Quicksilver Changes Everything
at
The Apple Blog

This is an app that should be ported to Gnome now that it has a working spotlight like desktop search engine via beagle. Basically its an extensible application launcher. It simplifies the whole launching thing on the desktop. No need to wade thru icons, menus or folders to run your application. This is as close as you would get to manly CLI paradise. Its hard to describe what it does in words, you have to experience it to appreciate the beauty of this application.

It doesn changes everything. It simply rocks!

Ultra Mobile PC - Experience how the Ultra-Mobile PC works

I think this is microsofts answer to Nokia's 770 Internet Tablet!

Btw, or better yet, why not run linux/*bsd/tiger on those UMPC thingies.

UMPC == another jargon from hell.

Why don't they just use simpler catchy names?

Ultra-Mobile PC - Hardware a.k.a the microsoft origami project.

I haven't digested all the press releases yet. Apparently MS copying Apple's marketing tactic has paid off. Super secret announcements style that steve and co has mastered so well is now also being copied by bill and co.


The problem with Microsoft is that they have no taste.
- Steve Jobs

MRT Quickies

MRT Quickies

Noticed the one way ticket machines (TM) at the North Station finally usable. Wish they also had the same for stored values. And it really, really would help if they put some of them on major malls or other places frequented by the train loving public.

Finally had a different program displayed on the public tv screens. Was really getting tired hearing the same artist moaning for the past few weeks.


This post brought to you by a southbound train and a treonox.

OPML == The most horrific abuse of xml known to man. :D

Am getting a blank page at the pinoy techscene site http://techscene.free.net.ph for two days now. And to fulfill my pinoy tech news fix I decided to setup a planet pinoytechscene mirror. Managed to get the OPML file from Jan Alonzo's blog.

Planet Pinoy Techscene.

pinoy techscene seems down for today?

hmmmnn... where is that opml file...

Youtube.com is cool!

Check out this videos!

YouTube - Racecar simulator videogame.

The rumored widescreen ipod video

TV via IP (IPTV) delivery is quickly becoming a practical reality.

Tango Icon Gallery - Tango Desktop Project

If your artistically challenged like me, but have no choice but also do frontend thingies, tango is a great place to look for slick looking icons for both desktop and webtop use.

Do the tango!

u*blog again

u*blog again

After a few days of using it to post to both wordpress and blogger, I can definitely say this freeware Palm application rocks!

While blogging via email would suffice, there is one thing it can't do at the moment: edit previously posted blog entries. A dedicated blogging client like u*blog allows you to edit your previous blog postings. I also like the fact that it has a handy icon that let's you connect/disconnect your GPRS connection inside the application. The interface is amazingly very simple to use and allows you to define handy tag shortcuts.

The only minor gripe is the setup process. It would be nice for it to include sensible defaults for popular blogging engines. The u*blog website provides a pretty straightforward reference at the moment. It would also be nice to include basic help instructions inside the app to guide new users.

All in all, once you set it up, its pretty stable and you would be happily blogging while mobile with your network enabled palm device. And of course, did I forgot to tell you its FREE?


cheers!

treonox
(MRT, on my way home)

Earth having sex with Mars

Earth having sex with Mars

Yep, that's not too farfetched. Just one of the things that came up during The Long Now Foundation's (TLNF) seminar about the asteriod threat in the next 100,000 years. Its based on the idea that pieces of rock from both planets (as an effect of asteroid explosions) containing living organisms that could survive in space, could have seeded life from Mars to Earth, from Earth to Mars, or maybe cross polination perhaps?

Lots of other interesting stuff on TLNF's website. Basically stuff that needs long term thinking. The seminar topics are distributed in audio (mp3) form, and can be downloaded for free.

Its nice to have something like these to ponder from time to time. It gives one a different perspective about current life problems. Problems bigger than our own, bigger the our country. Heck, its not even global, like the asteriod threat, its universal! A problem every living organism in the universe would inevitably face. Resistance is futile.

Interestingly, the solution to the asteriod threat brings about huge ethical and moral implications. For example, if we only focus on blasting every threat in space, it could very well be the an excuse to build nuclear weapons in space (which might have a greater chance of endangering the human race). Also, if all we can do is deflect an asteriods path, who decides which place on earth should take the impact. Let alone who decides if the public should know if such a threat is detected in advance. Imagine the panic and pandemonium upon hearing your local station announcing an extinction level event.

