I'm featured on PinoyTwitters of the Week: Week 1 - "Faces"!
For those who doesn't know about PinoyTwitters.com, it is a community site for all Filipino users of Twitter and TWIT2948 is fully appreciated too! So if you're looking for TwitBuddies then visit the site, share your life-streams!
Are you a Jaiku user?
Got envy when I released Twit2948 for Twitter?
I'm sharing today Jai2948 to the public which is an SMS service I'm using to update my Jaiku life-stream. This of course is developed again using the TxtDomain API under OrgText service of 2948.
Just send JAI to 2948 to receive the instructions on how to register, it is available for Globe, Smart and Sun users. Remember, you must first be a Jaiku user before you can use this service; standard VAS rates applies.
Finally before "Mr Squealer" tries to claim that I'm pocketing money making these service let me clarify. I'm not paid to do this, I don't get any revenue shares or anything else. I do this because It makes posting to Jaiku convenient for people on the road like me and I'm sharing it for the better good of all Jaiku users.
Before I end my post, for those who are not yet a Jaiku user you can post a comment here so I can send you an invitation.
PS: Since Jaiku has been acquired by Google so expect more integration of Jai2948 to the OpenSocial API and Google Services later on!
Enjoy!
Let me start with my own experience. I have worked in many companies for the past 7 years, I started around year 2000 just after the dot com burst; from research, start-ups, medium size, virtual, to international. I even did freelancing.
During my early years, doing business is very traditional; you need to have proper contacts as well as endorsers. When you get a good feedback that’s the time to set up the initial meetings and you have to make a proposal which includes a hefty amount of case studies to cite, roll-out plans, ROI projections, costing, etc.
If you’re lucky or the bribes paid off, the proposal will be accepted and the contract will be signed; then the planning stage begins. This is when you get to meet all the key people that are going to manage and develop the product. You will have to talk about the designs and resources to be allocated; it does help if you throw a lot of jargons and hype-words. Make sure to study in advance and know what kind of developers the company has. If it’s a company with Microsoft developers throw words like dot Net, VSS, XML, Web services, IIS, and MSSQL. For example: “How are we going to manage the project, do you guys use VSS? We can integrate our system using the Web services that we built on dot Net framework which runs on IIS”. If its Java based development team then just substitute the equivalent hype-words for Java. Its funny how everyone in the room will nod whenever you use their hype-words, I guess it’s like the hearing holy words for them.
The development phase usually takes months but always ends in “almost there” state, everyone will unanimously say: “Let’s compromise; release what we have and deal with what’s missing as a second phase”. If your product ends up like this then celebrate because that’s the best thing that can happen. That’s better off than hearing: “We have to change the way you use it because the original workflow is technically impossible” or the worst is hearing “We need more resources, we have to extend the timeline, outsource parts of it or let’s scratch it then just buy this platform and built on top of it”. Someone must have fallen off the chair reading this by now.
Today this is still practiced here in the Philippines but soon it will need to come to past because there is a new way for doing business.
Welcome to the age of Business 2.0; I call it that way because this strategy is derived from engaging with project that deals heavily on web 2.0 or mobile 2.0 concepts. How does it work?
First think of what you have; what services you run or products you sell then look how this is being done in other countries. Check the “hot” services or products especially the ones with a developer community. Why? Because it’s most probable that service or product has an open API. Now check which service they have that can be duplicated or are not accessible here in the Philippines and at the same time it can be done via their API. Finally check the Terms of Service, If you can’t understand most of then it’s not really important because TOS mostly covers what kind of content is acceptable; the API will most certainly cover only what’s acceptable by TOS.
Just like any business, it’s either the product is copied, extended or integrated with your own. Extending and integrating is the easiest to do since there is an open API and a developer community that can help you. After the development phase you can offer the product as a “Beta”, it’s a way of saying we want you to start using it but expect bugs. Users love bleeding edge and they love it more when they know they can influence how your product will be when it comes out of “Beta”. It gives out that sense of a personalized touch but of course it will probably run for ages that way and even if it’s already rock solid, you will keep it in “Beta” because of its desired effect.
Now let’s go back into the planning phase, on which you won’t need the hype-words anymore. The ins and outs of the API will be clearly stated on the documentation and manual. Bugs are reported promptly then fixed while a road-map of enhancements is available in the forums, developer blogs or wikis so you can think ahead and consider your designs to fit the future.
The development will be smooth because you will be learning how to do it the right way using tutorials and demo application codes you can download. The open API will most probably follow a standardized scheme so most of the guess work is done plus a lot of code libraries and classes would be available to ease your code management.
Even if you’re still on development stage you can invite Beta users to evaluate and help find bugs, make early and frequent releases as much as possible before adding a new feature. You will probably get stuck in this cycle since users will continually contribute ideas but it’s Ok since this is our desired effect.
Finally you will need to grow your number of user’s until the provider of the original service notices you and that’s when you can talk with them about partnership, ROI, etc. It’s usually a short negotiation since your product already supports your claim.
As you can see the difference; Business 2.0 is safer and produces the desired results. No need to for contacts, exclusivity, Non-compete or NDAs or minimum guarantees to toss out from your pocket. It is also the shortest way for local businesses to engage the global market.
The success of your product depends on its mind share, where users continually contribute ideas to your service. This is contrary to the concept of user base; where success is due to the large number of users using it but does not concern them when it comes to improving your product. It’s a battle of quality versus quantity so think well on which type of users your product or service will be best suited for.
If you have a good mind share but you cannot implement their ideas and suggestion then they think that you do not value them and they will move into the next thing that will want to take in their ideas. On the other hand; if you grow your user base too fast you will run out of resources faster than what you can provide to them thus your users will have to contend with a slow service. Because of this you will be more preoccupied in maintaining you product than enhancing it so eventually users will move on to the next newest one they can find.
There is another way where you can try balancing having both type of users; the ones with ideas will belong to a special type or group such as a developers group, this distinction between ordinary users will give them more enthusiasm to contribute ideas which in turn you can implement to suffice the needs of ordinary users for something that’s always new.
Now that’s only some examples of successful Business 2.0, but there are other challenges left like how do you deal with local business partners that refuse to evolve their methods? If they are unwilling to evolve; how to decrease dependency to them? And finally when is the right time to cut the knot?
I got an email from Txtdomain saying my Twit2948 service is under review after a Telco has criticized its legitimacy. Here is my reply:
Is it Free?
TWIT2948 is a service under OrgText and upon signing up we can create any group and assign a keyword but we still have to pay the mandatory 2.50/sms. It is not free.
Is it affiliated to Twitter?
No. It is not endorsed by Twitter at all. I developed this using the open Twitter API found here: http://twitter.com/help/api. So I really don't care if you create another mobile Twitter or even a better one as long as mine is at 2948 with keyword TWIT (Im not even using the keyword TWITTER here just to be safe).
Who owns TWIT2948?
I own it! I'm only using the OrgText service which is available for anyone who wants to create a mobile service for their community and the API is accessible via Txtdomain.com. I can run it where ever I want too, its not exclusive to Txtdomain or OrgText at all.
So Twit isn't owned by TechBiz Asia?
