Mental Noise

Firefox and Microsoft, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

2011-10-29T12:38:00.001+08:00

Going through the usual RSS feeds on weekend to day and I stumble into this: Firefox with Bing. Basically, it's a special Mozilla Firefox version which uses Bing as the default search engine. I thought, what's the big deal, you can always change the default search engine anytime. Then I read this: http://www.muktware.com/news/2827 and thought that there may be some deal with it.

I read on and decided to check it out the website at www.firefoxwithbing.com and this is what I get (screenshot below). Note that I am doing this on a Debian machine.

And there it is folks! The very first web page that greets a Debian user: discrimination! And we all know it was Microsoft's IE that brought down Netscape Navigator (which was owned by Mozilla).

The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

2011-10-27T01:56:00.000+08:00

After more than 2 years of owning the book, I finally finished it today.

The book is about how Biff a.k.a. Levi recollects and writes a book on the life of Jesus (Joshua in the book) during their childhood. Biff is, according to this book, Joshua's best friend.

Having been born into Christianity, I was rigorously taught about the Bible and the Catholic faith. The most reiterated stories from the Bible are taken from the synoptic gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke as well as the canonical gospel of John. But if you have read these or are at least familiar with these gospels, then you'd be keen to observe that they tell the story of Jesus from the age of 30+ till his death. I personally feel that there is a gap of not knowing exactly what happened from age 1 through 29. That's where Christopher Moore comes in.

"This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone's faith; however, if one's faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do." ~ Christopher Moore

Contrary to my first impression when I picked up this book, I somehow found it to be enjoyable to read. Having read some Dan Brown books, it's not hard to stereotype this book as something that strikes the same chord -- blasphemy. Unlike the Da Vinci Code, where Christ was portrayed to have (secretly) married Mary Magdalene and had children, I realized that the author did not want to stir controversy in this book but to just create something fun to read. It was really creative how the author used the 3 wise men who visited Jesus on his birth as the instruments of knowledge to prepare Him for His future as the messiah. And did I mention that the book was also humorous?

I liked the ending of the book, where it showed how Biff dealt with Joshua's death -- truly dramatic.

If you are a Christian with an open mind (and sound faith), then I suggest you read this book. If however the title alone already questions your faith or somehow irritates you, then, as I quoted the author above, one may have a bit more praying to do.

The best way I found to determine when I installed my Linux distro

2011-09-04T13:26:00.000+08:00

# tune2fs -l /dev/sda1 | grep cr

This returns:
# Filesystem created: Thu Aug 25 06:01:44 2011

Swap /dev/sda1 to your specific partition.

Do you know of any other way? Let me know.

ALWAYS ON my mobile

2011-09-04T01:05:00.000+08:00

I tried using the ALWAYS ON bandwidth based plan from Smart Telecommunications. Using my entry-level smartphone, I tried out the PhP300 variant which gave me 250MB worth of bandwidth valid for 30-days.

Within the 30 days, my usage were mostly for social networks namely Twitter, Facebook and G+. I also checked my GMail but since I don't do heavy emailing via mobile so the usage for this is very negligible. I set up my phone so that auto syncing is always on so that I get updates in real-time. Although I doubt that the notifications were in real-time because I only saw the sync icon in the notification area activate when the phone was unlocked. I am not sure if this is the phone's limited capability. I also downloaded some apps from Android marketplace; about 4 apps at least (some are updates to existing apps).

By the 15th day, I checked the balance and I still had around 181MB worth of bandwidth to burn. Which isn't surprising really because most of my usage only involved downloading text-based data. And so I increased my usage by using it to browse some sites that were blocked by the corporate firewall. Of course, the experience would of been better had I had one of those superphones or tablet. I also streamed online radio music for one day just so I can use up some bandwidth.

By the last day, I got a text message saying that I have used 200MB already so I had 50MB left. I don't know if I consumed all that but I would say I didn't.

Of course, the 3.5G signal strength matters. At home, the signal was much more consistent than when I am in the office where signal was intermittent (which is a shame because the mobile use is beneficial when I am in the office where I don't have access to WiFi).

All in all, the service was fair. I could get connected most of the times, when signal was strong. I think for social networking, the 250MB for 30 days is more than enough. But I feel it's the best deal among all the denominations available for the ALWAYS ON service. Connection speed is fast enough to my liking (HINT: set your phone to only use HSDPA signal) but browsing was a bit of a chore (but this really had to do with the phone I was using). If you are on the go all of the time and there is good HSDPA coverage in the area, then this is a good way to be connected.

How to make the trackpoint + middle button = scroll function for a X32 Thinkpad and Debian Squeeze

2011-08-29T00:17:00.001+08:00

I have been using an X32 Thinkpad for some time now and I have never really found time to configure the "Trackpoint + Middle Button = Scrolling" to work. I wasted around an hour today to get this working. From creating a /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-thinkpad.conf file (which didn't work) to creating a /etc/udev/rules.d/99_trackpoint.rules rule for udev (which didn't work) to creating the most generic X11 configuration file, the /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which also didn't work.

