Thank you Lord for the blessing that is Fr. Jun.

If you ever find this blog Father, I hope you liked the small funny gift. You will be missed. May God bless you in your new parish assignment!

Merry CHRISTmas! Don’t forget the reason for this season! Here’s 5 of the best Christmas videos in YouTube. Watch them all!

The Christmas Story as “cutely” told by the children of St Paul’s Church.

The story of Christ’s birth has been passed down from generation to generation. As time has passed, in efforts to relay the story to others, man has perhaps taken some creative license with the events of the Nativity. Though we are unsure of many elements surrounding Jesus’ birth, we do know this: Two thousand years ago, a Savior was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem.

The wonder of life : it’s part of every human story since time began. Life is a gift, protect it, cherish it. Fight abortion!

This video is an artistic take on how the story of the nativity might have read had a social network existed at the time of Jesus’s birth. Follow this historical period as it unfolds as a digital narrative. This vignette is great for highlighting the truths and circumstances of our Savior’s birth in a fresh, unique way.

Be reminded whose birthday it is and to whom we should be giving the best gift we could ever give.

According to the official site, HotSwap “does the same thing as you can remove device from Device Manager but it provides much friendly user interface as you remove the removable device from the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the notification area. It also ensures that all data are written and flushed to the disk before the device to be hot-swapped.”

If it only provides an interface, I don’t understand why Windows 7 couldn’t safely remove my Huawei mobile device by itself. Even more puzzling is how it shows the USB stick as two devices in my computer: as a CD drive and a mass storage device.

Both the Eject and Safely Remove Hardware options don’t work for these two.

It does show as a single device in “Devices and Printers” but the Eject option doesn’t do anything.

I’ve tried many solutions and ended up solving the problem with HotSwap which doesn’t need to be installed at all so you can carry it anywhere to any system you may encounter that doesn’t let you safely remove a removable device.

Once you’ve launched HotSwap, you may need to put a check on these device types.

Now I can safely remove the stick but obviously I need to do it twice because of the two entries which is still a mystery to me.

You’ll get a notification balloon for every device.

Interestingly, the Huawei mobile device will be moved to an “Unspecified” category in the Devices and Printers window after doing the above actions.

But it will be gone from the Computer window, at last!

So it’s truly safe to unplug the stick after this and I’ll be able to avoid corrupting the data card inside too. I’m not really sure if that corruption problem was caused by my “unsafe” removals but I’m not taking any chances. I don’t want to have to visit my ISP’s office just to obtain a replacement stick if this one goes kaput. Who knows? They might even charge me for that! So thanks HotSwap!

HotSwap! Official Site

This is a child theme for the Thematic Theme Framework. Therefore, you need to have Thematic installed first before activating this theme.

VIEW DEMO
Click the ( i ) icon on the lower right of the demo page to preview other styles.

DOWNLOAD THEME

In this article:

• Requirements
• Installation
• Features
• Extras
• Configurable Tag Cloud Settings
• Credits
• License
• Support

REQUIREMENTS:

• Thematic – Install this theme first. No need to activate.
• Configurable Tag Cloud (CTC) – This is required if you want the tag/category cloud tiles. Install and activate this plugin before activating the LW Metro UI theme.

INSTALLATION:

After installing Thematic (and CTC), simply copy the lw-metro-ui folder to your themes folder: /wp-content/themes
Then activate the theme through your WordPress admin. The default widgets are added automatically upon activation.

FEATURES:

• Five (5) styles to choose from: Original, Blue, Lime, Pink, Purple

• A settings page for basic customizations:
  • Use a background image in the header
  • Use a PNG image for the site title
  • Hide the site tagline
  • Hide the menu bar

• Category/Tag cloud on tiles (widget)
  • This requires the Configurable Tag Cloud plugin.
• Custom default avatar
  • Just replace the avatar.png file in the images folder with your own. The image should be at least 48×48 in size.

