Just finished signing-up for the Microsoft Club, which is currently in Beta for us here in the Philippines. Hope that I get promoted to a Gold membership status soon.

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As of this writing, TurfSite Computing, Inc. is ranked 38th as the best Philippine-based Webhosting Company. Trailing behind us are Hostkingph.com at the 52nd spot and Nomandph.com at the 70th place.

Source: http://www.webhosting.info/webhosts/

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As of this writing, Team Philippines has already captured a total of forty (40) gold medals in the on-going 23rd Southeast Asian Games, which started last Sunday, 27 November 2005.

Go Pinoys! Mabuhay!

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After weeks of planning, finally we are off to Lingayen, Pangasinan to visit the grave of Rose’s dad.

We left Manila at around 0300H of 27 NOV 2005. Taking advantage of the early morning — traffic-free travel — we reached Lingayen City at around 0730H. Made a brief stopover at the city, we then proceeded to Libsong Town, where the remains of Rose’s dad is laid.

Libsong is in the heart of the Lingayen Gulf. After lunch, we started to pack our things up and headed to the Shrine of the Our Lady of Manaoag. We bought some religious images there, as well as the Tupig (local rice cake) as “pasalubong”.

A brief stopover was then again made at the Hacienda Luisita Mall in Tarlac. The mall is comparable to the Alabang Town Center, with the Jollibee branch there sporting chandeliers instead of lighting fixtures.

Finally, we were back to Manila at around 2200H. Quite tiring, but it was fun!

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Due to previously set appointments this day, I was only able to “peek” at the Microsoft Philippines Launch of its new server products around lunch time already at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel.

It was nice, because I was able to meet again my fellow techies from the Microsoft Philippines Community, as well as meet Fritz for the first time in flesh. He is a fellow alumni at PAREF-Southridge School (way back High School).

A confusion arised when the registration people was not able to see my name (with the correct company name) in their database. I had to ask someone from Microsoft Philippines to tell the registration personnel that I was actually “invited” to the event (being a “registered” attendee is different from an “invited” one). My name (and correct company name) appeared in the printed database of Microsoft. That’s the time the organizers allowed me to enter the conference. Was able to get the attendee’s kit, an orange tote bag cum knapsack with some goodies inside.

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I will be out of the office the whole day tomorrow, know why? I will be at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel for the Microsoft Philippines Launch of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006, and my personal favorite — Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

Just wondering what’s instore for us tomorrow at the event. But I do hope to see my colleagues at the MSPhil Forums once again.

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Just before lunch time today, I monitored in my radio’s Manila Tower frequency that a plane is requesting for an emergency landing: requesting for fire, rescue, and medical support. I immediate peeked and waited for the plane to arrive. Was surprised that the plane in distress is a US Air Force F15 fighter plane.

Airport safety authorities rushed to the aircraft, as it halted itself in the middle of the runway (06/24). A problem arised when there is no available tow bar to use so that the plane may pulled out of the active runway. The tower controllers decided to have the plane “pushed” — literally — but based on what I had heard on the radio, they fighter plane pilot won’t allow anyone to touch his plane, as the missles are engaged. Huh?

Thirty minutes after, the runway was back to operations.

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Yesterday, Rose asked me what do I want for Christmas. I bluntly answered, “A new MIDI Keyboard, a Casio will do.” She then asked me a second time if I really want that as my Christmas present from her, and I answered YES!

To make the story shorter, yesterday, while the entire Glorietta was on Midnight Madness Sale — Extended — got myself a new MIDI keyboard, the Unitone (a division of Casio Electronics Japan) CTK-45 — full 61 keys with MIDI Out and two (02) lines-out, and a pedal input. It comes with a FREE keyboard stand. Good buy.

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I guess by now all of you already knew that Letran cager Boyet Bautista is a cousin of mine. It is just that his basketball playing skills is better than mine — in a real court, that is, but in NBA Live, I guess not. Hehehe..

Anyways, I had started yesterday, during my freetime, the Official Website of Boyet Bautista, which is now online at http://www.boyetbautista.info

You may now sign-up and join the discussions at the Forums. All the other sections of the website will be up within a week’s time. For comments and suggestions, or if you wish to be part of the website as an online contributor (for the die-hard Boyet Bautista fans out there), please email admin@boyetbautista.info — be sure to convince us why we should let you join the website team.

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I guess, every Pinoy who’s using the internet has atleast tried the services of the Philippine’s largest internet cafe chain, Netopia. As of this writing, I am using the facilities of Netopia here at Metropoint Mall. You know, I just discovered something: Netopia’s internet cafe system (the way they manage the computers) is so secured!

So secured that even WinZIP and WinRAR are not allowed to be used by their clients. You have to ask the technical staff to open the ZIP or RAR file for you. Aren’t they violating any privacy law here in the Philippines?

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I easily get pissed when I know that someone is trying to play ignorant, even if he/she is not. I simply hate former clients who are like that.

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I am just sad on what’s happening to some of my students: they’re either late for class, or will not show up at all. Owing to the fact that their parents try their very best to send them to a good school, I guess these kids do not realize that they are wasting time and money.

Some are those type of students who will just go to class for the sake of, say, signing the attendance sheet. You will see no effort in them to learn beyond what their professors had taught them.

But I am still happy, ‘coz the above is just but around 10% of my students this term.

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Microsoft had announced today the launch of the Visual Studio Express Editions. What are they exactly?

I had downloaded the Express Edition Beta’s sometime early this year (quite a big download — 100MB++, but it’s worth the time and waiting). What’s new? Well, Microsoft is offering these new set of tools — aimed for students, programming-enthusiasts, and novice developers FREE of Charge! Yes! You had read it right — FREE!! Atleast for the first year .. hehehe .. It was originally planned to sell the Express Edition tools at around US$49 per license.

For more information and download instructions, please head on to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/default.aspx

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How stupid I am? Or was I just pre-occupied with too much work today, that I had almost forgot the 2nd year anniversary of my website, Turf Site Manila (http://www.bobreyes.com)

Was it a coincidence that on the same day, two (02) years ago, I had changed my website’s CMS engine?

Happy anniversary to TurfSite Manila! Thanks for all your support and browsing!

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Actually, what I wanted in the blog engine that I had found in XOOPS before is now here in WordPress. That’s one of the reasons why I had switched from Drupal to WordPress.

Another thing, with WordPress, I was able to “re-write” my blog entries easily.

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