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Philippines, Technology News & Reviews


Archive for June, 2007

First iPhone Sightings in the Manila!

Published by: yuga under: Apples and iPods. 31 replies

posted: June 30th, 2007

I earlier wrote about the scarcity of IT news in the Philippines. Now, here’s a really good example: First iPhone in the Philippines?.

Apple iPhone

This iPhone was spotted in the hands of Jayvee Fernandez. He was supposed to be writing a review for it (I guess).

But, and here’s the clincher, the review was pulled down and the link is gone as well as the picture. Super secret? NDA? I got a screenshot of the RSS feed though.

So, see, that’s supposed to be tech news already! Too many questions abound — where did he got it, how much, who gave it to him, how did it reached his hand, why just now, does it work with local telcos, where’s the SIM, can you activate it in iTunes?

I’m sure he got the iPhone way earlier than the June 29 public release. He blogged about it here. I guess he had to wait after the June 29 6PM release because of NDA.

[tags]iPhone Philippines, Apple iPhone[/tags]

Update: Turns out my theory was wrong. Jayvee denies having an iPhone. The picture above was an iPhone by another Filipino in the US. You can just read the whole story about Pinoys in the US buying the iPhone.

10 Most Hyped Tech Product Launches

Published by: yuga under: Tech Toys & Gadgets. 2 replies

posted: June 30th, 2007

At the dawn of the iPhone sale date, cNet published their own “Tech’s 10 most-hyped product launches“. Will the Apple iPhone break history records as the most hyped product ever? Let’s see how other products compared to this one.

The list includes eight hardwares and two software products:

1.) Segway
2.) The original Macintosh (1984)
3.) Microsoft’s XBox 360
4.) Sony PlayStastion 3
5.) Nintendo Wii
6.) Microsoft Windows 95
7.) Motorola Razr
8.) Gizmondo
9.) Sony PlayStation 2
10.) World of Warcraft (Blizzard)

top10tech.jpg

While Sony got 2 of their PlayStations (with the PS2 being considered as the bes- selling video game device in history) on the list and Micrsoft took another 2, Apple only got the Macintosh. I guess the iPod and the Macbooks didn’t make as much splash when they were launched. Funny, I don’t remember Gizmondo.

With regards to the iPhone, we’ll see in the coming days.

Why the scarcity of local IT news?

Published by: yuga under: Curious. 11 replies

posted: June 30th, 2007

Mon Lizardo of Inquirer.net tells Aileen Apolo that there aren’t really much IT news in the Philippines. She was basically “ranting about the lack of Philippine internet news. I read a lot of local tech blogs and news, but there are just aren’t any stuff about local IT stuff. How come?”
Continue reading ‘Why the scarcity of local IT news?’

Fund money for Google Gadget Ventures

Published by: yuga under: Gooooogle. 6 replies

posted: June 29th, 2007

This one doesn’t really make sense to me — Google is offering Google Gadget developers money and more funding for full-fledged business ideas.

The program will provide two kinds of funding. First, we’ll invite promising gadget developers (individuals or businesses) to apply for $5,000 grants to fund further development. These are not loans or equity investments; they’re simply grants for gadgets that already have a thriving user base and we think have potential for even more improvement. To be considered for a grant, your gadget needs to have more than 250,000 pageviews per week, and you need to provide a one-page proposal on how you’d like to improve your gadget. This is a no-strings-attached grant; we won’t ask for repayment of any kind. We simply ask that you work on your project in good faith.

Secondly, the program will make $100,000 seed investments in companies that either start as a Google Gadget or have a large Google Gadget component. In order to be eligible for a seed investment, you must have received a $5,000 grant, and you must propose a plan for making your gadget financially sustainable.

More about the Google Gadget Ventures here. What’s with Google Gadgets that they’d be investing loads of money in it? I guess if you’re a $500-a-share company and got bucketfuls of money, you can spend that much.

Google AdSense Referrals expand globally

Published by: yuga under: AdSense. 10 replies

posted: June 29th, 2007

If you haven’t checked your Adsense account recently, you might have missed out on the newly expanded AdSense Referral tab. Now, you can pick from hundreds of products and services to offer on your blog and get referral commissions once an event is fulfilled.