• Tested on the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer in Windows 7. Styles should gracefully degrade in older browsers.

EXTRAS:

• Basic menu bar
  • LW Metro UI is designed not to need a menu (for minimalistic reasons) but you still have the option to show it. The included menu design is basic so you may want to customize the CSS also.

• Primary and Secondary Asides
  • These are situated above the 1st Subsidiary Aside of the default setup. There’s no sidebar in this theme so any additional widgets will ideally be placed here. Here’s a screenshot to better explain this.

Configurable Tag Cloud Settings:

Please note the highlighted options.

Number of Tags to Display – It’s recommended to have this in multiples of 5. Values 10 and 15 are best.

Smallest Font Size – Should at least be 10 (unit: point) to be reasonably visible.

Cloud Format – This should be set to List for the tile effect to work.

Display Post Count – Set to No for aesthetic reasons.

These ideal settings are automatically set if you have the CTC plugin installed before activating the LW Metro UI theme.

CREDITS:

Others have already been listed in the original post.

• ThemeShaper’s Thematic forums – I’m not an active member but I found many of the solutions to my problems there.
• Options Framework Theme
• Metro Icons
• Ars Grafik – for the square Photoshop brushes
• MetroTwit – for inspiring me to create the other styles
• WordPress Theme Demo Bar
• WPCandy – for the sample WordPress content
• Configurable Tag Cloud
• Daryl – for spawning the idea and for letting me release the original version

LICENSE:

LW Metro UI is released under GPLv2.

SUPPORT:

LW Metro UI uses Thematic so any questions or problems you may have will most likely be answered in the ThemeShaper forums. Still, feel free to post your questions and comments below. I would also love to know where people use the theme.

VIEW DEMO

DOWNLOAD “LW Metro UI” – ZIP (1.18 MB)

You may use the following shortcut to link to this page:
http://www.syaoran.net/lw-metro-ui

The lives of the saints serve as great inspiration for all of us. They are the shining examples of the Christian faith showing how mankind, broken as they are, can do seemingly impossible heroic deeds when he/she cooperates with the Holy Spirit and God’s graces.

Saints do not become saints through their own human effort. Therefore, it is not wrong to honor the saints. When we honor the saints, we also in turn praise God for His mercy and goodness. It is in the imperfections or “the defects of the saints” that God shows his mighty power in transforming us.

There’s no popularity contest between saints. Some have been well-known to the public usually because people saw the struggles in life of these saints to be profoundly similar to the ones they were having. Some of these blessed people I look up to as great inspirations for my own life are:

• St. Augustine – for his honesty
• St. Patrick – for his great faith
• St. Ignatius of Loyola – for being a true soldier of Christ
• Mother Teresa – for her humility
• St. Anthony of Padua – for his purity

To become a saint is the primary goal of the Christian life because saints are the true followers of Christ.

Therefore gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

~ 1 Peter 1:13-16

Many people don’t really know why a lot of saints have been canonized. It would be good for people to read on their lives too. There’s a nearly inexhaustible number of saint stories out there. I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two that you would be able to personally relate to. As always, humbly ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.

Remember that saints were once sinful and broken people too. What set them apart was their enduring decision to believe and trust in God’s plans for them. Many of them experienced great doubts too but instead of falling into despair, their response to life’s difficulties is to increase their faith even more. The stories of the saints do prove that anyone, and I really do mean anyone, can be a saint.

Here’s a beautiful music video (using that Hercules song) with clips from various movies of some well-known saints.

All the Saints, pray for us.

The Parish Renewal Weekend is a conversion experience. It is a strong recall into belonging to the people of God, the Church. The reestablishment of belonging occurs through an emphasis on, and an experience of, reconciliation. It is an attempt to respond to the search for direction and approaches to strengthen and deepen the life of our parishes. It advances the parishes (priests, religious and laity together as a family) toward the goal of a faith community.

