Bawal tumakbo sa Walkway

Last thursday, hinahabol ko yung closing time ng Bank ni Han, so tumatakbo ako sa Walkway (from Rufino papuntang Enterprise) nang biglang may guard na tumawag sakin...

Guard: "Bakit ka tumatakbo?"
Me: "Ummm, hinahabol ko bangko eh (glances at my left wrist kahit la akong watch, to gesture the time)"
Guard: "Bawal tumakbo sa walkway eh"
Me (in my mind): WTF? Bakit bawal tumakbo sa walk...? Oh.

Anyway tumakbo ulit ako after namin mag-usap.

Bookish Bimbo: Bring back the books

Bookish Bimbo: Bring back the books

:) It's nice to see this post, knowing that you haven't read a good one in a while. It's even nicer because now I know what to give you. heh.

Sam video

Sam....

Writer, Blogger and a few other stuff...

I am currently using Windows Live Writer to post this...

My blogging life is in chaos right now. There are many things that I have been wanting to do(change), like moving to wordpress.com, using my immortal handle as my blog url, making a new original template, promoting world peace, setting up a regular posting schedule, etc... But it's so hard to get started, and the fact that I have a regular day job now doesn't really help either. (I am not even supposed to be blogging right now, according to the guidelines i personally set..)

The fact that most of my friends (well, at least the blogging ones) are here in Blogger, and the mantra "if it ain't broke, don't fix" held me back from moving to WP. Though some people complain about how Blogger sucks, it surpisingly fits me just right. It's not perfect, but it's something that I could live (blog) without.

Which brings me to my next point: new blogger version!

Google is about to launch a new (and improved) version of Blogger, along with move to integrate users' Google and Blogger accounts.

At this point, only a few existing Blogger users are allowed to migrate to the new version, though if you really want to try the new bits, you can sign up (or just use your Gmail/Google login account ) to beta.blogger.com

Blogger buzz lists some of the notable new features here.

Back back back

Back from the dead,

just to vent out my frustrations (and one good reason at the bottom of this post) on my screwed up blogger template. Blogger has this annoying bug of clipping off the blog's template while you are saving/publishing some changes to it. I was trying to fix the botched up nav bar this morning when, during one of my save-publish routine I realized that my template got messed up, this time pretty badly. I don't know if i'll restore the old template but since I don't have it with me now (i'm on cel's pc), i will just use a new one. Stale content I can take, not a bastardized template.

And oh, it's Italy for World Cup 2006, but the real highlight was Zidane's headbutt(video). Wtf was that?

Btw, I stopped watching the matches when Brazil got dropped. Damnit...
--

And i finally got Google Browser Sync to work (dialup sucks). Ah... the convenience of not having to enter passwords again and being able to retain your history, cookies, and even opened tabs and windows, even when you're using another pc. (and the risk of someone else taking over your online persona. hehe). Seriously though, the idea of your browser's data (firefox) data following you wherever you go is much more convenient than it sounds.
--

Thanks for those who greeted baby Sam on his first birthday, and for those who came. :-) . Every birthday is special, but Han and I both agreed that next year's would be the first of many birthdays that will be very meaningful for our little family. As you know, when they first diagnosed Sam, the longest time that he was expected to live was 18 months. So next year we'll be celebrating the first of the many extra birthdays that he was given . Truly a milestone, truly a miracle of life. :-)

(Updated: added Google browser sync link)

...This is my techie blog.

The previous post was actually started as a distraction. This is what i originally intended to post.

