With approximately 6.7 billion humans inhabiting the Earth today and as I think of the global warming hoopla it’s apparent that dry space here on our planet is running thin. Land reclamation is an option but that can only go so far. At the rate that our seas are rising, more drastic steps must ensure the survival of our species. The recent advances in space exploration has kept my hopes up that perhaps terraforming can eventually solve that problem.
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Today my Wordpress plugin, Daily Top 10 Posts, won during the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards for best blog plugin/extension. Initially I was glad to hear that I made it as one of the finalists, as did Ria and Winston, who got multiple noms for their nicely written blogs. But ultimately it was meaningful for us because we are very good friends who all hail from Davao City and in a sense we are representing the often overlooked Mindanao region. In total we received seven nominations, which was awesome. We won two. Winston bagged the coveted Bloggers Choice Award and a Nokia N95 to boot.
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I’ve known Winston long enough to conclude that his moniker “Batang Yagit” is, how do I say it, a big fat lie? What with his constant jetsetting, impressive gadgetry and scruffy good looks, who would dare believe him? But that’s not to take away the fact that Winston is an overall nice guy. Always a pleasure to be with and a good sport whenever he’s the butt of jokes. My BFF Jehz is Winston’s campaign manager to win the Blogger’s Choice Award for this year’s Philippine Blog Awards. Actually, I didn’t need convincing to vote for him. I *used* to be Winston’s campaign manager for Paolo Mendoza’s Pinoy Evil Blog Awards last year, where he astoundingly won the Boy Bastos Writing Award. Looks like Winston is headed for another landslide victory. And I’m glad to be part of it.

Admittedly, I’m not the gadgets-savvy person I used to be. All these brands pumping out high-tech thingamabobs almost every week has left me dazed and confused (and I reckon you too). So I heard that, for the nth time, Apple has come up with, literally, a rainbow of new iPod Nanos. These skittle babies put my old worn out first-gen iPod Nano to shame. Not only can they hold up to 4,000 songs, they can play videos too! See, just saying that proves how bad it is.

I’m mulling over either getting this or an iPod Touch. The iPod Touch is a veritable feast for the eyes isn’t it? Also helps that it’s available here in Davao City. But it costs 80 bucks more than the Nano. I know, why not the iPod classic? Honestly, I don’t need that much memory (120 g’s) and it costs even more than the Touch.

Help me out will ya?

Oh, and check out this cool Apple logo:

Matt and Me

The idea of organizing an event such as Wordcamp is something that would never cross my mind. But being in the almost constant company of a guy named Blogie Robillo, wacky thoughts are inevitable. He gathered the Usual Suspects - Me, Ria, Migs, Winston and said hey, we’re doing Wordcamp! Faster than we can say “Whoa, wait a minute!”, we already had our individual assignments. We only had 4 months to pull it off. I swear I didn’t think we could make it.

Fast-forward to September. Preparations are going crazy. Fortunately, at this point, I only had a slightly minor part in it. My job started way way back when I was tasked to make the event “look good”. That means designing the logo, shirts, collaterals, badges and banners. It’s not the easiest job in the world, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. My years at Pratt are paying off! Okay, I also had the distinction of being the official Wordcamp chauffeur. Had it not for Manila’s horrible traffic, I would have thanked the MMDA and my driving school as well.

Wordcamp Badge

Wordcamp Shirts

Here ye, here ye! A *major* update for the Daily Top 10 Posts plugin for Wordpress! Since version 2.5 I’ve received reports that the plugin breaks the admin panel, amongst several other compatibility issues. I addressed all of these in the newest version. Here’s a rundown of new features:

1. Compatible with the latest version of Wordpress (2.61)
2. Widgets-ready!
3. Bug that distorts the admin panel corrected
4. Added a widget in “Right Now” that tells you the most popular blog post so far
5. Added a dashboard widget that lets you keep track of the 10 most popular blog posts
6. Updated some code in the instructions to prevent blog from breaking should the plugin be deactivated

Click here to go to the plugin page.

Let me know if you’re having problems! Thanks and enjoy!

Words cannot express how much I love this commercial. Being a Discovery channel nerd, I sometimes would leave my TV on the same channel so I can watch the commercial over and over again. Of course the need for that stopped when people began posting it on Youtube. Read Full Entry

I have resigned to the fact that I never win anything. I mean like the type of “win” where my name is picked out from a hundred or a thousand other names. To my surprise, lady luck stopped playing hard-to-get on me at the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2008 awards night! To think, I wasn’t even there! I’d like to thank Janette Toral for all the hard work she’s put into helping our local blogosphere get the recognition that it deserves. I know that I haven’t been the best of bloggers, but it does feel great to be part of such a vibrant community. I also want to congratulate my good friend Aileen for You Got Tech’s win last night, as well as Fritz, Blogie, AJ and the young people behind Manila Foodistas.

I’d like to take this opportunity to plug another blogging event, Wordcamp Philippines, which I’m helping organize. Wordcamp will be held on September 6, 2008 at the College of St. Benilde on Taft Avenue. Registration is closed, but let me remind the ones who signed up that you have to blog about the event and include the links to the sponsors to be able to join. The t-shirts are already being produced. Thanks to those who preordered. They’re gonna be awesome!

Lastly, I thank random.org for helping me beat the odds! They’re the main reason why I’m $100 richer. Monies, I haz you!

