The PetikSphere

How To Open That Frozen Coke Can

2010-04-23T02:24:00.001+08:00

Everyone loves an ice-cold soda. I have a post the teaches you how to chill one in two minutes, in case you forgot to stock up the fridge. But sometimes you forgot that you have a can of coke chilling in the freezer and by the time you want to drink it, you can't because it's partly frozen. If you try to open it, it will burst out of the can. I discovered how to open it with a low chance of bursting.

I'll teach you step-by-step

Check if the soda is frozen. to do so, slowly turn the can upside-down. You will feel it if the contents are freely flowing inside or if it is frozen solid or if it is partly frozen.
If it is very frozen, leave it to thaw at room temperature. Don't attempt to thaw it with hot water (it might burst because of the sudden change in temperature)
You can only open a partly frozen one. A fully frozen soda can will surely burst if you try to open it.
The best place to open it is top of the kitchen sink so that in case it burst it will be easy to clean up :D
The secret to opening that partly frozen can is to not open it slowly. Too much pressure has been contained inside that can and all that pressure will try to escape the can the moment you open it. OPEN IT AS FAST AS YOU CAN! Don't let it fizz slowly, it will surely burst out! By opening it fast you give the pressure inside the can a large opening to disperse outside. The same way principle applies if you block the mouth of a water hose and leave a small hole, water burst out much farther than normal. Now, the soda may pour out of the can but it will not burst out, you can drink it immediately once it seeps out of the can.

And oh, a lot of people does this prank that before giving you a soda can he'll shake it a lot, the way to determine if a soda is is shaken a lot is to feel the can. If it is very hard, it is most likely that it's shaken and will burst the moment you open it. If someone gave you this type of can, point it towards that person and open it. If it doesn't burst, then he's lucky. If it does, he'll have a dose of his own medicine.

Try this for yourself and tell us if it works (the opening of a frozen soda can)! Well, if the last part happens to you, tell us the story also.

WinDirStat: Find Out What's Using Up Your Storage Space

2010-04-23T01:43:00.001+08:00

Have you ever experience losing gigs of disk space on your hard drive even though you're not saving any files? Often times I've experienced this type of problem. I'm always wondering what's eating up my storage space. A friend of mine suggested a software an it's been helpful in determining what those files are. It's WinDirStat.

WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Windows. It is very light and easy to use. It shows disks, files, and directory sizes in a tree list and a graphical format. Below is a screenshot of the main window:

As you can see the lower part of the window shows what files are in your hard drive and how much it consumes your storage space. If you highlight a folder in the directory it highlights the contents of that folder in the tree map (the white border). It is also color coded so you can determine how much it consumes the disk space (the red square are Paint Shop Pro 5 files, the green ones are .dta files).

Let me share my experience and how this program helped me solve my storage problem. In the office I've been working on a lot of media files (audio and video) which are often raw and has very big file sizes. Every time I'm finished working on them I'll copy the raw files into an external storage and delete the large file in my PC. I noticed that even though I'm constantly cleaning up my storage free of these large files, after a couple of months my hard drive only has less than 2 gigs of space left. After a lot of cleaning up (deleting cached internet files, uninstalling unused software, etc.) I've managed to free around 15 gigs. After a couple of days I noticed that I'm constantly losing disk space (around a gig per day). This happens even though I always remove raw files after working on them. After a couple of weeks I can't delete anymore files as they are all needed for my work. I only have less than 1 gig of storage left on my computer. I asked my fellow content guy and he said that he'd experienced the same thing also. He suggests that I use WinDirStat. After downloading it (it's only less than 1Mb in size), installing, and running it, I found out who the culprit are: they are .cfa and .pek files. I discovered after a little research that when you open media files on Premiere and SoundBooth, they create these files that are ridiculously large. after deleting these files (as I'm not using them and I'll never use them again, since I can just open the raw file and they'll just create those files again anyway) I've managed to free up around 70 gigs. At last my hard drive can breath easily again.

The download page for WinDirStat can be found here. It is completely free. Other infos about the program can be found here. And oh, a direct download link for the program is here. I strongly support open sourced programs over c'd software. I recommend you do also.

Please try WinDirStat for yourself and tell us what uses up your disk space the most!

