Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo, you sure did know how to lie — big time! You said during your SONA last Monday that text messaging rates (interconnection between networks) had been lowered from PISO to just PHP0.50. Thinking that this time, you were saying the truth, sent a couple of text messages to my brother, exchanged SMS conversations with a colleague, and made several follow-ups to clients this day, and when I checked my prepaid balance, got PISO left from PHP115 this mornig.

PGMA, you are a big liar!

Popularity: 15% [?]

What do former Google Engineers did after they left the seach giant? Started building a better search engine. Introducing, Cuil (http://www.cuil.com).

If you got used with Google’s white website interface, Cuil sports an elegant black styled layout, and boasts a whooping 121,617,892,992 web pages indexed (Google only has 25,000,000,000++ web pages indexed). To test its capabilities, it searched using my favorite keyword, “bobreyes”. Too bad, the first result does not point to bobreyes.com, but it is still related to me. Next try, “turfsite”. Same frustration, did not show turfsiteph.net as the first entry in the search results.

I guess, I will wait for their “crawlers” to visit my websites fully first, before I opt to change my home page from Google to Cuil.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Did you know that Cisco do have certification programs? If you haven’t heard of it yet, you simply visit their website by clicking here.

There are a lot of career opportunities within the IT field: read the paper today, and you will see. But the high paying ones require that you are certified in your field of expertise. They say, those who hold certification earns more than the “ordinary” IT personnel.

I remember one time during a Cisco training, I asked my seatmate on how much his salary is, and he said something like a 5-digit income, monthly. Imagine if you become certified, another digit can be added to it. Consider the value of being trained by highly adept professionals and engineers with right in their own fields.

But I am NOT a hardware guy, you may say to yourself. No problem! Did you know that a piece of hardware will be nothing if there are no people who will write codes for them to operate properly? Now, what if the codes had already been written, the hardwares are working properly, but there are not administrators to oversee the day to day operations? You see, this is our life in IT.

Ask anyone who is certified, and they will tell you how good it is to become one. I urged all IT practioners to go, get your skills assessed. Be certified. It is like making yourself a favor.

For a complete list of Cisco training programs available at your location, click here.

Cisco certification

Popularity: 16% [?]

I thought it was just another quiet Friday working day, when I over heard in the Manila Tower frequency that a plane is about to have an emergency landing. MIAA Fire, Rescue, and Safety personnel were alerted. Then minutes later, my phone rang, it’s the secretary of our General Manager asking why a Qantas Boeing 747-400 landed — quite unsual, since QF (Qantas Airways) flights are mostly at night. That’s the time I realized that the emergency landing was that QF 030 flight from Hongkong bound to Melbourne. Here are some pictures that I had taken using an Olympus u790SW digital camera:

[Show as slideshow]

QF030 made an emergency landing past 1100H RPLL RWY06

It was tailed by Fire, Rescue, & Safety units

Still at the runway 10 minutes later

Still at the runway 5 more minutes later, this time with maintenance personnel looking at the belly.

30 minutes after at the NAIA Terminal 1 Gate 4

A closer look at the hole.

One more time ..

A view from the terminal passenger's waiting area.

Another view ..

And another view ..

Popularity: 50% [?]

Fellow geeks and geekettes, did you know that Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) is bringing the 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2008 dubbed as It’s All Geek to Me! this coming August 13 to 16, 2008 at Hotel Intercontinental, Ayala Avenue, Makati City?

Highlight of the three (03) day conference if the Boomerang Awards where it is known as the toughest interactive and mobile marketing competition in the world. Top geeks like David Ko of Yahoo! is coming to town for this event.

A must-attend for self-confessed geeks like me!

Popularity: 18% [?]