Yes folks, a “mini” Wordcamp will be held in Davao City, Philippines before the official event on September 6, 2008. That means bloggers from the South who can’t quite make it to Manila can still meet Matt Mullenweg in the flesh in Davao City! Cool eh?

Wordcamp Davao will held on Thursday, September 4, 2008, 6-10pm. We have yet to thresh out the details regarding the venue and program. Watch out for that soon. So what are you waiting for? Rub elbows with the Southern Blogosphere’s finest, free food and drinks in tow! Register now!

After much careful perusal of the Internet, here are my nominees for Janette Toral’s Top Ten Emerging Influential Blogs of 2008:

You Got Tech - The tech blog for non-techies.

Bloggers Da Who - The blind item blog that I hope I’ll never be featured on.

Rarely Ordered - Food blog about overlooked menu items. Very interesting concept by a group of startup bloggers.

Fritzified - Because he’s Fritz.

Manila Foodistas - Great pictures and impeccable writing about food. A must-read.

Pass the Sauce - Phoebe talks about food and her experiences as a culinary student.

Chefie’s World - Ok, another one about food. This time by acclaimed Chef Junjun de Guzman. Learn from his cooking adventures here and abroad.

Work With Ria - The blog of my cousin Ria, jill of all trades.

Migs Mobile - My good friend Migs Hipolito’s blog on everything mobile.

Digital Puto - Winston Almendras’ photo blog. Pretty good shots but pale in comparison to mine. Haha.

EDIT: I didn’t notice I listed eleven blogs. I will sacrifice my photo blog then. -_-

Davao Photo - My photo blog.

Wordcamp Philippines is now open for registration! Yes, now you can be part of the most anticipated blogging event of the year. Best of all, it’s free (and you get to meet Matt Mullenweg in the flesh).

Wordcamp will be held on September 6, 2008 at the College of St. Benilde, Taft Avenue, Manila. It is organized by Mindanao Bloggers Oliver Robillo, Maria Jose, Migs Hipolito, Winston Almendras and me

To register, click here. A blog post about Wordcamp Philippines and some link love to our sponsors will get you an electronic ticket to the event.

Shoutout to the sponsors!

• 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

Get Firefox 3 from here and here if you can’t get it from here.

My corner of the Twitterverse is waging an online revolt against, well, Twitter itself. Twitter has been the most inaccessible, inconsistent, downtrodden Web 2.0 application on the face of the Internet, and yet we put up with it. Why? Because old habits are difficult to break. Yes, if that weirds you out, try my other friends on Twitter.

As I opened my browser this morning, I was pleasantly greeted with Happy Birthday to you’s and Haba Birdie’s and talks of Twitter folks planning a mass exodus to Plurk. No wait, what? Yes, Plurk. Apparently, everyone’s gotten sick of Twitter and finally found a worthy place to tell the world what silly little things we’re up to. Pownce and Jaiku tried but failed — despite the Internet heavyweights backing them up. What makes Plurk special? It’s cute, quirky and different. The timeline interface is nice and makes it easy for me to browse through updates without clicking to another page. Replying to updates is even easier. I simply click on an update and type away. Replies are grouped together exactly like a forum thread. Sweet!

I’m in a state of cautious enthusiasm about Plurk. Cautious because Plurk is a new service and the real test is whether it could hold enough interest into it and withstand hundreds of thousands of ‘plurkers’ plurking at the same time. I would also love to see a SMS aspect attached to it and a developer API. I’m cutting them some slack because they’re new, but the people behind Plurk should leverage on the attention it’s getting now or suffer the same fate as all the other Twitter wannabes.

Plurk has a mobile version here. I’d like to see a browser extension done first so I can get rid of Twitterfox asap. Be sure to check out their blog for new developments. They’re looking for someone to help out with a Filipino/Tagalog interface too.

Two days ago when PLDT MyDSL conked out on virtually all of us, I was having my own problems with my Bayantel DSL here in my office. I couldn’t access most sites I go to such as Google and Twitter. I thought maybe OpenDNS can solve that problem. True enough, it did!

Yesterday though, while I was trying to access my site, DotaStrategy.com, the OpenDNS page of death appeared in my browser:

It says: If you experience this problem, we do not have any solution to this problem. We’ll fix this as soon as possible.

I say: How the heck are you going to fix it if you say you don’t have a solution??

Once again, I say goodbye to OpenDNS and hello normalized Internet!

My sources say Yahoo Philippines is ‘quietly’ setting up its local office at the Net One Center Net Cube Center building at the Fort in Taguig City. This confirms rumors that their office will be completed before the year ends. Jojo Anonuevo, Yahoo’s senior director for business development, is also said to be in the country. Anonuevo was the President of game publisher Mobius until June last year when he joined Yahoo. Interestingly enough, Mobius is housed in the same building.

Update: Jojo Anonuevo’s new role is General Manager for Philippine Operations and apparently has relocated back to the Philippines. It also appears that Aileen Apolo’s counterpart will not be Jonas delos Santos as I have speculated, but someone named Chris Concepcion. Watch the video below to get to know the two and what their plans are for the Philippine market. Note that Chris calls himself “the Yahoo representative here in the Philippines”. Jojo is the one on the left and Chris on the right.

Update 2: Yahoo has job openings for Partner Account Manager, Communications Specialist and a Search Editor & Analyst. Exact address of the office is 14th Floor Net Cube Center, 3rd Avenue corner 30th Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.