Tag: Tech Rant

VMWare Shows The Way

I love it that VMWare stock is doing well in the U.S. stock market right now. I’ve often wished I could play in that market if I had the chance, particularly during Apple new product situations and occasionally, a few web services in the past that I thought would do well (although I’m not gonna say I pick em all great because most did ok but some didn’t).

I’ve never wished I could buy stock at no better time than now, with VMWare going public. Not necessarily because its done as well as it had – I was sure it’d do well but certainly not this well – but also because of the clear message this sends to bad ol’ Microsoft.

VMWare simply put is software that gives the ability to run services on a computer regardless of operating system by allowing several operating systems to run alongside one another in one machine. In effect it brings sanity in a world where choices aren’t necessarily made in favor of the best.

I don’t really wanna get in the intricacies of what virtualization is about right here. I was about to start a paragraph explaining it a bit, but I realized I was quickly getting much too techie and was losing focus on what I was trying to say.

Continue reading VMWare Shows The Way

Not An Email Person

There’s a feature on Kikay Exchange about this girl’s products which are gaining its fair share of attention. Consequently, people have started leaving comments and asking questions that naturally, only the girl can answer properly, given the fact she makes them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t reply to emails promptly, if at all, making the whole exercise pretty much a shot in the dark. Jill told me her website has also mysteriously gone down, making info about her and her products even harder to get – what more those inquiring to buy.

Today, there’s a request for me to assist someone to set up his email account. Which is perfectly reasonable if not for the fact that this same person has pretty much been using the same computer, the same operating system, the same email client, and the same email account, username and password and all, for the past five years. In fact, to add perspective to this, in the same period my nephew has grown up from grade school to high school, and now knows how to set up an email account with the ease of, well, a grade schooler. During which time, person requiring assistance has apparently learned nothing.

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Free Wifi, Burgoo and Bupkus –
The myopia of P50.00 / hour outlets.

I got called over to my client at Galleria early this morning, twice by staff slightly in hysterics about ‘not being able to connect’. When I got there, the issue it turns out, whatever the heck that was, resolved by itself. In other words, I pretty much wasted my day as I am unable to do most of my to-do list. I like using Kramer (my Athlon XP desktop, 1gb. RAM with a lovely 19″ LCD) for webwork and coding, and Karen, the laptop, for just plain watching videos and writing. And by golly do I have a lot to code.

And so it turns out, it’s just me, an underpowered Karen (for the work I wanna do), Robinson Galeria’s Free WiFi, and a shitload of work today. Going home this afternoon isn’t a good idea as I wanna play in our weekly ballgame this evening. The trip from Ortigas to Cainta and back again is a major pain that’d leave me too wasted to work. And if I do work, I’m sure I’d be too wasted to play afterwards.

Which leads me then to my main topic: The myopia of restaurants at the ‘tech lounge’ that see it fit to charge P50 / hour to plug a laptop into their outlets, regardless of whether you ordered anything or not. To me, it’s painfully obvious how disastrous that move is in terms of PR. You can show me all the stats, bills and studies made about customers over – using their privilege and so on, but all I have to do is one thing : Tell people (via my blog or whatever) that restos at the ‘tech lounge’ charge P50 / hour whether you order anything or not – and you should get my point.

Continue reading Free Wifi, Burgoo and Bupkus –
The myopia of P50.00 / hour outlets.

We Encourage you to use Firefox.

I have made the ff. banners to be installed on the Exchanges:

I didn’t want to write the usual “Best Viewed by using Firefox”, because I didn’t want there to be any mistake. The sites still work alright on Internet Explorer (well at least I think so), but the term “Best Viewed..” might mean that I have only made them work on Firefox, which isn’t true.

I also didn’t want to use the standard ‘Get Firefox’ buttons over here, because those tend, I think, to be ignored, or mistaken to be paid promo ads. I always design my sites not for techies, but for the ordinary, non – Internet users out there. I don’t have to worry about techies. If you’re a techie, I presume you should already know that Firefox is the better deal. Its the ordinary user I want to help out, and saying ‘Exchange.ph encourages you..’ means that it supports and recognizes Firefox and would like (but is not forcing!) everyone to use it, whether or not Exchange.ph looks better on it or not.

Whew. That’s a lot to say huh.

Continue reading We Encourage you to use Firefox.

Once again I am here to expound on my lack of DSL woes.

But worry not dear reader. I am in high spirits regardless. Basically because, well, there’s no other recourse but to be. I have been spending my time trying to do as much as I can outside of the Internet, and so far it’s been ok except for the fact that I cannot further plans revolving around those that do involve the Internet because basically, PLDT will not give me a solid date with which to assume that all will once again be well.

This is alarming because basically, almost all my financial activities revolve around access to such, and immediate as in immediate (as in should have been yesterday) plans were in the works for me to up the ante even more, resolving to go tentatively at first, but full blast as quickly as possible, into the business of hosting. Hosting in the level of involvement I was planning to go into requires at the very least a fast connection, and at best one backup should things go awry, a situation aptly describing that of today.