I’ve reached a decision
It’s time to rearrange my life
We’re speaking the same words
Although their meaning has changed

You’re telling me what I want to hear
But what’s the use when we just don’t share
The same emotions that brought us together aren’t there

In this world, nothing lasts forever
Was it you who changed or me
Should we go our separate ways or stay together
Believe me when I say

I’m not gonna change
I’m not gonna change now
If you walk away
There’s no turning back now

I look in the mirror
And see a relfection that isn’t me
It’s hard to remember the girl that used to be me

In this world, nothing lasts forever
Was it you who changed or me
Should we go our separate ways or stay together
Believe me when I say

I’m not gonna change
I’m not gonna change now
If you walk away
There’s no turning back now

I’m not gonna change
I’m not gonna change now
If you walk away
There’s no turning back now

(Inst. Break)

In this world, nothing lasts forever
Was it you who changed or me
Should we go our separate ways or stay together
Believe me when I say

I’m not gonna change
I’m not gonna change now
If you walk away
There’s no turning back now

I’m not gonna change
I’m not gonna change now
If you walk away
There’s no turning back now

I’m not gonna change
I’m not gonna change now
If you walk away
There’s no turning back now
Repeat Fade

Popularity: 20% [?]

Those were the words of NBA (Washington Wizards) star Gilbert Arenas when he visited the Philippines this momth. He made an entry at this blog, and to quote:

I was stunned.

They made me feel like an NBA star.

Any NBA players out there: If you’re having a bad day, or you’re having a bad career, go to Manila. They’ll bring your spirits up, trust me.

I felt like I just won the NBA championship, to be for real.

After we left the mall we were looking at pictures from the event a couple days later and we were telling ourselves, “Man, that was unreal!”

Plus, with the security I had, I felt like I was the President. I felt like I was Obama. I really felt like I was running in the presidential election, especially when I got to meet the U.S. ambassador out in the Philippines. We had a great time talking to each other.

Reading those words makes me prouder to say that I am a Filipino!

Popularity: 19% [?]

It’s past 1000H Manila time, and Twitter is down

Popularity: 19% [?]

Ever wanted to create a simple hit counter for your site, but never had the chance to code it yourself? Then, you may simple use the code below — all hard coded by me, royalty-free. The code is used to teach non-techie people how to create PHP-MySQL-driven websites.

<?php
// connect to the MySQL server using 'localhost' as the server name, cPanel username & password
$con = mysql_connect("localhost","cpanelusername","password");

// check if the connection is established or not

if (!$con)
   {
      die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());

   }

// continue with the database processes if the connection is successful

else
   {

      // select the database you wish to connect to
      mysql_select_db("ctrdbase", $con);

      // go to the last record in your database table, this will also be the last number
      $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM counter_table ORDER BY ctr DESC LIMIT 1");
      $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);

      // store the last record to a variable
      $cctr = $row['ctr'];

      // declare a new variable that will do the addition thing
      $nctr = $cctr + 1;

      // store the updated counter to the database
      $sql = "INSERT INTO counter_table (ctr) VALUES ($nctr)";
      $dbupdate = mysql_query($sql);

      echo $nctr;
   }

mysql_close($con);
?>

Popularity: 23% [?]

To: Mr. Bayani Fernando
Chairman, MMDA

Dear Mr. Fernando,

I can’t help but wonder why floods are still everywhere within the Metro Manila area during a down pour, even if your office had already spent millions of tax payer’s money cleaning the estero’s and rehabilitating the pumping stations. I grew up in the same street where I am living now, and I can only remember once or twice (at most) wherein our street got flooded due to heavy rains — take note, “heavy rains”.

But now, it is very much different: the entire street gets flooded after a 20-30 minute rain. No, I am not complaining because I am against you, but I do not see my money’s worth in the way your office handles flood control.

Another thing, was it really necessary to have your face posted in every tarpauline that your office will post in the streets? True public service need not to have a face — people need not to know who leads what agency or office, as long as they are doing their jobs (right). Same goes with the “BAYANI” stickers pasted on almost all buses plying the avenues of the metropolis — is it a necessity?

I am not sure if you are very much aware of how much each tarp poster or sticker cost, but I do not think they are helping in the improvement on how Metro Manila looks from the eyes of a citizen.

Thanks for your time reading this letter. More power, and I do hope to see less of MMDA tarps with your face in the very near future.

Best regards,

BobReyes.com

Popularity: 24% [?]

WordPress users, upgrade to WP 2.6 now! Don’t know where to download it? Just head on directly to http://www.wordpress.org

Enjoy! Don’t upgrade and you will be missing a lot of things.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Good news to all WordPress Pinoy users, WordCamp Philippines 2008 is pushing through this coming 06 September 2008, and the venue? It will be at De La Salle-College of St. Benilde (DLS-CSB) Taft Campus!

