Crimson Crux

If you ask me, I think it’s impossible to declare one piece of software as king over all others…but heck, that’s how it goes with everything in life. Everybody’s got their bets on what/who gets to be on top. But saying “heck, that’s how it goes with everything in life” is the easy way out, too.

Fortunately, Charles Babcock of InformationWeek unflinchingly barrels through the slew of great software made through the decades and arrives at a tough decision. Among the heavyweights he considered were Java, Google’s page-ranking search application, the Morris worm, and the first Apple Mac OS.

In the end, Babcock arrived at one champion, which is…

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A few minutes ago, I just watched CNN report this historic ‘upheaval’ (is it too strong a word?) in astronomy and the whole of science, and I’m now convinced of one thing: I am getting old. While I went to grade school to learn that there are 9 planets in the solar system, my kids will be memorizing the number 8.

Many astronomers have said it was inevitable, while loyalists have pleaded for the status quo…and now it’s settled. Pluto has been stripped of planetary status by the International Astronomical Union; August 24, 2006 is now a date that will live in infamy glory as the day when the solar system was downsized.

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I’ll be going on another brief family reunion slash vacation tomorrow to Kalibo, Aklan. As with my last trip to our home province, I’ll be attending a wedding (and playing some rounds of DoTa, I guess). But this time around, I’ll be able to take my work with me, courtesy of Corsarify.

Needless to say, my laptop’s first out-of-town trip includes passing through the airport security checks. This begs an important question: Is it safe to let my laptop through the X-ray machine? Wouldn’t my data be obliterated, my job wrecked, and my life ruined? (Ok, I’ll stop.)

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Well, another way to put it would be “How to Leech YouTube Videos“, but it sounds a bit criminal. Anyway, the Net abounds with tricks on how to download the Flash videos on YouTube. The common results in search engines involves browsing through Mozilla Firefox’s cache (about:cache), or installing a browser extension.

However, both methods require some manual effort before you can actually see the video file. (more…)

Well, what can we expect? Of course it hurts to accept that fact, more so when you’re within the ICT industry. You might not feel it if you’re studying in a Wi-Fi hotspot-blessed university or frequently visit classy malls and cafes, but many tech-savvy Pinoys have experienced this national deficiency firsthand. Heck, even the best Internet services offered in the country come at exorbitant charges or suffer from frustrating quality and customer support.

An article from last week’s The Philippine Star reports that out of 115 countries, the Philippines ranks 70th in ICT networked readiness. This is based on the 2005-2006 report of the World Economic Forum. As expected, the US topped the list, and Singapore lorded it over its Southeast Asian neighbors (coming in at #2 overall).

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For the poor souls who’ve long waited for PayPal to land at this archipelago, I hate to douse your hopes but this is not the news you’ve been waiting for. Instead, this is in support of my friend and colleague J Angelo Racoma’s call for change in the existing circumstances that render the Philippines “PayPal-unfriendly”:

PayPal won’t deal with us. It’s probably because we have a history of having potential for money laundering activities. Or maybe it’s because of poor security in banking or credit card transactions.

The point is that we have to lobby for inclusion as a PayPal enabled country.

Why so, you might ask? Why the hell do we have to beg our arses off for PayPal? (more…)

On a decent dial-up connection of 45.2 kbps (Pacific Internet), without any other data transfers running in the background, loading on Mozilla Firefox:

Yahoo! Mail Beta — 12 seconds (this is far better than at other times)
Gmail ‘Beta’ — 7 seconds

Of course, this doesn’t take into account server loads and other factors. While the above ’statistics’ are not what you’d call ’scientific’, they can nicely sum up my general loading experience with these email services.

I used to think that Gmail was hostile to dial-up users, but with Yahoo! Mail Beta proving to be slower…oh well. Let’s see if Yahoo! Mail’s perfomance improves once it gets out of Beta.

I’ve just updated to Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.4, and my browsing experience has gone haywire. Since last night, I’ve had about seven Firefox crashes and two sudden reboots while using the browser. And to think I’ve just gotten a clean reformat a month ago. What happened? Grrr.

I’ve just been reading the release notes for 1.5.0.4, and the only reasons I can think of right now are the extensions and themes I’ve installed. (Been using the sleek AbstractPC theme.) Right now I’ve turned them off and waiting to see if Firefox acts a lot better.

(I absolutely hate posting this entry, because Firefox is a browser I love and advocate. Oh well, I guess there’s really a thin line between love and hate!)

That is the question that a recent Newsbreak report poses and dissects. One salient line:

[Philippine Science High School] graduates in UP are sometimes accused of overconfidence and academic delinquency in the latter part of their courses.

As a Pisay graduate myself, I’m able to refute and support several of the article’s points. True, some PSHS grads in UP end up fighting for academic survival, but take note of the word some (even the quotation above says “sometimes”). Many Pisay alumni graduate with stellar academic records, along with extra-curricular and student leadership feats.

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Mon Abasolo over at Pinoy Tech Blog espouses the use of Open Office, which is entirely logical for all ye computer users. Even if you’re an established MS Office user, it still pays to install Open Office on your PC — at the very least, it broadens your perspective on things and makes you appreciate FOSS.

If you like a Pinoy feel to Open Office, download UP Office, developed by a quartet from the University of the Philippines. The screenshot is courtesy of Noel Feria, one of UP Office’s developers. You can find better pics on his blog.

If you don’t want to install Open Office (why?) but still want to access open document formats, you can use the OpenOffice.org Viewer created by a UP DCS undergraduate group under the supervision of Prof. Rommel Feria. The file is quite small — barely 350 KB! The viewer will run on any platform with a Java Virtual Machine.