Wazzup Pilipinas News and Events

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Getting Customers and Clients Online

Hello Everyone! I would just like to share the seminar on Saturday, Oct. 20, 9AM-12NN, at the OCCI Seminar hall, Emerald Ortigas Center. It will be more of like an intro on Internet Marketing which I designed for Small Businesses who want to start Getting Customers and Clients Online.

The BlackBerry Jam Hackathon 2012

The BlackBerry Jam Hackathon – a 40-hour Blackberry app development competition where participants battle it out for top prizes like a Trip to Bangkok, Thailand for 4, 1 BlackBerry 10 DevAlpha, 4 BlackBerry 7 devices, 4 BlackBerry Playbook tablets plus consultancy from RIM.

What do they have to do? Just hack their way to a potential money-making BlackBerry app idea and present it to a board of judges from the BlackBerry community composed of Dave Patterson, Christian Besler, Cameron Vernest and William Yu.

It is just sad when one in this age will still be uncomfortable with the color of their skin and ethnicity.

“If I get really dark, I’ll start to look like a little Filipino. It wouldn’t match.” ~ Lucy Liu on a David Letterman Show

MRT-3 resolves ticket shortage :D The new MRT3 SV Tickets are available now. Yey!!! Good Morning Manila :D

The Maria Ressa Book Launch

October 12 was a day that was already marked as a very special event on my calendar. This was the day when Maria Ressa, Rappler’s CEO and Executive Editor, was going to launch her book entitled “10 days, 10 years: From Bin laden to Facebook. When I saw Rappler announced it online, I was ecstatic and quickly shared it on my Facebook page. I wouldn’t want to be stingy and keep all the great news to myself. It was an event that needs to be shared and appreciated with everyone. I made sure I won’t missed it, and that others would know and have the opportunity to celebrate the book launch with Maria.

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Look straight into the computer, and titigang maigi ang premyo nila), have you heard of the BlackBerry Jam Hackathon – a 40-hour Blackberry app development competition where participants battle it out for top prizes like a Trip to Bangkok, Thailand for 4, 1 BlackBerry 10 DevAlpha, 4 BlackBerry 7 devices, 4 BlackBerry Playbook tablets plus consultancy from RIM.

What do they have to do? Just hack their way to a potential money-making BlackBerry app idea and present it to a board of judges from the BlackBerry community composed of Dave Patterson, Christian Besler, Cameron Vernest and William Yu.

Congratulations to the winners of Blackberry Jam Hackathon 2012 in Manila:

Here are the list of winners:

Team Rain Creative wins top prize and gets to represent the Philippines in Bangkok, Thailand with their “Realm of Elysium” game.

Realm of Elysium is a multi-player strategy game that takes its inspiration from the classic board game – Battleship.

2nd runner up went to Philstocks.ph by Team Accordion.

Check out the happenings in the Philippine Stocks Exchange as Philstocks.ph XAVI makes it easy for traders on-the-go to stay connected with their investment and manage their trading activity through their BlackBerry 10, anytime, anywhere by providing traders with direct connection and streaming from the Philippine Stock Exchange for the latest feeds, market information, and up-to-date quotes. And best of all this mobile app enables posting of trade orders whenever, wherever!

Philstocks.ph XAVI for BlackBerry 10 brings many of the features of Philstocks.ph proprietary One-Screen Do-It-All trading Console to the traders fingertips — easy access to trader’s portfolio, build-up of watchlist with instant order posting whenever they want to buy or sell. And the good thing is — all mobile transactions are synchronized with their online account. That’s why even when they are away from their computer, with Philstocks.ph XAVI, they can have powerful trading tools in their pocket and at their fingertips.

MobiOke World by Team Pokemon wins 1st Runner up.

Sing that Oppa Gangnam Style with a mobile videoke app. MobiOke World is a phenomenal social-community based application that will embark a paramount effect in the Blackberry World,that is high percentage of apps sales and profit. Such application adopts the FREEMIUM Business Model. Sing a song, share your score and challenge the BBworld.

Get free songs, explore and develop the hidden talent in you. Store your songs up to the sound cloud and collaborate through the app’s free chat service. An application you can never live a day without. You shall stick to it, use it today, like it tomorrow and love it the days after.

Underwater Invasion by Team Logeeks wins Best Student App award.