Taken from: http://prexnapps.org/what_is_prex.asp

A few months ago, I would have never thought I’d get the chance again to finish PREX. It was what I could call my own “dark night of the soul” moment this year. I avoided talking about it online and offline. Actually, I acted as if I never attended PREX. I’ll keep this short by not going into the melodramatic details of that.

Things changed slowly however and last week, I sincerely planned on attending again but now with two of my family. I did get a text message from PREX inviting me to the next class but I still didn’t register early. Well, it seemed like God didn’t want to give me the possibility of backing out at the last second so He sent someone. She cornered me as I was just about to leave the church after Mass. Well, how could I say no? All these stuff I’ve been learning since last year about faith would go to waste if I decline an obvious invitation from God. So I went to meet my former classmates. The name of the person who cornered me is Faith and I’m not kidding!

I only missed day 3 of the seminar so I was a staff member helping with the activities on the first two days. On day 3, I was a participant along with my sister and cousin. We were all tired but of course, it was all worth it. Nothing beats being surrounded by people who truly loves God and His Church.

But just when I thought all the surprises were uncovered, there came the shocking announcement of me being appointed as one of the officers for the next class. It turned out that there had been a confusion. My original class is 71. This class I had attended to finish the seminar is 72. My certificate says I’m from class 71. Naturally, I wasn’t in the contact directory of class 71 when they graduated. But neither was I listed under class 72’s directory and I was the one who encoded that and I didn’t include myself because I was under the impression that I’m really a 71er. So basically, I’m class-agnostic. Haha!

Officially, however, I’m from class 71 but now I’m an officer of class 72. That means I’ll be serving again! This is all confusing and I think it’s too late to correct things now since the blessings have been given already. Interestingly, I tweeted the following quote from a daily devotional just a few days before PREX 72:

Blessings come as surprises and are sweet because we never expect them. Whenever unexpected things come, ask not “WHY?!” but “What for, Lord?” as you wait excitedly for the blessing behind the surprise. #365dayswiththeLord

(Tweet)

That quote popped into my head while I was busy protesting contemplating this sudden development. So I took an honest look at the several good things that happened to me these past few years and realized they were all blessings disguised as usually unwelcome surprises. All I needed to obtain the fruits of the blessing was to trust in Him that everything will be alright. It has always been consistently that way and I believe I only need to apply the same reaction on this new situation.

I’d be lying though if I say there are no more doubts left in me (how could I do this all over again with PHP codes and unrealistic project deadlines in my head?!) but I take that as proof that I’m imperfect and that I can’t do anything without His help and guidance. At PREX, I have learned the Faith. But now it’s Trust that I need to work on learning more.

OLHP PREX Class 72

Even this photo shows that I’m only half a member of this class. Haha!

Happy birthday DJTXLR! (What does that mean again?)

Here’s your wish…

LW Metro UI - click to view full page screenshot

I call this theme: LW Metro UI.

Metro is the design paradigm introduced by Microsoft through Windows Phone 7 and then now on the new Windows 8. It’s a design language with an eye for the simple, clean and modern through the use of big typography and squares… or boxes. Lots of them!

Daryl, I know you use Disqus (why?!) so I didn’t spend much time styling the comments area. If you use the native commenting feature, that would be awesome!

And yeah, this theme is a child theme for Thematic so you’ll have to install that too. I use it myself here!

If you don’t like how this looks, just tell me. I’ll get it up for public download so someone else could use it. Hehe!

As with the new syaoran.net, I’ve had a lot of help for this project.

• Preliminary inspiration for the design
• Metro UI style browser start page – Considered the horizontal scroll but found it counterintuitive for a blog.
• Windows 8 Start Screen – I’ve not yet actually tried the preview so I needed this.
• Thematic – Shopped for other frameworks but still ended up using this.
• Thematic forums and Wireframe guides – Seriously, this is a great framework.
• Configurable Tag Cloud – WordPress plugin for the category cloud
• Stack Overflow – I spent hours trying to make the category cloud more like mosaic tiles with varying sizes, much like in Windows 8, but I gave up! There must be a way to do this! Maybe not with unordered lists?
• CSS3 Please – shadow overload!
• Metro Icons
• Revised Font Stack – finding alternatives for the Segoe-like Windows 8 font

I have another version of this theme and if I find the time and if anyone’s interested, I will put it up next time.