Too bad, I cannot attend this momentous event, as I will be busy that day to a greater event: Robyn’s First Birthday celebration.

Good luck to the organizers. Mabuhay ang WordPress!

Visit http://philippines.wordcamp.org to register.

This event is sponsored by:

• i.PH: the Domain for Individuals
• Free Online Flash Games
• Wazzup Manila Philippines
• Real Estate CRM
• Real Estate Website Designers
• Orange County Real Estate
• Auto Insurance Quotes
• Lane Systems Inc.
• RedMedia
• Orange County Business Lawyer
• Cebu Pacific Air
• Buddy Gancenia Reality TV
• SmartBro Wireless Broadband
• SPOT.ph
• Make Money with Performancing Ads

Popularity: 24% [?]

Now, this is really something that makes me think of dumping Palm (and acquiring a Centro) for an Apple mobile phone — iPhone.

Read on at http://iphone.wordpress.net.

Popularity: 19% [?]

I had never had any formal training with MOODLE (nor Claroline), but I happen to be the de facto system adminitrator of both MMA LMS (Learning Management Systems — MOODLE & Claroline). That’s why I was very happy when I received an email invite from CSB’s CLCIR about their Online Teaching Seminar Workshop, and immediately signed-up for the first batch, which started today and will run until the last Saturday of this month. I got so excited with the seminar, that I managed to upgrade my current MOODLE installation from version 1.8 to 1.9.2 last night — this was planned months ago, but never found time to do it.

I was surprised to see that the seminar workshop facilitator is Mr. Tony Ingles, a fellow CSB faculty (SMS) and a TurfSitePH.net client — we had been communicating for such a long time (mostly via email), and today was the first time we had met face-to-face. Also, Ferdy Raymundo is my classmate for this seminar series.

Of all the many beautiful things I learned from Tony this morning, one thing got stucked into my mind: “MOODLE was created by genius people, for stupid people.” So true! MOODLE was beautifuly designed and executed that it is so fool-proof and complete (magalit na ang mga loyal sa Claroline). The seminar was designed for first time MOODLE users/teachers — being teachers, we got to experience how to become a student in MOODLE. We were asked to play around with stuff that you can do in MOODLE, and the first thing I did was to edit my profile — I actually added my pic there. Come the time Tony showed us what a teacher see’s in the MOODLE, my classmates were surprised to see my face beside my name .. hehehe .. I am really looking forward to our next session.

Oh, another thing that made me happy this morning, the seminar workshop was done at B308 — all of the PCs are running Linux

Popularity: 19% [?]

Last night, I was at school til around 8PM for my MMAPROJ advising. On my way down (inside the lift) I had difficulty in breathing — first thing that came into my mind is I need water. Went to 7-11, but I got Nestea instead. My throat got cleared by my chest wasn’t.

Immediately got a cab, and asked the driver to bring me to our place in Makati. But still have difficulty and breathing and felt a little bit dizzy (losing oxygen?). It was just around 3-4 blocks away from our house when I decided that this is it! I asked “Mamang Driver” to head straight to San Juan De Dios hospital.

My blood sugar level was tested (since their records revealed that my dad is a diabetic) and blood pressure checked — a whooping 150/110. I was immediately given medicines so that my “high blood pressure” can subside, and they had noticed that my belly was bloated — I told them it’s because I had a bottle of iced tea. Minutes later, my dad and brother arrived at the ER — as they were advised by the nurse (my wife was home with Robyn). Minutes after taking the medicine, I fell into sleep. Hours later, I was allowed to go home.

Today, it was my first time in almost a year to have a 12-hour sleep (it’s Eat Bulaga already when I woke up). Reading the diagnosis of the doctor last night, I was advised NOT to take coffee and iced tea to prevent getting a “heart burn” again.

This is the third time I got hospitalized in my entire life, second for the same incident (last was almost a year ago). So, no more coffee (Starbucks Torre Lorenzo, Figaro SDA 9th floor, & Nescafe Vanila/Hazelnut) and iced tea for me, for now.

Popularity: 14% [?]