The team is composed of Richard Anthony Rivera, Arrod Gerald Yabut, Alvin Pascasio and Marra Paneza.
Enjoy a warm! underwater adventure by playing Underwater Invasion.

Tap as many sea creatures as you can while your oxygen still last, unlock boss level and win different prizes, and achievements.

Bug mania app by Team GLT wins Mentors Choice award.

Composed of Diel Barnes, Lesley Abe, Vincer Quibral and Gilbert Lavides
Bug Mania is game where players catch bugs for eating.

Be careful of poisonous bugs that may touch and bite.

Winning best presentation award was Team Ripple Wave for their Shenanigan app.

Shenanigan’s is a Watering Hole discovery application.

It’s designed to facilitate the discovery of new places to enjoy a drink, based on location, mood & watering hole preferences

Winning the online People’s Choice award is Team Engineer for the iTB DOTS app.

he team is made up of Marlon Franco Tubelleza, BabyLea Divino, Mayer Sanchez and another guy.

iTB DOTS is a healthcare application that is used to closely monitor, update patient’s medication and give timely medical advice to patients suffering from Tuberculosis.

With this, we will be able to prevent medication lapses of a TB patient taking the medicines, thus preventing the spread of this deadly contagious disease. IT SAVES LIVES.

Here’s the list of all participants apps in the BlackBerry JamHack Manila 2012 App Gallery

http://blackberryjamhack.karaniwan.org/

Monday, October 15, 2012

Gastronomic Delights @ Gerry's Grill

We had a classmate from a recent training program that was going back to the US ending her stay here in the Philippines. Apparently, she was just here to visit relatives and attend training programs because she was simply bored. Her husband is frequently on travel, and she has nothing to do at home. In short she was bored, so she went back to the Philippines, even for just a short time, to unwind and meet new friends.

She already attended several training programs even before we set foot at the DB Wizard Training Center....and to end her probably month long series of training she decided to treat the entire class, including our instructor, at a restaurant nearby.

This is where we tried out the food at Gerry's Grill. It's not my first time to eat at this restaurant, well it's my first time at this particular branch, so I was expecting nothing new. But still, the food was gastronomically delightful, as always.

As they say in Tagalog, "Hindi nakakasawa. Hindi nakakaumay." I was not so hungry because we just had some snacks earlier immediately after class ended, but I think that's the best way to tell if the food is really good: To still have an appetite to eat plenty even though you're full.

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Put down your smartphones and tablets immediately, may bagong viral video in the city), does anybody here follow Mikey Bustos’ videos on YouTube? You know,….that guy who does humorous tutorial videos, and other wacky stories on video. He’s the guy who would often talk to a different persona of himself portraying another character.

YouTube played a big role in discovering or “rediscovering” Filipinos with a lot of talent and creativity, and eventually catapulting their career into fame and popularity. Such was the case for Charice Pempengco, Arnel Pineda, Bogart The Explorer, Moymoy Palaboy, and the likes who were recognized by many as extremely entertaining and awe-inspiring.

Among the list of great YouTube discoveries is no other than Filipino Canadian multi-talented artist Mikey Bustos. That humorous shaved head guy, and so-called look-alike of RNB singer Kris Lawrence, who uploads “video tutorials” on just about anything with a showcase of Filipino culture like his famous Filipino Accent and Balut Eating tutorials. I guess nothing is stopping Mikey in having the top Filipino viral videos on YouTube.

In line with this, Kris….I mean Mikey,…… launched his new video last night, October 11, 2012 while infront of a few top bloggers who were exclusively invited to the “intimate” launch of his new viral video entitled “Filipino Social Media Tutorial by Mikey Bustos”. It is actually Mikey’s 500th video on YouTube, so in celebration to this amazing feat, he is launching this new video with a big bang….hopefully to become one of the top YouTube featured videos.

Check out the video below:

Toilets Are Like Facebook

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Relax, take it easy and unwind, manood ng videos – yung short movies lang para di ma-bore), have you seen the Facebook video ad?

Facebook is at the top of all social media networking. They are earning a great deal so it was expected that they would also be releasing epic advertisements because they have the dough to hire all the best creative people.

Facebook’s first video ad is a bit strange. It compares chairs to Facebook. Because, you know, reasons. Obviously. The video parody here uses slightly naughty language and shows people sitting on toilets, thus earning the NSFW label. But it’s funny. And ironically more accurate and insightful then the original.

