Pixels & Paper

New year, new site, new blog!

2006-01-01T15:07:00.000+08:00

Well, it took a lot more work than I imagined it would, but my new blog is up on a new site. Buying the domain name was easy (I got it from GoDaddy), getting a host was a little difficult because I had no clue what my hosting requirements were going to be (I eventually chose Dayanahost), and setting up WordPress to run on the host was the toughest task of all. Thank goodness for the super clear, if slightly geeky, instructions on the WordPress site. Setting up your own blog on an independent host is definitely not for the technically fainthearted. It ate up maybe a day and a half’s worth of vacation time, but it’s up and running, finally.

Happy new year, and welcome to my new blog! (This one is getting retired, so bookmark the new one now)

Blogging break!

2005-12-24T15:19:00.000+08:00

I'm in the midst of a project that's due the end of the year, and it's a classic case of biting off more than I can chew. I'm really excited about it, but it's requiring a lot more effort than I ever expected.

Merry Christmas, and see you on January 1!

Geekspeak: The next Treo models

2005-12-23T14:45:00.000+08:00

Cross-posted from the m|ph blog.

Palm has announced three new Treo models (four if you count the Treo 700w that will be released next month) for 2006. What new features will they put in? A few days ago Palm sent a notice to registered Treo users inviting them to take an online survey. Among other things, they asked questions about the use of instant messaging on the Treo (I don't), a reasonable price for a smartphone (I said P20,000) and, more important, a list of features that you want included in a smartphone, ranked according to importance.

They listed the following features: radio, video conferencing, voice dialing, compact form factor, instant messaging, TV or streaming video, GPS navigation, more memory, WiFi capabilities, Skype compatibility, 3G, voice over IP, a high resolution camera, aesthetic design, and push email. I ranked as extremely important better looks (shed some weight and lose the antenna, principally), WiFi (and all the goodies that come with it, such as the possibility of using Skype or some other form ofVoIP, IM, etc.), and push email.

Even though it's Christmas, I don't think Palm will cram all those features into a single model that would end up costing as much as a mid-range laptop. My guess is that they will release a simpler, less expensive model and a smaller, sleeker version of the current Treo (code-named Lowrider and Hollywood, if online reports are to believed), maybe with WiFi, and a super model with even more features (larger screen, 3G, WiFi) toward the end of the year. All of a sudden my Treo 650 feels old.

Writing lessons

2005-12-22T11:58:00.000+08:00

There’s a part of me that wishes I had chosen to pursue a writing career much, much earlier in my life, and had the chance to be “properly trained.” I consider myself a writer in the very limited sense of being able to write more or less grammatically correct prose, but not in the sense of being able to paint a story for my readers. Whatever I know I absorbed from a lifetime of prolific reading (I had gone through all 52 Hardy Boys books by Grade 6), and only once in my life did I have a chance to be “coached” professionally.

I had enrolled in a Master’s level creative writing course at the College of Arts and Letters called “The Informal Essay,” having exhausted all other possible electives in the College of Mass Communication to complete my penalty units for having exceeded, for the nth time, the MRR. I chose that particular course because Butch Dalisay was teaching it. We were required to write five essays over the course of the semester, each one to be read by the other members of the class⎯I remember that Paolo Manalo and Scott Garceau were among them⎯on the spot and then critiqued as if you were not there. I sweated and squirmed the entire semester but took home many lessons, many of them swallowed together with a heaping serving of humility.

And that’s why I'm so happy to see that Butch Dalisay has (finally!) begun blogging, and continues dishing out lessons for aspiring writers.

Gifted!

2005-12-17T12:21:00.000+08:00

I am so looking forward to 365 days of cutting edge, socially relevant geekiness! Thanks, Santa!

Interestingness

2005-12-15T20:35:00.000+08:00

It’s difficult to define, and better expressed in pictures. Flickr’s Interestingness page is what keeps me going back to Flickr, even though I rarely upload pictures these days (having your digital camera snatched in a crowded stairway outside the Baguio Public Market can make you lose your interest in photography quickly). And it’s there that I found rosemary*. I like shooting in macro mode, blowing up details that most people never really notice but heck, rosemary* does them so much better than I ever did. Enjoy!

The 12 Steps of Technoholics Anonymous

2005-12-15T18:08:00.000+08:00

My column for the December issue of Mobile Philippines magazine, which I believe is now available in most places where magazines are sold. (Photo cribbed from the nerd series done by Andrew Hickinbottom).

Hello. My name is Jason and I’m a recovering technoholic. The best Christmas gift I’ve received so far is beeing clean for many months now. I haven’t bought a new gadget since February (I did succumb to a moment of weakness once, and got the Apple Mighty Mouse in August), and haven’t reviewed a gadget for the magazine since June.

I realized that my addiction to gadgets and technology was bad when I cared about the latest post on Engadget and PhilMUG more than the worsening political situation (it was the height of the Garci tape scandal). Thanks to Technoholics Anonymous (Mac Users’ Chapter), I overcame my addiction and am now able to step out of the house without my PowerBook and not feel a sense of panic. (As for the Treo 650, I’m working on it). Here are the 12 steps that changed my life.

We admitted that we were powerless against Steve Job’s ~~marketing crap~~ reality distortion field, and that we ~~drooled over~~ wanted each new device that he announced, no matter how marginal its utility and inflated its price.
We came to believe that there is a Power greater than electricity and the internet, and that the world will not end if our laptops were to run out of juice and our wireless connection were to go kaput.
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to our wife (or significant other, or some other authority) and promised to really pay attention whenever they ~~nagged~~ said to us: “You’re going to buy a new (place name of gadget du jour here)? But your old one still works, doesn’t it?”
We made a searching and fearless inventory of our gadgets and gewgaws, including the ones we keep around even though we haven’t used them in the last three years.
We bravely admitted the nature of our mistakes⎯that we bought more than half of them because we thought they ~~looked damn cool~~ were going to be useful.
We made ourselves entirely ready to be cleansed of gadget lust, and promised to assess future purchases in terms of needs rather than wants.
We humbly asked our wife (or significant other, or some other authority) to take away our credit card, so that we would not succumb again in a moment of weakness.
We made a list of all the persons we ~~sneered at~~ ignored when their Windows computer went down with a virus or a worm or spyware, and promised to make amends.
We made direct amends to such people whenever possible, helping them update their virus definitions regularly and install AdAware.
We continued to take our personal inventory, and promised to give away or donate gadgets that we weren’t using anymore, and admit that Macs (occasionally) hang and crash.
Through prayer and reflection, we sought to improve our contact with our fellow men, striving to pay attention to ~~their boring drivel~~ what they are saying and not to interrupt the conversation to read SMS messages or to answer an incoming call.
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other ~~geeks, nerds, and dweebs~~ technoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Called for help

2005-12-09T22:52:00.000+08:00

Being the resident techie in your office can sometimes make your days run like an episode of Call for Help for spectacularly clueless computer users. Here are two of the more memorable calls I got over the last couple of weeks.

