Is it just me or Blogger has been slow lately (slower than usual)?

Anyway, I want to blog about my sentiments for the first day of our practicum. I saw it coming. I’m in a point where I’m about to pop out and go mad from my observations. I feel like the preparation for the practicum was uh, messed up.

First off, the Student Portal project wasn’t in the plan in the first pass until I mentioned it. Miscommunication or lack in communication perhaps?

Second, I was told that a computer and a desk with eight hours a day with dress code was required for working in a company outside of the school. We got that covered when it was questioned, I even relayed it and was given an answer without hesitation. But when we got there, it felt like there were no resources allocated. It was blurry to the advisors if equipment will be provided. I still felt at school (you know, that “slacker” feeling) because of the lab environment. I wanted a desk and a comfy chair (reminds me of my HK work days). I feel like we were given false hopes or a broken promise when the land of milk and honey was just a few corners back.

Third, the school’s so-called E1 connection sucks, period. The speeds are slower than dial-up and if not slow, it’s down. It’s your lucky day if you went over 1.5KB/s. I’m not covering the uber-powerful proxy. If I continued with my plan, I’d be on a DS3 line. Yes, I’m obsessed with the Internet. Just a few more years and I could say that I spent half my life connected to it.

Last, where was she when all this happened? I still have one email unanswered (or indirectly answered at least, I want it straight from the horse’s mouth). Until now, I still have questions on how this thing will work.

Sir Joel convinced me to take part of this. We’ll be pioneering this. I know the benefits will come in later but from what we’re getting now, I feel like it’s too bad to be acceptable (I guess could manage but there’s the “sama ng loob“).

I wasn’t even too interested to go to the school this morning, and I’m barely late for work. I was early most of the time. Besides us, the next party that will benefit from the project is the school. So I think we need just a little more in return for benefits.

Just small things that I’m pretty sure that the school can provide, we’ll be paying twelve units for it anyway. Small things like meal tickets for our wonderful canteen or unlimited coffee and biscuits (an office should have this to qualify to be called one in my opinion). I won’t be ranting about all this if things felt like the situation is under control or not “bara-bara” style. I was able to relate this to Ms. J to relate it to her majesty, just so I wouldn’t be complaining all the time, I should think of solutions too.

Oh yeas, I am almost ticked off (>500 words).

I’m offering 10 free subdomains and pseudo-unlimited storage and bandwidth on my webserver and domain. This will be available only to my friends or those recommendable by my friends. The server is great for developers who want to test their projects.

I want to put my development server into some load instead of just calculating for Folding@home which happens to just eat more power and raising the electrical bill.

You can pick any subdomain as long as it’s available or if you have already have one, it’ll be pointed to the server. The server has about 8GB of free space, I could still add more and delete all the junk that’s in there. The bandwidth is a bit tight, it’s connected via PLDT’s MyDSL with 512kb/s downstream and 384kb/s upstream (ADSL).

The server runs Apache 2 with PHP and if succesful, Ruby. A MySQL database server is also running in the system.

I was going to put some disclaimer stuff but that should be enough. For interested parties, feel free to email me, via .

My brain is on idea steroids. Wow. I have so much ideas running around from left to right, jumping from one possible project to another. I’m too tired to write one whole post though.

Just got home. Passed by the office but no one was there so I went home. This is why I didn’t want to have my practicum in school, because I was afraid of getting stuck in a traditional environment. It’s a relief to hear from Sir Joel that he got my point. I’m seriously considering in taking my practicum in school if it was looked into.

I’m a person of change, I’m never contented. That is why I wouldn’t like a traditional office environment where everyone is expected to work like drones for eight hours straight. Geez, that is sooo industrial age.

I liked the fact that I could work at home. I’m a developer, I think and analyze 24/7. I can come up with a solution at four in the morning, get up from bed and grab my laptop and start working.

We’re now living in the information age, eLearning, Cybersex, Web 2.0, and stuff like that. Everyone and everything’s connected.