The Original Facebook video ad: Chairs Are Like Facebook

Introduction To Diskless System

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (If I were you I’d sit down for awhile, makinig makinig sa aking sasabihin), better think twice before setting up your dream LAN Shop or Internet Cafe, because there’s a new technology that may help you save on initial capital and may even be more efficient than the traditional system setups.

A diskless system is a device that contains no physical, rotating hard disk drive media, for example, hard disk emulator technology that uses nonvolatile memory. However, a diskless system might contain a removable storage device other than a hard disk, such as a floppy disk drive or a CD-ROM drive.

» A diskless system can boot from the following file system sources:

» A storage device that does not have physically rotating media, but instead uses flash memory or battery-backed RAM.

» A bootable CD-ROM that uses the Windows XP Embedded Enhanced Write Filter (EWF).

» A file system that is accessible through a network connection, for example, a system that boots from a file system in a remote location.

» ROM-based storage.

A Diskless node (or diskless workstation) is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server. (A computer may also be said to act as a diskless node, if its disks are unused and network booting is used.) Diskless nodes (or computer acting as such) are sometimes known as network computers or hybrid clients. Hybrid clients may either just mean diskless node, or it may be used in a more particular sense to mean a diskless node which runs some, but not all, applications remotely, as in the thin client computing architecture.

For Lanshops, Schools and Call Centers
Diskless systems are widely used today on Lanshops, Schools, Call Centers and Offices. It offers the best solution regarding maintenance and update issues. Gone are the days of manual patching and one by one system updates from previous old school methods.

Here are the advantages using diskless setups.

Advantages:
» Lower production cost
» Lower running costs
» Quieter operation
» Manageablity advantages (Ex. Centrally Managed Software Installation for Similar Configurations)
» No Hardisk Crash From Individual Units
» Less Heat Generated From CPU’s

Q. Q. Diskless Solutions
QQdisk is a universal system that is open source structured an re-developed by Geran Coliseo, His Cousin From Thailand and Pctechdude of TPC as QA and assistant developer. Our diskless server can read the client nodes of RT, Vxpdisk, ccboot, nxd and etc. The QQ Disk has been revised to fit the Pinoy Lanshop Culture, we try to make it as perfect as possible to suit the needs of our clients. As of now FM2 boards are out there and we are working hard to make it compatible as best way possible. Thanks to all the supporters and clients.

Technical Support
Technical support for diskless servers can be done by remote or site visits. Thou we rarely experience problems with our clients we have a remote system that can monitor or check the clients server. From there we can give instant fix wherever and whenever possible. We use only top rated parts for our servers and network backbones from the very start so we can minimize hardware instability that results in failures.

For More Inquiries Regarding Diskless Setup / PisoNet:
Call or Text : 0909-3845146 / 799-6862
TPC ID: pctechdude
Yahoo Messenger: pctechcafe@yahoo.com
*credit goes to pctechdude, TipidPC.com

Dark Souls Gaming Tips

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (red light in traffic signals means stop, red eyes means stop playing too – kaya huwag matigas ang ulo dahil games are no longer fun if you’re just stressed ), here are some gaming tips for the Dark Souls fans to make gameplay more enjoyable.

Games are supposed to be played with “having fun” as the primary reason. So when it becomes to weary to play any further, then something is definitely wrong.

1. Early game, level up on Endurance for stamina. You use stamina for blocking,attacking, and wearing heavy armor (if you plan to use one).

2. Always take note that your equipped gear mo is should be 50% of the total weight mo.

3. When you reach the Undead Parish and met Andrei the blacksmith (not the giant), start upgrading your weapons and armor. At this point, its more important to upgrade your equipment instead of leveling up because:
a.) If your level is too high, high level players would also invade you so you would really have a difficult time.

b.) Later on sa game, ther would be monsters that gives high souls for less grind for souls.

4. The strongest weapon? Actually there’s none, choosing a weapon is based on your play-style. Every weapon has unique animation, types of attack and stamina usage. if you prefer thrusting/lunging attacks, you can use spear or rapier, if you want slashing attacks, go for a sword. If you prefer heavy weapons, go for 2 handed weapons or axes. Take note that its slower to wield heavy weapons.

5. The best armor? Again, it would depend on your play-style. If you want to tank and take hits, go heavy armor. If you want fast dodging, go light armor. For heavy armor, you need to be 50% of the total weight mo, or else you will be moving very slow. There are also heavy armorthat slows down stamina recovery (eg. Black Iron Armor) so read their descriptions carefully. Also heavy armors have Poise. The poise is the ability to resist stun. The higher the poise, much less the chances of getting stunned.