No, this is mine. I work for TechBiz Asia but it doesn't mean everything I do is a product of my company. We are free to create our own product as long as it does not compete with any other product of TechBiz Asia. Finally to just clarify - this Blog belongs to me personally. What I write here doesn't reflect the opinion of any company I work for.
So there you have it, this is a legit service with legitimate VAS rates! Use it at your own discretion.
It is not my fault that the Telco's are incapable to create their own services such as Twit2948 even though the APIs are available and the only way they are countering this innovation is targeting my provider to stop my service.
I intend to create more services in mobile using these open API and I dare anyone in the Telco industry to follow this suit. In the end it is not for us who creates these services but for the good of the end users; giving them more options -- better, cheaper and faster.
Ever wanted to post to Twitter via mobile? Is your 3G/GPRS bill sky-rocketing because you're secretly twitting over WAP during meetings?
We'll just send TWIT to 2948 to start posting to Twitter via SMS, great for those twitter addicts who just wants to twit anywhere and anytime. This service works for Globe, Smart and Sun subscribers (standard VAS rates applies). Wahooo.
Is this an official Twitter client?
Well ... Almost there ^_^
It's just like any other third-party client and there are hundreds of Twitter client out there too and they're all unofficial.
How did this happen?
The story goes like this; I stayed at the office over night because we're going on a company vacation the next morning. So I thought wouldn't it be nice to twit while on vacation? Is there even going to be Internet or WiFi access there? I got a panic attack and asked Mark Achanzar to provision me an OrgTxt keyword; I knew theres only one way to do this -- post to Twitter via SMS!
While working on this another impromptu project, I thought its unfair I couldn't just use the built-in SMS feature on Twitter and that I have to cram in under 10 hours just to enjoy mobile twitting. If only I can SMS to twitter without paying International text-ing rates; WAP access is to pricey for me too and I'll probably drain my battery just twitting along the way.
Anyway Mark's XRelay SMS platform did most of the job for me, I just have to code from a template class and everything i need to control the gateway is readily accessible in my code. I actually spent the first 6 hours answering forum posts that's why I have to cram on the last hours (sorry, I get out of focus sometimes).
So here it is, another Mobile 2.0 product with only 67 lines of pure PHP code (I still need to compress that after vacation). I call it... Twit2948. ^_^
Now I'm dead tired, hungry (haven't ate diner yet) and sleepy; but I'm happy I can post to Twitter while on vacation ^_^
Update: Now supports MMS image attachments!
PS: I'm still working on unregister and change password features. Use at your own discretion.
Its not official, but we have been monitoring the SMS delivery behaviour of the telcos and it seems that there is a constant 2 minute delay for receiving SMS.
The word out the streets is that Telcos have implemented a Spam Control system to weed out illegal use of unlimited SMS promos. Its not unknown to many that there are underground services that uses these promos to send free SMS accross telcos which is a feature not provided by default in these promos.
It is said that these underground services is the main cause why the Telcos has been losing revenue on the international SMS market.
Google just released its open source mobile operating system and platform called "Android".
A few days back Google initiated OpenSocial, then now the Android and according to my last post that the future frontier of OpenSocial is actually making it personal by tapping mobile phone... OpenSocial + Android = Mobile 2.0!
Now let's see.. Google, I know you been visiting my blog because I see your IP in my tracker... You guys can just email me for ideas you know, you don't need to wait for me to post it on blog (haha, just wishful thinking).
"Business is social...", yup, we heard those phrase from Google's CampFire One where they announced the launching of the collaborative project OpenSocial. After watching the event video on YouTube for the 4th times, one thing that struck me is the phrase "Business is social...". Of course since business is basically built on relationships, just like between partners and clients.
Everything we do is in fact -- social, for example you and your favorite drink is based on a social relationship. Like people; the products we buy is representation of the company who produces it and with further analogy we know the company represents the people that works there. Therefore your favorite drink is the medium where you are socially connected to all those people in that said company.
Speaking of companies, most known ones already have a online presence via their websites. So why not make it as a medium for social connection as well?
Actually theres already an existing relationship mechanism on them but its only one way; you can only know about the company but it doesn't makes you known to them.
Until now, only IT oriented companies who has developer support program has a two way social relation mechanism in placed such as MSDN, Apple and Nokia. Clearly these said sites still needs a lot of improvement on providing means of social relationship since being a member on most of them myself still makes me feel alone. Aside from the usual blunt profile and forum there is no way for me to express my other interests.
For example I would most probably have business with a company whose employees perceive it as a fun company rather than a sweatshop. Just like I would probably trust most a business partner who has the same hobby as I do since its easier to communicate complex ideas based on something we have in common. I personally I like to make use of analogies so if you're not into playing RPG games then I will probably have a hard time explaining why playing FallOut2 is like the IT development management.
We were Web 2.0.
So what does this all mean? First look at MySpace, Facebook, Friendster etc, etc. These are sites provides the mechanisms for social relationships very well. Rather than companies advertising on them to provide a social conduit between their products and target audience; why not make your product / corporate site social and let consumers and clients express themselves there?
It's a good idea, in fact its a brilliant one that is was first conceived during the dot com era but the major problem was:
1. These companies doesn't know how much about creating two way social relationship online.
2. It takes a lot of technology to put one into the existing site.
Well today those problems are already solved, for problem #1 we already have successful model social sites; but for problem #2 the solution has only arrived.
The key is OpenSocial.
OpenSocial API can provide seem-less integration of user and relationship data between sites. This would allow for example; if I sign-up for Nokia Developer account my OpenSocial profile is copied (privacy options can be controlled of course) then it also tells all other sites that is liked via OpenSocial that I'm now a member of Nokia Developer Forum. It would also allow me then to browse the profiles of other members as well as business profile of Nokia executives, blog posts, browse products, create reviews of their recent phone model, etc. and all this will be available to others via OpenSocial.
Sounds great ain't it? I was so convinced that I re-coded one of my corporate websites into a social format.
Check out http://fingerapps.com (still upgrading)
What I did there is merge the FAPPS social site project Cribz[beta] into with its corporate site. I did throw out the common (booooriiiing) corporate layout which is usually just a bunch of flashy images, technical jargons and hype-words but once you really read them your not going to find anything credible. While with this new model, relationship is expressed and credibility is enforced by those relationships. So far I'm trying to rebuild the contents on FAPPS because the old platform has a defunct database design that's why the site is a bit bare.
So there you have it, a proof that business can be social -- and it should for companies to survive in today's competitive business arena.
The Future is Mobile 2.0.
What's the future for OpenSocial and Web2.0? How about making it personal. Personal is what we term something we have always; so check your pocket now and I bet 90% all of you readers have your personal cellphone with you.
Imagine connecting OpenSocial into your phone, send and receive updates in real time. Ask for help, recommend, post reviews of the place you are now or the food your are eating and share them as it happens -- transparently. Combining the power of OpenSocial + Web 2.0 on mobile will be one of the best premises of Mobile 2.0
Taste of freedom is sweet, after years of battling between control and the demand of its subscribers for more quality of service.
Smart has announced that it has opened all its ports allowing unrestricted access to the Internet.
