Mask of Sorrow

In the gospel last Feb 2, Jesus was presented at the temple. There he met Simeon, a devout man and considered as a very intelligent. There the holy family also saw a widow named Anna. She is known as a prophetess. As a widow, she is described to have known and suffered sorrow. She must know what sorrow is all about.

In the gospel’s reflections in “366 days with the Lord”, a daily gospel published by St Paul’s, it says :

Anna’s being a widow meant that, at least because of the death of her husband, she had known sorrow. Sorrow can make us hard, bitter, and resentful, or more understanding, kinder, and more sympathetic. It can take away our faith or make our faith more solid. Which of these alternatives happens will depend on what we think about God – whether he’s a tyrant who sends sorrows with no apparent reason other than his own pleasure, or a loving Father who permits us to be tested to show who we are. To Anna, God was a loving Father.

It is very fitting in my current situation. Sorrow tests your faith in God and the way we will react on the these tests depends on how I think about God.
The reflection groups our reaction into two groups as follows;
Left : hard, bitter, and resentful - can take away our faith
Right : more understanding, kinder, and more sympathetic - make our faith more solid

It is very easy to say that we should choose those in right but I tell you, it’s not easy. I wouldn’t wish anybody to be in my situation. It’s as if I’m hanging on a last thread without knowing how long it can take me. It tests your faith and had not with my mother’s guidance and love during my formative years, I would have easily fallen. Your childhood environment matters, how you were presented to God just as Jesus is presented to the Temple.

Again, I ask for your prayers.

Boy Bastos Brouhaha

Sen. Legarda has made an attack on one of the Philippine port sites. I’m specifically talking about the very popular BoyBastos.com. The GMA news program 24-oras has made a report on this while local broadsheets and tabloids also followed suit. Same thing with some radio programs.

With unexpected deluge of visitors to the site, the administrators decided to temporarily take down the site. But I think the real reason is the fact that local authorities may already be investigating. So for security reasons, they need to temporarily suspend the service. Here’s what you’ll see in their website.

Hehe. Actually, the site is still up. You only have to know how to access it. Let the authorities find how to enter the site. I just ‘accidendally’ accessed some contents. Nothing much, though. I’m just not sure what you can get if you are a member. Take note that the site is consistently on top of the charts that tracks local websites. So they are really popular.

 What’s very intriguing here is that if you look at the whois entry of boybastos.com, you’ll see Loren Legarda as the registrar. So, is it the reason why she is so pissed off?

Very Funny! Let’s see where will this end.

Makati Flood : Stuck in the House

I wasn’t able to come to office this morning due to flooding. You read it right, FLOOD! I live here in the outskirts of Makati and we have this problem everytime rain comes. A 30-minute heavy rain will make the street impassable. So much for the “financial capital of the country”.

I was waiting for the water to come down but up until 10:30am, the rain is not stopping. I’m so ready to come office early and had my slacks rolled up to my knees. Unfortunately, water is way above my knees. Actually, my father in law is already worried that water will come inside the house as the water is already more than 1 foot above the gutter. It’s about to overflow his ‘dike’ so he’s tirelessly scooping out the water that’s seeping through the concrete wall.

I was already absent twice for the past two weeks due to flood and it also happened before. Make no mistake, though. I welcome the rain but not the flood that it brings.

I was also worried because I wasn’t able to bring my car in a safer place. My neighbors have already put their cars above the gutter and mine is still at the mercy of the waters. I just hope that it won’t conk out when I use it this afternoon. If you look at the picture above, my car is the blue one from afar(not the truck!). You can see it on the immediate left side of the red gate. By the look of it, the water already hit the flooring. At least, it is not yet floating around the street.

So after the rain stopped at around 11am, I grabbed some pics in the street. Here’s my favorite.

The kids are just too happy playing on the not-so-clean water….. and as of 12:30pm, I’m still waiting for the water to subside down.

Fare Rollback in Jeepneys!!!

In my more than 12 years here in Manila, it was the first time I heard and seen implemented a price rollback on jeepney fares. And to top it all, I didn’t know about it until the driver gave me back the extra 50 centavos I gave him. I was surprised because I did not expect that and then I remembered that a there was a proposal a couple of months back on rollback. I also realized by then that I hadn’t read the papers for several days already and it has been quite sometime since I last checked inq7.net and abs-cbnnews.com. In short, I didn’t know what was happening around me (except for that pesky charter change of JdV and Asian Games).