Here’s how the referral wizard looks like in your Adsense account:

AdSense Referral

To get to this page, log in to your Adsense account -> AdSense Setup -> (Products) Referrals and pick the category you’d like to browse.

Remember that AdSense referrals only pays you when an action is fulfilled. This could be in the form of a sale, filled-up form, membership registration, etc. Checking from the current list of referrals available globally, some referrals seem to only require a click to their page which is a bit strange.

Also be prepared for foreign languages in the descriptions as well as non-US dollar denominations for referral commissions.

Japan leads in Internet speeds

Published by: yuga under: Telecoms. 26 replies

posted: June 28th, 2007

In a recent report released by Speed Matters, Japan topped the list of countries with the highest median internet download speeds at 61 megabits per second. The United States fell far behind with only 1.9 megabits per second:

Between September 2006 to May 2007, nearly 80,000 people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia (nearly all of them with broadband connections) have gone to the Speedmatters.org site to take an Internet speed test and measure how fast their computers can upload and download data. This is the first national survey of actual Internet speeds, and the results showed just how the US continues to lag behind other countries.

The chart below shows Japan’s internet speed is about 30 times faster than the US, with a few other countries in between:

Japan Internet Speed
South Korea: 45Mbps, Finland: 21Mbps, Sweden 18Mbps, Canada 7.6Mbps

You can download the full report in PDF format here. The report does not show results from the Philippines but basing form our recent discussion on the state of DSL in the country, I guess it’s way down there in the charts.

I checked with DSLReports and there’s some data there of 28 independent test for PLDT shows an average 706 Kbps download and 235 Kbps upload speeds.

Poll: Monthly Adsense Earnings

Published by: yuga under: Polls. 22 replies

posted: June 27th, 2007

I’ve installed the WP Polls plugin in the blog and now running a survey. Here’s the question: “How much do you earn from Adsense per month?”

If you are a Filipino, a blogger and monetizes your blog using Adsense, please join and submit your answer. The poll can be found on the right side navigation of the homepage.

So far, about 8 people have actually sent in their answers.

This is a completely anonymous poll. I’d be doing similar polls on a weekly basis, primarily about blogging, monetization and demographics. Some of the data gathered here will be used for a case study and the rest is shared with the public if they are interested.

Rounded Adsense ads for everyone

Published by: yuga under: AdSense. 5 replies

posted: June 27th, 2007

The official Inside Adsense blog just published a new post announcing the option to make rounded corners for Adsense ad formats. Though this is just a minor development for Adsense Publishers, I’m sure some of the bloggers out there who are using smooth and rounded themes will be glad to have this option.

Rounded Ads

Aside from the regular square Adsense ad layout, you can now select between square, slightly rounded, or very rounded corners. This aesthetic update sure does make the ads look more appealing (thereby increasing click-through rates) than ever.

To get started with these new ad shapes, visit the ‘AdSense Setup’ tab in your account. As with all format options like sizes and colors, different corner styles will perform better for different publishers. We recommend that you choose the corner style that best matches the look and feel of your sites. Please keep in mind that if your page background color, ad background color, and ad border color are all the same, these new corners won’t be visible.

Does this also mean that if an image ad or a video ads comes thru, they will also be displayed with the rounded corners? Don’t think so.

Anyway, I wish they’d also open up the option of changing the text fonts soon too. Or, is that privilege only for Premium Publishers?

Need body armor? Try Maxtor.

Published by: yuga under: Personal Computing. 11 replies

posted: June 26th, 2007

Storage solution companies make the one of the toughest metal armors around. Just look at this Maxtor HDD which was shot by a .45 caliber Automatic Colt Pistol and .38 Special Full Metal Jacket.

Maxtor HDD

All 5 shots hit the hard drive but not a single bullet got past through.

Maxtor HDD

Now, that’s tough. So there’s still some good use in all those crashed HDD hanging around somewhere. :D

{Picture via Pete}

What’s your ideal Desktop Rig setup?