Call #1

Caller: Hi. My laptop has a problem.
Me: What seems to be the problem?
Caller: There’s something wrong with the screen.
I pause. Could there be a problem with his six-month old iBook’s screen? It’s too new to have a problem.
Me: What’s wrong with it?
Caller: It’s too dark.
I pause. I have a hunch.
Me: Ok. Can you take a look at your keyboard? I want you to look at the keys on the upper left hand corner—the ones with the sun-like icons.
Caller: Ok, I see them.
Me: Press the one on the right—the one with the larger sun icon.
Caller: Oh!
Me: Press it again.
Caller: Oh!! Hey, thanks!
Me: Thanks for dialing Call for Help. We aim to please.

Call #2

Caller: Ummm… how do I eject a CD?
Me: Ok, look at the key on the upper right-hand corner of the keyboard, the one with the upward-pointing arrow.
Caller: Ok.
Me: Press it.
Caller: Ok, I pressed it. Nothing happened.
Me: Press it longer, until the eject icon appears on your screen.
Caller: Nothing’s happening.
Me: Hmmm… it sounds like your disc is stuck inside.
Caller: How do I get it out?
Me: Try restarting your laptop.
I wait for about a minute.
Caller: Ok, it ejected the disk.
A flashbulb goes off inside my head.
Me: Wait a minute. Did you insert it with the data side down?
Caller: Which side is the data side?
I try another tack.
Me: When you inserted it, where was the label—on top or at the bottom?
Caller: On the bottom.
Me: Thank you for dialing Call for Help…

Farewell to the King

2005-12-09T09:39:00.000+08:00

I just finished the audiobook version of Stephen King’s Bag of Bones. Apparently, it’s a novel that King himself likes a lot⎯at least enough to narrate it himself in the audiobook version. It received a 4-1/2-star rating from Audible.com listeners, and that was what actually got me interested in the book in the first place.

The story was catchy enough, but the horror and action conjured up for the climax seemed artificial and just too convenient. All in all I got only one really good fright from the book, provoked by an especially cadaverous-looking beggar who knocked on my car window while I was listening to a particularly tense scene and waiting for the traffic light to turn green at the corner of Meralco and Ortigas Avenues. I liked it, but not enough to want to invest any more time or money on other Stephen King tomes, whether dead tree or audiobook version (with the exception, perhaps, of On Writing). I’ve long outgrown my scared-by-ghosts phase and prefer more serious fiction, something along the lines of Carlos Ruiz Zafón or even Jasper Fforde.

I avoided Stephen King and other horror writers when I was younger, mainly because Omen and then Amityville Horror had scared me sleepless for a couple of nights, and I forswore other horror novels and movies after that. Now that I’ve outgrown my fear of ghosts and demons (I still believe in them; it’s just that they don’t scare me as much), Bag of Bones is just a mildly interesting ghost story, good for an abridged retelling around the campfire on the beach or by a lake, or, a movie.

Hint, hint ;-)

2005-12-04T16:03:00.000+08:00

Cranky curmudgeons make a comeback

2005-12-04T15:45:00.000+08:00

It’s funny how all throughout the years I enjoyed watching The Muppet Show, I never knew the name of the curmudgeonly couple who tormented Ms. Piggy and the other performers with verbal brickbrats thrown from the theater balcony. But I loved them, as I did nearly everyone else on The Muppet Show (I'll admit to cringeing a little when, after a search on IMDB, I realized that the show first aired in 1976!).

Well, Statler and Waldorf are back, doing movie reviews in podcast form (there’s a more entertaining version with video, but you can only watch it online, here), more irreverent than ever. They’re obviously not voiced by the original actors, but they capture the spirit of the original couple. And they provide a good counterweight to relatively more serious approach of Cinecast. From the Balcony is getting a permanent spot in my list of iTunes podcasts.

P.S. Their site is so poorly designed that it’s nearly impossible to find out how you can subscribe to the podcast. Better to fire up iTunes and do a search for “From the Balcony” from there.

Blogger’s block

2005-12-03T10:58:00.000+08:00

Most of the long lapses between posts are due to my work interfering with my blogging, but like everyone else I also have to face blogger’s blog every now and then. Darren of problogger has 23 really helpful tips to help overcome it:

Change your blogging environment.
Keep an idea journal.
Free writing -- just write.
Read what other bloggers are saying.
Combine two disconnected ideas.
Start with a need.
Take questions.
Flip an idea.
Collaborate with other bloggers.
Set a deadline
Take a break.
Stimulate your mind.
Find your golden hour.
Comment on other blogs.
Read your archives.
Macro and micro posts.
Write in a different voice.
Change your posting form.
Start writing the middle of your post.
Short posts.
Sidestep blogging blockages.
Mine your other communications.
Reward yourself.

Here’s my favorite: crib from other blogs ;-)

There’s no escaping the law (of averages)

2005-12-03T09:45:00.000+08:00

It’s a given that nothing in this world is perfect, and it’s even more true for complicated gadgets such as PDAs and phones. But through six years and seven different models of Palm PDAs, I’ve only had to ask Palm to repair a unit once, because I had worn out the Graffiti writing-recognition area with overuse.

I would sometimes think that I was just lucky never to have received a defective unit. Sometimes I think that all those complaining about defective units were just whiners. Maybe the truth is a mixture of both.

Whatever the truth is, my lucky streak has come to an end. After nearly ten trouble-free months with my Treo 650, the speaker and mic quit on me. I went through a quick and hassle-free replacement process and three days after I called Palm’s tech support hotline, I went to PodCentral at Digital Exchange in Glorietta and had a replacement unit in my hands, with only 5 minutes downtime (the time it took to back up all the data on my old unit to a card using BackupBuddy VFS and then restore the data to the new unit). But that was not the end of the story.

After checking that the mic and speaker were working, I tucked the phone into my pocket and took it out only when I got back to the office. I noticed that the “E” key did not click when pressed and, worse, would get stuck every now and then resulting in "eeeeeeeeeeee..." messages. A trip to PodCentral the next day got me a second replacement unit, which I tested as thoroughly as I could while in the store. Everything seemed to work fine, or so it seemed. A few days later, while viewing a photo with a dark background on my Treo, I noticed a white spot that did not go away no matter how well I cleaned the screen. It turned out to be a dead pixel, and I sent off an email to Palm to let them know about the problem. In less than a day I got a polite response asking me to take some photos of the screen with the dead pixel. The pictures have been sent and I'm waiting for word on whether I qualify for another replacement. Three replacement units in three weeks. Oh, well. At least Christmas is coming.

Gettin’ The Skivvy

2005-11-26T17:22:00.000+08:00

I toted a messenger bag on one European trip and I totally hated it. It quickly got bothersome carrying the bag’s weight on just one shoulder, and I swore never to use one again. As soon as I got back home I picked up a small Samsonite backpack, and have been happy with it.

However, I’ve always liked Crumpler bags. Cool, durable, if a bit expensive. And I couldn’t⎯wouldn’t⎯turn down a free Crumpler bag if one comes my way. And a 12-inch Skivvy just came my way! (Thanks, Howard!)

Ffantastic Fforde

2005-11-26T16:12:00.000+08:00

I just started reading Something Rotten, the last of Jasper Fforde’s four-book series featuring literary detective Thursday Next.