I've been thinking lately to pull out my blog altogether. I don't know. Maybe when you want to start a new chapter in your life, you just want to get rid of the things that remind you of that particular chapter that you want to end, or maybe i just wanted to go away, and crawl back to my own antisocial cave. Had a serious heart to heart talk with Han about it (amongst other things), and i decided, to her prodding, to just go on a blog hiatus instead (though she wants to call it a sabbatical blog leave, heh). We've also analysed that maybe this is my own innermost urge to send a signal to the world that No, I am not ok. The tech-related posts are there because not because i have nothing else to blog about, but they are there because they are the only ones that I have to courage to blog about. I mentioned this before-- for every boring, techie content i blog about, there are hundreds of things bothering my mind that I don't. So this is it I guess, no more blogging for me, for a while. (I almost started my pullout last week actually, by deleting my comments on other people's blogs, bad bad, i know. Sorry)

But this is not all bleak, my dear 3 readers. You see, i have just updated my sidebar, and now it contains 3 dynamic lists, the most interesting i guess is the newest Recently, elsewhere section. Hah. I hope that gives you the reason to continue visiting this place, now that it also acts as your aggregator. :) (while you're still too lazy to set up your own).

Bye, for now.

The Sidebar

My sidebar has evolved from your default out-of-the-box blogspot sidebar to what it is now. Most of the time i spent fiddling it was to make it reflect more of my online existence. Also, a considerable chunk of of the effort was to make it as useful as I could possibly make it. It's in a form far from what i really want it to be, but it's a work in progress (albeit slow).

Partly inspired by Nikki's explanation of his blog redesign (also a slow work in progress, heh), Here's a quick list of what you can find on my sidebar, since it's length might have discouraged you (and the fact that our generations' attention span is really getting shorter each day) from fully utilizing its usefulness .

• Profile - The default blogspot profile block. Used to have a link to my technorati profile, but after doubting its usefulness, decided to remove it (might put it back later on though).
• Calendar - powered by 30boxes, a list of public calendar events that i remember to put on my online calendar.
  
• Previous posts - needs no explanation
• Recently, elsewhere - New! this is my dynamic link roll, the 5 most recent posts from my contemporary bloggers listed below. And yeah, powered by Google Reader.
  
• Contemporary bloggers - my list (a bit outdated) of fellow bloggers.
• Archives - dropdown list format, to conserve space.
• Photos - powered by Flickr . Most recent uploads to my flickr account.
• Bookmarks - powered by del.icio.us. List of sites that I find interesting. Arranged in chronological order as i bookmarked them
• Buttons
  
• Get Firefox with Google toolbar - I love Google, I love Firefox, and I love the idea that I might be able to make a litle money from promoting it. :)
• Add to Google - if you're using the Google reader or the Personalized Google Homepage, this button lets you add my blog to them.
• Add to My Yahoo - adds my Blog to your My Yahoo content aggregator
• Hopefully i can improve this particular part of my sidebar, until then, if you don't know my rss feed, just add /atom.xml to my blog url (this btw, works for all blogspot blogs with their feeds turned on)
  
• I power blogger. Licking the hand that feeds. hehe.
  

BackBlog

Stowe Boyd nailed what I think is the real big implication of what Gmail is doing in integrating Google Talk with Gmail.

"...Google is hastening the inevitable collapse of the Berlin Wall
between real-time communication (chat) and slow-time communication
(email)."

I meant to post this on the day Google integrated Talk with Gmail, then forgot about it in my local drafts. Since i don't remember what i was trying to say after this anyway, i might as well post it now. Now, because there are now too many good stuff piled in my to-blog list, i can't take it anymore.

First. (chronologically, as i remember it)
Google launched its web-page creator (pages.google.com), though i think they're suspended registration till now. This is one of the products that is aimed to pass the grand-ma test (my grandma can use it). Excellent showcase of AJAX stuff for the geeks, a super-easy to use tool for those mere mortals who just want to contribute to the world wide web of information pool. Check my test page. When Google pages opens up for larger public consumption, i highly recommend it for your family members, a very nice way to get them started in creating online content.

Second.
Ray Ozzie, the man who is behind Microsoft's efforts in being relevant again in the world of network computing, presented in Etech the idea of extending the idea of the clipboard in the web 2.0 context. Read more on his blog and this simple demo.

Third
Mike of Techcrunch.com presented the screenshots of the upcoming (i hope soon) CL2, Google's Calendar. I've been using 30Boxes for the past weeks as my main online calendaring app, but Google's offering just blows 30 boxes away. I've never felt this urge to become a beta tester again since Gmail launched.