What does this mean for Smart? Uptake on 3G usage and more cashing of course. We'll its not bad since an hour worth of 3G access cost 40 Pesos which cost a little bit higher that the fee on Mall based Internet Cafe. Still, the flexibility to actually go online anytime is what matter's most especially for those last minute twitting before going to bed ^_^
Original message below:
Hi ho listers,
I have it on very good authority that SMART 3G has begun a process of opening up those previously blocked ports this week :-) This should allow more mobile apps and standard Internet applications (on laptops and PCs tapped into the 3G/HSDPA network) that utilize certain protocols or ports to run.In the event that there are some apps that still don't run, I'd appreciate hearing about them. Just send me a private email tojimayson@gmail. com. These will be routed directly to Smart's network group.It would be good if you can list the application name and a short description of the problem.cheers,
jim ayson,
listowner, d' pilipin isayberspeys rebyu
Google just approved my request to access the Orkut sandbox for development with OpenSocial API. As expected it works the same as FaceBook except for the lack of widget placement customization. After the application is added, a link shows up on the left panel to access the application's full page view.
However one must be cautioned that the API is still in the works and there are many security holes still unplugged and as the development speeds up with the involvement of the open source community; we will see more and more of these holes.
OpenSocial is a joint project to create a universal API for all social sites by no other than Google of course. This is clearly a response to the growing interest on Facebook API that allowed full integration of third-party contents and widgets on FB.
Cramming not to be left out on this new revolutionary technology (basically all other social-sites lacks it), Google has partnered with all of them in an attempt to tip the balance to the dark side...err. ya, whatever O_o
Anyway, I already predicted this 3-4 years ago when we built the Friendster API using web services (what? ya, JSON wasn't standard on those days yet).
Hah, I told them so! Now whose your daddy?!!
Initial reports says the explosion at 1:30 PM PH time was strong enough to shake the entire building and made the roof collapse. 3 people was instantly killed on what seemed to be caused by an LPG blast, authorities refuse to confirm if this is related to terrorism.
Update:
Glorietta Mall Blast most likely caused by a bomb as victims were killed by snarpnails: http://tinyurl.com/2fqpsh
For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV
RSS is the earliest embodiment of Web 2.0, however since RSS is a read-only medium; it was quickly out grown by social sites and blogs. Now RSS is making a come back thanks to Twitter and Jaiku.
Blogging tends to dictate that there should be a structure; topics, style of presentation, grammar, order and coherence; these perceived requirements for blogs made it difficult for anyone just to sit down and start sharing their thoughts.
On the other hand Twitter and Jaiku has made blogging and syndication easier and its social feature made it fun. Now posts doesn't need to have coherence nor topic, it can just be as short as an "excerpt of thought". Using followers and friends concept borrowed from social sites; Twitter and Jaiku has also made it easier to manage feeds subscriptions.
Finally the availability of APIs made it possible for developers to create applications such as TwitterFox for Twitter and Jaikuroo for Jaiku which is freely available. It also allowed sites to post their updates like RSS but allows them to freely modify the teasers and just link the actual content. This gives it a more personal feel;a less "robotic" sense that normal RSS provides.
In a future, I predict this services will entirely replace RSS while providing more support for privacy options, subscription management such as keyword tracking or relevance, and accessibility to mobile users.
I passed by CDR-King yesterday and I couldn't resist buying the sleek aluminum HDD enclosure for only P640! Especially that it has a neon blue led lights that runs on its side and flickers every time there is an HDD activity. ^_^
Now I can have two HDD attached via the USB; the other one using the old USB to IDE cable featured on my last post.
PHP Users Group Philippines is having its 1st Grand Meet-Up on December 1, 2007 and we're looking for sponsors!
* Founded: Jan 2001
* Yahoo Groups started: Jan 29, 2003 (exact date)
* Founder: Allan Joseph Batac
* Current Mailing List Members: 242
* Current Forum Members: 1,136
* Total Posts: 19,265
* Number of topics at the Forum: 2,503
* Generates a monthly hits of 460,000++
* Domain name was created: Jan 4, 2005
In order to make this event joyous and successful, we are seeking for valued partners like you to sponsor our event through the following packages:
PLATINUM Speaker/Presentor – Php 15,000.00 (Lock-out per industry is Php 25,000.00)
Speaker/Presentor company logo on the official website (big)
Company logo on event t-shirt (big)
Company logo on event posters (big)
Five (5) Event T-Shirt
1 streamer (up to 6 yards wide) on the venue (or 2 streamers 3 yards wide each)
Permission to setup a booth and/or distribute company fliers, brochures, prizes
20 minute talk during the event about your company products and services
Acknowledgment during the event as PLATINUM Speaker/Presentor
GOLD Co-Presentor – Php 10,000.00
Speaker/Presentor company logo on the official website (medium)
Company logo on the event t-shirt (medium)
Company logo on event posters (medium)
Three (3) Event T-Shirt
1 streamer (up to 4 yards wide) on venue
10 minute talk during the event about your company products and services
Acknowledgment during the event as GOLD Co-Presentor
SILVER Sponsor – Php 7,000.00
Company logo placement on the official website (small)
Company logo on the event t-shirt (small)
Company logo on event posters (small)
Two (2) Event T-Shirt
Acknowledgment during the event as SILVER Sponsor
BRONZE Sponsor – Php 5,000.00
Company link placement on the official website
Company brand name on the event t-shirt
Company name on event posters
One (1) Event T-Shirt
Acknowledgment during the event as BRONZE Sponsor
Additional benefits:
1) Inclusion of Logo and Link to PHPUGPH.com home (from Dec 2007 – to Dec 2008)
2) Monthly email blast (advertisement) to all PHPUGPH members for 1 year (from Dec 2007 – to Dec 2008)
3) Company logo to be included in the member’s tshirt (at the back)
Please leave me a comment if you're interested to sponsor or e-mail me at 
I'm very excited now; Cribz -- a mobile social site I was working on for the longest time is on it's final development stage. It promises a lot to integrate Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0 by introducing community contents to mobile and mashing up with existing Web 2.0 providers such as Gmail, Facebook, MSN, Yahoo, Twitter, Digg, Del.icio.us, Google Maps, 30boxes, MyBlogLog and Flickr.
Here are some teaser-shots :D
Notice we blocked out the URL of the demo site and were using a stock theme (oh yes, we built it using Drupal!) On the far right column is the login box with option to authenticate using Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, or Facebook. What this does is cut down the registration process for validating users -- say bye bye to authentication mails that never gets into you mailbox for some weird reason.
This one shows the user profile, which is you home where it list all your recent and top rated contents and the messenger.
Now this is the interesting part but we don't want to disclose at the moment -- try figuring it out and leave comments :D
It's 3AM when I went home from a party but I couldn't sleep so i picked up one of my fiancee's book which she left titled "Marketing Magic" by Don Debelak, It's a good book for those who's into small-medium enterprises which teaches you the basics about marketing. Note: I also identified a lot of BS stuff on it which is typical since most marketing people won't share their trade secrets.
You might find it weird that a system engineer/programmer like me would read such books but IMHO after finishing the first 5 chapters I'm persuaded that this should have been part of our BSCS college curriculum in the first place.
So I tried applying what I read so far from the book to my work.