I actually have mixed reaction on the price adjustment. Yes, the people are generally happy with it but it also mean less revenue for the drivers and operators. I’m sure some operators will refuse to adjust the boundary. The sad thing here is that it’s Christmas time and the drivers and their families will be expecting less income during holidays season. On the other hand, the general riding public would surely be glad with it. It may not be much (P0.50 for 6 rides from home to office and back is only P3.00 daily), it will still help. That P3.00 daily for 12 days, if saved, will be able to buy a nice present for the kids on Christmas. For the part of the driver, this means at least P10 per trip(it can go as high as P30 per trip) loss and in a six-trip day, would be very significant already.

But that’s part of life. Actually, the P1.00 increase earlier this year was too much and I think this price adjustment only corrects that error. Although belated, it still is a welcome change.

Yahoo Mail Beta

I got hooked with the new offering from Yahoo Mail. They are now on beta stage for the new look of their mail client and I must say that it looks great and really functional. In fact, it look very much lik MS Outlook and Outlook Express and I’m sure when it goes live, Gmail will have play catch-up. Aside from being functional, the new Yahoo!Mail is also visually appealing. There’s even a preview pane that is really fast and when you double-click and email item, a new tab will be created for a full view of the message. I am very impressed!

And of course, you still have that folders where you can use to group your emails. I just don’t understand why Google isn’t implementing that for Gmail. Maybe they are still very busy with the GMail Mobile. But surely, this new product from Yahoo will add more popularity to it. It will create a new and exciting experience for web-based email.

Wasted with Bosses

Our company has celebrated its 10th year anniversary the other day, Thursday. Well, it’s not particulary exciting as one may expect. For one, there’s no suspension of work even for just a day…hahaha. Basically, there’s not much activity for it except for the mass and later that day, a cocktail party. Hmnn… I hate cocktail parties but I gave it a shot. There will be free food and drinks and they say that the best things in life are FREE.

Well, as any other cocktail parties, what you got there are finger foods, wines and beer. And since I’m hungry coming directly from work, I took a lot of those finger foods and then a glass of red wine and then…. San Mig Light!!!! I happened to be with a PM who drinks beer like a fish and a little conversation and bragging here and there led to more discussions and more beer, of course. And then came some more people and then more and more talking here and there until we were told that it’s closing time. The next thing I knew, we were at another restaurant on a long table and free-flowing San Miguel Pale Pilsen.

But more than the drinks and conversations, it’s not very common for a multinational company that you get to drink with your the top honchos of the company, right? What’s more with the general manager? But we just did. We, the foot soldiers, happened to drink and got wasted with them. And what’s more? The conversations are as if we are at the same level. It is as if everybody has been friends for a long, long time already.

I just drink occasionally and I rarely get wasted because I stop when I get tipsy. But this time, I just let myself simply because it’s a rare opportunity to be able to openly talk with the bosses. Yes, they may forget all about what we’ve discussed that night but it leaves a lighter feeling when you know you have told your management what you really wanted to say. Your views in your job and the company and at the same time, giving you their stand and they feel about those things. More importantly, it shows that they are also people like us… humans with feelings and not the usual monster that we view our management. And most importantly, they also get wasted! hahaha!

At the end, it was fun. It made some people closer… in my case, with my other officemates who I never went out with before. I got new connections within the office. That event may never happen again but for me, I’m very happy that it did happen even just for once. I’m not looking for another drink-until-wasted sessions like that but I’m hoping that the friendship and professional relationship that we shared there continue after that night.

Oh, my wife was really angry because I forgot to tell her that I’ll be late that night. But I know she’ll understand…. and she did! But I’m ‘outside-de-kulambo’ that night. hahahaa…

Ihmanian.com Live!!!

Today, I’m so happy to announce that I finally finished my little project, ihmanian. It’s a community site dedicated for the students, alumni, faculty, administration and people connected, in one way or another, to my alma mater, Immaculate Heart of Mary Academy. The long weekend(Holy Week) has given me a lot of free time to work on this and I’m happy with it. Yes, you may say it’s a small thing but I consider this small thing as an achievement. The site has the following:

1. Forum (SimpleBoard)
2. User Registration (CommunityBuilder)
3. User connection maintenance (CommunityBuilder)
4. Private Messaging (SimpleBoard)
5. Simple Blog (by Mamblog)
6. News/Article Submission feature (Joomla)
7. Link Submission feature (Joomla)
8. Online Games(from various sources)

There are also plans of putting up a lyrics submission module which I’m still working on (i dunno when I’ll be able to finish it, maybe if there will be another long weekend).

Oh, I would like to remind you that the site is in no way connected nor officially recognized or whatsoever with the school. Please visit the site and have a look. And if you have a google adsense account or want to advertise your website or business, just send me the codes and I’ll be happy to post them. I’ll be giving out 10,000 free impressions for every advertisement that will be selected. What’s the catch? Nothing!!! Just register in the site!