Chill Your Soda in 2 Minutes

2010-04-18T21:43:00.002+08:00

Here’s another video from Kip Kay. It teaches you how to have a cold drink right away if you don’t like ice in your Coke. I’ve transcribed the video for those who liked to read more than watch.

Here’s the video:

Transcription:

Kipkay: Have you ever forgotten to stock your fridge with your favorite soda or beer? I know I have. You're really thirsty, and all your left with is that room temperature soda. I'm gonna show you how to super-chill a coke in two minutes! Now, room temperature soda is pretty nasty. Almost 80 degrees right out of the can. But here's all you need to do to superchill it. Depending on how many you wanna chill, get yourself a bowl with ice and water in it. Then take ordinary salt, about a handful, and put it in with the ice water mixture. Then load up your drinks and stir 'em around. This is the second law of thermodynamics. Basically the salt reduces the freezing point of the water and allows it to become super-chilled. Okay, two minutes is up, let's take that thermometer from that room temperature coke and put it in the one we just super-chilled. Check it out, in two minutes, 43 degrees! That's about the perfect temperature for a nice, cold Coke. This will work with just about any drink in can or bottle. So the next you're dry, super-chill your drink!

This technique is also used by dirty ice cream vendors so that their ice cream won’t melt even if they are peddling in the hot streets of the Philippines. They don’t carry a battery-powered fridge with them, just ice, salt and a smile to give to those waiting kids. Beat the summer heat! Grab an ice cold drink now! Just remember to wipe the can first or you’ll get a salty Coke.

What is your favorite way to beat the summer heat?

A Simple Hack to Hide That Beer Can

2010-04-18T19:41:00.001+08:00

Did you ever wish you could sneak that San Mig Light can in the office? Or drink your favorite beer while having a late-night walk but you’re afraid to do so because the police might question you? I saw this video on Youtube on how to hack a used Coke can to fit over any beer can and hide that alcoholic drink. You only need a can opener, a pair of scissors (strong enough to cut through an aluminum can), and a metal file. It’s a video made by Kip Kay, a popular internet celebrity that makes pranks and easy to follow how-to videos.

Please take note that in the Philippines, you’re not allowed to drink any alcoholic beverage if you’re a minor, so please drink responsively. Also, drink in public places at your own risk. Chi or Kip Kay will not be responsible if you got caught.

Here’s the video:

I noticed some comments on Kipkay’s page that says that you can just pour the beer in the coke can. Well, beer wouldn’t taste that good if you mix it with Coke. And, this one’s reusable!

I myself is a beer lover and I’m lucky that in the office, it’s legal to drink beer while at work, as long as you can do your tasks. Sometime we even stock the fridge with beer so we can grab a cold one anytime. But on the outside, while it is legal sometimes, people will give a bad look if they saw you chugging down a cold beer while walking. This is a good way to enjoy beer outside. But again, please drink responsively. Put all that alcohol in your stomach and not in your head!

What is your favorite beer? Mine is Red Horse Extra Strong. Post your favorite as comment! Happy drinking!!

EditPad Lite: A Fast, Free, and Powerful Text Editor

2010-04-18T02:37:00.001+08:00

Greetings! This is my second post on computer applications that helped me a lot at work. It’s a program that I use also at home and I think this is a must-have for every Windows computer.

Have you ever felt a need for a text editor that is much more powerful than Notepad, but much less complicated than MS Word or OpenOffice Writer? Well, I do. Sometimes I have to take notes but Notepad is just too weak and it’s a huge hassle to open Word or Writer. EditPad Lite solves that problem. It has an easy-to-use interface that you can customize to suit your text editing needs. It has a multi-tab feature that lets you open many tabs at the same time. You can also customize the color of your editor to whatever color you feel comfortable at. Other features are available at their website (Click here to read about all of the features from the EditPad website).

For me, their best features are:

Multiple tabs
Customizable colors
It’s ability to minimize to system tray so it’s doesn’t add to the taskbar clutter
It’s ability to stay on top of other windows (it makes it easy to copy text from a scanned document jpg and other tasks that need to have the text editor on top all the time)
The Convert menu (lets you convert the text to various formats, may it be lower or upper case of even the text encoding)

EditPad Lite is a free software for personal use, so go ahead and try it out (it’s only 3.5MB). They have a Pro version that has more features than the free version, It boasts a very powerful text editor that allows you to edit every text file you have with ease. If you’re a programmer, you can configure it to activate certain coding features for that code, much like Notepad++ (a favorite among programmers but it’s not advisable for your everyday text-editing needs). It also has added options in the Convert menu (It can convert line breaks to spaces!). It also has a built-in spell checker!