I equated stores to webapps, and likes stores there are those who sell products and those who sell services -- which is true for webapps as well. There are sites whose main purpose is to promote products and there are also tons of sites who sell services like Digg, Google, and YouTube.
According to the book, one of the basics in marketing is finding costumers and for shops these which is ain't just all about ads. The author noted that he is not a believer in advertising anyway.
Boutique owners for example must layout their store in such a way that it's easy for potential customers to find all the products -- this may be done by arranging clothes by gender, sizes and lifestyle, same goes for supermarket, book stores and convenient stores like 7eleven and Ministop where each product is arranged by categories. This basically applies to webapps as well, we must categorize all the contents and functions then render them into link hierarchies and site maps where in it's easy for users to find and navigate the site. The easier it is to navigate the site; the more uses will browse your site. This is basically the same idea why malls has spacious corridors and wide open store window to allow people to window-shop easily.
Now imagine if you walk into a bookstore where all the books stacked randomly together and most of the shelves are blocking your path? IMHO I wouldn't last 5 seconds inside because its basically just takes to much effort to find the book that I'm looking so I might as well better off finding another bookstore.
As you see, these aspects has been inherent in those so called killer webapps as well.
Gmail made it easier to read and search threaded mails, Digg made it easy to categorize and rank stories, Flicker made it easy to categorize, browse and search pictures, Picasa made it easier to share Photos while Google Maps made it easier to navigate streets, give directions, and find places.
Another basics of marketing is how to make what you offer better than others, this can be done is many ways and one of my favorite is specialization. Basically a store can sell almost any product and target a broad audience, this is basically what we also do with webapps. We want traffic -- tons of traffic to our site.
Which is wrong.
Not all traffic is good because if we attract the wrong type of users, we will be spending more resources serving them than serving those target users that generates our revenue. For example malls attract people but not all of them would buy and they would take up space which would have been used by potential buyers -- people who are actively looking for the products they want.
Here is from my own experience. I went to All-Flip-Flops to buy my fiancee a pair of their latest slippers but when I got there, a crowd has already filled the store so most of us have to fall in line to enter the shop. As I observe, around 1 out to 30 people would buy a pair while others were just attracted to go there due to the crowd and they would stay there inside the shop for 5-15 minutes just browsing and trying out pairs. The rest of us who were in line got impatient in waiting and we decided to go somewhere else and get back later after the crown subsides (I went for lunch ^_^). When I got back the crowd were gone which gave enough room to browse call my fiancee without having to shout against the crowd noise and in the end I bought 3 pairs because I know I'm lousy when buying gifts for women -- which was a good thing I it did because my fiancee only liked 1 out of the 3 pairs I bought.
Same applies for webapps, you would rather have users in your site which contributes contents and pro-actively interact with users and refer other users to the site rather than attract hordes of lurkers whose attention span last only for a month. Also attracting the right users makes sure they would refer your site to their friends which would have similar pro-active tendencies. This is the new rule of Web2.0 -- subscriber base size isn't good enough anymore.
Therefore if you look at all of these, It is not just about programming skills anymore -- that trend is only true during dot com era.
Today a junior programmer can out perform a senior programmer given the right framework and the right attitude to actually use those framework and follow pseudo codes and standards.
Developers and engineers has also evolved, reaching beyond the system analysis and design -- we must also have proper knowledge of the business the models. Designers shouldn't just make nice layout's and graphics, they must understand the impact of those design decisions in the overall marketing strategy.
Requirements
------------
* Drupal 5.x
* PHP4 or PHP5
* PHP Snoopy v1.2.3
* CURL
Overview
---------
This first version of GoogleAuthApps allows you to login to a Drupal site using your Gmail username (ex: googleuser@gmail.com) and password.
This module makes use of Google Account Authentication for Installed Apps (http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/AuthForInstalledApps.html), PHP Snoopy (http://sourceforge.net/projects/snoopy/) and CURL.
Install
-------
1. Unpack and upload the googleauthapp folder to the Drupal modules/ directory.
2. Activate the module via the Drupal module configuration menu:
"Administer >> Site building >> Modules"
3. This default installation assumes you are running linux with CURL in /usr/bin/curl, to change this; open googleauthapp.module and set $snoopy->curl_path at Line 17 to the absolute path where CURL executable binary is installed. For linux users, execute "which curl" to know the absolute path.
4. In "Administer >> User management >> User settings" make sure this is checked:
"Visitors can create accounts and no administrator approval is required."
5. Login using your Gmail account and password, this will create a new user with same credentials.
Note
-----
This is a very beta version of the module I developed under one hour so excuse for the lack of administration page.
PHP Snoopy v1.2.3 comes with this package; I'm not sure if this is allowed under the distribution license of PHP Snoopy but to simplify explaining how to download and unpack it on correct directory, I have included it on this distribution. As of the moment I'm not able to contact the developer of Snoopy so please email me at rpfilomeno+googleauthapp[AT]gmail[DOT]com for clarifications.
Download Package: googleauthapp-5.x-1.x-dev.tar.gz
I was on a jeepney along Kalayaan Avenue when this happened.
I'm using an aging T41 IBM ThinkPad for work, I don't mind working with this dinosaur since it has proven to be robust enough to sustain my daily battering.
Since Windows is popular for crashing every once in a while, the T41 Leveno system installed make sure that Windows will not be corrupted. It just freezes everything and with just a reboot will bring back it to life -- even Windows doesn't seem to know it had crashed either thus it wont run all those recovery utilities that makes a simple crash worser.
But since this is a dino-laptop, finding peripherals for it are hard. That's where the USB devices comes in handy.
Disk space is one of my major concern, I use much of it for development especially when working with C# server applications so I bought a USB to IDE cable for 400 pesos and plugged-in a normal 80Gig SATA SeaGate HD for desktop.
As a bonus it can also 2.5 (laptop) HD, the only cons is you have to carry around the extra power strip since desktop PC eats up more power that what USB can usually provide -- but its cheap! So cheap that I afford to just buy another HD any day if it gets full or if it crashes. I also found out that you can plug this during boot up so you can install/run another OS into the desktop HD.
Here is a video (kinda blurry) where detects the HD on USD a physical HD with 3 partitions rather than as removable disks.
Here is a screen shot of My Computer window, I'm using Vista Drive Icons for a cooler effect ^_^ 
As I said, I use up a lot of HD so I still ran out of portable storage most of the time, so I also bought a 1Gig USB MP3 player for emergency cases. This also comes with Voice recorder, Video Player, built-in Radio plus I can play basic hand-held games like Tetris and it only cost 1200 pesos. That beats iPod shuffle by folds -- plus I can add additional 2Gig via it's built-in micro SD slot!
With all these USB drives I quickly ran out of USB ports on my laptop but no worries, I just bought a 4 port USB Hub so I can fit in my USB mouse and bluetooth dongle at the same time and it only cost 150 pesos. There's a cheaper circular orange version which only cost 80 pesos but I fancied the neon yellow color ^_^
So what's next? I'm planning to buy a USB TV tuner (1300 pesos) so I can watch my favorite sport's program whenever I'm stuck at the office and it can also record or output my desktop into a normal TV during office film showing sessions. I can even plug an additional LCD monitor and upgrade my dual desktop into a 3 way view desktop! ^_^
PS: If you want to go this path with your laptop upgrades just visit first CDR-King, they have lot's of cheap USB devices where I also bought most of the stuff I featured here. If you're a USB fanatic like me, just blog it post a link under comments so I can link it with this post.