Long story short, to make it work, it was very simple using xinput but note that these steps may be specific to Thinkpad X32 and Debian Squeeze.

First, create a ~/.xsessionrc and the put the ff. lines inside the file:
# Enable vertical scrolling
xinput set-int-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation" 8 1
xinput set-int-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Button" 8 2

(Optional)

# Enable horizontal scrolling xinput set-int-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes" 8 6 7 4 5

Do restart xorg (or just restart your laptop) and it will work (it worked for me).

Getting the DWA 125 wireless usb dongle to work on Debian Squeeze

2011-08-27T02:03:00.000+08:00

I had a previous post similar to this for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS but it wasn't working for me in Debian. So I had to find another way.

The mighty D-Link DWA-125 Wireless USB dongle!!!

Fortunately for me, Debian has some non-free packages available for the device so no compiling needed. To install it, you need to append the word non-free to the sources list like so:

# nano /etc/apt/sources.list

In this file, add non-free to the end of the line:

deb http://ftp.tw.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main non-free

Then install the driver:




# aptitude install firmware-ralink wireless-tools

Note that my Debian installation was a standard one but I chose the XFCE4 desktop environment and laptop-tools during install so wireless-tools was already installed. As with the previous post, the drivers seem to get mixed up so I needed to do the ff so that the correct driver, rt2870sta will be used (of course, you can just edit the config file directly):




# echo "blacklist rt2800usb"

# tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

As I mentioned, I installed the XFCE4 desktop manager and so it installs WICD (network manager) with it. I burned about 1 hour figuring out a way to connect via WICD because it kept getting stuck at Obtaining IP address and wouldn't connect. Here's what I did, in case you are using WICD. Apparently, the WICD Debian wiki said that only the loopback interface should be in the /etc/network/interfaces file. So I checked mine and ended with something like (notice the last 2 lines are commented out):




# The loopback network interface

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
#allow-hotplug eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp

A reboot later, everything worked!

Here's a thought I had when I saw my payslip today...

2011-08-15T23:47:00.003+08:00

As part of a majority of the Philippine corporate ~~whores~~ peons who get paid bi-monthly, today I saw my payslip and looked directly at how much the big ol' government was juicing me. And as any hardworking corporate ~~whore~~ peon, you know that you've been robbed if your tax amounts to more than, say, 300 pesos. Am I right?

Anyway, a question came to mind -- if the government were to do something worthwhile for the country's populace, what would I want it to be? Obviously, if you're a part of the corporate world, I'm sure that "no taxes" would come to mind. But let's face it, the government needs money to function (essentially) and prosper (ideally). So I thought of this instead.

What if the we were taxed based on the who we cast our votes for during the elections? For example, I voted for President A but President B won. So those people who voted for President B would have to pay much more tax because the person they "hired" to work for them was elected to the office. Also because the people who voted for B are obliged to pay the "wage" of B. You hired B, you pay for B's compensation! This will also hold true for other elected government officials such as vice president, senators, congressmen, etc. So if the person you voted for isn't doing his job or is always absent during sessions, then it would make you think twice about re-electing him in future elections.

The only drawback with this is the low turnout during elections. But that would mean lesser election-related violence. Right?

Really, I'm just bitter about the big taxes majority of us pay and see no plausible improvements whatsoever.

Way Back Then

2011-07-24T09:44:00.000+08:00

I felt a bit nostalgic myself after reading a friend's blog post about the computers and the internet way back then. This is a recollection of my first experience with the Windows operating system way back 1993.

You can access the online Windows 3.1 web app over at http://www.michaelv.org/ to try it out yourself.

Locally created Table Types in ABAP programs

2011-07-13T00:14:00.002+08:00

Well, this is shameful. I have been coding in ABAP for close to 5 years now but I haven't come across, nor thought of this, until earlier today. I have always thought that to be able to use Table Types in programs, one has to explicitly create a DDIC object for it. But as I was reverse-engineering some piece of code earlier today, I discovered that I can indeed create a Table Type locally in a program; and it's quite simple too!

TYPES: BEGIN of TY_FOOBAR,
         FIELD1 type SOME_TYPE_1,
         FIELD2 type SOME_TYPE_2,
         FIELD3 type SOME_TYPE_3,
         END of TY_FOOBAR,

        TY_FOOBAR_T type STANDARD TABLE OF TY_FOOBAR.

The last line is the locally defined Table Type.

It's too bad that I mostly learned ABAP by myself doing self-study. Or following examples I get online not knowing what or why this or that is used. But still, I seem to manage pretty well. I just hope that we don't get strangled by the vines of deadlines so much so that we can still have time to do some self-study during office hours whilst in a project (but that's another rant for another post...someday).

Beautifying Xterm via .Xresources

2011-07-02T15:25:00.000+08:00

Xterm is the default terminal emulator of the X Window System. And its default state is very, well, default. It is usable but, IMO, it's not very pleasing to the eyes. For a lack of a better word, it looks bland.