6. In choosing a shield: You need to go for 100% Damage Reduction on the physical. Another shield property is Stability. The higher the stability, the higher the chance your stance mo wont get damaged when blocking. There will be a lot of shields available later on. It helps to change shield types often to survive boss fights. Take note of their properties so you would know where they are more effective.

7. Repair your gear. Buy from Andrei a Repair Kit for 2000 souls so you could repair at the bonfire. If you still have extra souls, buy also an Upgrade Kit for Weapon/Armor so you could also upgrade your gear at the bonfire. Better to do this before going to the Depths.

8. If you die, retrieve your bloodstain (green glowing orb), to get your souls/humanity before you died. Take note that if you die before retrieving your bloodstain, you will lose the previous bloodstain (goodbye souls and humanity).

9. Humanity is used to kindle bonfire (for more estus flasks). You could also summon phantoms if human for some jolly co-operation if you need assistance. Loot drops are also better when you’re human.

10. Don’t play when you’re hungry/in a bad mood/tired. You will die. Lots of times.

11. If you keep on getting killed, stop for awhile. Relax and take it easy, eat up, watch TV, do anything.

Cybercrime Law of the Philippines Infographics

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Call your friends and let’s debate on these discussions bago pa man tamaan tayo ng ngitngit ng paghihiganti ng mga apektado ng cyber bullying), sorry for being so political these past posts but the Cybercrime Law in the Philippines aka the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 is quite controversial and timely to be discussed and debated upon before the Supreme Court TRO expires and we get struck by its might!

“Department of Justice Assistant Secretary Geronimo Sy explained that laws on cybercrime are considered as the 3rd building block of legislations necessary to protect the people from crimes committed in cyberspace and use of ICT.

I always look at cybercrime as something under the 2nd block or special penal laws (where I think the E-Commerce Law is in). Although it seems there is now a set of laws in place that are already in that 3rd block and increasing further (which may already include the E-Commerce Law as it is the first policy in place against hacking and online piracy).

As we use and integrate ICT and Internet in our lives, perhaps it is possible that new forms of crimes can happen online and where broader or special legislation will have to be created (that provides mandate for resource allotment too). Nevertheless, that perspective, whether agreeable or not, brings the importance of having more organized groups of netizens who can interact with policy makers proactively on Internet / ICT related policies and do its share of stakeholder consultation.”

“As the Cybercrime Prevention Act is on TRO, the cybercrime provisions of Republic Act 8792 (Section 33) is once again in effect. For folks unfamiliar with the E-Commerce Law penalties (section 33), I hope this can help.”

For torrent sites, as long as you have a copyright holder or group suing for unauthorized copying (regardless of online source), it is covered.

“Version 1 of electronic libel infograph – The insertion of Libel in the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 caused a lot of confusion and this is what we got after checking out sources. Electronic libel is a crime under this act (libel committed with the use of ICT) and as an addition under the Revised Penal Code (if concurrently committing the libel crime in traditional form). Some see this giving room to double-jeopardy.”
That is true unless it is only pursued legally under one of the two possible legal outlets. Double jeopardy means that you cannot be tried for the same offense twice, but as we have seen a person can be pursued under criminally but also under civil (as we saw with OJ Simpson).

Blizzard Says Single-Player Games are Endangered Species

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Let’s sit down and waste a few minutes of your time, I’ll make it short, brief or “thong”), do you believe that single-player games are going extinct?
Are they a dying breed? Endangered species?

In a recent interview with Games Industry, Blizzard’s Chief Creative Officer Rob Pardo agreed that the traditional, big-budget single-player game is an endangered species. He said that between piracy and the ability for consumers to rent games, it’s now extremely difficult for publishers to dump millions of dollars into a single player game and not see the financial return they need to make the investment realistic.

“One of the bigger trends is there’s a lot of smaller games able to be created, so you are seeing a lot more innovation that isn’t possible in the AAA space because of the money and the risk involved,” he said. “You’ll see a lot of these really innovative indie games, mobile games, social games, that people can try out and test new and innovative ideas.”

Some of those ideas, he said, will eventually turn into AAA games. They’ll also become an “experimental hotbed of gaming design.”