Published by: yuga under: Personal Computing. 30 replies

posted: June 25th, 2007

During our recent dinner over at Noem’s new home, she consulted me about getting a new desktop PC for her study/library. She already has a gorgeous white Macbook but she thought it would be better to get a desktop for those long-haul usage in the house. That should help ease the stress on the laptop battery too (since you won’t be using it that much when at home).

I saw her budget worth just over 50k and I thought I’d give her another option to look at. Here’s my recommended set up for the stay-at-home problogger and entrepreneur mom:

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Dual Core (2.0 GHz) – Php4,250
MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 – Php 4,110
(Socket AM2, 4 SATA slots, 4 DIMMs, 1 PCI-E 16X; 2 PCI-E X1; 3 PCI; 10 USB, Gigabit LAN; RAID (0, 1 & 0+1); SATA2; ATA133, Realtek 7.1 CH HD audio)
2 x 1GB Corsair 667MHz DDR2 RAM – Php 3,840
320 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 SATA – Php4,520
Lite-On 20x DVDRW w/ Lightscribe – Php 1,920
PowerColor X1550 256MB GDDR2 128-bit Dual DVI/TV – Php 3,430
2 x 19″ Samsung 940BW (1440 x 900) – Php 19,990 (Php 9,995 x 2)
Mars 722 Thermal Advantage 500 watts casing (with A4tech mouse & KB) – Php 1,720
Powercom Ace UPS 650 volt-amps – Php 1,770

Total — Php 45,550

The final set up should look like this:

Samsung Dual DVI Monitor

The original quote to her by PCExpress was an Intel Pentium 925 3.0GHz and a 22″ AOC LCD screen. We skipped the Core 2 Duos entirely and I think the AMD Athlon x2 3800 still has the best bang for the buck. The dual monitor set up needed the x1550 for dual DVI support. Prices were taken from several sources including PCX and RSun Computers. I just love the mobo too — 10 USB 2.0 ports, 4 SATA2 slots and 4 DIMM slots of up to 4GB of RAM — lots of room for upgrades and add-ons.

Oops, I forgot the OS. You can get Windows XP Pro Home Edition for Php 4,580 or Windows Vista Home Basic at Php 5,250. Again, there’s always Ubuntu for free.

The growing phenomenon that is the Internet

Published by: yuga under: The Internet. 2 replies

posted: June 25th, 2007

Bill Cameron of CBC Primetime News in Toronto, Canada featured the growing phenomenon of the Internet. They reported that there are an estimated 15 million people connected to the internet, an astounding number they added which grows by about 10% each year.

You can watch a copy of the clip below from Youtube:

They should have also interviewed US Senator Ted Stevens what he thinks about the internet.

Of course, I forgot to add that this clip was aired some 14 years ago (around 1993). Oh, the nostalgia.

Is your blog .mobi ready?

Published by: yuga under: Mobile. 13 replies

posted: June 24th, 2007

I had a long discussion with someone from one of the big telcos on the possibility of adding blogs to their mobile portal. They wanted to check out more local blogs to add to their listing. The only initial requirement is that the blog should be mobile ready (either WAP capable or .mobi ready). At first, I thought it was just for the blogs I own or help run but I broached the idea that we should widen the coverage and include others I know well that have a good following, consistently updated with a specific niche.

So the search is on for active blogs with a great focus on industry niches. I’m not sure how many I can recommend for inclusion but it’s good to make as many recommendations as I possibly can. The bigger question now — is your blog mobile ready? Here’s how you can check your blog’s mobile readiness – ready.mobi.

Yugatech

If you want to check out how your blog would look like in mobile phones, you can use these emulators: Mobi Emulator and Smartphone Emulator Developer.

For WordPress blogs, you can use the Mobile WordPress plugin. For Typepad or Movabletype users, the only app I found was the TypePad Mobile. For Blogger, I couldn’t find one.

P.S.
One other very strict compliance should be some sort of editorial control (blog contents beyond PG13 or with sensitive language).

How’s your DSL in the Philippines?