Behold Xterm in all its default glory!

Some might say why fuss around with the terminal when clearly there are GUI tools available. I believe that doing some things via the command line are faster.

I will be using .Xresources file to do the configuration of Xterm. It's just a text file located at your home directory so doing a nano ~/.Xresources will create it there. You only then need to edit it with your configuration (of course, you can replace nano with your editor of choice).

Here's my .Xresources file:

! xterm ----------------------------------------------------------------------

xterm*geometry:           80x25
xterm*faceName:           droid sans mono:regular:pixelsize=14
!xterm*font:             -*-dina-medium-r-*-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
xterm*foreground:         white
xterm*background:         RosyBrown1
xterm*dynamicColors:      true
xterm*utf8:               2
xterm*eightBitInput:      true
xterm*saveLines:          512
xterm*scrollTtyKeypress:  true
xterm*scrollTtyOutput:    false
xterm*scrollBar:          true
xterm*rightScrollBar:     true
xterm*jumpScroll:         true
xterm*multiScroll:        true
xterm*toolBar:            false

If you may notice, I used the Droid Sans Mono font and the RosyBrown1 background. Of course you can change these settings to your liking. Note that the .Xresources does not only cater to Xterm but many more X-applications as well. If you are using Arch Linux, like me, then you can start reading this wiki.

Oh, if you are not using a desktop environment (I'm only using a window manager, Openbox), you may need to add the command xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources to your .xinitrc file.

Here's my "beautified" Xterm:

PIIIIIIIINK!!! Xterm

Happy configuring!

Nokia joins the dual-sim bandwagon

2011-06-21T01:20:00.000+08:00

Some of you might be aware that last June 17, Nokia released two of their new, entry-level, dual-sim phones: the C2-00 and X1-01. It's the most basic of phones but I must say that the price is quite competitive with the existing dual-sim phone manufacturers in the Philippines (i.e. Cherry Mobile, MyPhone, Torque).

Below is a table of some specs for both phones.

Phone Model	Nokia C2-00	Nokia X1-01
Phone Image (taken from Nokia)
Price (in Php)	2,990.00	1,990.00
Dual-Sim	Yes » Dual-Sim Standby » One Sim slot is hot swappable	Yes » Dual-Sim Standby
Operating Frequency	Dual band 900/1800 MHz	EGSM 900/1800
Dimensions	» Size: 108 x 45 x 14.65 mm » Weight (with battery): 74.1 g » Volume: 67.9cc	» Size: 112.2 x 47.3 x 16 mm » Weight (with battery): 91.05 g » Volume: 73.2 cc
Display	» Screen size: 1.8" » Resolution: 128 x 160 pixels » Up to 65,000 colors	» Screen size: 1.8" » Resolution: 128 x 160 TFT display » 65,000 colors
Memory	» microSD memory card slot, hot swappable, max. 32 GB » Internal memory: 64/16 ram/flash	MicroSD memory card slot, hot swappable, up to 16 GB (sold separately)
Camera	Yes; VGA	No
Connectivity	» Bluetooth 2.1+EDR with Enhanced Data Rate » High-Speed USB 2.0 (micro USB connector)	None

Obviously, the Nokia C2-00 is the sure winner but with the extra Php1000.00, the Nokia X1-01 may well be a good choice for budget conscious consumers. The glaring difference that may matter to some people is the absence of the camera on the Nokia X1-01 but a VGA camera is not, for me, worth the extra thousand pesos. Also, the Nokia X1-01 may not have connectivity ports but a card reader can do the trick. If you plan on using a Bluetooth headset then the Nokia C2-00 would be a better choice (but I don't know if the Nokia C2-00 supports that so better ask). Aesthetically, the Nokia C2-00 looks better with the Nokia X1-01 looking a bit futuristic. Both have FM Radio (which matters a lot for me) and sport a 3.5mm audio jack (which I think is the standard nowadays) so either phone will work for me.

The best feature of these 2 phones is the ability to have 2 Sim cards at the same time. Even though the existence of dual-Sim phones have been in the Philippines for a while now, I personally prefer investing on a phone made by one of the leading brands of phone manufacturers in the Philippines. I have used one Philippine manufactured dual-Sim phone (Cherry Mobile Q3i) in the past and I think it's okay...but the UI is what made me look elsewhere. For me, UI matters and even the most basic Nokia phone, including those monochrome phones, are the most user friendly.

I think I will buy one of these soon.

A Father's Day Post

2011-06-19T22:52:00.000+08:00

Before this day ends, I would like to greet all the fathers out there. I am not yet one but I can understand how hard it is to be one. Coincidentally, my wife and I watched the movie Inkheart on DVD today. And I believe that it is one of those classic tales about the lengths a father would go to just to protect his family.