Fourth.
Writely, a web-based word processor, gets acquired by Google. Nothing surprising here, but still, it's very exciting to hear this development. More on the Google blog and Writely blog.

that's all for now. Links coming later.

A Picture

speaks a thousand praises. Sam, growing stronger...
Thanks for the prayers and the support guys. :D

Google buys Measure Map

Google just bought Measuremap, hopefully that means they'll give me an invite now, and let me see how good it really is.

More here.

Yahoo opens up a lot of cool stuff

They just made availabe to the commons their UI Library (ajax stuff) and arguably the first HIG (human interface guidelines, sigh) for web apps -- The Design Patterns Library. Yahoo is in for some good developer luuv and karma.

Oh, the sweeter bits - they're licensed using BSD (for the UI Library) and Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 (for the Design Patterns Library).

picked up from O'Reilly Radar through memeorandum.

Oh yeah, Happy Valentines!

Magbukas ka pa ng Tapuy...

System::Windows::Forms::MenuItem* __mcTemp__7[] = new System::Windows::Forms::MenuItem*[1];
__mcTemp__7[0] = this->menuItem8;
this->menuItem5->MenuItems->AddRange(__mcTemp__7);
this->menuItem5->Text = S"Help";
//
// menuItem8
//
this->menuItem8->Index = 0;
this->menuItem8->Text = S"About";
//
// ProjectSevenMainApplication *

She's one of the earliest bloggers that i personally know of (jae, of course, was the first, shocking the whole world with his mind-blowing balls-scratching blog feast eons (of internet time) ago...

I remember the first time i learned about her blogging, to which i JOKINGLY (anti-flame disclaimer goes here: JOKINGLY) replied. Ah, so you're officially a bum now, wala ka nang life, kaya magfflourish na online life mo? hehe. Of course, 8 months later i will eat my words, and start my blogging journey too. So there in blog city, her first blog, she awed her 3 readers with her overflowing stream of consciousness. Okay a lot more readers, but you get my point. In June 2003 she ended her blog-city days, because of work.(jae stopped writing for Pancit Canton in April of the same year, but i'm not trying to make any point) In September 2004, she returned from her blogging hiatus to join the party with the new bloggers. Why she chose multiply is completely beyond me, but she stayed there for a year (insert MULTIPLY bashing comments here)...

After days and nights of bashing her strings.multiply, and days and nights of tapuy sessions.(han, exaggerated na days and nighths ha) Finally, she got seduced to the dark side... Angel, on blogger. Yay! multiply sucks!

tapuymoments.blogspot.com

this->menuItem6->Index = 0;
this->menuItem6->Text = S"&New";
//
// menuItem7
//
this->menuItem7->Index = 1;
this->menuItem7->Text = S"&Exit";
//
// menuItem2
// *

*this is how you blog secretly, while at work.

McShing-Aling

Tapuy Moments: Tip for the Day

Have you tasted the New McDo product? Angel, the very kind (change this later when angel is not looking) officemate that she is, brought to the office 3 orders of McDo Shing-aling (she had a pasalubong for the whole office! -- how generous could one get...). I ate what was left (i was late for work, came in at 1pm) of her office pasalubong, secretly hoping the i will find just one piece that's not crunchy. I was disappointed. Freakin' curly shing-alings.