Published by: yuga under: Telecoms. 86 replies

posted: June 23rd, 2007

Joey Alarilla asks “Do we actually have broadband in RP?”. Yeah, we do, it’s called Digital Substandard Lines. *heh*

Been hooked up on DSL for about 4 years now. Before that, I languished in crappy dial up connection. I started with Greendot at 256Kbps for Php2,750 for about a year before I moved to PLDT DSL paying Php1,995 at 384Kbps speeds. They then upgraded the accounts across the board and my Plan 1995 got 512Kbps, went up to 786Kbps and now at 1.2Mbps.

If you think about it, the 384Kbps cap is now 1.2Mbps after 4 years at the same monthly rate. I should be happy right? Well, in a way yeah. Them DSL providers would make you think/feel the same. The premium residential packages now are at 2.2Mbps and 5Mbps (Alabang area only).

However, those free upgrades to higher speeds aren’t any good at all when you’ve actually checked the actual speeds. Ever since I’m on the 1.2Mbps line, I’ve always checked my bandwidth on different days of the week and various times of the day. Here’s how it fared via Broadband Reports:

It’s like it’s just half of what I was told my supposed connection is. The only time I’d get that promised 1.2Mbps is when I ran the bandwidth test via PLDTPlay. So, the line from my place to the PLDT servers tops at 1.2Mbps but my actual DSL speed from PLDT to the outside world is just half of that. Great. So those upgrades we’re all getting all these years were a farse?

When do we get Singapore’s 100Mbps speeds to their homes? In the year 2020?

I owe Google $18

Published by: yuga under: Adwords. 1 reply

posted: June 23rd, 2007

I haven’t been checking my AdWords account for the past month so I didn’t realize that I have pending payments there. Been running AdWords for some small client and the monthly expenditure isn’t too much so I charge on an annual basis.

Anyway, the credit card I’m using for the AdWords account expired a couple months back and despite the fact that Google can’t recover the charges on me, the AdWords campaign continued to run. Before I’m able to go about it and fix it, I receive my final warning from them — that I’ll be hearing from their collection agency.

Now, that got me scrambling back to the PC and putting in my new credit card information. What if the collection agency was Adsense? :D

So, I paid Google their USD$18. I sure don’t want my other Google account get suspended for this.

It brings us to the topic why a recent study showed Google the “worst” in privacy [ see BBC article here ]. I don’t think it’s all about Google being careless and leaking user information to the public (like that AOL fiasco) or giving away logs to the US State Department (like what Microsoft and Yahoo did). I think it’s more about the fact that Google that the widest coverage in terms of user information. They got our email conversations in Gmail, our search logs, our AdSense account, our AdWords account, Analytics, RSS subscriptions (Feedburner!) and a whole lot more.

If there’s any company that can paint a good profile of any internet user, it’s Google. That’s why people think they’re growing too much to be a little scary at times.

LG KU580 : So this is the real Google Phone?

Published by: yuga under: Mobile. 2 replies

posted: June 22nd, 2007

Google Phone LG-KU580It sure does make a good impression that LG released the cheapest 3G phone (LG KU-250) in the market. It’s another thing to discover that the rumored Google Phone is actually real and LG is manufacturing it — LG KU580.

From the looks of it, there ain’t much. Yeah, it’s a 3G phone with a 2 inch display (240 x 320 pixel resolution), 2MP camera, a microSD card slot, bluetooth and FM radio but that’s about it.

Well, Google will obviously load it will all of their products like the GMail and Google Maps but you can get those with some many other EDGE/3G phone models too.

The retails price will be somewhere between $300 to $400, a far cry from the cheap 3G model LG KU250.

Not really sure what’s so special with this model that Google chose it to take on its brand. I don’t think this one will fly.

Oh, maybe Google will give it away from free (just like all of its other products) in exchange for advertising? I can see it now — a 10 second radio ad every time you pickup the phone and answer a call! *haha*

WordPress 2.2.1 and other Useful Plugins

Published by: yuga under: Wordpress. 3 replies

posted: June 22nd, 2007

A bug fix release of the WordPress 2.2 series has been published yesterday. There are several security issues (remote shell and SQL injections) as well so this new version is a must for blog upgrades. You can download the latest version here.

