Month: December 2006

3 Reasons Why I’d be Stupid if I returned Microsoft’s free Laptop

A thought occured to me as I was waiting for the Ortiz – Liddel fight. I hope I can type this out quickly enough before the fight starts.

Let me tell you something. If Mae Rivera, PR head of Microsoft Philippines gives me a free laptop to review Windows Vista with, then I would do the following in this order: 1. thank my lucky stars, 2. thank her, 3. thank Microsoft, 4. tell the world about it via my blog, and 5. go and review Vista with it.

Doing so, I think I would be doing the right thing which are (again in numeric order. Sorry, I like trying to organize my thoughts): 1. Thank all those responsible for giving me a gift. 2. Tell everyone about it, just because it’s an interesting thing to share, and 3. Review Vista with it, and share it with as many people as possible (regardless of your opinion being positive or not) which is the least you could do.

Continue reading 3 Reasons Why I’d be Stupid if I returned Microsoft’s free Laptop

All your eggs. In one basket.

So here’s my plan. I’ll move my hosting lock stock and barrel to PLDT (provided they actually have hosting rates that are anywhere near realistic), or some universally recognized data exchange (and by universally I mean Globe, Bayantel, Smart, PLDT, etc.), and they’ll be the only reliably accessible sites in the known universe! (and by universe i mean Philippines, which is my target market anyway).

Sounds like a plan ‘no?

Seriously, although all those mighty telcos from Singapore to Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and over here are scrambling all over the place to get those undersea cables fixed, I highly doubt we’ll get anywhere near normal performance until way into February.

I mean, those guys said it themselves in this article, when they said they won’t invest in a backup solution because basically, the chances of a disaster is so remote they pretty much lay down those cables once and forget about it “for a hundred years”.

Continue reading All your eggs. In one basket.

SOP 2006 Tech Roundup Article Repost

So you thought, since you don’t have the Inquirer sent to your house, or since you aren’t able to load Inq7.net on your browsers today due to an earthquake in Taiwan that severed many underground cables, that you wouldn’t be able to read my article on The Year That Was In Tech 2006 now did you?

Well guess again. Here it is in its full, unedited version, fresh from my hard disk into your monitor, the pixels burning into your eyes, onto your brain, and into your deepest subconscious. And remember. As you sleep at night, that there is no escape, NO ESCAPE, from me and my articles. I am like… a cockroach. A COCKROACH I tell you.

Continue reading SOP 2006 Tech Roundup Article Repost

Review – Like Water For Chocolate

I spent most of Christmas Day doing two things, reading and trying to sleep. Since I am not very good at the latter, the day was saved halfway by the former as I happened to pick up one of the most sumptuous books I’ve ever read, [tag]Like Water For Chocolate[/tag] by Mexican author [tag]Laura Esquivel[/tag].

Part mystical, part historical and part soap opera-ish the book is basically about the life of [tag]Tita[/tag] [tag]de la Garza[/tag], youngest of 3 daughters of [tag]Mama Elena[/tag] de la Garza, who ran a ranch in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. The young and beautiful Tita is a wonderful cook who is faced with the dreary future of serving her mother till her death, forsaking even marraige, as is the rule amongst Mexican families at the time. Sure enough, the handsome Pedro comes into her life, but his request for her hand is naturally rebuked by Mama Elena. To compensate, she offers instead her eldest daughter Rosaura, whom Pedro agrees to marry instead, secretly admitting to Tita that he is only doing so to be able to live close to Tita.

Continue reading Review – Like Water For Chocolate

Thinking of my blogs a day before Christmas

It’s a day before Christmas and I’m writing about my blogs. Call me obsessed.

Anyway, a few months ago, a blogger in a (more or less) popular group blog was peeved at a recent news announcement (i’m gonna try to make this as anonymous as possible, basically because I’m a nice guy, but really, I don’t wanna piss him off either because – well, it’s just too easy). Anyway, there was news / PR item which really ticked him off and he wrote about it on their blog of course.

Prob was, it was purely a PR item, and whilst I tried to explain it to him on their comments section, and tried to get him to email me to keep from explaining how it (PR) works to him in public, he was intent on keeping pissed, and even emailed the parties involved, which was the right thing to do if you wanted to get to the bottom of it, but unfortunately instead of investigating, he went ahead and lambasted them for their decision, being, in his mind representative of the Great Philippine Blogosphere (what is that anyway? aren’t we all just writers / publishers?).

Continue reading Thinking of my blogs a day before Christmas

On ReviewMe and Being a Reviewer

A lot of people ask me if I’ve ever written a bad review, or rather, wrote a review about a gadget in a deprecating manner. I’ve always said that while I’ve encountered many products that I felt were lemons (and not just as a matter of taste. They actually were really badly designed.), there are many ways to go around having to do so.

First of all, let me explain why a ‘bad review’ doesn’t make sense, nor does anyone any good. Editors and publishers alike will agree, there are so many products out there that deserve a good article written about them. In the tech world itself, there are literally hundreds of products worth looking at. Assuming a tech writer would want to stick to your area of preference, such as, say, digital cameras, you’d still have enough material to keep you busy for months on end. Why then, would you concentrate on writing a whole article to give a particular product a bad rep?

Continue reading On ReviewMe and Being a Reviewer

Google PageRank and my State of Mind

Sometimes, when the wind blows hither nither, Basketball Exchange’s Pagerank is a nice, healthy 5.

Sometimes however, when the moon flies high across the sky, pulling with it the tides below and the ancient living things within, Ballex’s Pagerank is a piddling (for a basketball site), pedestrian and all too ordinary 4.

Poetic inducements aside, I resort to such words for lack of an explanation of the quandaries I face as a blog publisher. To wit:

  1. Why is Ballex’s PR sometimes 4, sometimes 5?
  2. Why is Pisces Iscariot’s PR sometimes 5, sometimes (gasp) 3?
  3. Why in the flying flak fudacious does KikayEx not have a PR rank yet after almost 5 months in existence?

Continue reading Google PageRank and my State of Mind

horses horses horses horses..

… were the words Meg Ryan was singing in Sleepless in Seattle. Remember that? When she was driving? And she had to make a stop at a diner and two waitresses were listening in on the same radio show that she was listening to in the car that was interviewing Tom Hanks? I think it was Dr. Marsha Fieldstone or something.

Anyway, I’m starting to think about that right now and getting all Christmasy, which is either a product of my good natured happy happy forever optimist Santa Claus Ho Ho Ho self – or – Indomethacin, a non-steroidal anti inflammatory drug (NSAID) I just took to finally relieve me of the pain brought about by my now – very – boring – to – read – about (as in OMG he’s writing about how it hurts again?!?), gout.

I felt kind of funny saying Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug at Mercury earlier, but fortunately when I said Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug, the pharmacist got it, disappeared behind a few shelves and delivered said Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug. And now to end this paragraph about Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs, which is good as I do not have to type anymore Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug.

Continue reading horses horses horses horses..