He goes on to defend the subscription-based game model, saying that it still works when games aren’t over-valued. That means publishers and developers need to design a game to keep the player engaged on a daily basis. Some have slapped on a subscription model because they thought they could get away with it, and failed. Players looked at what they received for $10 to $15 per month and didn’t see any value.
Pardo actually moves on to defend the free-to-play model as well, calling it a strong, friendly business that lets potential customers try a product with no risk, and then lets them pay for what they want (such as gear, locked continents, extra characters, etc).

“I think that is a really strong model,” he said. “Free-to-play is almost like a genre of business models, there are so many different ways you can apply it. I think for free-to-play to work really well it has to be deeply integrated with the game design itself. What is it that people are going to buy, and how much are you going to pay for this versus the other thing? One of the biggest issues with free-to-play models these days is the feeling that a lot of games give me: That for me to progress in this game, or to really have a deep game experience, you have to pay. That’s where free-to-play gets a bad rap. But that’s more the game design than the model.”

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Listen up as I tell you that I’m no expert – but it seems I sound like a wannabe to some, maybe they should think about why my intended audience are the noobies – because that’s exactly what I am). I don’t pretend to know-it-all and if my suggestions or recommendations have flaws that’s because I’m no guru.

So as a sort of disclaimer, you can’t have my only word for it. There are more established and renowned experts who actually do this job for a living. I’m here for the free ride because this is just a hobby and my way to share what I believe in, regardless if its biased, lacking substantial basis, or erroneous.

Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-10-02-game-industry-legends-rob-pardo

Polycase’s New Enclosure Keeps the Raspberry Pi Microcomputer Safe

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Hang around a bit, may ikukuwento ako so listen up and sit), to all the lovers of the Raspberry Pi, here’s another case from Polycase.

Polycase announces the release of their new ABS plastic case for the Raspberry Pi microcomputer. The Pi Series case is an affordable ABS plastic enclosure for the credit-card sized computer with pricing as low as $9.29 per unit with no minimum order requirement. Molded in black flame-retardant ABS plastic with a flame rating of UL94-5VA, this curvaceous enclosure brings an attractive new look to the market.

The compact enclosure measures 3.0 x 4.0 x 1.4 inches. Designed to fit the Raspberry Pi Model B, the Pi Series holds the PCB captive with access and labeling for each individual component of the board. Included with the enclosure are 5 flush mounted light pipes that project light from the board’s LEDs out of the end panel on the case. The textured finish on the cases is resistant to fingerprints and scratching.

To aid in the development of projects and applications, Polycase provides 2D drawings and a 3D model of the Raspberry Pi plastic enclosure for instant download directly from their website at www.polycase.com/pi-series. Polycase also offers CNC machining and custom printing on all enclosures.

For more information about Polycase’s value-added services, visit this page <click here for link> .

Tech Power Up <click here for link>

Borderlands 2 – Enabling PhysX Without an nVIDIA GPU

Tekkie Tekkie Muna (Stay for a while you’ve got to hear about this, nakakauwa kasing malamang pwede rin pala – promise!), did you know that you can have PhysX work even if your card is not of nVidia GPU?

I’ve read this article, and it got me hooked already because I’m currently playing Borderlands 2, using a different GPU. Read on and I’m sure it will also interest you.

We were able to enable PhysX on all graphics cards by editing the WillowEngine.ini and setting the PhysX level to 2. As far as we could tell the Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 680 look the same with PhysX set to high but admittedly we have not played a great deal of the game and ave only use a few guns. However the cloth effects and rock debris effects from shooting stuff with the Gearbox Rifle look the same.

Furthermore all PhysX effects are offloaded to the CPU when using an AMD graphics card so depending on your processor the performance will vary quite a lot. As we were using the Core i7-3960X the hit wasn’t nearly as significant as you will experience with a lesser processor.

With PhysX set to high, the GTX 680 became 19% slower at 1920×1200, averaging just 60fps instead of 74fps. Surprisingly, the HD 7970 did slightly better dropping 15% from 72fps to 61fps, and as far as we could tell, the PhysX effects looked identical on both brand of cards.

When using cards such as the GTX 560, we were still able to achieve playable performance with PhysX set to high despite a 17% dip in frame rate. The HD 6870 took a similar hit dropping 18% from 51fps to just 42fps, but this is probably a worthwhile tradeoff for many gamers.

Source: Tech Spot <click here for link>