Mbps (96 kB/s)
2Wire : 700.10 Kbps
SpeakEasy : 556 kbps or 69.5 KB/sec.
Looks like a legit upgrade. Ok, lemme try with Limewire. 
I never owned a regular film camera ever and the first camera I got is my 3.2 Megapixel Digital Canon Ixus 30, so I was a little apprehensive to the quality of the prints it can churn out. Most of the time, I set it to the highest setting which often eats up just over 1MB per shot.
Last week, a friend showed me pictures printed from her own digital camera and I wasn’t impressed with the outcome. Well, it was primarily due to the poor quality of the shots themselves and the low resolution rather than the finished print itself.
What convinced me to try it out was that DigiPrint was running a promo that time — for every 70 prints, you get 30 more for free. At the retail price of Php6.50 per 4R print, a 100 shots will only cost you Php4.55 because of the discount.
So I spent almost half a day, rummaging thru my picture archives and choosing the top 100 pictures I like to be printed. Actually, most of them were digital macro shots as I feel these are the only decent ones I am able to take.
Anyway, the nearest DigiPrint shop is just at Makati Cinema Square but when I talked to them about the printing, the promo was over and it will take overnight to finish everything. Good thing they have free home delivery via LBC so I promptly got the pictures early today.
I also bought a 50-watt spotlight and now eyeing a section of my apartment as a potential wallpaper collage wall.
[tags]digital photography, media services, printing[/tags]
Shoemoney is an established name in the SEM/SEO arena with a blog in the Technorati Top 100 so when he dared everyone to outrank him in the Big 3 search engines for the term “shoemoney” last Monday, I didn’t bother to blog about it here since I thought it’s a futile attempt to beat him on the #1 spot. The prize money was $1,000 in total ($500 in Google, $250 each in Yahoo and MSN).
Kates blogged about it and Marc also joined in and spent a few dollars for the domain shoemoney.us.
However, ShoeMoney added a little twist to it yesterday that made the contest a worthwhile effort.
For each site you have in the top #10 results I will give you a gift certificate to Amazon.com. The amounts for the prizes will be as follows.
For the #10 spot - 10$
#9 - $20
#8 - $30
#7 - $40
#6 - $50
#5 - $65
#4 - $80
#3 - $100
#2 - $150
Why don’t you guys join in as well? Let’s just have some fun and fill up all those 9 remaining spots in G.
[tags]shoemoney, shoe, money, seo, contest, serps[/tags]
In the week after Feedburner announced their Quick Stats Update, I’ve noticed a dramatic increase in the daily feed subscription in my blogs. Mine alone jumped from somewhere around 140-ish to 243 subs today which is really weird.
The graph plotted above is from Feedburner and it showed a huge increase of up to 60%. The other group blogs registered similar increase in subscriptions but not as high as this one.
The Feedburner blog explains “Bonus: The number listed in your subscriber chicklet is now time period synched to the number in the analyze tab. Marvel at the consistency!”. Still, I don’t understand the spike.
[tags]rss, feeds, subscription, atom, real simple syndication[/tags]
The SmartBro installation team just arrived here at my place to hook me up. Took them about 30 minutes to install and configure my account and I’m now running on Smart Bro (Just one of my desktop PCs. My laptop and other PC is still on myDSL.).
First off, some speed tests:
PLDTPlay: 260.3 kbps
GlobeQuest Utilities: 235.0 kbps
2Wire: 99.50 kbps
TestMy: 113 kbps
Smart Bro top speed: 384kbps
During the installation, I talked with the two tech guys and explained to them my arrangement with Smart. The tech guys were actually a bit curious why my account was different, at least that’s what the designated subscriber code says. They added that the subscriber code I am using is for internal use and usually assigned to COs. I told them I hope it does not affect my connection speed from that of a regular subscriber.
The above speed test results would indicate I am in no better luck than any other subscriber. Ok, on with the testing.
Btw, remeber that wifi incident last week at Malate? The techs did confirm to me that it’s something they’ve also encountered before and when they reported it back to the NOC, they were told that it’s for an experimental hotspot. Looks like Airborne Access is going to have some internal competition of sorts.
Check out this new Nike shoes with iPod integration. Really cool.
Plug the receiver into your iPod Nano. Select your playlist. Strap the nano. Wear the Nike shoes. Blast away.
[tags]philippine nike shoes, footwear, ipod, nano[/tags]
Last April 6, I got an email from Ben Pimentel of the San Francisco Chronicles requesting for a phone interview about the blogging scene in the Philippines. Most of what we discussed were about PinoyTopBlogs and a bit of “who’s who in the Philippine blogosphere”.