Why the sudden onslaught of web designs? I don’t know! The pixel bug bit me, I guess.

Yeah, I know. Another brown-themed design, again. But it is reasonable this time since it's supposed to be a map.

syaoran.net

So what’s in it? Basically, it’s a portal or a map rather, for most of the stuff I have put up on the web.

• The latest post from my two blogs are always featured there.
• A formal link to the new historicity sub-sites.
• Links to my social media profiles
• My latest online vanity photo

To make the homepage distinct from this blog, its official name syaoran.net is in lowercase. Whenever I mention SYAORAN.net (that’s in uppercase letters), I’m referring to this personal blog site. I know it could be confusing but I just don’t want to have to change the name of this blog.

Acknowledgments

I enjoyed designing, coding and writing this new page. I had a lot of help of course so here are some links to the resources that helped me hugely in finishing this project.

• zAccordion – for those sliding things you see there
• SimplePie – for fetching my latest blog articles
• derek shirk – for including the post thumbnail on WP RSS
• FeedBurner – for giving me a headache before accomplishing the above
• Soh Tanaka – for the cool jQuery hover effects
• Font Squirrel – for the beautiful CSS3 fonts
• GitHub – for shedding light on that SimplePie error
• Design Instruct – for the paper texture
• CSS3 Please! – for just being plain awesome!
• stackoverflow – how could I ever work without you?
• FF Web Developer – for helping me hide the Easter eggs!

There’s more to thank particularly on the design aspect but unfortunately, I’ve not kept all the links in my notes.

And yup, there’s some hidden messages which are best viewed on my screen resolution of 1440 x 900. Sorry!

So that’s it. Till my next personal design challenge which I really, really hope would be of a different hue other than brown. Seriously.

syaoran.net

The countdown for the unveiling of the new syaoran.net page has begun.

It’s been years since the root directory or the primary URL of this site was last used for an actual page or website. Previously, accessing http://www.syaoran.net would only redirect people to this blog. But now I’ve decided to put something useful there. Watch the time run out to see the new page in “action”.

See the countdown at syaoran.net

There are many gracious words that could describe this magazine but informative and inspiring are the ones that immediately stand out for me.

I have been an avid reader of World Mission for a year and now I am officially a subscriber. I first came upon it after (finally!) taking notice of the magazines displayed in the racks of St. Pauls’s stores. I was delighted to see a publication geared towards the Christian thinker. Unlike Kerygma magazine and Catholic Digest, World Mission could be labeled as the more “serious” type of magazine.

World Mission regularly features important social and economic news not just in the Philippines but from all over the world.

It’s a very Catholic magazine in its universality of topics ranging from interreligious dialogue to political talks the Church is (or should be) engaged in.

One of my favorite things about the magazine is its knack for publishing well-written stories of inspiring people. It was World Mission’s January 2011 issue that introduced me to the spirituality of Thomas Merton and the brilliance of G. K. Chesterton.

On its July 2011 issue, World Mission featured Tony Meloto, founder of Gawad Kalinga. That eye-opening article should be required reading for many people in seats of influence and power today.

One doesn’t need to have power or to accumulate money to make a difference. Jesus didn’t aspire to have wealth and power, but He made a difference. Since I am a disciple, I want to follow in His footsteps.
~ Tony Meloto

As I was browsing my old copies, I came across this article from their February 2011 issue.