There’s a saying that the best things in life are free. And EditPad Lite is one of those best things. I highly recommend you check it out. Oh, it’s only available in Windows.

Scrolling Desktops: Extend Your Computer’s Workspace

2010-04-17T01:10:00.001+08:00

Greetings! This is my second post and I will write about free softwares that I use at work to make my life easier. I’ll start with scrolling desktop application.
Scrolling desktop is a kind of virtual desktop application that allows you to scroll the screen left and right giving you a much wider workspace compare to the usual fixed desktop. A scrolling desktop is also an anomaly in which your screen resolution is larger that what the monitor can display. Since the whole screen does not fit in the display, you need to scroll left or right or up or down to view the whole contents of the desktop. This can be annoying but some programmers found a way to use this to extend the desktop space. This enables you to have multiple windows maximized and without having to pres alt+tab to switch between windows. I have tried two free scrolling desktop applications: 360desktop and GiMeSpace Desktop Extender.

360desktop

At work, I have to use 4 different applications at the same time. To make matters worse, I need to be able to see what’s in 2 applications at the same time. This problem can be easily solved by using two monitors but working in a startup company denies me with that luxury. Since I was grew up believing that everything can be found on the Internet, I researched some cost-effective solutions. 360desktop is the first application I found.
360desktop is a free download that transforms your Windows desktop into a 360° panoramic workspace. While all Windows functions operate normally, with 360desktop you can pan your desktop through 360°, giving you almost unlimited desktop space, with more room for all your open applications, browsers, windows, widgets and more.
Now you can personalize your supersized workspace with your favorite online and offline content - widgets, web pages, RSS feeds, slideshows, videos, all delivered into a stunning 360° photo background.
Here’s the demo to explain to you more about 360desktop (Since he’s the founder and CEO, he knows more than I do about this product.)

I used this application for around 2 months or so. And throughout that period I noticed many issues. Some of its disadvantage are:

You cannot use your own background image.
It takes time to load the application.
It does not fully support multiple desktop manager applications.
It shows annoying ads when you click in the navigator a couple of times.
You don’t really have unlimited desktop space. You can only have around less than 10 windows maximized to consume the whole panoramic desktop.
You cannot use your own background image.

There may be a a lot of changes in the program by now you, can just check out their website and try for yourself. I stopped using this program after I discovered a much simpler scrolling desktop application: The GiMeSpace Desktop Extender.

GiMeSpace Desktop Extender

After trying out 360desktop, I found it very complicated and I need a software that just does what I need and nothing else. I researched about virtual desktops at Wikipedia and found an article there about scrolling desktop. There I discovered GimeSpace. It’s a light,simple, and very useful program and it’s just what I need. It’s trial version has limited functionality but it works just fine. I allows me to have a very, very wide scrolling desktop. I haven’t tested how many windows I can fit horizontally but believe me, it’s WIDE!. It allows you to scroll the desktop by moving the mouse at the edge of the screen left or right or you can toggle scroll lock on and lock the desktop and scroll it by pressing ctrl+alt or shift+ctrl then move the mouse left or right.
Oh, I just recently discovered that there is a free version and there’s a trial version. The free version just allows you scroll you desktop left and right and the trial version has a menu with some of the functionality of the full version. I’ll walk you through the different tabs of the trial version.

This is the navigation tab. I serves as the ‘viewfinder’ of your scrolling desktop. The small red box shows where your screen are and the small gibberish blacks are the windows. As you can see there a lot of space on the left and right to place you windows.

This is the Options tab. As you can see there are a lot of options that are disabled (the only ones that you can click are Repaint windows after scrolling and Show navigation icon for pen & touch screen computers.)

