I’m annoyed that I cannot check my email at GMail here at school via WiFi. Hurrah.

I. Let’s just nuke the whole country and start all over.
II. Benchmarked
III. Starting to Ride the Web 2.0 Wave

I. Let’s just nuke the whole country and start all over.

If you’ve been hiding under a rock, you probably haven’t heard that there’s been a “planned” coup here and that the country was declared in a state of “emergency” yesterday.

Nothing really serious happened. I was hoping that there’d be shooting. I love the sight of chaos, that’s all. Not all the time though (before you start thinking I’m some psychopath). Besides, I’m not a big fan of guns and blood. I’m just a sadist, haha. Other than that, I hope it’s all over and we can all move on.

My uncle had an interview at CNN Asia last night regarding the issue, I recorded it for him. You may download the clip at your will from here.

II. Benchmarked

The video capture session last night was some sort of performance benchmark on the new rig. Here’s what I think.

The hard disk took a beating. I was recording in uncompressed AVI at full NTSC resolution, 720×480. Chunks of the clip were being sent at 4MB each, nineteen times a second. The clip is about five minutes or less and the acutal recorded size was more or less, fourteen gigabytes. I tried to capture with video compression but the CPU couldn’t catch up.

Didn’t have audio compression until the second pass where it was encoded to a single channel MP3 at 23kb/s. Video was resized to 75% NTSC with precise bicubic resizing plus de-interlacing before that and temporal smoother after then compressed to XviD. Shrinking the fat clip to approximately twenty gigabytes.

I’d say it gave the best results from my last settings.

III. Starting to Ride the Web 2.0 Wave

I’d like to continue my ass-kissing to Google for giving me Google Desktop. I’m enjoying the Web Clips panel (RSS/ATOM/XML aggregator) so much. Makes things easier by saving me from clicks to visiting each blog that I read/check on. So I now want to share the “clips” that I subscribe to. Pretty interesting stuff to read, lots of information and quick bits from my friends and acquaintances.

• Sanya’s LJ (http://anniya.livejournal.com/data/rss)
• Sir Joel’s Blog (http://joelogs.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
• PHILLIT Blog by Ms. Dianne (http://phillit-dlsc0506.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
• Pinoy Tech Blog (http://feeds.feedburner.com/PinoyTechBlog)
• What is Plan C? (http://whatisplanc.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
• Sir Nash’s Blog (http://thenashman.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
• astGUIclient Development Blog (http://astguiclient.blogspot.com/atom.xml)
• Karlo’s Blog [nothing shows up though] (http://galesofthefall1024×768.blogspot.com/atom.xml)

I know there are other blogs and feeds that I subscribed to before but I can’t remember them. If you write a blog that has a feed, please let me know. If I find it interesting enough (which most likely happens), I’ll add it to my list. Feel free to add mine too.

I. Trespassing
II. Ano kaso mo chip? Murder by design po…

I. Trespassing

Today’s not a very bad day. Attended INFOSYS, did some studying on how to make a five by seven dot matrix display work while waiting for DIFFCAL. As it turned out, we didn’t have DIFFCAL today. On the way home, Shorty and I spotted a cement mixer truck on the way out of a dirt road near the school.

We decided to follow this road and checked where it would lead. It kept going and going, pretty smooth for a dirt road too. Until we saw some stuff.

There’s been some shaving at the hills and it looks like that they’re hiding it because they left the trees that would make it visible from our area. I’d like to know if what they’re doing is legal. The trucks can’t be seen from the picture but I’m putting it there for reference. These are big trucks, I’m telling you.

Here’s another one. Signs of damage. It’s too blurry in this picture.

Okay, so we were in restricted area and considered trespassing. The guards in the first outpost were sleeping so it was too late to stop us and we didn’t know that it was private property already. At the second outpost, we finally stopped for the waiting guard. We did a little interviewing and it turns out that the land is already owned by the Ayalas and we were already in Silang, Cavite.

On the way down, we were stopped again by the first outpost that we passed. Did a little more interviewing. The area is shared by the Locsins and Ayalas. The Ayalas had their piece around thirteen years ago.

Here’s the last shot from the crappy camera of my phone, DLS-C from a different view.

I guess I can’t go there again. I just wish that I had a clearer camera with me at that time.