Start-up/small companies are not prone to failure (that is, immediately or like it used to be), specifically in the IT industry. With the advent of RAD tools, fewer people are needed to produce large-scale applications and with open-source, you have an uber-large pool of developers located around the world.

Boy, I sure would love to make change, the benefit of my inability to stay put and impatience.

Oops, got drawn to this post it was supposed to be a short one. I’ll post my ideas when I get the time later on.

I have a lot of stuff to blog about this week but I’m just too busy except for this one, I just have to blog this. If you look a couple of months back, I praised the cops for catching me for overtaking on the shoulder lane at the South Luzon Expressway. But now, there’s this slob in the force that pissed me off.

Apparently, the radiator’s lid of the car got lost or something and on the way home, the car was stalling and overheated. So I had to stop and let it cool down and put water in it. A good samaritan that closely resembled Sir Ver Ramos (with the matching car make/model) stopped by to ask if I needed any help. I asked if he had some spare water, luckily he had some and went ahead to get it.

Then the patrol car arrives. Then a cop with an old wrinkly-face stepped out of the patrol car that, the usual cop that you’d see with the big belly. I turned around and it seemed that the good samaritan suddenly disappeared when the patrol car arrived (could he have been a hold-upper/mugger?). I started pouring water to the radiator when the cop reached the front of the car.

The bastard didn’t even ask if everything was okay. He just stood there with a grumpy look, probably envying my juvenile face. I looked at him then he asked in a bossy tone, “Di tayo pwede magtagal dito (We can’t stay here for long)”. It was then that I noticed that the lid was missing so I asked him if he had a flashlight. “Meron, kunin ko (I do, I’ll go get it)”, he replied.

I continued pouring water then he came back with a nifty lighter with an uber-powerful blue LED that sort of did the job. I tried looking for the lid, and checked if it was just there. By that time, Dad was calling and I had to hangup and run from the car seat (trucks were zooming by) to the hood and back so I kept the high tech lighter in my pocket.

I ran out of water and most of it was spent on just cooling the radiator. I asked the near-useless piece of shit if he had water. He grumbled, “Tingnan mo dyan sa patrol (check the patrol)”. So I checked the back of the pickup truck and saw a container (I wasn’t even sure if it was water or gasoline). I brought it down and I was dead tired I had to try a million times to drag and lift it out while he just stood there and pretended to look young with his beer-belly.

I finished refilling the radiator and returned the half-full water container. I started the car and everything was okay. At this point I was still smiling eventhough, in my mind, I was already telling myself how useless this guy is. I said thanks and was about to walk to the car (about to start skipping with glee) when he said, “Oh, lighter ko. Kukupit ka pa eh (Hey, my lighter. You swindler.)”. I said sorry and said thanks again then left.

From that point on, I was thinking, if I hadn’t been travelling on this highway and paid a hundred and thirty four fucking Pesos, you wouldn’t have your salary. For the number of years that I used the highway, I could give a rough estimate that the money I spent on the toll would equate to two months of his pay (my guess). I didn’t want to write that, sounding like an elitist. But even if I wasn’t a taxpayer, he swore to an oath for service to the people.

I wish I’d see this guy again so I could tell him how much of an asshole he is. I’ve seen a bent cop and he’s no different from one.

From my anger, I composed a short rhyme while driving. Let me share it with you.

Tarantado ka mamang pulis!
Ayaw ko na yata magbayad ng buwis!

Okay so we went to Aei’s birthday party last night. I really didn’t feel like going but Ramel insisted on it and I owe them (gets me off the hook of treating them too).

She was there. When we went upstairs to join them, she left. I heard that she was crying and there were people consoling her. All of a sudden I felt like I was a party crasher.

What is it with girls breaking up, going back to being friends and not really being friends? Ugh. She was the one who ended it, I have no grudges or anything and I moved on. I can now assume that most of them know about it now and it’ll only take a couple of hours before the rumors spread.

I tried my best to have fun though. Got really wasted and had to puke on the way to Alabang to repaint the house this afternoon. I don’t know how I feel right now. Bah.