The constant battles with the book-spawned evils in the movie may very well symbolize the many challenges a father goes through in life. Mo protects his daughter in the movie from the demons just like a father would protect his daughter from bad influences in life. Mo does everything he can to bring back his wife in the movie just as a father should keep the family intact for the sake of the children. Despite all the challenges, Mo does his best to keep his composure just like a father should when faced with trials that involve his family.

Mothers are considered modern day saints and I believe fathers can be considered modern day heroes. I know that my hero is my father. I know how much he had to sacrifice to give us a comfortable life; he forced himself to rise from poverty -- I know, I read his 3-page autobiography and it made me cry inside.

Again, a happy father's day to all fathers out there. And to my dad, who can never be anything less than a hero in my life.

Getting the DWA 125 Wireless Dongle to Work in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

2011-06-07T00:24:00.000+08:00

I have a laptop with networking interfaces eth0 (Atheros AR8152) and wlan0 (Broadcom 4727) which are not supported by the kernel version of 10.04 LTS (2.6.32-21-generic). I needed a kernel version 2.6.37 or higher to get these 2 interfaces working. But since I had no Internet connection, the best way, based on the answer(s) to my query, was to download the kernel manually from http://packages.ubuntu.com and install it in it's binary (.deb) format. When I tried searching for them in the package site, I saw that these linux-generic or linux-*-generic files had multiple dependencies so I thought twice of installing them this way. Dependencies is actually one of the top reason why I get freaked out about installing Linux distros without an Internet connection.

Then I had one last card up my sleeve. I had this old D-Link DWA 125 wireless dongle lying around so I stuck it into the USB port of my laptop and restarted the computer. I was excited after the reboot as the ifconfig -a command showed an entry for the wlan0 interface and it was corresponding to the dongle because the MAC was the same. But another problem arose; the dongle was detected alright but it wasn't alive. The led light was not blinking and Network Manager wasn't showing any WiFi hotspots (much less the WiFi hotspot I own) in it's menu. So there was something wrong with it. And when hardware doesn't work out, it's most likely the drivers have been effed up.

Searching the internet, I came across a site (or PDF file)^[1] that will help me with my problem. Basically, I did what's written in the guide but had to improvise a bit. Since I had no internet connection via my laptop, I had to use a different computer to download the driver for the dongle.

I went to this FTP site to download the .tar.gz file. In my case, I downloaded the DRIVER_LINUX_DWA-125_STA_v2.1.2.0.tar.gz file. I then copied the file to the ~/tmp directory of my Ubuntu-run laptop and then did the ff. commands in succession:

~/tmp$ tar -xzvf DRIVER_LINUX_DWA-125_STA_v2.1.2.0.tar.gz
~/tmp$ cd 2009_1204_RT3070_Linux_STA_v2.1.2.0
~/tmp/2009_1204_RT3070_Linux_STA_v2.1.2.0$ make
~/tmp/2009_1204_RT3070_Linux_STA_v2.1.2.0$ sudo make install
~/tmp/2009_1204_RT3070_Linux_STA_v2.1.2.0$ echo "blacklist rt2800usb" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

So basically, I extracted the archive and it created the 2009_1204_RT3070_Linux_STA_v2.1.2.0 directory. I then went inside this directory and issued the make command. After that was done, I issued the sudo make install then the last command basically blacklists the driver that was run previously; the driver that gave the "fake" wlan0 interface entry but wouldn't connect.

After doing all those things above, reboot your computer and the D-Link DWA 125 wireless adapter should be working. You'll know because the led light blinks and Network Manager finally picks up the WiFi hotspots.

References: ^[1]http://people.scs.carleton.ca/~barbeau/Linux/DWA_125_and_Ubuntu%20_10_04.pdf

Stranger Tides Indeed

2011-05-30T21:59:00.003+08:00

Who doesn't like Pirates of the Carribean? I know that I like it. Been an avid fan ever since the 1st one came out. Of course, it mostly has something to do about the lead actor, Johnny Depp who, in my opinion is such a great and flexible fellow.

Uncle Vernon is one mean fat bastard!

So my wife and I headed for the movie house to watch the 3D version. I was hoping to watch it in all its IMAX 3D splendor but lo and behold, the movie was changed in less than a fortnight!

The movie was enjoyable at best. There's always the wit and humor that Jack Sparrow brings (coupled with quirky and funny physical gestures). I think that that's what I was looking forward to in the whole movie. As in any Pirates movie, it is full of mystery, or more like myth. I think the enjoyable factor about any Pirates movie is the usage of myth and how they build a story around it. Like in this case, the fountain of youth -- and mermaids -- that we all know don't exist (or do they?).

Vampire mermaids rule!

Ahhh...mermaids! That scene where they all came out of the water got me thinking that one of these maids have strutted their stuff over at FTV channel. Of course, these man-eating-vampire-mermaids put Ariel to shame. Not only do they sport fangs, but they can also auto transform their fins to human legs; no need to sing and a lost voice for a pair of legs!