II. Ano kaso mo chip? Murder by design po…

When I got home, I sat infront of the computer immediately and did my routines (check mail, read some stuff, etc) then browsed around. I decided to checkout PhilWeavers. I found out about the 2nd Murder by Design Conference. I’m thinking of going but the ticket is at PhP400. Something too big to shelf out at the moment. It comes with a shirt, pin, set of stickers and three bottles of beer though.

The PhilWeavers Network, The premiere online community of Filipino Web Designers, announces the 2nd Murder by Design Conference, to be held at the 70’s Bistro on February 25,2006.

This unique symposium will bring together top figures in Filipino graphic design, web development, new media and motion graphics. In the same room for the first time, the people shaping today’s Pinoy Design will spend an afternoon presenting their ideas, methods and inspirations before an estimated audience of 100 practicing Filipino designers.

Murder by Design will consist of several individual presentations, all moderated by Newspaper cultural columnist Rome Jorge and PW events coordinator Bel Ragay.

A large cross section of the Philippine creative community is expected to attend the conference which will be open to the public.

It’s 15.00 to 21.00 at 70’s Bistro, Anonas, Quezon City this coming Saturday (25th). If nothing comes up, I might attend, hoping to get at least a fancy shirt.

I. Something Not Technical …Almost
II. Google Strikes Again
III. Another Double-Edged Knife

I. Something Not Technical …Almost

Had Italian lunch yesterday with the RX deejays of that morning, Sans and Sara[h]. About two hours of catching up from two years or so of near-silence.

I didn’t know that Acoustic Alchemy released an album last summer until this morning. The album seems like a must-have. New good sound. The album is entitled “American English”. I’m definitely getting this one.

There’s going to be an autosport show at school. I just came up with a crazy idea, I’m joining. Prepare for a surprise!

Speaking of school, COMSYLA kicks ass. Probably one of the classes (labs) I can’t miss.

A partly functional 3-bit decoder. Going back to basics with zeroes and ones. Forgive the messy wiring.

I couldn’t resist writing without the geek stuff.

II. Google Strikes Again

I know this is not new to most techies out there but I always get to try out things later. I tried Google Desktop. It’s great. Lightweight and expandable without losing functionality. I love the Scratch Pad, Web Clips (for RSS, XML and ATOM fanatics, I just got on the wave when I first used it) and the Calendar from the site. It integrates with GMail and Google Talk (Chat).

It also indexed the computers I use. Cool! I know that that’s what it was actually supposed to do but I was after the integration with the GMail services and applications. I just hope that someone could write a Yahoo! Instant Messenger panel and that the Google Talk was directly integrated (Google Talk is required to have the panel).

III. Another Double-Edged Knife

I guess I’m keeping my BPI Express Cash Card. I found it to be a bit convenient. I used it to pay for lunch yesterday because I couldn’t withdraw. The ATM said, “Your branch is unreachable”. Or something like that.

Anyway, it’s better than having to withdraw then store the cash in your wallet in case you get mugged or lost your wallet. I can only use it in stores that have the Mastercard Electronic logo though.

I. Planning Ahead
II. What Now?
III. Sorry, I wasn’t listening
IV. Getting on the eBay Wave
V. Minor Changes

I. Planning Ahead

Dad asked me yesterday if I wanted to Hong Kong this year. My sisters are going to Thailand and my guess is mom’s going to China with dad if not with my sisters. My
brother will probably tag along with one of them. Or everyone else might go to Thailand.

I told my dad I’m still thinking about it. Here’s what’s confusing me:

• Why I should go…
  1. gadget and tech toy shopping
  2. time for myself to unwind
  3. lots of time for reading and HK television
  4. shop for hard-to-find jazz CDs
  5. visit Tito Ben
  6. dinner with my uncle’s friends
  7. HK Disneyland
• Why I shouldn’t go…
  1. I’d probably go by myself which would make it really suck
  2. I might go to Malaysia before that anyway
  3. I think Chris already left for UK
  4. I could be working

So I already mentioned to him that I’m planning on going to Boracay or somewhere just within the country. Dad said it’s better to go there than HK because I haven’t been there. I’m now assuming he’s paying for my ticket plus an allowance. He also mentioned USD100 packages to HK but the problem is that some, if not all, of my friends that I want to bring along don’t have passports.