Likewise, I found some newer Wordpress plugins you might be interested in:

  • All in One SEO Pack – remember my previous entry about Google supplemental index and duplicate content? Well, this plugin will essential help you solve that by allowing you to customize some parts of your blog settings that you can’t normally do without hacking into the themes. I will have to wait and see if implementing this will help fix or reduce pages in the supplemental results.
  • Better Comments Manager – this is for very active blogs with dozens of comments everyday. This is basically a simple tweak of the existing comments manager inside your WP admin panel. It added a reply link directly form the list of recent comments and also a filter to view all comments based on posts. Very useful when managing new comments particularly on archived posts.
  • Permalink Validator – as the name suggests, this plugin validates your entry URL with the permalink and either does a 301 redirect or a 404. This usually happens when you sometimes change your permalink structure or edit your post slug.
  • Target Blank In Posts And Comments – automatically adds the code target= “_blank” in all the links in the post and comments. You get to keep your visitors longer. Be careful though as it might annoy some of the regulars.

The WordPress Guestbook Generator now has paged entries too.


Andrew rants about the Alexa train and the Technorati train. Yes, they do work, Drew (if the objective was just to get the link and the rank at any cost). Some people call it gaming the system. While Alexa can’t do anything about it, Technorati does a hand job on their Popular 100 list.

Microsoft Research does Minority Report Technology

Published by: yuga under: Personal Computing. 1 reply

posted: June 21st, 2007

When I watched Steve Jobs’ presentation of the iPhone back in January, he says that Apple has patented the multi-touch technology for the iPhone. The crowd laughed aloud knowing that joke was aimed at Microsoft. Now, I’m wondering why the Microsoft Research department also has the multi-touch technology implemented on a regular Dell laptop:
Continue reading ‘Microsoft Research does Minority Report Technology’

Manila Bulletin features Domain Squatter

Published by: yuga under: Curious. 52 replies

posted: June 21st, 2007

I don’t regularly read the newspapers (print) but once in a while, I’d skim through some copies in the hopes of getting some scoop. Who would imagine I’d stumble upon yet another editorial lapse with Manila Bulletin.

If you have a copy of the June 16, 2007 (Monday) edition of Manila Bulletin, go over the Technews section on page D5. At the top right corner of the page, you will see a website feature for Parents Preview (www.parentspreview.com). What actually got my attention was the uncanny familiarity of the website screen shot. It does look like a domain parking landing page. Being in the domains and web hosting business for years, I can spot these type of sites from a mile away.

Continue reading ‘Manila Bulletin features Domain Squatter’

Fixing pages in Google’s Supplemental results

Published by: yuga under: SEO. 3 replies

posted: June 20th, 2007

Wait, what does it really mean if your pages are in Google’s Supplemental results? Matt Cutts of Google previously answered this in his video here but some of you might be still confused (or oblivious) about it. And though he says there’s nothing to really worry about, it pays to be diligent and informed.

Continue reading ‘Fixing pages in Google’s Supplemental results’

How to get past school or office filters?

Published by: yuga under: The Internet. 27 replies

posted: June 20th, 2007

A number of readers have been telling me that they can’t access my blog from their office network. Sometimes, it’s not just my blog but a host of other sites as well like PEx, TipidPC, Youtube, Flickr, etc. Others tell me that their network scans all the domains each workstation visits and flags an alert if you visit certain domains too frequently (anybody familiar with WebSense?).

I’ve addressed some of these issues before by suggesting FeedBlitz and the Google Proxy hack.

Here are some more suggestions I can think of:

  • Subscribe to RSS-to-Email feeds. Feedburner has one. That’s also another reason why bloggers should go for full feeds instead of partial feeds. RSS-to-Email feeds are useless to your email subscribers if you only have partial feeds.
  • Use Startpages! Netvibes, PageFlakes, Protopage, etc.
  • Or go with online feed readers — Bloglines, Google Feedreader, My!Yahoo, MSN Live, etc.
  • Try some anonymous web surfing sites like The Cloak and Unblokr. These are the best tools you will need to surf all those filter or blocked sites from your network.

If you got some other ideas out there, do share them with the rest of us. ;)

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