In my opinion, the movie would have worked better with the original supporting cast. But maybe because I prefer seeing Kiera over Penelope (I prefer Kiera's face but Penelope's...err...tattooed skin). Even Barbossa was too tame in this movie but maybe because he's taken the backseat as a villain in the movie. Blackbeard, however, was a great addition (I couldn't believe that he played the part of the Seeker's coach; must have been the smokin' braided beards).

If you liked the previous Pirates movies, then I think it's safe to recommend this movie and that you'd enjoy it too. But I have always been a fan of Depp's work so this may be a biased recommendation. If you are looking for a good weekend movie to de-stress yourself, then by all means, go see it!

Last of Summer

2011-05-28T01:00:00.000+08:00

Borromeo Resort, San Francisco, Camotes Island

My wife and I, along with four friends, made a final dash to the beach before summer's end and it was one of the best beach vacations I've had in ages. Of course, one knows that to get to at least a good beach nowadays, one has to travel hours in suicidal public land transports and antique water vessels; ours consisted of an hour's ride to the wharf via jeepney and then a 2-hour ferry boat ride to get to our destination -- Camotes Island.

There were side shows during the boat ride where dolphins were gliding along with the boat at a distance. Some dolphins even came very close to the sides of the boat and jumped out of the water to the amusement of those people lucky enough to see them (I wasn't able to witness this).

When we got to the island, we hired a multicab which offered to give us a tour for Php1500 if only within barrio San Francisco or Php1800 if we go further (to the next barrio). The fare to and from the wharf and resort would cost about Php50 per head so it's a bit steep but you actually have no choice.

I am sure that there are a lot of places to go to in San Francisco, Camotes but we were only able to go to a few:

Santiago Bay Resort - This was where we stayed for the night. It was a really good place and cheap rooms (we took a standard room for 2 which cost Php1800/night but since we had to add 4 more people, we ended up paying about Php2700+ for the room)
Mangodlong Beach Resort - You see natural rock formations in this beach. These rock formations also have cottages built on top of them. I was told that it was a great sight early mornings when the tide is low as you can go underneath these rock formations. I think you pay Php15 for entrance but since we were staying at the Santiago Bay resort, then entrance was free (I heard the owner of the 2 resorts were one and the same)
Lake Danao - This is on big lake. Serene. Calm. A great place for a picnic. The entrance is Php5 per person. Too bad the dock they made was quite small; given that a whole lot of people were going there to get pictures taken. We weren't able to ride on that lake boat they had (Php500 per 10 persons for maybe an hour's ride) because we were running out of time
Timubo Caves - A cave with natural spring waters big enough for swimming in. You pay Php15 per person for entrance fee here. It was disappointing because when we got there, the spring where you can swim in was full of people so it looked like a local bath house more than it resembled a natural spring
Borromeo Beach - Last stop of the day as we were getting tired. Another white sand beach. Php5 per person for entrance fee (and where I took the photo above)

We were lucky to have splendid weather during this trip. It was sunny and the open sea was calm. The white sanded beaches were great and food was good (we only ate at Pito's Su-to-kil where seafoods were really cheap). All in all, it was a relaxing weekend spent in good summer weather and great company.

Homeward Bound

I feel one day at Camotes is not enough to explore the beauty of nature. It's a very conducive place for relaxation and lazing about. Whenever I heard the cicadas make the noises they make, my mind was quickly transported back to my childhood in Bukidnon where the soothing sounds of these insects were common. Sadly, I live in the city now so hearing those sounds again at Camotes was a treat.

Facebook Mail

2011-05-25T21:09:00.000+08:00

username@facebook.com

I was greeted by this pop-up box when I opened Facebook today and it seems that they are rolling-out the revamped version of Messages which they have mutated into an email service + Messages sort of thing. I don't know if you can change your username at any point in time (but I doubt it). I just hope that this Facebook Mail will not turn out to be just another email service. And it would take time to pry people off of their staple Y!Mail or Gmail accounts which they have used for very many years already.

They make these points on why you'd want to set-up a Facebook email address:

It’s free and easy to set up.

Having your email integrated with your messages, chats and texts makes it easier to check them all at once. And if you’re looking for a message later, you don’t have to worry about how it was sent since all your different types of messages are in one place.

Your Facebook messages are compatible with traditional email systems (e.g., Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail). When people send you emails from these external systems, they’re delivered directly to your Facebook Messages. And when you send messages to external email addresses, they’re formatted to look like your messages on Facebook, including your name and profile picture along with your message.

Owning your @facebook.com address makes it easier for friends and family who are not on Facebook yet to connect with you.

Your other email addresses may change over time, but your Facebook email never does.

I will give this a try although I really doubt that I'd convert from Gmail to Facebook email overnight. But having an @facebook.com email will be handy for those who actually live and breathe Facebook everyday.

Thor && Fast Five

2011-05-18T22:30:00.000+08:00

Last weekend my wife and I splurged some money to finally watch ~~a movie~~ 2 movies legitimately by going to the nearest neighborhood movie houses a.k.a. mall.

Thor's Day on a Saturday

Holy thunders! I got bigger bewbies than my leading lady!