The threat is very real tho. And we don't have the capability yet to monitor space effective enough to have realiable early warning protocols in place. A direct impact of 200 kilometer sized asteriod is enough to wipe out the human race and force another evolution. The ocean would boil, for some time the sun would not be able to penetrate the atmosphere, and a lot more armageddon like scenarios.

The good news is, its not likely to happen anytime soon. Nobody can predict the future. Its just one of those things that would be nice to think about during a star starry night.

Writing On Air: Jim Paredes is migrating to australia and would return to fight another day. Sad, but he really had very valid reasons there. Not to mention we are all given freedom to make our own decisions.

The topic of leaving the Philippines is very timely tho. Not a week would go by that me and my lovey would also discuss going abroad to work and eventually migrate to another country. To finally stop living in a world of ideals and get a grip on reality.

What's next? Is there really no hope? We continue to ponder...

u*blog testing

u*blog testing

testing u*blog...

Revision 2

Feeling inspired, I decided to resurrect the bicolano.org website. It has been dormant for almost a year now after we replaced both hdisk and OS on the colo server. The database has gone with the Dodos along with the erratic hdisk.

Last time we had a community driven bulletin board format. It has an ambitious goal of being a one stop shop on the net for everything Bicol. It was quite ok, with around a hundred registered users with half of them active, but didn't gather enough steam as I hoped it would be. We failed in reaching out/tapping the academe,NGO, and other communities. It was a bit technology centric, as most of the main contributors were developers. It was a good learning experience tho, so it wasn't a wasted effort.

So now we try a different approach, less ambitious goals, broader in scope, but the same noble idea: empowering the bicolano community!

If youre a bicolano, do visit http://bicolano.org, post an article, or leave a comment, get involved! Payt sana!

Summary log

Spent a good chunk of time fixing an open-relayed mail server today. A ton of spammers had a field day with that server. mailq revealed why the poor thing is having an asthma attack.

The ventolin-like cure is good old rejecting of all mails not destined for that domain. Add some FQDN checking and amavis-clamav-spamassasin loving.

Tonight would be some Joomla CMS PHP-powered template wrestling. Good thing was able to download that G4 optimized firefox version, the stock one had a tendency to be a CPU hog. Couldn't use Safari as it lacks the nifty web dev plugin exclusive to firefox.

Tommorow, will take a stab with a little SOAP derby. Crossing my fingers the given API doc would be a bit nearer to reality. The last encounter didn't mention that the hash keys should be converted to uppercase. Javadabadoo...

That's all folks.

This post brought to you by u*blog (hope it works TM).

p.s.
it didn't work. using tried and tested email method via versamail instead.

Dylan Wilk

Yesterdays MS NGO DayKeynote Speaker was Mr. Dylan Wilk, Englishman of Gawad Kalinga fame. The man who sold his BMW to fund making a village for poor Filipino folks. Inspirational talk there. He emphasized that what our country need is heroism not charityand giving should be the next trend in fashion. He mentioned how England was similar to the Philipines, a generation ago. Then the wealthy people started to get involved and it became a trend to give out lands and help the poor. He also mentioned their government was the last to react. But nevertheless, these changes has a great impact in rebuilding that nation.

What strikes me the most (ashamed even), is this generous man is not a Filipino, and yet he says that his only regret in life is spending 30 years just watching everything from TV, and not getting involved.

Fake modesty aside, after that keynote, I feel like an enlightened moron with a renewed love for this nation.

TIME: Life in the Googleplex Photo Essay

Checkout the employee desktop! Really a cool place to work/have fun.

Workshop

Workshop
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Currently attending an NGO Day workshop in Ortigas. This is seeing the other side of the coin. Its nice to see what current MS projects are there for the Filipino community as part of their CSR program.



On another note, I learned a new term in this workshop: Social Entrepreneur. This closely resembles my idea on what I want to be. The idea of helping people, and at the same time earn a little in the process. Win-win situations, finding sustainable business models where both sides would benefit.



I want to be a Social Technopreneur!

Long Now > Shop > Free Downloads > Seminar Downloads

Interesting stuff there, like the The Asteroid Threat Over the Next 100,000 Years.

Mobile-review.com 3GSM Congress - Symbian, Linux, Windows
mobile

GTK+ on Palm devices via the Access Linux Platform. Sweet.