Lately, we’ve been hearing news of a few young Filipinos resorting to killing themselves, often in cases of what they call “crimes of passion”. Some had even announced their deathly plans on Facebook. Let us remind ourselves that suicide should NEVER be the subject of a joke. When people use it for humor, it reminds me how some people nowadays use the word “rape” so casually to describe things. It’s wrong and desensitizes people about the true nature of these grave issues.

The above article on the society’s problem of depression is one fine example why Filipinos should consider reading World Magazine. So many people today are in hunger for truth and meaning in their lives. Worse is that many aren’t even aware of it although it’s obvious from the choices they make daily, such as what they choose to spend the day on or which people they’d look up to (although they wouldn’t admit it) as role models. Each time I surf TV channels, I mourn seeing what passes for entertainment nowadays. Ever seen Hell’s Kitchen? Glamorizing evil has never been this entertaining. Yep.

With great freedom comes great responsibility. Sadly, many in the entertainment industry have been ignoring this axiom for too long. Should we be surprised then by these dramatic crimes of the youth today?

But enough negativities. We have World Mission – a very welcome light for Christians today. In a society that regards religion as a crutch for the dumb, the weak and the loser, World Mission is a shining example of what the Church really does.

I appreciate that World Mission doesn’t tone down issues but tell them as they clearly are. Filipinos, especially the youth, definitely need a good dose of reality check and this magazine can burst that bubble of false safety they’ve unwittingly formed around themselves. Only when one has truly seen life with the eyes of faith can he live it fruitfully to accomplish the mission he has to do in this world.

~~~
World Mission regular subscription is 400 pesos. For the price of one IMAX ticket, you get a year’s worth of true knowledge and inspiration while helping the missionary work of the Church. If you don’t want a subscription yet, you can buy individual issues at St. Pauls for 50 pesos only.
Not in the Philippines? World Mission is also circulated around the world. Please see the website for international fees.

Visit World Mission magazine official website

Windows 7 only provides basic wallpaper scheduling options.

This may be enough for some people but what if you want to control even the particular days of the week and times of the day that you want your desktop to be changing images. Walyk has these options and more.

Walyk scheduling options:
- At specific time interval: you can set the interval in hours and minutes.
- Daily: The wallpaper will be changed every day at specific time (hour and minutes).
- Weekly: The wallpaper will be changed in the selected days of the week and the specific time (hour and minutes).

I’ve scheduled mine to change only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so each wallpaper will have sufficient exposure. I set it to change every 12 PM and also selected the “Ordered” option so each image will have an equal chance of being shown on the desktop.

These options are particularly useful if your pool of images is small. In my case, I rotate between monthly images provided by Loyola Press. There’s either only 4 or 5 images each month so I need to maximize the exposure of these few wallies for a whole month. I want my desktop to change images often but not too frequently that I’ll grow tired of seeing the pictures just halfway through the month. I find that my schedule strikes a good balance in these aspects.

After setting the schedule, open Preferences and check the “Load with Windows” option.

Walyk is also available from the system tray.

So why the need for all these complexities for just a wallpaper? The answer is obvious to anyone who has to use the computer for several hours each day.

A new wallpaper can throw someone out of a humdrum state or flip that switch that will make him think differently again. Just as it’s important for a computer user to be getting out once in a while to refresh his mind, changes in the desktop environment done on a reasonable frequency could (though I have no empirical data to back this up) provide similar benefits also.

Download Walyk Wallpaper Manager. It’s free.
http://www.walyk.com/

100 days to go before Christmas! Thanks to the incredibly amazing WolframAlpha for helping with the computation.

And on that note, let me share one of my favorite Christmas tunes from the American rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

This is “O Come All Ye Faithful / O Holy Night”, the opening performance from their Christmas concert movie “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve”.

I fell in love with this song right from the first time I’ve heard it. Who would’ve thought that “O Holy Night” could sound this awesome on electric guitars?

That’s my favorite song (or medley rather) from TSO’s Christmas film but there are plenty of other great tracks in it.

Here’s “Christmas Canon”.

Merry Christmas! ^_^