I am personally not a fan of Thor (but I do like Marvel Comics) so I didn't know what to expect in the movie. I did read a lot of mythology when I was in elementary so Odin and Thor and Loki were all familiar names. Anyway, I don't know if it was the IMAX 3D experience that made the movie enjoyable or the fact that I was forced to enjoy it because I paid Php400 for it.

Anyway, the movie was enjoyable. The CGI sequences were superb, as what you'd expect from these Marvel movies, and the action scenes were okay. What I wasn't expecting was the the movie would have a great story behind it. It's not a typical superhero-kicks-ass-of-villain type of movie. It's actually about how a man (or god) was taught humility which gave him a different perspective about his existence. Of course, Loki was the villain of the movie but he also had some issues of his own to deal with. It's actually the first time I've gotten to know about this Thor character from the Marvel Universe. I hope the Avengers movie will be as enjoyable (or better) when it comes out.

If you haven't seen the movie, I wouldn't really recommend it. But if you grew up reading comics in general, then relax to this movie. And, as with most Marvel movies, stay till the end of the end credits, as you may miss a cut-scene.

A fast Sunday with the Fast Five

Brian and Mia, that Asian dude with that hot biker chick, so I guess we're stuck with each other, huh? If you smell what I'm cooking?

This is one movie franchise that I personally love. Since the original came out, I didn't miss even one movie. Although I thought the the death of the franchise came with the Tokyo Drift movie, I somehow still found myself enjoying the Fast and Furious movie when it came out. Perhaps it's because the original crew were reunited.

I actually got into this movie series plainly because I was so addicted to the Need for Speed Underground games a few years back. Of course, I like Vin Diesel when he's doing an action flick and the Rock was simply great in this movie. Although there weren't many street racing scenes, I liked that this movie had a better story that the previous four that came before it. The movie felt like a typical Die Hard movie except with lesser gun fights. The fight scene between Dom and Luke was epic. I can imagine how a scene with two 6-foot+ behemoths would look in real life; it would really be exciting and scary. Dwayne's acting in this one was really good as I'm used to seeing him in funny movies so I tip my hat to him. If you like fast action scenes with a good story, then watch this movie. Oh, and I really can't wait for the next one to come.

So that's my juggernaut-filled movie weekend!

One with the 'Droids

2011-05-15T23:32:00.000+08:00

Today, I am officially one of them 'Droids! Today, I bought myself an Android-powered phone. It isn't anything fancy because I really don't intend to splurge a lot of money for a piece of technology which will be obsolete in 6 months tops. The phone I bought is an Alcatel OT-980.

It's probably one of the cheapest, if not THE cheapest, Android phone (regardless of OS version) out in the market as of 2011/05/15. When I bought mine, it cost me Php5999.00 spot cash (Php7990.00 if card; that's almost Php2000.00 difference). It sports Android 2.1 (Eclair) version and I am not sure if it can be upgraded to 2.2 but I really don't care right now. It's also a combo of touchscreen (resistive) and a physical full-QWERTY keyboard.

Looks like a Blackberry Torch 9800 but with Android! And it's cheaper!

I have been considering this phone as a replacement for an old Sony Ericsson K700i, along with the Nokia E5 (Php8790.00), Samsung Galaxy Pro (Php12490.00) and Acer beTouch E130 (Php7990.00). Obviously, I was on the lookout for phones with physical full-QWERTY keypad and OS-agnostic. But I think I got a good deal out of this one; it being an Android and touchscreen-and-physical-QWERTY bastard that it is. I just hope the quality is good and it will last me a long time.

Updates on ...

2011-05-01T11:18:00.000+08:00

It's already May 1, happy Labor day! Too bad it's a weekend otherwise it would have been a long weekend. But it's almost halfway through the year and time does fly really fast nowadays. I haven't been doing many things lately due to a busy schedule - do while (rich != true). home, work, home. enddo. - so no chance for side-trips to somewhere nice or doing something relaxing.

I however started something geeky for myself to keep busy with. I got a new computer and I have been wanting to try something new (aside from Ubuntu -- which, by the way, has a new version out recently) so I decided to give Arch Linux a go. So far it's been great. A n00b like me never realizes how powerful the command-line interface is until using it for 3 straight days configuring the system. If you're into something geeky and have some time, check out the distro.

As for my 365 photo project, I don't know if I will be able to maintain it. Too bad.

Oh yeah, and someone got married to someone.

Snippets of what I did during my visit to SG and MY

2011-04-09T17:26:00.001+08:00

Despite all the busy schedules that work brings, I was able to squeeze in 5 days of unadulterated (whatever the heck that means) vacationing with family and friends. As the title of this post obviously states, I recently went on a SG-MY trip last March 6 - 11. That's about a month ago today (how fast time flies!) and only till now did I get enough willpower in me to post something about it for posterity's (again, whatever the heck that means) sake. So here goes...(it's quite a long post given that it's about a weeks experience).

