Category: Miscellaneous

Paypal still uses our 90s money

Some pretty earthshaking news for people like me who work in the field we’re in: Paypal now allows funds withdrawal from Philippine Bank Accounts.

paypal1.jpg

Where you sign up your bank details at your Paypal account, and they charge you P50.00 for every withdrawal less than P7,000.00.

Sign of a stronger peso? Sign for remittance services to shape up? One thing for sure: It’s a sign Paypal needs to update itself on newer Philippine currency because we haven’t used that green P5.00 Andres Bonifacio bill in like, 10 years (?) already.

Continue reading Paypal still uses our 90s money

‘Once’ Movie Review

When I resolved to watch the movies determined by the Associated Press to be the best of 2007, I admit I wasn’t all too pumped to watch the one that was described as a ‘movie musical’.

And here’s where I admit that I was wrong, and my God am I completely and horribly wrong.

I won’t waste anyone’s time anymore, and just say flat out say that Once is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Many times throughout I felt that Writer – Director John Carney was almost cruel in the way he plays with the viewer’s emotions, ranging from the depths of despair to the heights of elation. You forget that you are watching a performance, and you forget that the performers are ordinary, almost sad looking people. You forget everything, and are just enveloped in a wave of emotion, ensconed as you are in the world Carney et al brings you to.

The story is fairly simple, as is the plot, so much so there almost isn’t any. Irish actor Glen Hansgard plays ‘A Guy’ (the credits describe him as such) who plays guitar in the streets for what I presume to be extra cash. Markéta Irglová is ‘The Girl’ who one day strikes a conversation with him after hearing him belt out one of his own compositions.

Continue reading ‘Once’ Movie Review

Reynaldo You Are My Brother ForevArrrr!!

I was just gonna write more gushy stuff about the new cam but hey, things happen in this world that deserve FAR MORE ATTENTION!

Seriously, just like Simon, he kinda spoke the truth at the latter part of the thing. I dunno if all credit is due to Simon, but still.

Haven’t laughed so hard in a while. God that woke me up. Thanks Char! :P

Getting rid of the Ferrari

I’m supposed to be writing something for one of the blogs where i pretend to be a girl (so as not to ‘shock’ its readership too much), but instead I find myself writing here instead – inspite of the fact that I don’t really have much to say.

Oh wait but I do!

Meet Laszlo:

Named after a character in the book Jill happened to be reading, (and one of my favorite movies) The English Patient. The procurement of which (the camera, not the book) a result of the combination of the falling dollar plus the benevolence and industriousness of U.S. based friends.

Continue reading Getting rid of the Ferrari

I reckon Tuesday is as good a day as any *(updated)

to get my license renewed.

So off I go.

1.5 hours later:

ahhhm back!

and once again, plagued by the inefficiencies of the LTO / my bad luck with official documents of any nature per se.

As per the LTO, it all started last year when I was trying to update the address on my card – type driver’s license, which helps as an ID when you’re trying to cash checks or whatever.

Continue reading I reckon Tuesday is as good a day as any *(updated)

2nd Server Migration Complete!

Last night Jan. 11, we managed to completely transfer Kikay Exchange, Basketball Exchange and Mom Exchange onto the new server hosted at Tri-Isys. I changed nameserver entries by 930pm and as I write this at 741am the domain has completely resolved to its new IP address at least in my part of the world.

Tri-Isys via its hosting arm b2b.com.ph is (as far as we know) the first to offer commercial VPS hosting in the Philippines, offering terrific peerage to all domestic telcos Globe, Bayantel, Smart, etc., and especially PLDT. Their VPS is physically located at PLDT exchanges (either in Binondo or C5 – not sure) which guarantee almost LAN like data transfer for local viewers.

We are expecting faster access times for the greater part of Exchange.ph subscribers, which are approximately 88% local as shown in this graph from Google Analytics:

Can’t wait till the weekdays, when traffic is strongest, to check performance!

Continue reading 2nd Server Migration Complete!

Why Local Web Services Don’t Get Anywhere.

Just wanted to share my thoughts on an email I got re yet another local web service that promises to help ‘spread the word’ re our sites. Names and details have been changed to spare the innocent. Here it is:

Greetings Sir, I got your profile in the Internet and would like to help you broadcast your products and services by marketing them online using our site, xxxx.com. We are currently re-creating our list of Freelancers/ Service providers in the country wherein members will have the chance to see what you/ your company has to offer. I would like to register you for you to be able to advertise for free in our website. All i need is your e-mail add and contact number so that I can send you a verification link.

If you really wanna help ‘broadcast’ our site, just put it in your database yourself. You don’t need my email since you managed to contact me well enough, and anyone else who finds us will probably be able to as well, just as you did. Oh and broadcast to whom? And which of my sites? The fact you don’t mention it reeks of spam.

And the fact you want to put us in the ‘Freelance / Service’ category makes even less sense, since we’re neither freelancers nor do we offer a service.

Continue reading Why Local Web Services Don’t Get Anywhere.