I was piqued by a mention of Lost in a Good Book⎯the second book in the Thursday Next series⎯ in the New York Times’ summary of the notable books of 2003 (or was it 2002?), and his name jumped out at me as I browsed Fully Booked’s offerings during the Book Fair a few months ago. I ended up bringing the first two Thursday Next books⎯The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book⎯home. I became even more curious about the Thursday Next books after receiving hearty recommendations from a coven of book reading friends. In quick succession, I received the two remaining books, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten (the first as a birthday gift⎯thanks, Isa!). Two and a half months and three books later, I’m a Ffan.

Fforde’s books are a quick and interesting read, with an intriguing premise: a normal world (that manages to be both familiar and strange at the same time), set in the 1980s and cross-pollinated by characters from fiction. The characters do some magical things, but instead of being incredulous I’m amused by his pseudo-scientific explanations for book jumping, the gravitube, and the time travel, among other things. He has taken care to construct an entire world, not necessarily Tolkienesque in scope and detail, but rather consistent and quite believable. The whole series is like Enid Blyton for adults.

There are cameos and major appearances by an amusing mix of real fictional characters and fictional fictional characters: Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre, Ms. Havisham from Great Expectations, Snell and Perkins, Captain Bradshaw, and Hamlet, among others. Fforde deftly mixes reality and fiction, and fiction (as we know it) and fiction (as he narrates it in his books), providing sometimes hilarious back stories to some of the great works of fiction.

It’m not sure if he will ever be considered as one of the great writers of this generation, but his writing is engaging and immensely enjoyable, and I heartily recommend them.

Painless tech support from Palm

2005-11-17T18:40:00.000+08:00

My Treo 650’s speaker and microphone died last Friday, and while it still worked well for sending and receiving SMS and as a PDA, it was pretty useless as a phone. It had me confused for a couple of days, wondering whether the network was down, or whether the two friends I had called that day had, by sheer coincidence, bad phones. After asking around a bit, I confirmed that it was indeed my phone that was on the blink. I looked up Palm’s tech support page, called their toll-free 1-800 number, got on the phone with someone from Cebu (according to rumors), and was given a SRO (service replacement order) number after giving them some data that confirmed my identity. The next day, I went to PodCentral at Digital Exchange in Glorietta, showed my SRO number, and was given the replacement unit without questions. A pretty painless experience, all in all, and a kind of an early Christmas gift.

Driven to frustration

2005-11-17T12:58:00.000+08:00

I got to look at the local traffic situation through fresh eyes, so to speak, and realized how much I had gotten used to bad driving habits (others’, and mine as well). I was driving a young Mexican exchange student at UA&P from Ortigas to Makati last week. As we waited for the light at the corner of Shaw Blvd and EDSA to turn green and let us into the pockmarked, southbound lane of EDSA, I asked him how the traffic in Manila compared to traffic in Mexico (he’s actually from Guadalajara, but I’m assuming that traffic in both places is essentially the same, since air pollution in both cities are classified as “severe”).

He said, “More or less the same,” and followed it with “but…”

“Here drivers don’t follow the rules,” he commented, as he watched a jeepney cut across us and swerved two lanes to reach the curb and pick up a passenger. He marvels at how drivers can flout traffic rules so openly and so frequently without even attracting a glance from the traffic cops standing at the side of the road.

“It’s very noisy here. I don’t understand why the drivers have to use their horns so much. May times it doesn’t make sense because the traffic is not going to move faster no matter how much you use your horn.”

“They (the drivers) don’t have respect for pedestrians! They go faster and blow their horn and force the pedestrians to rush across the street or jump back onto the curb. It’s very rude. Pedestrians are not safe here.”

And I find it ironic that as Christmas approaches it will only get worse. Oh, well. I'll try very hard to make sure that there’s at least one less moronic driver on the road.

Back to blogging

2005-11-17T08:05:00.000+08:00

51 days without a post. Nearly two months of blogging inactivity, brought to an end by a gentle prompt from Arel at the end of an IM chat: Update your blog, will ya?. I haven’t been entirely inactive, though. I have at least half a dozen draft posts, in various stages of composition (or decomposition, as some of the interest that originally drove me to write about those topics has evaporated), started at some point during the last 51 days but left unfinished and set aside because of other, more pressing concerns (like writing deadlines for m|ph) and eventually pushed so far back down the to-do list that they dropped off iCal window.

Well, my grades for the first sem are done, all my articles for m|ph have been turned in (I have a couple of articles in the October/November issue and a couple more coming out in the December issue), and the project I had been working on for the last couple of months is off to the printer this week, and so I’m back to blogging.

Yeah, I miss writing for this blog.

The Warren Harding error (or why Randy Newman was right)

2005-09-27T17:04:00.000+08:00

I don’t have anything against short people, really. Life can be so difficult for them — they often get (pardon the pun) the short end of the stick. Randy Newman said (or sung) it best. And Malcolm Gladwell explained the phenomenon best in Blink, describing it as the “Warren Harding error,” in which, all things being equal, people will choose tall men over short men. Gladwell says that “there's plenty of evidence to suggest that height — particularly in men — does trigger a certain set of very positive, unconscious associations.”

Fact: In the US population, only 14.5% are six feet or taller, while among the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, an astounding 58% are.
Fact: Four large research studies revealed that an inch of height is equivalent to an additional $789 a year in salary.

That explains why Warren Harding, a tall, dark, and handsome man from Morrow County, Ohio, was elected state senator in 1899, lieutenant governor on 1903, senator in 1914, and finally president by a landslide in 1920. He turned out to be a so-so president. But he made a damn, good-looking president, at least.

Apparently, the Philippines is an exception, where a short person can rise to a great position and just be as mediocre.

Mork gets an iPod

2005-09-08T11:20:00.000+08:00

Just when it felt that Apple's iPod line-up was getting stale, they release the iPod nano. I know — lame name. But "iPod" was just as lame — at least to me — when they released the very first one just four years ago. Just what the hell was an "iPod"? Fast forward four years and today it's an icon. Practically everyone knows what an iPod is. They may not actually own one — they may not even have seen one "in the flesh," so to speak — but they know what it is.

What does the iPod nano bring to the table? As with nearly all iPod models before it, an uber-cool quality that is more than the sum of its parts. It improves upon the iPod mini with a color screen, flash memory storage (no moving parts, no skips), and a newly designed body that is about 60% smaller than the iPod mini. In essence, it's taken the most important features of the full-sized iPod (save for the storage capacity) and repackaged them into the thinnest iPod case so far. Yes, it's thinner than even the diminutive iPod shuffle.

Poor Creative. All of a suddden the Zen Sleek looks, well, fat. And outdated. It was aimed squarely at the iPod mini, with its monochrome screen and all, and with the introduction of the iPod nano, the iPod mini is suddenly so yesterday.

P.S. Apple also announced the long-awaited iTunes phone — the ROKR from Mototrola (US only, via Cingular). Ho-hum.