I’m thinking of going to both places but I’d probably run out of money and take a lot of time. But the thing is, in HK, I get new ideas and probably do some business-related stuff for the projects I’m involved in. Boracay, on the other hand, gives me time with my friends and get together. It’s really been awhile since we all hung out. Everyone’s so busy.

I should end it here for now. There are kids in the rest of the world that are starving, time to save the world before somebody complains.

II. What now?

Dad and I went to Manila yesterday. The city didn’t change much (changed a little). Not cleaner but looked neater. Islands on the road are now repainted. Posts are now painted with horizontal stripes of black and white. Manila could be progressing but the sad thing is, the shantis and residents are still there.

When I said, “still there”, I meant really there. Right at the same spot for the past ten years or so (as far as memory serves). Something has got to be done. Seriously.

III. Sorry, I wasn’t listening

I have ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder. I used to think I just have a very short attention span, now this really adds to it. I found this out from Lockergnome, to which I subscribe to. Explains the hundreds of unfinished projects and short bursts for the desire to finish something.

Top 10 ADD Advantages in a High Tech Career.

1. The Ability to Hyperfocus.
   Hours of full engagement and concentration in a task, if you find it interesting. You can get into the zone and be totally immersed in what you’re doing while the outside world disappears. When I went on the Net for the first time in 1993 at an Internet cafe I got on the machine at 8 pm and around 4 am decided it was time to go home.
2. Rapid Fire Mind.
   Your brain processes information at hyperspeed. You can do things in 30 minutes on a computer that might take other people hours. Downside: If you’re stuck with an old machine and not enough RAM, you’ll be frustrated ’cause it can’t keep up with the speed of your brain.
3. Multitasking at Will.
   Able to run 14 apps at a time and effortlessly switch between each without breaking a sweat. Able to do several projects at a time with ease.
4. High Energy Level.
   You’re able to keep going on a project (if it’s interesting; ADDers are more into creative and entrepreneurial activities than clerical and repetitive ones). 14-hour days? No problem. Adrenaline is my fuel source:)
5. Highly Creative.
   Able to think beyond the idea of a box. This comes naturally for ADDers, while others pay thousands of dollars to try and learn this. Since you take in more information than the average person, and you’re easily distractible, you’re more likely to view a problem from many different angles than vanilla people (non ADDers), and therefore come up with more possible solutions to a problem. Need an idea generator? Find an ADDer.
6. Quick Learner.
   If it’s something you’re interested in. ADD is mainly a condition of boredom; you have no trouble paying attention to something if it’s interesting. Most people find it difficult to do boring or repetitive things but these can often totally shut an ADDer down. Your rapid fire brain + highly creative mind + the ability to hyperfocus equals fast absorption of new information quickly. Dr. Ed Hallowell, who has ADD and has written extensively on the subject (Delivered from Distraction : Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder), said he stopped teaching Psychiatry at Harvard University because the non-ADDers’ brains were just too slow and they took so long to get it. He got tired of being continually frustrated waiting for them to catch up to the ADD students.
7. Stimulus Seeking Brain.
   A perfect match for the wired world, an under-stimulated brain and an over-stimulated virtual environment. Being an info junkie can be a good thing. Well, not always!
8. Constantly Scanning your Environment.
   Allows you to notice more and find information and resources that others miss. Also allows you to see possible problems before they arise, and opportunities that others may not see because they have tunnel vision vs. multiplex vision. An ADDer invented the electronic ticket.
9. Great in a Crisis.
   High energy, intense situation? Lots of chaos and change? Sign me up; I thrive on stimulation, change, and chaos. We can create order from chaos effortlessly. We can also create such an environment if needed.
10. Risk Taker.
    Impulsivity means you’re more willing to take risks and have a bias for action; act now while the opportunity is hot instead of getting into analysis paralysis. Many entrepreneurs have ADD (i.e. Paul Orfalea, who founded Kinko’s, and JetBlue Founder and CEO David Neeleman, who attributes his creativity to ADD. Both are billionaires). Imagine how successful a high tech CEO would be if they didn’t take many risks.

Quoted from Chris Pirillo, who quoted Pete Quily.

IV. Getting on the eBay Wave

I never thought I could sell succesfully online. But I guess I could …somehow. I tried [re]selling 10 pieces of DSL filters from Singapore, which aren’t really sold anywhere locally (from what I know). I sold them at PhP200, just a little above the original price (~SgD5) because I thought it was cheaper.

