I’m quite impressed with their facilities here from the lobby to the pools down to the rooms. The hotel has a pirate paradise swimming pool, complete with water slides and swinging bridges to boot.

Good thing they have free WIFI access here for people who need to be online from time to time such as myself. For now, enjoy with the pictures. I’ll upload the rest of them later. 

If Pacquiao wins this match then it will go down in the history books as he will be the first Asian to hold four world crowns in four weight division as well the first Filipino to reign in the 135-pound class.

Preliminary fights will start at 8PM EST / 5PM PST (8AM PH time) and the main match should be starting after 2 hours or so. I’ll be watching it live again for FREE as usual.

For all of those people waiting for this fight and want to watch it live. You need to install SopCast and have a broadband connection.Sopcast, a streaming Direct Broadcast System based on P2P and I’ve used it on several Pacquiao matches including the Pacquiao - Solis Match and the Pacquiao - Marquez II bout.

Below are the two channels for SopCast.

sop://broker.sopcast.com:3912/55817

sop://broker1.sopcast.com:3912/35999

Now, if you can’t install any software then you can still watch it online via JustinTV. Below are JustinTV channels that will broadcast the Pacquiao - Diaz match.

JustinTV 1 - Play 

JustinTV 2 - Play

JustinTV 3 - Play

JustinTV 4 - Play

JustinTV 5 - Play

JustinTV 6 - Play

JustinTV 7 - Play

Enjoy everyone! And I hope Manny wins!

UPDATE 1 - added JustinTV 5

UPDATE 2 - added JustinTV 6

UPDATE 3 - added JustinTV 7

Accent Micro Warehouse Sale

I’ve seen their ads on newspapers and on the side of their trucks. The sale is from June 17 to 20, 2008 at the Tektite Auditorium in Ortigas. You can get the discount vouchers on their ads printed on the Philippine Daily Inquirer. From what I heard (though not confirmed), LCD monitors is on sale up to 80%.

MSI-ECS Philippines Warehouse Sale

If I remember it correctly, they also had this sale last year. The sale will be held starting from June 16 to 18, 2008 at their office in Libis, Quezon City.

Here are some of the items on sale.

Microwarehouse Warehouse Sale

It was quite a surprised for me when I saw this since previously they have their warehouse sale at the end of the year like what happened last year and last 2006. Their sale will be on June 20-21, 2008 only and will be held on their Eastwood city office. Prices will be upload on June 18. You can find more information here.

By Ernesto Granillo III (Riverside, CA USA)

I have been using computers for well over 4 years now and can say that this was one of the worst games I had ever purchased. For one, in order to even install the game you have to completely ERASE ALL YOUR DATA! I did not know this when I installed and lost almost all of my hotmail messages. Second, I was really suprised that this did not run on my wife’s apple macintosh. In this day and age, is it really acceptable that software only run on dell computers, but not on apple or even IBM’s? Well, I always try to look at the glass half full, so I continued installed and found that not only had my start menu had moved to the top, but all my programs had been moved around. I couldn’t even find the “Notepad” word processor. I finnally gave up when I couldn’t find limewire or internet explorer installed anywhere, so I gave up and threw my computer away and bought a brand new laptop instead.

A very unique review from a guy with “well over 4 years” of using computers wouldn’t you say? I’m not sure if this person is really serious about his review but one thing is for sure, this is one of the funniest review I stumbled on the net.

There’s no actual date yet on the release of Mozilla’s new version of its flagship browser but you have the option to be automatically notified through email one it has become available to the general public. With Mozilla releasing Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2, the final version should be out in the next couple of days.

As of the moment, over 800,000 people have already pledge their support and the numbers is increasing by the hour. So far, the US is in the lead while the Philippines have garnered more than 5,000 pledges from people who will support this event.

Please join us and show your support!

I moved back to my original broadband provider Bayan DSL, which I’m happy that they activated my DSL line within just 2 days upon submitting my request. So far, I’m satisfied with the reliability I’m getting through them unlike when I was still using Destiny’s crap connection. Sure, I’ll miss out the faster net connection but who would want a fast Internet connection if its down most of the time? I’m sure no one would right?

Now, that’s one problem fixed, I need to sort out the other one which is a problem on my main PC. My main rig keeps on shutting down for no apparent reason. At first, I thought it was just a software glitch causing it to shutdown but day by day, the problem keep on getting worst up to a point that my PC won’t even display the bios POST on the screen.

If you’re wondering what’s really going on then check out the short clips I uploaded on YouTube.

Luckily, my Abit motherboard is equipped with a diagnostic LED which helped me with the troubleshooting. When I was trying to determine the cause of the problem, the diagnostic LED flashes “9.3″ before the system shuts down and upon checking Abit’s website, the code refers it as a power supply failure.

If you have the same problem on your PC then I recommend reading this article from HardWare Secrets. It points out the do’s and don’t when troubleshooting and procedures on how to determine the cause of the problem.

So I already know the culprit of my PC problem, now I’m on a look out for a good power supply to replace the one that conked out. So far, my choices falls between the Corsair and Silverstone power supply units. I did consider other brands like Gigabyte’s Odin series and Enermax Liberty line but their current offering is way out of my budget.

If the weather cooperates (I hate going outside when its raining), I should have a new PSU unit tomorrow and my main rig should be up and running by then.

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is available in more than 45 languages as a public preview release intended for developer testing and community feedback. It includes new features as well as dramatic improvements to performance, memory usage and speed.

It allows users to zoom around the universe and browse through the galaxy on their own or take guided tours of different outer-space destinations developed by astronomers and academics.

The WorldWide Telescope is a rich visualization environment that functions as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground- and space-based telescopes to enable seamless, guided explorations of the universe. WorldWide Telescope, created with Microsoft’s high-performance Visual Experience Engine, enables seamless panning and zooming across the night sky blending terabytes of images, data and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a media-rich, immersive experience.

It’s a 20mb download and its still on its beta phase so you might encounter some bugs here and there. Based from experience, it has the edge over Google Sky in terms of features.

I’m using Smart’s 3G connection through my Nokia N95 connected to my laptop. Download speed is pretty decent at 384kbps though I can’t get a good VOIP call. It’s understandable since latency problem is common on a wireless connection and can be a big hindrance to VOIP and data streaming.

Smart’s Internet rate is also cheap at Php10 every 30 minutes which is almost the same with what you pay on Internet cafes these days. Smart 3G hotspots seems almost everywhere now. The 3G status on my phone didn’t drop from Manila to Laguna on a moving bus.

Since I arrived here, I already used my 3G connection for browsing, downloading AV updates and some PDF documents. Some of my cousins watched Youtube videos then listened to some online radio.

For Smart 3G users, here’s a list of 3G hotspots around the country. The list is updated from time to time and I have been using it for reference. For Globe users, you are not left out. Globe already announced that their GPRS/3G/HSDPA access is 5 pesos for every 15 minutes.

So far, I’m pretty happy with Smart’s wireless Internet offering and the freedom to be online almost everywhere. Service and coverage will definitely improve in the future. Have you use 3G to access the Internet or use it for a video call? What’s your experience?

Unfortunately, the Philippines was left out on the cold on Skype’s unlimited offering. Our OFW and kababayans abroad would really benefit from it if this becomes available. I don’t blame Skype if they can’t provide unlimited calling yet since they still need to pay fees to our local telcos for the interconnection on their telephone network. Hopefully, this will change in the future with some support from our government but for the meantime I’m sticking with Yahoo! Voice to call my family in the US.