Firefox 2.0 alpha on Friday. Happy Times!

may have resurrected IE from the dead, but after using the beta of IE7 (i liked it), at the end of the day, it just left the impression of a me-too product. Though i can't deny that i liked some of the stuff that they added to the browser, and that I couldn't be happier for IE users, IE7's failure to kick Firefox's ass (hard enough) just underlines more how far ahead Firefox has leaped over IE when it first reached version 1. The truth is I feared that IE7 will blow away the fox, but fortunately, and as always, Microsoft disappointed (and again, i am attributing this to the amount of catching up that IE had to do, and not on the skills of the people in the IE team). So they made their move, albeit beta, but we kinda saw it, And I'm talking about sheer software power here, no marketing involved (which MS would surely spend lots of money on, come the official release of IE7). And this friday, Mozilla is about to make theirs. I'm pretty excited about Firefox 2.0 because along with all the new features that it will be offering, they're addressing what has been the achilles heel of web browsers from the beginning: how to present the enormous amount information found in user's bookmarks and history into something that will be useful to the user. Expect to hear a lot, or rather see a lot about the Places (Bookmarks, History and Feeds unified) as the Firefox team and community focuses their (our) energies on making things better again. With Ben Goodger (he's the mozilla hacker that Google hired, for those who just tuned ind) heading the Places team, i can only hope for great things coming. Good luck everyone. :). Let's kick some ass..


Btw, very timely post by Ben Goodger: the history of Firefox.
I just took a quick glance on the article. It's pretty long, so be warned.

Google Talk Saves...

This just in (after my shameless work nap) -- Google Talk can now save your chat history in your Gmail account. Now i really have to secure my Gmail password. Checked my Gmail to see the changes and voila - a brand new "Chats" tab. But that's just the half of it, now they're teaching Gmail how to talk. They're integrating into Gmail a browser based implementation of Talk, complete with a buddy list that will appear under the tab Quick Contacts (under the curent Contacts) and gtalkr-like floating chat sub-windows. Wow. (thanks Gtalkr guys, it was good while it lasted. you still beat Gmail to the punch implementing this...)

A few things of note:

• the gmail chat feature will be rolled in stages, as all new gmail features are. But now the Talk history saving is already working in my account.
• the Google Talk chat window now adds a handy drop down arrow where you can do two things: 1. go off the record to temporarily disable history saving, and 2. block the current user
  
• you can set you availability status from Gmail, so you need not be "visible" during your email sessions.
• the Google Talk UI of notifiying you of the new feature is nice.
• This is still not in the official Google blog. Why should I care? because the last time i linked to them, they brought me a lot of traffic. heh.
  
• my officemate is sleeping again. Ok, that was not really related to Talk.

Update:
OM Malik notices, (at the urging of some readers, and according to him, one of the gtalkr guys... so they know already) let the buzz begin..

FON is fun. And so not Evil

This has the potential of being one of the next Big disruptive things. FON. Dreaming of a truly global network of wifi hotspots? You don't get any more global, fair and sustainable as what FON promises to be. Seriously. You don't believe that idea? Well, too bad, coz Skype, Google, and and venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures do, in a big way (as in $21.7 million big)

The What's Fon page is a good place to learn about what Fon is, but basically FON is a way for existing wifi hotspot owners to share their bandwidth and in exchange, experience free roaming wifi in areas where other FON users also share their bandwidths. That goes for the fair part, (global comes as more people jumps in to tha bandwagon). Sustainable? yes, coz it supports (ok, will) both the Linus and the Bill way of doing things, and Aliens too. (learn more about linus-bill-gate-aliens connection). I could go on discussing FON, but if you're interested in these stuff anyway, i though you might check their blog, or the FON-owned tech.memeorandum snapshot . (if not, you can wait till our next meeting when i will bore you to death about this and all the other geeky stuff...)

Okay, before i get you even half as excited as I am, at this point, FON exists only in US and in Spain (wow, this might become one of the first things that i'll love about Inang Espanya, hehehe, besides the excuse that they gave us for being lazy). But I'm sure (fingers crossed) sure the philippine map would eventually grace this page too.

On Personal stuff...

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I have not been talking much about Sam in this blog. In fact I seldom talk about personal things here. That's actually what I meant when I said in my New Year Resolutions post that I want to be more honest in upfront to people. Anyway, I've been thinking, or rather, God has been flooding my mind with things that makes me think on Sam's condition. Things might have been easier for me, in an unfair way maybe, than with Hannah, being with Sam almost all the time. It's hard enough to raise a normal baby with your husband not with you all the time, much more harder I guess, if your baby is sick. It's this guilty feeling that I battle everytime I post something here. For every techie, political, funny entry that I post, i cannot help but think of the Sam-related content that I didn't.