Internet access had already been at a high level of importance to me that I would sacrifice living in less than ideal conditions if only to satiate my need for such. Venturing into said activity obviously further emphasizes this requirement tenfold, requiring me not only to have double the access (if so possible) but even surgically attach a device to my person and find suitable connectivity in whichever way possible should I venture outside it’s reach (the resulting inconvenience which, incidentally, was the primary reason I had pushed this idea aside for the longest time, only doing so now because the Exchanges have reached a stage of growth and traffic, making it practical).

Continue reading Once again I am here to expound on my lack of DSL woes.

Kikay Breaks 100 Members while its Admin Fumes in Netopia!

Recollected discussion with 171 PLDT customer support 11am:

callcenter person (after asking my telno, name, and relation to account owner): ah sir, matagal na po ito ano ho? tinawag ninyo noon 17 pa. Alam nyo na po kung ano yung reason ng pagkawala ng connection ninyo?
me: grunt (meaning neither yes or no, just tell me).
callcenter person: kasi po may problem yung switch namin sa inyong area. Ibig sabihin po nito karamihan din po ng mga sa inyong area wala rin pong service.
me: grunt (meaning tell me something I don’t know).
callcenter person: Itong switch po ang responsible for… (some semi technical whatever chuva explanation re how important this switch is).
me (finally getting a word in): estimated time?
callcenter person: baka po umabot ng a few weeks.

me: WEEKS?!?!?!

Continue reading Kikay Breaks 100 Members while its Admin Fumes in Netopia!

What I’d do if I had internet at home

God that title sounds pathetic. But really, what else could I think of, sitting here at this, imo unfortunately named ‘Excel’ Internet Cafe at Ever (Gotesco?) mall Ortigas, Jhologs Central. Ok I added that ‘Jhologs Central’ and that’s not really their name, but it might as well be. Here, otherwise normal Filipino men and women converge to sing Guns and Roses classics at corner videoke stations in full tilt till they’re blue in the face, without getting arrested for disturbing the peace. They may as well walk right up to me and hit me with a baseball bat, the effect being the same.

This is my 2nd post today. I call the house from time to time hoping someone would pick up as this would indicate that phone (and maybe DSL) service would have been returned, to no avail. It is dawning on me that this situation is getting dim. Not only can it get expensive (obviously I don’t spend on just the ‘net access, but on food and other important stuff as well, like videoke sessions), but it’s also very boring. I cannot work on the Exchanges and my clients at internet cafes. It just don’t work that way. The most I’ve done is send a billing statement, and that’s it. That’s work for the day. Whoopee.

So anyway, I was gonna write my todo list when I decided, why not blog it, right? So here it goes.

Continue reading What I’d do if I had internet at home

PLDT. Again.

So guess what. Yep, it’s PLDT time again. This time, our whole village, since last Friday, has lost both voice and DSL connections. The phone is a complete dead set, with no signal, no hiss, no noise, nothing. You can try calling our landline and it’ll ring, but again, we wont hear anything on our side. I found out it was a village – wide thing purely by chance when I played ball with my homies (the kids I coach) yesterday, when I happened to overhear them talk about their phone woes as well. Needless to say, DSL is an absolute zero.

What to do? Well, here’s one response:

AAA()*@&#)!()(S()!!!!SA_)))*@*@*#&$^@%!&@*!@&&@@!!!!!

..and that, really, is all the reaction I can have about that.

Continue reading PLDT. Again.

The Slow

I hereby christen this horrible ordeal we’re going through as “The Slow”. And oh, for some visuals, here’s the only map of the cables I could find across our section of the world, stolen from awsj.com. And since I am a Spanish speaking God, I will translate it for you.

 
It says “Oh my God, the cables around this area have been severed, leaving the poor, unimportant z-rated bloggers around that area of the world cut off. But really, who cares? They don’t know half of what they’re talking about anyway. And besides, it makes the Internet just a little bit faster for the rest of us. Whoopee!!”

Continue reading The Slow

How much is slow costing us?

Yes I’m still talking about the Taiwan earthquake and resultant Internet mess. And the fact I am still on it means I am starting to get angry. And if you deduce that when I say I am starting to get angry it means I will huff and puff but do nothing but write on my blog pounding my keyboard a little harder, then you are correct-a-mondo.

At any rate, I had been invited by Hingemedia super head chief editor gadget head in, err, chief Adel to contri to P.W.I.T., (Philippine Week in Technology), the resulting acronym possibly recognizant of how he feels about it, but more likely because he thinks it sounds fun. A fun and intelligent man, Adel is. And surprisingly athletic! When we were in Tagaytay we caught MS Windows PM Chay Saputil smiling and enjoying an m|ph issue and I swear I’d never seen a man run, flip open his Canon 400d, get down on his knees and take a magazine worthy snap in, oh, that must have been .5 seconds! Amazing.

So anyway, let me take you to his post in PWIT, where he describes in light detail how affected they are at the office. Here he says:

Continue reading How much is slow costing us?