Just a while ago, Ben sent me an email copy of their press release of Pinoy Pod, a Podcast for Filipinos:
March 23: The San Francisco Chronicle announced today its launch of Pinoy Pod, a weekly program of interviews, news features and information about the Filipino experience in Northern California, the Philippines and beyond. This bold experiment, the first of its kind by a major American newspaper, can be downloaded at www.sfgate.com/blogs/podcasts.
“The Pinoy Pod allows us to use multi-media technology to connect very powerfully The Chronicle/SFGate to the vibrant Filipino community here in the Bay Area, throughout the country and overseas,” said Phil Bronstein, editor of The Chronicle.
In addition to English, some episodes will be in Tagalog and other Philippine languages. Topics will include arts, culture, entertainment, business and political and social issues. Pinoy Pod’s 10- to 20-minute podcasts will be posted Tuesdays.
The Pinoy Pod crew includes some of The San Francisco Chronicle’s most experienced journalists: Deputy Managing Editor Leslie Guevarra, editorial writer and columnist Pati Poblete, podcast producer Benny Evangelista, business reporter and Pinoy Pod producer Ben Pimentel, reporter Cicero Estrella and copy editor Michelle Louie.
A podcast is similar to a radio show, except it’s in the form of a computer file that you download from the Internet and can listen to at your convenience. You can play a podcast on your computer or on a portable digital music player.
To download a podcast, simply click on the appropriate link on the podcasts page and save the file to a place on your computer that’s easy to access, such as your desktop. For more information, send an e-mail to pinoypod@sfchronicle.com.
The San Francisco Chronicle is the Bay Area’s leading news and information source and has been connecting the region with its award-winning journalism since its founding in 1865. Combined with its online partner, SFGate.com, The San Francisco Chronicle reaches nearly 1.5 million Bay Area residents daily and more than 1.6 million on Sunday. The six-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Chronicle is the nation’s 10th largest daily newspaper and SFGate.com is the nation’s fourth largest newspaper Web site with 7.4 million unique monthly users and more than 75 million monthly page views.
Tune in to the initial podcast of Pinoy Pod here.
Check out the Tech Chronicles at www.sfgate.com/blogs/tech
For the past couple of days, I’ve been visiting my new dentist and had half a dozen of my teeth filled with dental amalgam. I wasn’t planning for it actually but since my younger brother had 9 of his being done, I also took the chair. Apparently, the dentist suggested that both of my molars at the far back are beyond repair so they had to be extracted. Thinking it was a necessary move, I agreed and now I’m suffering from terrible pain as I write this. *ouch* I actually fell asleep right after my 5PM appointment due to the quesiness brought about by the pain and taste of blood in my mouth.
I shouldn’t have settled with the fillings and left that molar alone. Too late now.
The other day, I woke up very early in the morning (4:30AM) and found there were alerts in all the servers indicating that we should update Apache to the latest stable version (1.3.36) to avoid security risks. I fired up two of the servers to update and recompile Apache without much funfare. I scheduled the rest of the servers for the following night to avoid the peak hours.
Problems trickled in during the day and before I knew it, bugs cropped up left and right. Again, my mistake for not reading the cPanel forums and waiting a couple more days to get feedback from other server providers regarding the new update. Too late. Good thing I didn’t update all of them at the same time or else we’d be swamped with support tickets.
Oh, well. All in a days work. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Technorati has announced its partnership with the Associated Press to connect bloggers to more than 440 AP member newspapers nationwide.
When readers visit an AP member Web site that uses AP Hosted Custom News, they will see a module featuring the “Top Five Most Blogged About” AP articles right next to the article text, dynamically powered by Technorati. Additionally, when readers click on an AP article, Technorati will deliver “Who’s Blogging About” that article. Now, if you have commentary about an AP story, you can get mentioned in that module simply by linking to that AP news URL, akin to what you can do with Washington Post articles, Newsweek articles, Der Spiegel articles, and a host of other media partners that currently work with Technorati.
The Washington Post has been doing this for quite some time now. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like at WP:
And according to The Ca t, who first noticed this months ago, it could drive a huge amount of traffic to your blog.
Will this move kick-start/open the gates for citizen media?
I got this package the other day from the Makati Post office. The parcel cost me Php35 but what was surprising was that it was from an iPod accessories company sending us some iPod skins and covers for review:
This was a first one for PTB, all the way from the US courtesy of iFrogz.
Will be sending the samples to our resident PTG Gadget editors for a full review. Too bad it didn’t came in with a iPod.
According to Akismet, 90% of all blog comments are spam.
The Live Spam Zeitgeist says:
Totals
Total spam: 39,640,978
Total ham: 4,167,699
Today (UTC, 17 hours left)
Spam today: 643,205
Ham today: 10,528
And here’s the reason why we’re getting a barrage of comment/trackback spam lately.
Google should buy Akismet. :p
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