We arrived at the Changi Airport at around 23:45hrs of March 5 and so decided to stay overnight to save up some money (we would otherwise have spent had we rented out a room for the night). Turns out it was a bad idea as I for sure wasn't able to get a good hour of sleep! So don't do this...well I forgot what they said here about sleeping at the airport so we suffered! But our new experience was just beginning so no need to dampen the spirit, right?

Okay, I really feel that pictures will help out in this post so...

This is where we stayed. YMCA International Hostel. It wasn't exactly cheap for a Php earning peon. Look elsewhere if you're on a tight budget.

Location: Marina Bay area of Singapore. Fresh out of the airport, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and went straight here.

The Singapore Flyer is a really big ass ferris wheel. When you're used to seeing our local ferris wheels during town fiesta fairs, it would pale in comparison to this. The fare cost us S$29, if I recall correctly. Ride lasted for about 45 mins. You get to see aerial views of some parts of the bay.

The reflection of the Singapore Flyer on the building glass. I felt a bit artistic-y.

The sun going down behind the behemoths at the central business district of Singapore. Oh yeah, it was already 7:30pm when this shot was taken which is what 5:30pm looks like here in the Philippines. No wonder I was a bit sleepy.

Location: Universal Studios, Sentosa at Singapore. I had the most fun here (you really have to lest you wasted your S$66 if you don't). Lot's of cool stuff to see.

The 2 intertwined roller coaster known as Battlestar Galactica. The blue rails are for the Cylons and the red rails are for the Humans. I only rode the Human one, had no guts for the Cylon. Go there to know why.

It was really hot there at Universal Studios and when I saw this, I wished I'd brought with me a change of clothes. Look! The dino is eyeing the little girl for dinner!

The Dino resto at the Universal Studios. Funny I didn't run into Fred or Barney.

Waterworld show was the best. If you like to get wet, then go down to the front rows.

And then I found myself in Far, Far Away. The 4D Shrek movie was fun but too short. And Donkey's comedy bar was impressive - the close to accurate way the CGIed Donkey's lips moved along with the voice behind the curtains.

The Fast and the Furios: Legends. Asian Vin Diesel was there at Universal Studios! Couldn't get an autograph though. Too bad...

Songs of the Sea. This was a great show. Impressed at how they are able to pull off projecting these animated sequences using water spray as canvass. A must see if you haven't already.

Location: Malaysia. This was a side trip to MY we did since we were already there (in SG) and MY was just close by. Thanks to the special someone of a companion we were able to do the indoor skydiving simulator at a reasonably low cost.

Marrybrown. This is meal #11 - my favorite! It's really good. Actually, the food in MY was way better than SG based on my personal taste buds.

Fish Spa. According to the owner, these fish are called Chin-Chin (that's how I heard it) and they feed on the ... uhm ... whatever dead stuff on your feet. Ticklish but fun, a must try! Is there one here in Cebu where we can avail of this spa?

Architectural wonders. I could stare at this all evening. It was really good to finally see these towers in person. Awesome, truly awesome.

Classic Inn Budget Hotel. Off Jalan Imbi, Malaysia. This is where we stayed in MY. It's a really cozy place and the food (free breakfast) is good. The owner was really generous and you could even vandalize a portion of the Inn's walls with your personal message. I would highly recommend this hotel.

Traveling always makes me queasy at first but once you get to the destination and see something you only see in postcards (read: Petronas Towers), you forget the fatigue and costs incurred during the trip...well, until your credit card bill comes and you realize it's back to reality!

Well, that's all I will spare for this blog post as I realize it has become quite a lengthy post. Thanks for reading.

Brothers separated at birth?

2011-03-26T14:17:00.001+08:00

This is a short post. I was browsing the internet and came across this.

Huawei U9000 IDEOS X6 (photo from www.GSMArena.com)

Cherry Mobile Magnum HD (photo from www.cherrymobile.com.ph)

So tell me, are they brothers separated at birth? I feel they have identical specs.

» Huawei U9000 IDEOS X6 specs

» Cherry Mobile Magnum HD specs

Three decades burned...and some updates

2011-03-19T02:24:00.001+08:00

I've officially burned up three decades as of 3/15! I wish I have made them count for something. So in another decade, life begins (as the famous adage goes). Moving along...

I haven't been blogging as often as I want to. Even my most active blog - a pet project I really wish would work out - has been adrift in this "cyber-ocean" lately. I feel that there have been no improvements or I'm just getting lazier or ~~I'm just getting~~ I just got older or just busy with stuff. Reasons, reasons and more reasons. Blah. Blah. Blah.

On a plus side, the second week of March found me exploring (the expensive city of) Singapore and some parts of Malaysia. Juggling between coding (very) complex requirements and creating an even (very, very) more complex travel itinerary is no easy feat. But my wife did most of the planning so kudos to her (that's why I love her so much!). Best of all, our group of 6 wannabe backpackers made it back home safe albeit some aching joints (and even bruised pockets). I want to go back to Malaysia to explore; as for Singapore, when I get enough money (it's really expensive there!). I just might post another entry for this recent travel.