I posted at TipidPC, PinoyPC and eBay Philippines. Majority of the filters (seven pieces) were sold through TipidPC, I’ve been a member there for a couple of years and tried some selling but didn’t end up with deals, membership is free by the way. eBay’s great except that they need more exposure. I got one order (two pieces) from there where the buyer is just my neighbor. Apparently, no one made bids to the “auction” but made “questions to the seller”. eBay sent me a couple of messages that my auction wasn’t succesful with accompanied tips on selling/auctioning. PinoyPC was my last priority, since it was actually a community/board on Tech and PCs but a Black Market section was added a few years back. The last order (two pieces) came from there. I was planning on using the extra filter here at home but turned out I didn’t need it so I sold it.

I guess the local online black market isn’t that bad. Except that sometimes I fear that the one I’m dealing with might cheat on me or mug me, specially on personal deliveries/meets/pickups. There are two orders though were I shipped the filters through FedEx. I didn’t know that it was that cheap. It was more convenient, faster and cheaper than going to places near the office/home to deliver the merchandise. Payment was made through a bank deposit, cool.

Here’s another thing, they have this rating system at eBay and TipidPC which could help you decide if you should have a deal with a member. I even bought/ordered a KVM switch but the thing is defective and it’s pretty hard to get it replaced. Bad deal I guess, I hope I could get my money back instead. There were cooler offers before but I closed the deal too early thinking nobody would make an offer.

Nothing more but adventures. I’m thinking of selling more filters if I do go to Malaysia this summer. In case you’re wondering, TipidPC was already up way before eBay became popular.

V. Minor Changes

Changed my blog’s URL and made a blank one with the old url to redirect to the new one. Just in case you linked to one of my posts, linked to my blog or bookmarked it (fat chance), it’s changed to jploh.blogspot.com. Now it’s not so hard to memorize or type, right?

I. Expired Rights
II. Microsoft Monorail
III. Your Arm’s on Fire
IV. A New Look on Things …Literally

I. Expired Rights

Wow! This year’s Band Festival kicked ass! It rocked! Of all the events held in school, this is the most successful. Food booths were selling, good music and lots of people. Hats off to Raymond H. for that!

For me and my bandmates, it was good competition. I knew we wouldn’t win. Hah! Besides, the fraction of a point of getting to the finals didn’t really matter. Just like Vin Diesel played in Fast and the Furious, “It doesn’t matter if you win by a mile or an inch”. We ranked fourth. It told my bandmates not to be too proud. Sort of.

Anyhoo, congratulations to the winners! Band Fest sure was a great way to get good music for free. El Gitarista, the champion, was great. I was bowing at the stage (to knee level). It only sucks that they didn’t do anything original. They did exact copies of tricks, gestures and facial expressions by Satch, Vai, Eric Johnson, Hamm and the other famous exhibitionists. But still, it’s really hard to spot a band with showmanship and musicanship altogether. They were like rock gods!

I’m glad it’s over. Now I have more time again for the stuff I’ve been working on. On a side note, it was great to see my high school friends again, Bheng, Fred, Gian and the all-time favorite Ramel was there. Things certainly have changed. I forgot to ask for the picture from Bheng’s camphone.

Here’s something from last Wednesday’s practice. Listen to the whole track to hear the funny part.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.jploh.com/journal/attachments/2006/02/05/41sample.swf" width="200" height="120" /]

II. Microsoft Monorail

Here’s another overdue topic I wanted to write about. The Philippine .NET Users’ Group (PHINUG), organized a .NET Fest last month. One of the topics mentioned was Microsoft Monorail if memory serves me right. I was curious to what it was and did a little research on it and led me to Microsoft’s Monorail System at their headquarters (the topic wasn’t about it by the way). Pretty cool. Fun things to do when you have lots of cash on hand.

Here’s the article I found. Fancy, eh? I want to see this in action someday and probably ride on it too.

III. Your Arm’s on Fire

After last night’s event, we went to 7-11 for a midnight snack instead of playing DotA. When we were about to leave, just chatting for a while outside, a car arrived with three guys. The driver was intentionally lifting his shirt to his gun. We were all looking until they all went in. I was surprised until the bastard said a bit loudly, “surrender all firearms”.

Oh, the sick sad reality. He thinks he’s a god now just because he has gun. Maybe somebody should give him the taste of a fire arm.