Back from the book palengke

2005-09-07T14:08:00.000+08:00

I came back from the book fair last Saturday pleased with my haul—six books from a rather wide range of genres. I was doubly pleased because I thought I would miss this year's book fair, as I did the previous two, because of a too-tight schedule. Ever since the venue was changed—from the Megatrade Hall of SM Megamall to the World Trade Center in the reclamation area—the visit to the book fair had been transformed from frequent and leisurely lunch-hour strolls through the various book stalls to a major excursion that required a car and a lot of free time.

I had a three-hour window on Saturday afternoon, and the drive from Makati to the World Trade Center passing through EDSA was not a pleasant one. It was drizzling and the traffic was congealing as the minutes passed. I got disoriented after I passed Roxas Boulevard, fully expecting to see the WTC building to my left but instead seeing a huge mall under construction a little farther down the road. I slowed down to get a better look at my surroundings and regain my sense of direction and as a consequence I nearly rammed the concrete traffic barrier that marked the U-turn slot. That earned me a wave from the nearby policeman who, luckily, leant a sympathetic ear to my tale instead of giving me a traffic citation and then kindly gave me directions to the WTC.

I entered the cavernous WTC hall and immediately felt like I had stepped into a palengke. And I mean that in a good way. I had half-expected a sparse crowd, but the aisles were packed and the lines to the cashiers long. It gave me a buzz to be among so many fellow book enthusiasts. Since I had little time on my hands, I quickly and systematically went up and down the aisles along the length of the exhibit area to get at least a glimpse of each stall. I eventually decided to spend most of my time with the three biggest exhibitors—National Bookstore, PowerBooks, and Fully Booked. I was happy to have been able to browse through a wide range of books in just three places, but I also thought that such a decision (which was also taken by what seemed like at least a third of the book fair visitors, judging from the cramped spaces and long lines in those three exhibit areas) bode ill for the future of small, specialist stores like A Different Bookstore and even established second-tier ones like Bookmark.

After two hours my energies were depleted and my wallet empty, and I went home with half a dozen finds:

Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book and The Eyre Affair. I had been intrigued by the idea of his heroine Thursday Next literally and figuratively getting lost in a good book. As the New York Times book review put it, Thursday Next's adventures is

a franchise brainy enough to feel like proper reading—playful and ironic enough to risk no confusion with the nubile elves and unbreakable swords of the appalling post-Tolkien "adult fantasy" genre—yet as effortlessly readable and unashamedly escapist as the best children's fiction.

Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, which engaged me even more than his The Tipping Point did and so I decided to get my own copy.

Phil Jackson's The Last Season, an account of his last, tumultuous year with the Los Angeles Lakers had been on my reading list for more than a year, and I thought it was time to get it and mix some light reading into my list.

The last two were basic tomes on design (Design Basics Index by Jim Krause) and digital photography (the title of which escapes me now).

Cool Flickr Find of the Day

2005-08-31T12:40:00.000+08:00

bicycle race
Originally uploaded by Alexia Abegg.

92 amazing and fun photos, courtesy of Alexia Abegg. Check them out!

(By way of David Pogue's blog)

iWant

2005-08-30T18:01:00.000+08:00

Just stumbled across this nifty little set of speakers from Griffin Technology that are made just for the iPod shuffle. $39.95. Nice!

From the product page:

Plug your shuffle into the docking connector between TuneBox's twin speakers for instant gratification. TuneBox charges your shuffle's battery while it's playing.
TuneBox's micro drivers and efficient amplified speakers generate a powerful, dynamic sound, with unexpected clarity and great highs and lows.
TuneBox keeps the shuffle's clickwheel controls up front within easy reach. Though it's designed to visually complement the iPod shuffle, TuneBox delivers great sound from any Mp3 player or other audio device that uses the standard 3.5mm stereo jack.
With a space investment of less than 4 square inches, TuneBox delivers impressive sound and functionality.

But these speakers from Okion, however, don't look so bad. And they will probably sound better, since the set includes a subwoofer. A little pricier at $45 (I found a local store selling them for P1,800 or roughly $32, though). Ah, competition is good. Choice is good...

Can you smell the coffee?

2005-08-28T10:07:00.000+08:00

From the Coffee Collection photoset
Originally uploaded by jasondevilla.

The highlight of every trip to the Baguio Public Market is a visit to my favorite coffee store. You have to traverse the "touristy" part of the market where they sell vegetables and souvenirs like garlands of everlasting flowers and go a little beyond the wet market section. There are only two stalls that sell coffee, and I get mine from Garcia's, the second one. These are palengke stalls, so forget Starbucks-style packaging and service. The roasted beans are kept in large, glass-walled bins, and scooped out with a tin cup or the traditional takuan (did I get it right?). Over the past couple of years the range of choices has grown from the four basics—barako, Benguet, Arabica, and Kalinga—to include thier own house blend (naks!) and flavored coffees.

The first time I bought coffee there, I was suprised to find out that you can buy tinge, and ask them to put together any combination that you can imagine. The man in front of me took away what looked to me like a fistful of ground coffee, probably just a few days worth of morning brew, to be replenished with fresher grounds a few days later. I normally get a mix of lightly roasted barako and the darker Benguet, and have them ground finely, passing twice through a mechanical grinder connected by belts to an electric motor and which remind me of the ones used for grinding animal feeds.

Geekspeak: Mighty Mouse, Comic Life

2005-08-26T22:19:00.000+08:00

I am a Machead, I admit it. I thought I would manage to keep an open mind about such things and resist Steve Job's reality distortion field, but the second I got a text from my friend Elbert telling me that he had brought in five units of Apple's new Mighty Mouse and had only one left, and was I interested in getting it, I caved in. Completely.

I am a trackpad user, and still have a perfectly serviceable Logitech Mouseman Traveler to turn to whenever I need to use a mouse. Apart from good looks and the left/right/diagonal scrolling function, the Mighty Mouse really didn't have anything else that the Mouseman Traveler (which is no slouch in the looks department) didn't have. But still, the white Apple keyboard and HP CRT monitor on my white computer table called out for a perfect companion, and I couldn't deny them the Mighty Mouse...

What a (Comic) Life! While preparing a slideshow summary of the funnier moments of our three-week stay in Baguio, I decided to try out Comic Life by Plasq.com. Boy, what a fun, well designed, and easy-to-use piece of software it turned out to be! I was up and running in a mere 15 minutes, and my friends were floored by the presentation. iPhoto slideshows are generally impressive, but being able to present photos in panels, add captions and dialogue balloons doubled the fun. Comic Life has a 30-day trial period, and cost only $24.95 ($19.95 for students and teachers).

Green Baguio and Gray Manila

2005-08-23T08:43:00.000+08:00

From the 'Going green' photoset
Originally uploaded by jasondevilla.

I've been in Manila for only 36 hours, and already I miss Baguio. A lot.

The weather was nothing to rejoice about while we were there (it must have rained 9 out of every ten days), and it was gray most of the time. But the grayness of Baguio couldn't be more different from the grayness of Manila. Whereas Baguio was light and misty and gentle, Manila is harsh and heavy, and its grayness comes from soot and dirt that streaks gutters and walls and pedestrian flyovers like some abstract painter's work. In Baguio you see healthy trees and lushly growing plants at every turn, while in Manila the trees are as dingy and malnourished as the streetchildren who take shelter beneath them.