This is the Scrolling Windows tab. It shows the tasks that are running and here you can choose which windows are ‘fixed’ and will not scroll even if you scroll the desktop.
You basically can’t do anything on the “Help”, “Virtual Screen” and “Registration” tabs. Help just shows you the functionality of the program, “Virtual Screen” teaches you how to extend you desktop so that you can also scroll up and down. And “Registration” tab is well, the tab where you register so that you can fully use the program and all its features. And BTW, when you use the trial version, it annoys you about every 30 minutes if you want to register the product (I don’t really mind that).
So, that’s it! Scrolling desktops are very useful applications especially of you are multitasking. Give it a try guys and tell me what you think. And oh, if you know better ones, feel free to share it here!

Philippine Election 2010 Official Candidates

2010-04-14T03:55:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone! Welcome to the PetikSphere. As you can see, this is my first post. And since election day is coming (May 10, 2010), this list will be helpful for those who don’t know who the candidates for national positions are. This list is from the COMELEC website (http://www.comelec.gov.ph/2010%20National_Local/certified_list_of_candidates_2010_toc.html). Just click on their names to check out their official website or Facebook page or Wikipedia page (if they have some).

CERTIFIED LIST OF CANDIDATES

May 10, 2010 National Elections

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

#	NAME	NICKNAME	POLITICAL PARTY
1	ACOSTA, VETELLANO SEINEZ	DODONG	KBL
2	AQUINO, BENIGNO SIMEON III COJUANGCO	NOYNOY	LP
3	DE LOS REYES, JOHN CARLOS GORDON	JC	AKP
4	ESTRADA EJERCITO, JOSEPH MARCELOV	ERAP	PMP
5	GORDON, RICHARD JUICO	DICK	B.BAYAN-VNP
6	MADRIGAL, JAMBY AS	JAMBY	INDEPENDENT
7	PERLAS, JESUS NICANOR PINEDA	NICK	INDEPENDENT
8	TEODORO, GILBERTO JR. COJUANGCO	GIBO	LKS-KAM
9	VILLANUEVA, EDUARDO CRUZ	BRO. EDDIE	BP
10	VILLAR, MANUEL JR BAMBA	MANNY	NP

*Last March 4, 2010, COMELEC disqualifies Acosta.His name, however, would remain in the ballot although votes that would be cast for him will be considered invalid.

VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

#	NAME	NICKNAME	POLITICAL PARTY
1	BINAY, JEJOMAR CABAUATAN	JOJO	PDP LABAN
2	CHIPECO, DOMINADOR JR FUENTECILLA	JUN	AKP
3	FERNANDO, BAYANI FLORES	BF	B.BAYAN-VPN
4	LEGARDA, LOREN BAUTISTA	LOREN	NPC
5	MANZANO, EDUARDO BARRIOS	EDU	LKS-KAM
6	ROXAS, MANUEL ARANETA	MAR	LP
7	SONZA, JOSE YUMANG	JAY SONZA	KBL
8	YASAY, PERFECTO RIVAS	KIDLAT	BP