Nike Sale on April 20-22, 2006

There will be a Nike sale on April 20, 21 and 22, 2006. This is one of the events my officemates are waiting for because of great finds at bargain prices. One time, I bought a pair of shoes at 70% off.

Words of advice, though. You have to be there early and don’t try go there during lunch time as the shop is jampacked! Some of my officemate even file a leave just to dedicate a day on shopping! Sometimes, store employees issues a number and customers have to wait at the parking lot at the 3rd floor. That shows how popular this sale is.

Their office is at 6th floor, Rufino Tower, Ayala Ave. cor. Rufino St., Makati City. Operating hours are 10am - 7pm and take note, credit cards are accepted!!!

ProBlogger: Lessons Learnt

Darren Rowse, the creator of Problogger has list down 18 of the most important things he learned as a blogger.
The list is very comprehensive, informative and very inspiring. Honestly, I can’t add more. Darren is a professional blogger who earns 6-digit paycheck every month. He is kind enough to share his experiences. In that note, reading his insight is highly recommended. You can find his ‘lessons learnt’ list here.

Web Real Estate

Web Real Estate : Domain Name and Web Hosting

We all know that for people who hosts their blogs to the free to sites (blog.com, friendster, blogger. com, etc.) are giving away their opportunity to make money. The best thing to do is to get your own website and two of the things we need is a domain name and a web host. That is where you are going to build your own web real estate which will one day become an empire… you wish!!!

For starters, I’d like to share what a domain name is as defined by Wikipedia. It says:

“Domain names are hostnames that provide rememberable names to stand in for numeric IP addresses. They allow for any service to move to a different location in the topology of the Internet (or another internet), which would then have a different IP address.”

SimpleNet.com gives a more simpler explanation.

“A domain name is the text name corresponding to the numeric IP address of a computer on the Internet. A domain name must be unique. Internet users access your website using your domain name.

CHOOSE
Since you now have an idea of what the domain name is, your next step is to choose one that fits your personality. If you haven’t pick one please remember the following items before you choose.

• 1. Pick a memorable name. The keyword is that it should be CATCHY.
• 2. Make it easy to spell! Try to target for the masses when you pick your name. If possible, make your domain name as simple as it can get. You must understand that not all people can spell correctly.
• 3. Make it short, try for a two or three word domain. Usually, this is the same as your company name but for personal sites, you can use your nickname or pseudoname or name of your pet or any name you can think of. The bottom line is, make it short.

I recommend Jim Symonds article to help you more on choosing and better understand its secrets.

BUY
To buy a domain, I recommend GoDaddy.com if you’re not using a Philippine-issued credit card even if it is from Citibank. Other alternative is Netfirms.com which offers USD4.95 a year. However, their renewal is a bit pricey at around USD10.00. Yahoo is also offering domain name registration at very low price ( USD2.95 for a year) but I don’t know the catch. For local (PHL) web hosting companies, I buy from TurfSite.net

Generally domain names are selling at less than USD10.00 for a year. All you need is a credit card to buy them. So even if you don’t want to setup your own website after this, at least you will not be fooled by anybody who’ll offer your a supposed ‘business’ which will give you a website that allegedly worth so much. That’s actually a catch phrase of a multi-level marketing firm that has amashed billions of pesos from their victims. Luckily, that company has already been closed by authorities.

HOST
The other building block for your web real estate is the Web Hosting on which Wikipedia defines as:

“Web hosting is a service that provides Internet users with online systems for storing information, images, video, or any content accessible via the web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center. ”

Basically, you need a web host for your domain name to work. This is where you stores your web site’s HTML files, and graphics

Initially, I bought a 5MB webhosting package from TurfSite for a little project I did for FCON-Services. However as time goes on, I found other packages from other webhosting companies gives better service and larger space. I tried some and as of now, I’m happy with ExtraServers. Their service is good, the packages are very affordable and most importantly, they use CPANEL X for the control panel. They offer unlimited domains, emails, ftp users, a lot more. That’s all for only US$1.00 per month for the 25MB package. That’s good enough for starters but if you are already using Content Management System like Joomla and Bulleting Board like PHPBB, then I would suggest you get the 100MB package for US$3 per month.

I also bought hosting from UCV Host but did not have a very good experience with them and they have a lot of add-ons for every feature you want to have. I hear that GoDaddy is one of the best web hosting company but I never had the chance to try them because I’m using a Philippine-issued credit card. Discrimination? Naah… they say it’s about security blah-blah-blah.

So, that’s just for now and I hope you finally setup your own web empire. Good luck!!!