USB poweeeer! ^_^
It must be the biggest cult phenomenon next to fans X-Files... The iPhone Unlockers Movement.
William Yu posted on his blog his experience in unlocking the iPhone and comparing it to the methods used 2 months ago, it's now purely software base. Visit William's blog It's hip2b2 for pictures and the full method on how to unlock your iPhone.
So what's next? Change the OS of course -- rip Mac OSX (the OS) apart to build a better iPhone!
"All work and no play makes..." well if you're a workaholic like me then you know how the saying goes.
So Charlie, Rishi, Chris and me, the 4 geeks, took a weekend get away from work to 1 paradise. The nearest of course from Makati is Puerto Galera which is about 3-4 hours away depending on traffic conditions.
We decided to get most of the trip weekend so we packed early at 3:00am from Regenes Hotel where Charlie and Rishi had stayed during their visit here. It was a chilly morning and I had to take a jeepney from my house to the hotel to fetch them. I arrived to wake them up and Charlie struggled to get up from bed. Chris who spent the night also at the hotel was snugged comfortable at the sofa. "Guys we really have to go if we want to be there early as planned", I reminded them. In my mind, waking up early in the morning here is not much of a problem for me but when we were vising at Melbourne I couldn't possibly even get the blankets off me. Not to mention take a shower *shivers*.
After much effort packing while half asleep we got out the hotel and took a cab to MRT Pasay, from there we got into the first bus we spotted going to Batangas port. The bus was half empty, it was Saturday anyway, so each of us took a window seat so we could see the view on the way. It was close to 5am when the bus finally departed Pasay on our way to Batangas port.
The bus trip lasted over 3 hours due to some heavy road construction at SLEX past Alabang, we arrive approximately 8am where we waited an extra 30mins until the boat was ready to depart. Our destination is the White Beach resort which basically recommended by my friends. It has good rooms at the right price, we could have stayed at lavish resort but its not practical since we would be staying for just the night.
The boat trip took around about an hour because of the heavy waves and the boat couldn't dock near there so we ended disembarking on another port about 1km away from the resort.
Finally we arrived at our paradise, and about time too since were so hungry already. After settling into our rooms, we decided to have lunch at a pizza place, Rishi settled for a vegetarian pizza while the rest of us go with as much toppings as we can.
Time for the beach! We'll it took a lot of skill to get into water, the waves were outrageously high so we ended up getting dragged into the sands as you enter the water. By the time you pass the break point, the water becomes really deep and the waves are a feet high above our heads. In the end Charlie and I were the only ones who dared to venture into the waters and we kept going back to the shore to rest because we have to swim against the currents so we wouldn't be dragged by the waves back to the shore or pulled out into the deep parts. Overall it was a fun morning, even just watching Chris and Rishi as they attempt to enter the waters but gets knocked down and dragged by the waves. Hahaha.
Around 3pm we decided to go snorkeling by the reefs. We first explored the shallow ones, it was so shallow that when I jumped into the water my toes hit slightly one of the corrals. Chris was clever to bring some bread with him so I took a few crumbs and started luring the fishes.. wow, were they hungry -- I was virtually surrounded by them and even spotted two 'nemos'! On the second site, Chris and Rishi hired small boats to tow them around the entire stretch of reef while Charlie and I stayed much on the boat watching after being stung too many times by jelly fishes. After about 3 hours, we had enough and the jelly fishes stings are starting to increase anyway.
During dinner time, our resort hostess were kind to cook us anything we wanted which delighted Rishi since he has special requirements for the vegetarian dish he ordered. Charlie got a whole snapper while Chris and I went for Calamaris, it was awesome. Having to eat fresh seafoods is one of the major attraction why we chose to go here.
After dinner we went to a bar where an amateur bikini contest is being held, the contest hosts were making fun of the contestants and even the guest that i laughed so hard till my lungs hurts. Charlie and Rishi, although they couldn't understand much of Tagalog were equally amused by the awkward candidates they had -- which is actually staged to make people laugh.
We went back to the hotel past 1am, but Chris and I were looking for something else to put us fast into sleep and decided to hit the bar near by. Shortly Charlie followed and brought chips and nuts we bought earlier. We had a pitcher of God-knows-what but it was good anyway, we talked mostly of what we do outside of work and recounted the snorkeling experience we had earlier. It was around 3am when we finally had the pitcher hung to dry, on the way back we kept on yelling "here it comes!" as outrageously high waves smashes on to the shore and up to the hotel's front entrance.
By morning, were traveling back to the city -- dead tired. I was so tired that I actually slept till Monday, dreaming of all the wonderful stuff we saw on Paradise.
IT'S NOT A JOKE. Nokia unveils its new iPhone clone commercial at Nokia's Go Play event. You better watch this video first before we start bashing.
"If there is something good in the world then we copy with pride."
Anssi Vanjoki
Nokia's Executive VP & General Manager of Multimedia
... and it never came at the best time for Nokia as Apple's iPhone has lost its exclusivity to AT&T lock-in because of the hack. This means iPhone distribution is now lost in the wild and Nokia's European / Asian hi-end user markets are in danger of being invaded by iPhone prematurely and possibly uncontrollably without competition.
You can read more daily bashing on Nokia iPhone at Engadget.
...And the world has triumphed against the monopolist.
IPhone is now officially hacked with thanks to Vladimir_CDI,ozbimmer. Hacked IPhone will now work with any carriers which means the price tag will sky rocket again which is good for Apple but this means AT&T will no longer monopolize the IPhone user market and people would probably switch back to better providers -- hah, it told you so AT&T, Apple got you PWND for agreeing with their marketing scheme.
Ok, I know you didn't really read my ramblings and just wants the hack so just go to: http://tinyurl.com/ysev9j
WARNING: The hack is for the uber-techie; I'm also currently trying to get hold of the SIM readers at the moment -- I will have to wait for someone to buy it for me next month overseas.
I'm going to post a copy of the How-To here with alternate links to downloads just in case it gets taken down, but it's BEST to get the latest technique from hackint0sh.org.
U will need::
1. an iPhone
2. SIM Reader/Writer (Infinity USB Unlimited, Dynamite Programer(I used this) ,etc...)
3. SilverCard
4. Your SIM card (It must be a V1 ,U must be able to get Ki number)
5. Download
- http://tinyurl.com/22pmnc (alt site: http://tinyurl.com/25p5e3)
- http://tinyurl.com/28s9gn (alt site: http://tinyurl.com/3ab7qt)
1. ::Getting IMSI,ICCID & Ki number from your SIMs::
Step 1 - Your(V1)SIM
1. Put your carrier SIM card in programer
2. Run Woronscan
3. Click on "Tasks" tab then on "IMSI select" u will get a IMSI number, write it down.
4. Click on "Task" tab then on "ICC select" u will get a ICCID number, write it down.
5. Click on "Tasks" tab then on "Ki search", in pop-up window just click "Search", and wait,Ki extraction has began.(I was waiting for mine 40 min ) When u get it, write it down.