... It sucks how your mind fucks* up with what you feel, or, how your emotion skcuf up how you think.

/*sorry bout that.

Must sleep after this post....

where the interweb brought me...

(disclaimer: to my officemate to whom i promise that I will work tonight, i did work. :D )

started off with alekos' update (which is something that will not go unnoticed, considering how "often" he blogs). As always, a very good piece, this time about having fun with old friends (and lots and lots of alchohol ), which, pointed me to Jem's blog, specifically to this post, which is soo true, having spent more than 5 years of my life travelling (although my version involves not an airplane flight, but rather a 12-hour bus ride to bicol and back). Anyway, looking around jem's posts brought me to his twist on the big book list meme, to his very heart-warming new year post, and to the very cool music meme which i picked up. It was a meme about music alright, so Dacs was in the conversation, saw her version of the meme, enjoyed a few of her blog posts (dacs, i can't add you to my aggregator, so I'm not updated with your new posts), where i found out about Butch Dalisay, whom Dacs regards as "of the most accomplished PSHS graduates " and his blog, Pinoy Penman, which gave the most enjoyable blog reading experience i've had lately. Superb writing, very very substancial content (well, most of them). Do you know how to "slow boil" your noodles? Anyway, turns out he's a mac lover, and he's been to the 2006 Macworld, proudly taking home a shirt proclaiming “I visited the Mothership.” . No words from me can do justice how great his blog is. Go visit. Moving on, he pointed me to another MUGer - blogger, Adel Gabot. It is from Mr Gabot's blog did i get the link to the recently-redesigned
Neil Gaiman blog. Which, should bring this trip to an end, coz i'm pointing the Gaiman blog to Alekos... a true-blue Gaiman groupie. heehee.

Oh, i forgot, Jae posted what he thinks is the Greatest Video there is... (gad, streamed video rules!). I was too sleepy to fully apreciate the greatness, or maybe too shocked to even believe what I was seeing... see for yourself

Talk to me, iTunes

Got this from Jem. Enjoyable waste of time (when you have a deadline in less than 48 hours)

Go to your music player of choice and put it all on shuffle. say the following questions aloud, and after each one press next. Use the song title as the answer to the question.

1. What do you think of me, iTunes?
High Hopes - Frank Sinatra

2. Will i have a happy life?
Broken Dream - Anggun

3. What do my friends really think of me?
Rosita - Pepe Romero (this is a boss-mp3)

4. Do people secretly lust after me?
B & C - Utada Hikaru

5. How can i make myself happy?
Colored People - DC Talk (wow. i love this song)

6. What should i do with my life?
Happy TalkKiri and Jose

7. Why must life be so full of pain?
Sunday Bloody Sunday - u2 (yeah. blood. pain. now i get it)

8. How can i maximize my pleasure during sex?
Music for the Royal Fireworks IV (fireworks! hell yeah! heeheehee)

9. Will i ever have children?Early
Autumn -harry allen meets (not sure about the tag. anyway, invalid question)

10. Will i die happy?
Nocturne E flat majr op. 55 No. 2 (nocturne. aha. night death. how dramatic. i don't know about the happy part though)

11 Can you give me some advice?
True Love - Anne Murray

12 What do you think happiness is?
How Do You Keep the Music Playing (hmmm)

13 What's my favourite fetish?
Mr Moonlight - The Beatles

Testing IE7

The public Beta of Internet Explorer 7 is out. Genuine Windows XP required.

Today i will step out of my "normal-user" comfort zone and try not to use Firefox in my browsing activities.
I'm testing IE7...


You can download your copy here.
This is what Mozilla was all about. Bringing innovation and competition to the browser space, so that users will have a better browsing experience. Firefox was a wake up call for Microsoft, who has been sitting on IE for too long. Now the user wins, again.