I. Ceasefire
II. Ruined
III. iBlog2

I. Ceasefire

School’s finally over, now I have time to write again. I still have some stuff to do but they’re manageable. My birthday was great. I think the cake given by my classmates was thoughtful, surprised me too. I’m not a big fan of birthday celebrations. I just like the gifts. Haha.

We’ve been working on projects since last week and I think all that hard work paid off. Bad things did happen but I hope that puts a lesson in all of us.

We had a couple of Jihad (pronounced as JAD) sessions at the house. We had so much foor and Coke, one bottle per head. We managed to do a little documentation too.

Mokey and Oh-Tee

Wet dream

Food I had for the past six days, Spaghetti, noodles, baked macaroni with cheese and pizza. Not good.

II. Ruined

I just watched the first two episodes of CSI:NY’s second season [Hi-Def]. I’m a bit disappointed. Aiden, played by Vanessa Ferlito, was fired at the second episode. I think she’s the hottest of all the actresses on any of the CSI shows and laying her off was a bad idea.

The effects are worse now, they’re less believable and realistic. Ugh. I had to give you a spoiler, I’m that disappointed.

III. iBlog2

Mark your calendars, the Second Philippine Blogging Summit is on April 18, 2006 at U.P. College of Law, U.P. Diliman, Quezon City from 09.00 to 17.00, admission is free.

Sir Joel is one of the panelists on the personal blogging track. See you there!

I’m now twenty. Time has passed, I’m no longer a ‘teen’-age …mutant ninja turtle. I will still have a mental age of 13 though. Cheers to me!

back to work…

My brain’s current state: lugaw.

Time for a break.

I was assisting in the configuration of a Digium TE110P. I was skimming through the sample file and read the last sentences in one of the comments…

The PSTN will never be a slave to you. You must be a slave to it.

– Zaptel Configuration Manual

Pure ownage! Haha!

*just taking a short break.

I. Extra Joss
II. Attack of the Clones
III. Shuriken Music
IV. Gold Digger

I. Extra Joss

I’m now contributing to the Folding@home project. Currently, there are three processors under my username. I’m under Team 2291 (Philippines). I actually thought of doing this before but didn’t gather enough human energy for a couple of clicks and typing. I checked out SETI@home too, but I thought that the project was stopped already. Too late to switch now, all that energy was consumed already. I’ll be installing the clients to my dad’s and sister’s laptop.

II. Attack of the Clones

Dad bought an MP4 player for my sister and now I know what MP4 is and that the term “MP4″ player is correct. I used to think that Asian manufacturers that immitated and improved portable compact MP3 players made it up, incrementing it by 1.

Kinda fancy, it’s just as small as a match box and plays video with built-in speakers too! This one kicked the iPod Video’s ass pretty good, the only thing bad about it were the buttons and the UI.

III. Shuriken Music

Browsing around Wikipedia, I ended up reading more about Justin Frankel and checked out NINJAM, Frankel’s post-Nullsoft projects.

NINJAM is a program to allow people to make real music together via the Internet. Every participant can hear every other participant. Each user can also tweak their personal mix to his or her liking. NINJAM is cross-platform, with clients available for Mac OS X[, GNU/Linux] and Windows.

One word, “panalo”.

IV. Gold Digger

So yesterday was April Fool’s Day and GMail’s 2nd Year of operation. I was hoping that GDrive would’ve been launched yesterday. Didn’t hear about anything but I did check if GDrive.com was alive. Returned nothing but decided to do a WHOIS on the domain. It turns out that it was registered to MarkMonitor. It looks like that Google hired these guys to “protect” the brand (while it’s still in development or something …hopefully).

Your corporate identity is fundamental to conducting business online. Your name, logos, trademarks, and brands are valuable assets that drive revenues, establish trust, and protect customer experience. MarkMonitor is the global leader in creating and protecting corporate identities on the Internet. We make the Internet safer for businesses and their customers with end-to-end solutions that address the growing threats of online fraud, brand abuse, and unauthorized channels.

Before I did the WHOIS, I actually had intentions of registering the domain before Google did. I guess they were already prepared. <disappointed>