Step 2 - Getting IMSI from AT&T SIM card which came with an iPhone
1. Put your AT&T SIM card in programer
2. Click on "Tasks" then on "IMSI select" u will get a IMSI number, write it down.
3. Close Woronscan
4. Remove SIM from programer
Now U have all "data" to make SuperSim.
::Making SuperSim::
1. Download & extract - http://tinyurl.com/364l4g (alt site: http://tinyurl.com/3cpfo7)
1.a Put your Silvercard in programer
2. Run Sim-Emu 6.01 Configurator v2.1
3. Click on Configure tab
4. Click "Read from disk" button
5. Browse to your downloaded Flash&EEPROM files, first double click on SIM_EMU_6.01_iphone_u1.HEX and then double click on SIM_EMU_6.01_iphone_u1_EP.HEX, now they are loaded,positions 0 and 9 are red colored,thats fine.
6. In position 0 , type in data which u got from your carrier SIM with Woronscan - IMSI,Ki & ICCID!
For ADN/SMS/FDN# type 161, 15, 4, for SMS Centre type in your carrier SMS center number.
7. Now select position "9", here type IMSI from AT&T SIM card ,and PIN1 ,PUK1 same like in position "0" ,NOTHING ELSE!
8. In "Config mode" check "Files" circle check button
9. Click on "Write to disk" button,u'll be asked to save new created SuperSim Flash&Eeprom files,Save it!
10. Write those NEW created Flash&Eeprom files on Silvercard with your programer software!
11. Cut the SIM - http://tinyurl.com/yvku6u
2. ::Making your iPhone SuperSim compatible::
Step 1
MAC - http://tinyurl.com/ysxufc
WIN - http://tinyurl.com/256fj7
Step 2
WINDOWS users - For already "fake activated" iPhones ,put the AT&T SIM that it came with iPhone in it or deactivation in step 12. will not work!In "Step 15" when U are filling in fileds ,for ICCID use your carrier SIM ICCID not AT&Ts! When u download a "custom activator v0.2" DO NOT PROCCED to Step 16! At this point remove AT&T SIM card from iPhone(still connected to computer),put in your SuperSim AND THEN procced to Step 16.!
MAC users - In step 18. type your carriers SIM ICCID where needed
U will get Activated iPhone with your SuperSim! iPhone will say "Locked SIM", Don't panic!, its only a PIN lock, tap unlock---type PIN 1111. U can disable or change PIN later in Settings--Phone--SimPin.
MAC - http://tinyurl.com/2dqvlp
WIN - http://tinyurl.com/28vfr3
I just got a email from Nokia inviting me to beta test their new community site named MOSH which is an acronym for MObilize and SHare.
The site is similar to the very early versions of community sites where you can create a profile with uploaded picture, a tag line and a description -- IMHO it's not going to be an award winning profile but that's why it's still beta anyway.
The site basically allows you to upload and download Audio, Video, Applications, Games and Documents over the web, SMS/MMS and via WAP (The service is free but check your provider about download charges first). The maximum upload size is 100MB and so far it accepts almost any file type. Your content can be given a short description, categorized, tagged or added to a collection then finally shared either to public or just for yourself.
Aside from those features, the site is pretty much bare for now and having an unsatisfactory experience with Nokia Forum site, i don't expect MOSH to be any better. IMHO it will eventually be just another Monbango.com clone.
The site password is: ALLACCESS
Ajay writes in her blog that Manila Times Technews Lab has an iPhone for review, read more about it in her blog Ajay's Writings on the Wall...Go sexy mom :) i'll be waiting for your reviews.
Read more of Ajay's review of iPhone and other cool tech stuff!
So it's finally out and tons of blog posts are out there detailing every bits of it, mostly good and some bad. But for every new fantastic gadget released, the main question is always... can it be cracked?
Let's see...
DVD - cracked.
BlueRay / HDVD - cracked.
Xbox 360 - cracked.
PSP - cracked.
Windows Vista - totally owned :D
Mac OSX - cracked.
iPod - cracked.
and now iPhone ... ofcourse its cracked!
We'll, its actually more like AT&T got pwned.. there are about 4 ways to activate iPhone without needing to be tied to the plan.
One of the most effective so far is the crack presented by Jon Lech Johansen a.k.a DVD Jon on his blog. The technique uses a patched iTunes 7.3.0.54 and a false activation server; i was totally impressed with the speed it was cracked.
However there is a small difficulty for non-techie users to apply the patch to iTunes which involved editing the executable file using a hex editor so i came up with a small C# console application to patch it called IPhoneCrackItunePatch.
To use the app, just run it on command prompt with the full path to iTunes.exe as the parameter, it defaults to C:/Progra~1/iTunes/iTunes.exe without parameter.
This app is totally untested so back up your iTunes.exe before patching (coz i don't have an iPhone)! I disclaim all liabilities to using this patch, I only used DVD Jon's own offsets and values so don't ask me what they meant :P
Btw, I would like to thank rudy.net for the wonderful binary converter used by this patch.
BTW, this patch can also be used to patch other programs as long as you know the offset and the value required, feel free to use the code on what so ever C# project you have :)
DVD Jon's Crack to iPhone.
Alternate way to activating iPhone.
Download IPhoneCrackItunePatch (Full Source Codei).
Wow, I've been stuck behind the desk for a week now but we all know that all bits of sacrifice always pays-off; any time you can save on the start of a project could be the basis of its success or failure. Well, that should be enough self-excuse for not blogging :) But the week was not entirely lost to work...
Last Tuesday we attended a victory party of Sen. Kiko, we arrived late but it's the thought that counts. We were only able to catch Gary V., render his inspiring songs to audience and convey his congratulations to the senator.
Videos below was taken using my phone, sorry it was so blurry due to low battery (TIP: always keep your camera-phone fully charged, you won't know when an inspiring event worth taking videos may come):
and the fireworks surely help lighten up the crowd (over 500!); made me regret more why I didn't kept my phone charged :(
The event faded to lots of chats, we couldn't even move a meter without bumping into someone we knew! I was also glad to meet Sen. Kiko's bother who spent most of his time at our table mostly discussing...not politics... but mostly I.T. stuff! :)
In the end of the event, we had to move into another place to continue the chats until 3AM when the place we moved into have to close for the day as well. Finally last congratulations were said before finally going home.
Anyway, I have to keep this post short for now. Yes, yes, i know.. I haven't posted anything about mobile again but soon enough I'll post something exclusive about a new service and it's up to you decide if its hot or not :)
Happy weekends!
We're back!
Actually we arrived last June 6th but I was so busy at work that I haven't posted about our arrival sooner.
Anyway this is the last part of the post with all the photos we took during our final Melbourne city tour.
On that day we had Chris' friend and ex-boss guide Joan us, from Flinder's station we first visited the famous Queen Victoria Market where we shopped for souvenirs at very low prices, you can almost get everything here for under 10 AUDs! I would advise to look around first before buying, we banged our hears a couple of times because we jumped into buying what we thought was the cheapest deal we could get only to find a cheaper deal a few meter's away; most of them are from Chinese merchants so find them all first before buying.