IV. A New Look on Things …Literally

Check out these video clips by HITLabNZ (Human Interface Technology, New Zealand).

I was watching Discovery Channel the other day and saw this cool segment about augmented reality. Close to virtual reality, this one kicks ass. If I do get kids in the future, I’d get them toys like these.

Just to make things clearer courtesy of Wikipedia:

Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real world and computer generated data. At present, most AR research is concerned with the use of live video imagery which is digitally processed and “augmented” by the addition of computer generated graphics.

Science fiction movies are starting to become reality.

I. Creativity Drain
II. F/OSS and the Government
III. Wow! Ow! Wee!

I. Creativity Drain

This year’s Band Festival is in a few days and my band (me) is only half-way in preparation. I have to admit, I haven’t been that motivated with this music thing. I feel like what we’re doing is going nowhere. It’s been a year and we’re still doing covers and no demos. Specially that this covering thing doesn’t show our creativity and originality. Plus, we have one cheesy song.

Ugh. Anyway, here’s a spoiler from yesterday’s practice. Please do come on the 11th, 18.00 onwards.

II. F/OSS and the Government

There’s been a very long thread in PLUG’s mailing list about Ubuntu’s founder visiting Manila. The heat on this topic is if the government [officials] will move to FOSS if the cost is near-zero. This is an issue in the Philippine LGUs and practically any office because the officials will have a hard time to “pad” the cost for their “personal” consumption.

There have been optimistic comments and pessimistic ones. Heck, it even reached one-liner semi-dissing. But here’s one that would be really nice to quote.

I am pointing out an exception…

I work for a local government unit. My boss (a mayor) believes in open source and that’s why we are migrating our desktops to Ubuntu Linux and giving away computers to schools with Ubuntu Linux installed on it.

I must admit that my boss is not one who can be called an “honest politician” if ever there is one. But heck, he believes in open source. It all started when I was able to save his precious data on his laptop when the Windows registration key got messed up and sort of “locked” his laptop.

I was able to save it using Ubuntu Live and from then he asked me install Linux and asked so many questions about Linux and Open Source.

To my surprise, he asked me to migrate our desktops to Ubuntu Linux and all new PCs must be a Linux box. He also started to advocate the same even in the recent LeGov - EU Conference where he was one of the presentors.

And when other LGUs visit us, he will almost always discuss about open source and would relate that with open source… it would be a better world cause it teaches us to share. As a result, other LGUs are asking us how to migrate to desktops to open source.

I know this is not much, but still is an exception to the general perception that all government offices and units will never embrace open source. Generalization really sucks.

And yes, he is already asking how to get that $100 laptop.

Our government officials really need this IT literacy training. I remember FSAP being a part of training executives in the private sector on IT. How about an IT seminar for our government officials so they could catch up?

I’ve been watching this OS war and both sides are just as good. Windows has been the best option for desktop computers and those who aren’t that computer literate. GNU/Linux, on the other hand is the best solution for anything that’s server related. That’s why there’s the saying, “Linux is not Windows”.

Linux isn’t meant for desktop use but you could use it on a desktop but Windows is somehow more efficient at it. Windows isn’t meant to be a server OS. Servers don’t need fancy UIs, something prone to viruses or worms and doesn’t need frequent restarting.

III. Wow! Ow! Wee!

This is old news by the way. It was lunch time and Ramel came over and told me about this stampede. A friend from the States mentioned it too but I wasn’t aware of it. Man, the Lopez has so much money. I think if we put the money of the Lopez, Yuchengcos, Ayalas, Lucio Tan and Henry Sy all together, it would equal to the country’s value. But then again, who could buy a country?

Anyway, people flocked to go to this event for the show ‘Wowowee’. I just found out that this show replaced the network’s less annoying noon-time variety show. I don’t find people singing out of tune entertainment so this really isn’t my kind of show.

Now, the objective of this show was to help the less priveleged. I don’t think this is right. In fact, they’re making it worse by condoning the people’s attempt in getting the easy way out of poverty. I’ll just give you an old saying so you’d get my point, “Give a man a fish and he will learn to eat. Teach a man to fish and he will learn to eat the rest of his life”. Or it goes that way.

This shows are a waste of time and I could blame them for people getting dumber everyday. It’s totally pointless. Way to go Wowowee.