Baguio in Black & White

2005-08-17T11:48:00.000+08:00

Mansion House gate, August 15, 10:52 am
Originally uploaded by jasondevilla.

I got an encouraging comment (thanks, Isa) on one of my B&W photos and I thought I'd post more B&W photos I took in the last week or so. The silver lining behind the gray clouds that seem to hover permanently over Baguio at this time of the year is that ordinary sights appear more dramatic when seen in black and white and gray (with a little help from iPhoto).

You can check out the entire Flickr photoset here.

Ukay-ukay day

2005-08-15T12:27:00.000+08:00

Ukay-ukay stall in Skyworld
Originally uploaded by jasondevilla.

You have to be strong to go shopping at Baguio’s famed ukay-ukay centers.

Strong enough to stomach the musty smell that assaults your sense of smell when you enter a stall. Strong enough to keep your imagination in check and not wonder whose sweat and whose grime, and for how long, had settled on the clothes hanging from the racks in front of you. Strong enough to crack a smile at the joke that some of those clothes must have been shipped in polished and varnished wooden boxes rather than the typical cardboard ones.

I’m not the queasy type, and had grown up appreciating an occasional hand-me-down from older cousins, but I limit myself to what I call “secondary” apparel—stuff that you throw onto other clothes you’re already wearing. I stay away from clothes that make “primary” contact with the original owner’s skin, like shirts and pants, no matter how well kept they seem to be.

Each excursion into the maze of stalls in Skyworld Commercial Center (supposedly the home of the high quality (and higher-priced) ukay-ukay goods yielded items that I never knew I needed: a nice, all-black Giordano windbreaker, a small Timberland belt bag, a matching warm-up jacket and pants set, Hugo Boss socks (new, not used!) at P25 each…

After the first three visits to the ukay-ukay stalls, I learned to stuff only a couple of hundred pesos into my wallet and leave the rest of my money at home in order to put a brake on my tendency to impulse-buying. In the last few days I’ve taken home nothing but pictures.

Rained out

2005-08-12T14:14:00.000+08:00

Today was suppposed to be "Visit Ilocos Sur and Ilocos Norte" day, and we had made plans for a long and leisurely drive down from Baguio through Santa Maria, Santa, Vigan, and Paoay, but Huaning rained us out. I had been looking forward to taking photos the whole day, but ended up staying at home. Sigh...

Of foggy mornings and rainy afternoons

2005-08-11T18:56:00.000+08:00

A foggy morning in Camp John Hay
Originally uploaded by jasondevilla.

Baguio is not at its best in August. Waking up to a view of fog-shrouded pine trees seems dreamily relaxing at first, but the morning air at this time of the year claws at you with cold and clammy fingers and soon drives away any pleasant feeling you may have had when you first looked out the window.

Outside, it is dripping wet. So much condensation has collected on the twigs and pine needles of the trees above the house that they quickly coalesce into large drops that fall with a tinny thud upon the tin roof with annoying frequency.

The sky is overcast: there us no hint of sunshine anywhere, only the threat of rain, which is often made good by early afternoon. And it's been like this for four straight days now.

But I'm not complaining. I'd take a rainy day in Baguio over a rainy day in Manila any time. I've been here for a week now, and I feel like I've left all the country's troubles back in the metropolis. I'm not bothered by unreliability of the guy we asked to get us the morning paper, which we receive only every other day. On the tube, we tune in to CNN more often than we do to the local channels.

Here we lead a normal life, concentrating on work, classes, papers, taking pleasant walks during the rare times when the sun manages to fight its way through the clouds.

Manila, and the political and media circus that defines life there, is not the Philipppines. Thank God for that.

Excuses, excuses

2005-07-29T18:29:00.000+08:00

I haven't been posting for a while now because...

I've been doing a lot more reading and hardly any writing. With the Gloria-Garci crisis raging and provoking so much frustration on my part, I felt that anything I posted on my blog would seem too trivial. I got tired of the news coverage really quickly, and turned to blogs to try to get a better reading of what's really going on. I forget exactly where I saw this list, but here are some news and analysis blogs that have become nearly-daily reading these past few weeks:

The Sassy Lawyer: I don't agree with everything she says, but she talks with both wit and depth about contemporary issues, the Gloria-Garci scandal included.
Newsstand: A blog maintained by John S. Nery, editorial writer for the Inquirer and a former (and much-admired) boss at what was then called the Center for Research and Communication.
Inside PCIJ: The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism is one of the best things to ever have happenned to local journalism, and this blog is kept by a roster of award-winning PCIJ writers.
Side Trip: Howie Severino, formerly of PCIJ and now with GMA-7, often writes about lighter stuff than the previous three blogs, but it's always worth a read.
By Jove!The only blog by a relative unknown (at least to me) that made it to my bookmark list, Jove Francisco gives interesting behind-the-scenes accounts of events in Malacañang

I've been addicted to podcasts, which have taken up an inordinate amount of my 'free' time lately. It's probably just a phase, but for now I'm hooked. Aside from those I mentioned in my previous post on podcasting, I've been listening regularly to the following podcasts:

Catholic Insider
Slate
Cinecast: A weekly Film Podcast from Chicago with Adam Kempenaar and Sam Hallgren, who bring an ordinary guy's point of view to the films they review
Skepticality: Derek and Swoopy bring you relevant, under reported current events, as well as in-depth discussions from a scientific, critical, skeptical, and humorous point of view.

I've also discovered audiobooks from Audible.com. I signed up for a free 14-day trial that lets you download 3 audiobooks for free, and I got myself $75 worth of books: On Writing, by Stephen King (much recommended by some writer friends); Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer (recommended to me a long time ago by another writer friend); and From Potter's Field, a Kay Scarpetta novel by Patricia Cornwell.

Their selection is not that wide, but I did find a few gems, that cost me $30: The Life of Pi, the 2002 Booker Prize-winning first novel by Yann Martel; and Witness To Hope, a biography of the late Pope John Paul II by George Weigel. These books have given new life to my iPod shuffle, which I now use more often to listen to audiobooks than to music. What can I say? If given half an hour of free time, I'd rather curl up with a good book rather than listen to my favorite CD.

Bitten by a bug... the podcasting bug

2005-07-02T15:24:00.000+08:00

No, I'm not making my own podcasts now. I'm listening to podcasts now. Like TWiT (This Week in Tech), with Leo Laporte (of TechTV fame), the Daily Source Code by Adam Curry (aka the podfather or the father of podcasting), the Engadget podcasts, and Vatican Radio (for "balance," as a PhilMUGger aptly put it).

The bug bit me when I downloaded iTunes 4.9 (free, for Windows and Mac), which has built-in support for podcasts. You click on a subscribe button and the latest podcasts are downloaded into your iTunes application, which you can then synchronize with your iPod (which I don't have). I've burned them to CDs to listen to in the car, and now I'm experimenting with storing them on an SD card and listening to them on my Treo 650.