SENATORIAL CANDIDATES

#	NAME	NICKNAME	POLITICAL PARTY
1	ACOSTA, JR. NEREUS OLAIVAR	NERIC	LP
2	ALBANI, SHARIFF IBRAHIM HUSSIEN	SHARIFF	KBL
3	ALONTO,ZAFRULLAH MAROHOMBSAR NOLDY	NOLDY	BP
4	BAUTISTA, J.V. LARION	J.V. BAUTISTA	PMP
5	BAUTISTA, MARTIN DONATO	DR. BALIKBAYAN	INDEPENDENT
6	BELLO, SILVESTRE III HERNANDO	BEBOT	LKS-KAM
7	BIAZON, ROZZANO RUFINO BUNOAN	RUFFY	LP
8	BONG REVILLA, RAMON, JR. BAUTISTA	KAP	LKS-KAM
9	CAUNAN, HENRY BUENAVENTURA	HENRY	PDP LABAN
10	CAYETANO, PILAR JULIANA SCHRAMM	PIA	NP
11	DAVID, RIZALITO YAP	LITO	AKP
12	DE VENECIA, JOSE III PEREZ	JOEY	PMP
13	DEFENSOR SANTIAGO, MIRIAM PALMA	MIRIAM	PRP
14	DRILON, FRANKLIN MAGTUNAO	FRANK	LP
15	ENRILE, JUAN PONCE	JPE	PMP
16	ESPINOSA, NANETTE MELITON	ATE NANETTE	KBL
17	ESTRADA, JINGGOY EJERCITO	JINGGOY	PMP
18	GUICO, RAMON, JR. NAVAL	GETS KO	LKS-KAM
19	GUINGONA, TEOFISTO III DE LARA	TG	LP
20	HONTIVEROS-BARAQUEL, ANA THERESIA HONTIVEROS	RISA H.	LP
21	IMBONG, JO AUREA MARCOS	ATE JO	AKP
22	INOCENCIO, MA. KATHERINE L. REYES	KATA	BP
23	LACSON, ALEXANDER LEDESMA	PINOY	LP
24	LAMBINO, RAUL LOYOLA	RAUL	LKS-KAM
25	LANGIT, REY MAGAT	REY LANGIT	LKS-KAM
26	LAO, YASMIN BUSRAN	YAS	LP
27	LAPID, MANUEL MERCADO	LITO	LKS-KAM
28	LIM, DANILO DELA PUZ	GENERAL DANNY	INDEPENDENT
29	LOOD, ALMA ABELLA	ALMA	KBL
30	LOZADA, JOSE APOLINARIO JR LECONIA	JUN	PMP
31	MAAMBONG, REGALADO ESTRELLA	DODONG	KBL
32	MARCOS, FERDINAND, JR. ROMUALDEZ	BONGBONG	NP
33	MAZA, LIZA LARGOZA	LIZA NG GABRIELA	INDEPENDENT
34	MITRA, RAMON BLANCO	MON-MON	NP
35	NIKABULIN, ADZ GANIH	COUNT HABIS	BP
36	OCAMPO, RAMONCITO POBLETE	MONCHING	BP
37	OCAMPO, SATURNINO CUNANAN	SATUR	BAYAN MUNA
38	OPLE, SUSAN VASQUEZ	TOOTS	NP
39	OSMENA, EMILIO MARIO RENNER	PROMDI	PROMDI
40	OSMEÑA, SERGIO III DE LA RAMA	SERGE	INDEPENDENT
41	PALPARAN, JOVITO JR SALVAÑA	JOVI	INDEPENDENT
42	PAPIN, IMELDA ARCILLA	IMELDA PAPIN	KBL
43	PAREDES, ZOSIMO JESUS II MENDOZA	JESS	AKP
44	PIMENTEL, GWENDOLYN DE LA LLANA	GWEN	PDP LABAN
45	PLAZA, RODOLFO GALIDO	OMPONG	NPC
46	PRINCESA, REYNALDO RELUCIO	PRINCE	INDEPENDENT
47	QUERUBIN, ARIEL OLIVA	MARINES	NP
48	RECTO, RALPH GONZALEZ	RALPH	LP
49	REMULLA, GILBERT CESAR CATIBAYAN	GILBERT	NP
50	RIÑOZA-PLAZO, MARIA GRACIA DE VEAS	GRACE	AKP
51	ROCO, SONIA MALASARTE	SON	LP
52	SISON, ADRIAN ORDONEZ	ADRIAN	AKP
53	SOTTO, VICENTE III CASTELO	TITO	NPC
54	TAMANO, ADEL ABBAS	ADEL	NP
55	TAMAYO, REGINALD BALISI	REGIE	AKP
56	TARRAZONA, HECTOR MIRASOL	TARZAN	AKP
57	TATAD, FRANCISCO SARMIENTO	KIT	GAD
58	TINSAY, ALEXANDER BRITANICO	ALEX TINSAY	BP
59	VALDEHUESA, MANUEL JR ECHEM	MANNY	AKP
60	VILLANUEVA, HECTOR LABAO	KA HECTOR	KBL
61	VIRGINES, ISRAEL NICOLAS	DR. ISRAEL	BP

I hope somebody gets to read this before the election. Please vote wisely. Please study the platforms of the candidates before voting them. Don’t let anyone decide for you. Don’t let anyone buy your vote. Our country needs serious leaders to solve our serious problems. Petiks is good as long as it’s not affecting other people badly and these government positions should not be occupied by politicians sitting back and relaxing while many Filipinos suffer.
Happy voting and good luck to us all!