After the frenzied shopping we had our lunch at a nearby Asian restaurants before proceeding to Red Square which is on the opposite east of Flinders station where an on-going European cultural expo is being held.
After a quick picture-taking session near the river banks we decided to be adventurous and wonder further into the city, so we took a tram going to the Docklands to visit the New Waterfront City and see the big boats for the big guys.
The place is awesome, we saw the Sea Shepard which is a vessel of the non-profit environmental group that helps protect the waters of Australia. She was a battle-scared boat but loved by many who treasures the great oceans. Also near it, we had fun climbing the modern sculptures made of metal tubes (yes, its allowed).
Finally we wondered the Waterfront's wooden board-walk, watched Australian football shown at the big screen TV (really big) while Chris manage to eat chocolate ice-cream while the weather is actually freezing cold!
After seeing the magnificent sunset, we decided to head home but we couldn't resist stopping by the nearbly Warner Bros store to take pictures with our idols :)
We had lot's of fun during our last city adventure at Melbourne, thanks to our lovely tour guide Joan (picture below). Dear Joan, we promise if you ever visit us in the Philippines we will be glad to be your tour guide. We promise we will let you ride all you can on the Jeepneys rather than walking. Ok? :)
Finally we would like to thank all the people of OnQ and BillExpress Limited for inviting us, we had a great time working with you all, especial thanks to David P, David Q, Ian McKenzie, Namith, Radj (my yosi partner!), the guys from SysTime, and Charlie who spent about an hour explaining to me all the stuff we need to know :)
My thanks to Chris who took most of our picture because my camera-phone basically discharges so fast due to cold weather :)
Last week I posted Working in Australia Pt 1, this is the second part of that post.
It's been two weeks since we arrived; the first week were spent planning all the project details while the second week were spent on learning the frameworks and designing the database. This coming week we plan release some ass kicking codes. However all work and no play... isn't the IT way -- so we went for a little city tour today and below are the videos and pictures we got.
We took a train to Flinders St then roam the nearby stores.
We passed by the Melbourne's Museum for a quick shot.
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) and BT have formed a four-year agreement to enable PSP owners to add wireless broadband functionality to their hand held consoles.
This will allow PSP owners to access high quality voice calls, internet browsing and messaging after installing a BT developed software. PSP will also release clip-on webcam and microphone called Go-Cam for a complete multimedia communication. Although this service is initially available only to Europe, BT plans to distribute the software to more than 100 operators world wide.
Many blogs has already jumped to speculation that PSP is after iPhone's market which is not surprising since PSP already has most of iPod's features but less the sleek body.
Its been a week since I left Philippines for Melbourne along with my colleague Chris, we flew via Cathay passing HongKong and Adelaide.
On board our first flight we enjoyed talking to other Filipino passengers and watching TV, then half way the flight we got our dinner served -- braised chicken with mushrooms!! Sadly, we didn't have much time to eat coz 15 minutes later were already preparing for landing.
Our stop at HongKong got us confused; we followed signs saying our transfer area is on the other end but half way there an airport official pointed us a detour through a temporary security checkpoint which saved us a lot of time.
The HongKong airport is huge and spacious; it will take time to get where your going by just walking! You either take the airport buggy or ride the conveyors, its that huge! -- and it should be since most connecting flights pass here. We waited at the transfer area where we were joined by other passengers bound to Adelaide; most of them are talking to their laptops, huh? -- because HK airport has free ultra-fast WIFI!! Too bad we didn't have laptops with us but we will surely have that chance again on our way back since we already received our company issued IBM ThinkPads.
We caught the urge to call home while looking at other passengers casually use VOIP via the WIFI so we tried to place a call but our roaming didn't work. I checked the settings -- there were too many service providers at HK, our phones couldn't just find the right one to use (note: ask your service provider what's their partner network on the country you are traveling to before leaving!). After an hour we boarded our plane for a n8-hour flight to Adelaide.
On our second flight we got another dinner! -- I have chosen the same meal and savoured it this time, another perk when flying via Cathay air. The entire flight went well for 8 hours but we could get ourselves to really sleep due to slight turbulence that occurs randomly.
We reached our 2nd stop early morning still very sleepy -- just had 2 hours sleep, we got our breakfast 30 minutes before landing so I chose egg omelet and mashed potato for a quick munch. We landed Adelaide for another transfer, the airport is a just big enough unlike HK. Security is very strict, aside from the imposed limit for carrying liquids and aerosols (gels, water, perfumes, etc) customs has forbidden us to bring any kind of food -- even chocolates! Chris was even got randomly picked for a voluntary "pat search" as added security precaution which surprised us at first.
We stayed at the transfer lounge for 2 hours before finally taking off for Melbourne. The flight lasted about 50 minutes, at arrivals section we presented our passport to the immigration which gave us an all clear. Welcome to Australia at last!
We waited a bit at the airport lounge area until David Pleasance arrived to pick us up, David gave as a ride to our new home away from home and and first thing we notice about Melbourne is.. right hand drive cars! On the way we passed the office then dropped by a local supermart to buy a few things before finally proceeding to our new place.
Our new home is a typical US type suburban house; it has 4 rooms, kitchen, sala, and appliances -- just like the Google motto '..developers will just want to work if you take care of their needs'. Anyway we got so tired that we decided to sleep thru the rest of the day.
The next day we started out on our job, there are around 190 developers on our section alone -- coming from all corners of the globe while others work from home or other country thanks to the fast VPN access.
Right now were really enjoying our work, its a lifestyle far from what were used to. Everyday we cook breakfast and dinner, im no cook but I'm starting get the hang on it. The only main difficulty is finding where to buy the food were used to like bagoong ang tuyo but the usual ones are available at the supermarket -- they even have a section dedicated to Asian food!
We haven't had the time to tour the city yet so I'll post all about the place next time as soon as we had explored enough. For now I'll post a map of our office, you can drop me an email if you're near!
We will be finally leaving for Melbourne Australia tomorrow around 8pm, for a 20-day something meeting in preparation for the upcoming expansion project.
It's a mind numbing 11-12 hour trip via 3 connecting flights; there were no available direct flights and that's usually fully booked anyway -- what a memorable way to start my first down under trip. I'll post updates on this sky adventures when I arrive at Melbourne.
Bye! ^_^
Tonight were switching from PLDT myDSL to Globelines after 3 weeks of horrific intermittent connection. To those who experienced the same problem then let me share you why we finally decide to change ISP after 4 years of being a loyal PLDT subscriber.
I made a speed test of both connection, it's a rare opportunity since both ADSL routers will be tested with almost zero load (web browser only, with fully loaded flash UI) from the same location using the same machine, and with the same bandwidth plan. My target machine is located on Melbourne Australia, a place I will visit soon so I thought It would be nice if can connection to my office PC here in Manila, here is the unbiased and uncensored:
Surprisingly it's a close race but this result doesn't show some facts that differentiate the two.
PLDT (at least the JrBiz plan) has a committed bit rate around which means there is no bandwidth shaping so I got 309kbps all the way during the test while Globelines has an unspecified bit rate so the actual speed started at 128kbps then rose until the 303kbps limit.