It's a wonderfully liberating experience so far. No longer am I forced to suffer inane DJ dialogue as the price for hearing the kind of music I like. Think of podcasts (btw, you can listen to podcasts on just about any digital music player, not just an iPod) as time-shifted radio shows, to get a general idea, but they're really much bigger than that. One, you don't need a radio station or a recording booth to do a podcast, just a computer, a mike, and some software (you can check out some how-to's here and here). Two, you're not limited to a few radio stations and DJs who with pseudo-American accents and an immeasurably irritating nasal twang. three, you can listen to your radio "shows" at any time you choose. Anywhere. In your car. While jogging. In tha mall. In the john.

It's got me thinking about getting an iPod mini (I really wouldn't mind getting one of these for my 40th birthday), getting a new car stereo so that I can hook up the (non-existent) iPod mini to the stereo... Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Getting back to more serious reading

2005-06-30T07:58:00.000+08:00

It's not exactly the most exciting book out there. Nor does the author's name inspire much confidence. But I've just been handed a couple of new projects at work that are going to require much editing work, and so I've lined up this book, and Arthur Plotnik's The Elements of Editing, to keep me busy over the next couple of weeks.

Editing is wonderfully challenging work, if a bit underappreciated. So many times in my profesional life I've been asked Could you take a brief look at this? and then I'm handed a 10-page article or a mockup of a brochure that's ready for printing.

Most people think -- rather mistakenly -- that an editor's job is just to check grammar, and to make sure that no typo slips into the final printed product. Oh, I'll need it today. It should take you only a few minutes, right? Yeah, right.

When an editor does a good job, his work goes unnoticed. The reader is all praises for the writer, because his prose reads smoothly, his descriptions are precise, his idiomatic expressions and metaphors on the spot. It's a challenge to clean up a manuscript, to trim the deadwood and tighten the sentences, to get the paragraphs to flow smoothly as one idea leads naturally into the next one, much as a gym trainer works hard on a client to get rid of his fat and work on the definition of his muscles.

Good writers -- those whose work hardly needs any editing -- are the best ones to work with. Writers who merely think that they are good and are convinced that they don't need any editing are the worst. In basketball there are players who are called nana because you can hardly touch them without eliciting a scream of Foul!!!

I never planned to become an editor; I more or less stumbled into this kind of a job. I had taken up a Master's in Journalism thinking of becoming a kick-ass investigative jorunalist. But life often leads you along unexpected paths, and I've learned to enjoy the different things I never really thought about much but ended up doing on a professional basis.

Damn good advice

2005-06-16T14:03:00.000+08:00

I just finished Timbuktu by Paul Auster, and it cost me more effort than I expected to finish the book, short as it was (181 pages). It didn't hit me as hard as A New York Trilogy and Book of Illusions did; he was his usual imaginative self but I guess you really can't say that much when you're looking at life through the eyes of a dog.

I'm moving on to lighter fare for a while, and picked up a couple of back issue of Esquire for a hundred bucks each. Not bad for what I think (for now) is the best men's magazine out there. I started paying attention to Esquire after reading this award-winning piece entitled Home, which tells the story of two American astronauts stuck in the International Space Station without a ride home after the space shuttle Columbia disaster.

The cover story is interesting. George Clooney turned out to be a dud when it comes to talking about the meaning of life, but the follow up article lives up to its name and you can actually get some damn good advice from the likes of Pamela Anderson and Ozzy Osbourne. Here are some nuggets of wisdom I picked up from this issue:

You don't accidentally become an asshole. It takes a bit of work. Ozzy Osbourne. Adds a measure of respect to some people I know. Now I know that they had to work hard to become what they are now ;-)

When you're young and you're facing a man, you get the shit beat out of you... I draw upon experiences like that now. You have to learn form everything. It's like the old expression: If it doesn't kill you, it makes you sronger. That's really true — if you work at it. Vince McMahon Sometimes I find myself wasting energy railing at things I know I can't change — bus drivers who bully their way into and out of lanes along EDSA, traffic cops who employ scare tactics ("Alam ninyo, boss, P2,000 ang multa at masusupinde pa yung lisensya niyo ng tatlong buwan.") to force you to make an offer that they, in their kindness (yeah, right), will accept just to make life a bit easier for you — instead of just learning from the experience and being better prepared the next time.

Notre Dame had lost for the first time in almost five years, and we couldn't fathom it. Coach Frank Leahy, who was a great motivator, told us that day: Learn how to accept defeat in football and in your life, because it will come. Regis Philbin. Ah, how many hours have I spent — nay, wasted — analyzing things to death post-facto intead of just accepting them and moving on?

Time passes, shit happens, you do the best you can. We put so much drama into everything. You gotta remember to breathe. Pamela Anderson. Damn good advice that these people could certainly use.

Recent stuff that caught my eye

2005-06-13T15:58:00.000+08:00

I haven't been blogging much lately, so I thought I'd at least point you to some of the more interesting articles online that caught my eye recently (courtesy of Magazine.org's weekly links)

"I'm the Guy They Call Deep Throat" The Vanity Fair article that revealed the identity of Deep Throat, the government informer in the Watergate scandal, and whose name had been kept secret for the last 30 years. And if you're too young to remember what Watergate is, you can catch up a bit on history here.

How to Have a Mid-life Crisis The word "mid-life" is important to me these days, as I get closer and closer to the day I turn 40.

His Brain, Her Brain Why do more men than women enjoy the Three Stooges? This Scientific American article will tell you why.

Enjoy!

The tipping point

2005-06-13T11:52:00.000+08:00

I've never had an easy time giving tips, always wondering whether I'd given too much and be taken as naïve or too little and be eternally labeled as a cheapskate. Sometimes it's easy to decide how much to give—P5 or P10 for the parking attendant or watch-your-car boy who actually stops traffic to let you back out into the street and zero for the one who just acts out a charade even when there are no cars to stop—but often I'm simply clueless and just slink out of the restaurant or barbershop as quickly and as unobtrusively as I can after slipping a bill folded many times over into the waiter or the hairdresser's palm.

If you often find yourself in the same boat, Real Simple's The Definitive Tipping Guide might help. Of course, you'd need to 'localize' the context, and adjust the amounts accordingly. Even better, a really local guide would be much more welcome. Know of any?

Well, well, well. Looks like my next laptop will have a Centrino chip inside.

2005-06-07T14:39:00.000+08:00

Or some other Intel processor. Running Mac OS X, definitely (I'm not going back to Windows, if I can help it). Steve Jobs confirmed yesterday (Monday morning in San Francisco) that Apple would be ditching IBM and Motorola PowerPC processors in favor of Intel processors. The first Intel-powered Macs ("MacIntel" machines is how Steve Jobs dubbed them) will be out in June 2006 and by June 2007 all Macs will have Intel inside. Apple will be eating crow for a while. For a good number of years now, they've been saying that higher megahertz numbers don't really mean better performance and that their G5 processors toast the fastest Intel processors.

OTOH, the move brings with it some good news (or maybe just hightened expectations at this point): the equivalent of a G5 laptop chip, (theoretically) better hardware features (faster buses, better graphics chips, etc.).