That's just about it for now.

I use ClipGrab for off-line viewing of Flash-based movies; what do you use?

2011-02-02T00:20:00.001+08:00

I didn't want to install Adobe Flash Player on my Ubuntu netbook so I asked in a Q&A site how to view Flash-based videos off-line and ClipGrab came as one of the top suggestions. After using it for more than two months now, I write here my (trivial) experience with said application.

It's not in the official Ubuntu repos so installing it was accomplished by following this here guide which took close to about 5 minutes. Once installed, it can be found under Applications > Internet menu (or was it Applications > Sound & Video? I am not sure as I have unconsciously removed it from Ubuntu). Anyhoo, it starts up and displays a simplistic GUI (similar to the Windows GUI below).

This screenshot is from the Windows 7 version of ClipGrab

The first input field in the Downloads tab is where you put the web link of the video you want to download. The Format drop-down I keep with the Original setting. The Quality drop-down varies, depending on the video; sometimes it has a 720p option but most times it's just 360p.

The first time I used it, I tried downloading a 720p video. After it finished, I tried playing it and it played okay from the beginning of the video file up until about 75% then it displayed a gray colored blank screen and playback (i.e. pressing forward button on the player) was unresponsive. Bottom line, video was corrupted. Downloading the video again in 360p quality seemed to make the same video play 100% so I am thinking it might be the ffmpeg encoder that's at fault with my Ubuntu installation. But having installed it in Windows and using it sparingly, there seemed to be no problems with downloading 720p quality vids.

Conclusion

It's a good tool if you plan to download videos off of YouTube and other known streaming video sites and you don't want to install the Adobe Flash plugin on your Ubuntu machine.

But, yes, you have to install a client program.
And yes there are other tools which can be added as an add-on to the Firefox browser (but these add-ons are only capable of downloading from YouTube or need to load the flash video first in the browser before the file can be downloaded (read: scavenge the internet history folders for vid files).
And yes, if in Ubuntu, you need to download the file first before being able to watch it so it can take twice the time it takes to load the video online.

But to each his/her own, right?

Updates on resolutions, how the pet project is going and a few other things

2011-02-01T23:44:00.002+08:00

Second post of the year, and it's some sort of a checkpoint for some stuff. And a short dump for some thoughts.

So I started the year with a few resolutions and as of this posting I really still don't see any real progress. As for removing all pirated software from our desktop PC, I haven't done that yet for at least 1 of the games installed. It isn't because I don't want to but because the desktop is acting a little weird. The other 3 resolutions are still in progress so I won't talk much about them for now.

When the year started I was waiting for sleep to come during the wee hours of new year's day (Jan 1). I saw my camera and took an unfocused snapshot of the Christmas lights in our tree. Then an idea lit up in my brains and I decided to create a pet project 365. That is to take 1 photo per day for 365 days. Since I [feel I] had a good photo to start it off, I created a blog for it immediately. It would be 31 days today since I started the project and so far so good (but I can't really be sure about the quality of photos I take). I'm still at around 8.45% and I fear that I may NOT be able to make it last for longer. But I will try although I consciously know I am slowly faltering. I should've started with a Project 52 but...

Because of the pet project, I am getting weird and expensive ideas to buy myself a much more portable camera that I can have on me everyday so I can shoot stuff. But then I thought that what's there to shoot en route to work and back home? Not much. Given that the area where my office is situated is very strict with dSLR toting folk that the roving guards will ask you if you have a permit to shoot. IT'S AS IF THE AREA HAS A LOT TO OFFER (ONLY MOSTLY VACANT LOTS)! AND WHY DON'T THESE GUARDS EVER SHOO OFF FOREIGNERS SHOOTING? Going back, I am thinking of getting a much more compact camera but I can't decide whether to get a good point-and-shoot, a good quality "phonecam" (phone w/ a good camera) or an EVIL camera. If you have suggestions, let me know in the comments section.

The first month has been so-so. And I hope that there are better things in store for Feb 2011. I know I haven't been busy with this blog as I have concentrated my efforts on my other one. I have another idea but it would really not interest most of you anyway. Keep posted, if you want.

Three - Six - Five

2011-01-09T11:34:00.001+08:00

This be my first blog for 2011. First up, a happy new year to all! I hope the first week of 2011 has been good to you.

To start the year off, I started a pet project most amateur and professional photographers know about: Project 365. The concept is simple -- take one photo a day for the 365 days of the year -- but as days come in rapid succession, it becomes challenging now that I am back in work mode. And so for the first 8 days of the year, I ended up shooting stuff mostly found in the house. I am still at 2% of the project and sometimes I wonder if I will be able to get even to 25%. But I will try. The purpose of this project is to help improve one's photography skills so I guess I will strive hard to complete it. If you happen to be a photographer and chance upon this blog post and visit my project 365 sites, please feel free to leave comments and tips and tricks and constructive criticism for the photos you see.