Notice the difference between the upload speed, on PLDT I can only max up to 117kbps, lower than my CBR which was indicated on my plan! Hmmm, not nice since I paid specifically for 128 and up CBR for that -- and Melbourne ain't too far nor the network is congested on that area (unlike US East Cost). Compared to the Globelines I maxed at 154kbps which fits my plan's CBR at 128kbps.
So what does these means, surely PLDT with its constant 309kbps is the winner?
Well it depends.
If you're connected to a single machine using PLDT, downloads will be faster, but that's not how real Internet works. When surfing a website, there are multiple connections to multiple servers which means more requests. That's where the upload speed is important, the faster It is means the faster the sites receives your request to download pages and images. It will also be useful for users who download a lot via *ahem* P2P since seeders will prioritize users with faster uploads too (the ratio is like 1:10 in favor of the user).
I'm not totally putting PLDT down, a large fixed bandwidth means the connection is best suited for server type connections like VOIP or gateways (in our case we have mobile gateways running 100% via PLDT).
To sum it all up.
I would recommend Globelines for surfing use, yes your office slacker will definitely be able to surf favorite social sites like Myspace, Friendster, YouTube and Dailymotion at top speed while I would recommend PLDT for server use like what most call centers have.
Hotmail has joined the MSN Live band wagon at last -- an effort to regain traction of it's user base. Stepping up to face Gmail's challenge, it now has a 2Gigabyte mail space as well but unlike Yahoo Mail with its laggy, screen resolution dependent, and CPU hogging all out Flash interface; Hotmail beefed up it's service with Ajax.
It's pretty descent but with nothing new except its another MS Outlook clone wannabe; it won't be winning any applauses soon enough.
myDSL Plan 999? I don't think so, I'm using a Jr Biz Account with a CBR of 128kbps -- yes it;s fast but it doesn't mean its useful. The connection is intermittent especially when connecting to US based server's like Google.
For an average user, this may be acceptable for we're power users -- multiple VPN connections and Remote Desktop Access is a must. We just wasn't what we're paying for. Don't you?
Wow, I have been so busy this past weeks after the PHPUGPH EB that I missed the final post.
Anyway the guys have made a gallery that sums up all the fun, looking at the group picture, it's amazing how the PHP developer community have united since our 1st humble meet-ups 3 years ago -- there were 5-6 of us at that time.
Congrats to the community, may the force continue to grow!
Updates:
I give my praises to Clod, he did very well in organizing the event -- all hands claps after he presented the PHPUGPH introduction as the opening remarks. Then he introduced the sponsors of the event; Mr Robert Locke introduced Mobius and their products followed by the presentation of from sponsor Eskwela.com announcing its upcoming site features.
These were quickly followed by topic speakers Mr Reuben Ravago on LAMP, Sir Reuben walks the audience through the _why_use_LAMP_ presentation but equally presents alternatives to the LAMP stack.
Jerome Gotangco presented UBUNTU to the audience and gives lots on info on and personal tweaks on how to setup a PHP development environment using UBUNTU.
The event started on time, the joyful members who volunteered at the reception area greeted me while practically dragging the 3 chairs and 3 bags I opted to bring as give-aways for the event. After signing up the attendance sheet and getting my name tag I headed to meet the person who's probably the one we should blame for this (kidding), Mr Clodelio Delfino (aka r00t).
Here's the photos I initially snapped via my camera phone:
As you can see from the photos, it's a success! There's about 50+ people that attended the event. You can download here is a short video clip that showed how packed the venue is.
More updates to follow as the event progress.
Im a PHP fanatic, in my 7 years as a software developer PHP has gained as special role in my craft. It's the perfect middle level programming language for me in terms of speed and power. Lots of developers may burn me for this comment, they will quickly point out how insecure and unmanageable PHP is. IMHO once you have gained enough understanding about the language, you can easily avoid these pitfalls; personally I'm not dependent on a single language for development, my specialty involves building distributed systems, each application uses different platforms/languages depending on its role in the system and finally gluing them together -- making them talk as one, I found that PHP can easily serves this purpose quite nicely.
On April 28, 2007.The PHP User-Group Philippines will attempt to bring the largest community gathering of PHP developers into reality, below are the programme details:
1. PHPUGPH.COM INTRO
Speaker: Allan Joseph Batac - PHPUGPH.COM Founder (will be represented by r00t since he's in Canada)
Reference: http://allanjosephbatac.com/blog/about/
Time: 2:00pm-2:15pm
2. Sponsor - Mobius Games
Speaker: Robert Locke - CEO Mobius Games
Reference: http://www.dmii.net/about/executives.php
Time: 2:15pm - 2:45pm
3. LAMP Basics
Speaker: Reuben Ravago - OLM Technologies,K2 Interactive
Reference: http://www.philosc.com/speakers.html
Time: 2:45pm - 3:15pm
4. UBUNTU Plug
Speaker: Jerome Gotangco - UBUNTU
Reference: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JeromeGotangco
Time: 3:15pm - 3:30pm
5. TDD in PHP
Speaker: Andre JOhn Cruz - PHPUGPH.COM Administrator
Reference: http://devpinoy.org/blogs/cruizer/
Time: 3:30pm - 4:00pm
6. Brainstorming
Moderator: r00t or any volunteer
Venue: Mob iCafe, Market-market
Time; 2:00-5:00 PM
This blog aims to profile, test, analyze, and help in development of technologies, services, business models, platforms, and applications for the Philippine context.
We hope to contribute define and influence the future of Philippine mobile industry by sharing and receiving feedbacks from the consumers; bridging them with developers and decision makers who will ultimately develop concepts and models for Philippine's Mobile 2.0We also tackles a lot about Web 2.0 technologies, system designs, politics, open source and news that relates on our experiences with software engineering and development in mobile.
Finally we take occasional breaks by sharing personal posts that we hope shows the lighter side of people that works in the mobile industry.Disclosure
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For those who are using SMART, register now to TWIT2948 because we will be suspending registration for Smart only soon.
This is due to the fact they (Smart) have requested it, maybe they want to make their own? Well for our sake, they do better make it quick!
So please register now or be left behind! Those who have registered already, they will still be able to use TWIT2948 (i hope). I will try to keep the registration for Smart open for as long as possible (until I get the official notice).
Registration for Globe and Sun users will be kept open.
Alternatively you can sign the petition here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/twit2948/petition.html
Please check out also PinoyTwitters community page to show your support.
Happy twitting!PS:
I realized that I gave something for free but caused me more trouble than appreciation. Is this how Philippine businesses going to end up eventually?
And for those asking: "If you're really doing it for free will you do it for us? "My answer: Of course! I already got out of the mobile industry because I was tired dancing to the tunes of the Telcos. If you're willing to take the heat then show me your platform is easy to build stuff on (can I build stuff on it under 200 lines of code?) and whenever I have free time I will build something on it! For free!
---- UPDATE ----
Registration for new Twit users using Smart Telecoms is now suspended indefinitely, unregistered users will receive an "Invalid Keyword" reply. Smart users, don't send complaints here/to me. Send it to the online petition form or to your provider since its their fault.