There were cheers and jeers, as expected, since this was such a radical move, practically unthinkable just a couple of years ago. I really don't care that much what's under the hood, as long as the Mac OS runs well. True, future Macs won't feel as "exclusive" as they do now, with their really unique hardware-software combo, but what the heck--my PowerBook is a productivity tool, not my spouse.

One day in the life of a tech columnist

2005-06-04T10:43:00.000+08:00

No, not me. Those days are over for me, for now. I'm referring to Jeremy Wagstaff, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal/Asian Wall Street Journal. His column is called Loose Wire (blog version here). He recently wrote to Microsoft asking for a Tablet PC review unit, and documented the e-mail ping-pong game he had to play with their PR folks. He sums up the experience this way:

Why do they make it so hard? Why is it easier for me to review a product from some corner store than from the biggest software maker in the world, with an army of PR people paid just to ferret people like me out?

Thankfully, the local scene isn't like that. Sure, we've had to deal with some people who obviously play favorites and make it sound like they're doing you a favor by lending you a review unit about two months after the unit was launched, but those instances are few and far between.

Just a wee bit of plain old envy

2005-06-01T18:01:00.000+08:00

Grabe. I was so near, yet so far. At yesterday's press launch of the new palmOne LifeDrive, they pulled four names out of the goldfish bowl for a modified raffle. Read the rest of the story here.

P.S. I came in second. Sigh.
P.P.S. But it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Just a wee bit of Mac envy

2005-05-31T08:42:00.000+08:00

One of the most amusing moments of last week. I was spending a lazy Sunday morning at Gloria Jean's in Connecticut Car Park in Greenhills when in walked two guys with a "Mac" laptop.

Sideline: Tech support ng bayan

2005-05-30T21:44:00.000+08:00

This is turning out to be one of those days. With two deadlines looming over my head (COM 422 syllabus due today and my dissertation proposal due tomorrow), I had hardly warmed my seat when the calls for help come in, one after another:

One officemate is setting up the LCD projector in another room, and he can't get the image from his laptop to project onto the screen. He calls for help. I walk in and take a look at his set up, and I see that the video adaptor is plugged into the VIDEO OUT port instead of the VIDEO IN port. I pull it out and plug it into the right port.

Then this email from my boss lands in my INBOX: "I need your help again. Please reconfigure my email. I wonder why all my SENT messages go to the OUTBOX folder first and not sent out immediately." Doh! Sigh...

P.S. It's no small comfort to discover other people who share the same experience.

One really bright bulb in the blogosphere goes out

2005-05-29T11:01:00.000+08:00

Keeping a good blog going is an experience that is exhilarating, disappointing, difficult, tiring, selfish, selfless, and so many other things at the same time. Popagandhi sums up the exprience in her farewell post.

I only have five personal blogs bookmarked, and Popagandhi is one of them. I'll miss her terribly. Sharp writing, unforgiving wit, intensely personal posts. Always worth my time reading.

Middle-age music

2005-05-28T14:29:00.000+08:00

The Platinum Collection (Frank Sinatra)

It must be middle age setting in. When I offered a friend some CDs to listen to, I realized that the last four CDs I bought were for oldies!

I had always preferred mellow music to noisy music, and stuck to safe, modern jazz and R&B stuff most of my life. But (shudder), my taste has mellowed even more. These are the last four CDs I bought:

The Platinum Collection, by Frank Sinatra. Blame it on Michael Bublé. When I heard his verson of Come Fly With Me, I knew I had to listen to the original. There's a nice review of this Album by the BBC, which begins like this:
Growing up in the 70s, unless you were a musical aristocrat, Frank Sinatra was simply old. He was a white-haired man, who seemed to spend his days endlessly retiring and singing ''My Way''. There was a vague notion that he had once been young and cool, but that was several lifetimes away.
Genius Loves Company, by Ray Charles. I stumbled upon this album by way of Norah Jones, who did Here We Go Again with Ray Charles. The other duets worth listening to are the ones with James Taylor (Sweet Potato Pie) and Natalie Cole (Fever). You can check out the album's official site here. BTW, I got this before the Grammys.
At First Light, by Norweigan jazz singer Silje Nergaard. According to the BBC, this album, her seventh (I can't believe I never heard about her before!), is the second best-selling jazz album of all time in Norway. The full review by the BBC is here.
When Did You Leave Heaven, by Swedish jazz singer Lisa Ekdahl. The title track is my favorite.

The last two albums were recommended to me by some good friends in Baguio. I crashed their place for a day sometime last year to use the Internet, and my eyes popped open at both the quality and the expanse of their Jazz CD collection. They recommended that I start with these two ladies, and I don't regret taking their advice.

God, sometimes it just feels so good to gloat

2005-05-25T16:56:00.000+08:00

I know, it's bad form. And my mother told me never to do it. But three co-workers have been twiddling their thumbs lately as they wait for their virus-infested laptops to be cleaned or reformatted by MIS. Other workstations seem to have been infected, as our network has been excruciatingly slow these past few days.

The guys in MIS have been positively surly, and I can't blame them. They have their hands really full putting out fires all over the network.

When I got an Apple PowerBook 20 months ago and was having trouble with the MS-only or Windows-only services on our network, I always got ribbed by friends for choosing a "difficult-to-work-with" OS. Well well well, now the shoe is on the other foot.

I like to joke that in the past 20 months I've had my PowerBook, the machine has not had a single day's downtime (not even a single minute, mind you) due to software conclicts or malware, but I've accumulated two weeks of 'downtime' helping officemates and friends recover from crashes or clean out their malware-infested PCs.

And here I am posting this while some friends are working with pen and paper while they wait for their PCs to be returned. It's great to be a Mac user!

Farewell to you, my friends

2005-05-25T08:59:00.000+08:00

My last issue of m|ph

Corny line, yeah. Gives away my age, too. Not that I was ever into the bagets thing, but that line kind of sums up how I feel about leaving the magazine.

If you've picked up the May issue of Mobile Philippines magazine and read the Editor's Note, you'll find out that I'll be on leave for the next year as Editor in Chief. (If you haven't, go out right now and buy one!)

It wasn't easy making the decision. The editorial and design staff were already like a second family. I had only just gotten back as EIC in February, and there were a lot of other improvements I was planning to implement. But I had to let go of the magazine, at least for a while. Despite being on the market for two years (and managing to survive in the face of some really stiff competition), we're still very much in startup mode and I can't continue multi-hatting anymore. At least not until I finish my dissertation (yeah, I'm an academic first and a geek second; or maybe there's no difference between the two, LOL!).

Working on the magazine was like a dream job (minus the dream salary, of course), and combined the best of the two worlds that interest me the most: technology and writing. But there are moments when you have to give up what you like to do in favor of something that you need to do. In my case, it's finishing my dissertation, which is more crucial to my long term professional plans than the magazine is.

palmOne's LifeDrive: I'll pass, thank you

2005-05-22T21:30:00.000+08:00

palmOne's new LifeDrive

I had 10 days to try out the new LifeDrive. From a theoretical point of view, this is thePDA powers users have been screaming for: fast processor, big ass screen, gobs and gobs of storage space, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi... you name it, this baby's got it.

I have to admit, it set my geeky heart aflutter and got me thinking about switching back to a two-piece solution. It's a wonderful device. It lets me listen to music, watch TV shows, keep a backup copy of my dissertation folder. Paired with my wireless keyboard and using Wi-Fi, it ably serves as a laptop subsitute most of the time.

But... I'm not giving in. Even with a hefty press discount. Two reasons:

I can't live without a thumboard anymore. With the Treo's thumboard, I can answer text messages and compose emails even while walking or while in a car (as a passenger, of course). I can't do that with the traditional Graffiti input method.
I also can't live with the 500-name limit on most cell phones these days.

Verdict: Thanks, but no thanks. Fantastic as the LifeDrive is, I'll give it a pass for now.

It's a dog's life

2005-05-22T19:47:00.000+08:00

Timbuktu, by Paul Auster

God. I haven't opened a real book in about a month, and I can feel my brain cells withering away, and so yesterday I picked up Timbuktu from my office desk, where it had lain the last few months since a friend lent it to me.

I was mesmerized by Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions, and simultaneously entertained and intrigued by A New York Trilogy. I don't particularly like dogs, but I like his quirky writing style well enough to plunge into a book about life from a dog's point of view.

The New York Times review of Timbuktu can be found here

The colors of Pahiyas 2005

2005-05-19T15:37:00.000+08:00

A house in full bloom

It took us forever to get there (5 hours to cover 150 km) and a little longer than forever (5-1/2 hours) to get back, but we had a great time at Lucban, Quezon last May 15.

I had a chance to testdrive the palmOne LifeDrive (more on this gadget in a couple of days) on the way there, and had a Canon PowerShot S40 with me. I tweaked the saturation and exposure settings in iPhoto 5 to get these pictures in my Flickr page.

Deliciously Geeky Weekend

2005-05-14T14:24:00.000+08:00

In half an hour I'll be driving down south to Lucban, Quezon, for the Pahiyas Festival. I've long wanted to see it but it just so happenned that I've always been out fo the country these last three summers.

Like any geek worth his salt, I have five gadgets plugged in and charging: my laptop, my PDA-phone, my digital camera (actually, the 4-megapixel verson of what you see in the link), my music player, and the new L-------e from p-----e, which I'm testdriving for the weekend. I've loaded it up with music and some videos to keep me entertained during the trip.

I'll blog about how the weekend went on Monday.

Transitioning to Tiger

2005-05-01T13:52:00.000+08:00

It took much more time than I anticipated, but I'm nearly done with the transition from Panther to Tiger. Thankfully, no major apps broke, and I just a had a few niggling issue to settle. The inability to sync my Treo 650 with the new version of iSync and mount a network drive on our Windows network in the office were the major headaches. Thanks to help from some fellow MUGgers I solved the first one, and will have to wait until Tuesday to ask our MIS department how to solve the second one.

I love Spotlight! I have hundreds of documents in my PhD Stuff folder and Spotlight makes it a cinch to find the one I need when I double-check a reference or a quote. Dashboard is pure eye candy; non-essential but nevertheless a treat to have. Safari RSS I can live without, and I haven't explored Automator yet.

It's only been a day since I installed the new OS, and I'm sure there will be many more suprises, both pleasant and nasty, in Tiger as the days go by.

Tiger, yes!!

2005-04-29T15:20:00.000+08:00

In a little les than three hours, I'll finally get my hands on Mac OS 10.4, aka Tiger. I never thought I'd be this excited about a new Mac OS release. I'm happy with Panther, iLife '05 and iWork '05, and don't reallyhave all that much money to spare. But the offer to split the cost of a family pack from a couple of other guys at home and my burning need for Spotlight (I'm writing my dissertation proposal and I could use a lot of help digging through the hundreds of documents I've accumulated over the last couple of years) pushed me to find a way to get a copy as soon as possible.

Given how hectic my days have been—and will be—I thought I should just do a system update. But I've changed my mind, and am setting aside a couple of hours tonight and a few more tomorrow morning to do a clean install of the OS and a re-install of all my apps. I've been glued to my books and papers and laptop for a week, and I thought it would be a good break; I need to clean up my laptop and clear my mind anyways.

RTFM

2005-04-28T13:19:00.000+08:00

Got this text a few minutes ago:

Jason,this is xxx.I got my Treo. How do I go abt w email & web? Can I still use my hotmail acct?

And I answered:

It's explained on pp 47 and 50 of the manual.

Yeah, I was tempted to respond "RTFM" but I behaved. Sigh.

The geek badge of honor

2005-04-28T08:43:00.000+08:00

I never thought there was much difference between a geek and a nerd, until I overheard this conversation yesterday:

Guy 1: "I may be a nerd, but I am not a geek!"
Guy 2: "Why? What's the diff?"
Guy 1: "I like technology and I study a lot, but I don't make it my life, no?"

Guy 1 then sneaks a glance at me.

I decided to consult Wikipedia to figure out if it was as much of an insult as I imagined it to be. It is.

A derogatory term for one with low social skills, often with average intelligence, as opposed to nerds, who are generally viewed as having low social skills but high intelligence. It is theorised that many of these people have Asperger's syndrome. Late 20th century

But Wikipedia was also a little comforting. Toward the end of the entry, I found this: "Geek" has always had negative connotations within society at large, where being described as a geek tends to be an insult. The term has recently become less condescending, or even a badge of honor, within particular fields and subcultures; this is particularly evident in the technical disciplines, where the term is now more of a compliment denoting extraordinary skill.

Yeah, go geeks!

Morning rituals, geek style

2005-04-27T08:38:00.000+08:00

Just this morning I was struck by how complicated my morning work rituals are. I had a long day yesterday and a bad night last night, and woke up this morning more tired than usual. And I felt the weight of my morning work rituals.

I'm usually first to arrive at the office (the last ones to come in tend to be my officemates who live in a condo just across the street) and so the task of turning on lights and the airconditioner often falls to me. Then I clean out my little coffee maker, throwing away yesterday's filter paper and coffee grounds, and prepare a fresh brew. While the coffee is brewing and filling the room with its aroma, I take my laptop out of my bag and hook it up to the network. Once I'm on, I put it to sleep, attach it to a 15-inch external monitor, a USB keyboard and a USB mouse, and then wake it up again.

In Mac OS X, I switch locations from the house to the office (I need different proxy settings for the office network) and fire up my mail client and browser. Then I sit back, sip my coffee, and watch the mail pour in and the news sites fill out.

Starting over

2005-04-20T10:12:00.000+08:00

I've long had this transition to a new blog planned, in order to better reflect my interests (books and gadgets). It just kept getting delayed because I was (a) swamped with work or (b) to lazy to set it up when I actually had some free time on my hands.

Well, it's done. MySpanishSojourn will stay but I'll be using that exclusively as a travelogue. I have a trip to Spain coming up in June, and maybe, if I get lucky, a couple of trips to Singapore and KL to do reserach for my dissertation. And after the dissertation I hope to travel some more. Heh!