Jayvee Fernandez | Pinoy Tech, Diving, Gadgets » Blogging

Geeky things you can buy for P50.00

Jayvee Fernandez — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:14:54 +0000

When Apple revamped the music industry with single track purchases for less than P50.00 per track, that changed the way people sold applications and in-app purchases. It’s essentially the “tingi” method turned into a digital business. Now there’s a huge product launch tomorrow but all we can say is that it has something to do with the power of P50.00.

In the digital age, there are surprisingly a lot of things you can buy with fifty pesos. Here are some examples:

2,500 Coins in Temple Run

A definite chart topper on iOS devices, I still have no idea how people can score over 3,000,000 points in a single run. But I do know this — if you’re really frustrated and want to earn those coins without any effort, you can always drop $0.99 for 2,500 coins to help you buy upgrades for your brave explorer.

“GRAND UPPERCUT!!”

Streets of Rage 2

Streets of Rage 2 has my childhood written all over it. It’s become one of the defining games of its genre, released way back in the 90′s for the SEGA Genesis. And guess what? It’s here for iOS for less than fifty pesos. That’s totally awesome. I’m reliving an epic two-player side scrolling beat ‘em up experience with Axel, Blaze, Skate and Max as they take on Shiva and Mr. X. Streets of Rage 2 is a complete port to iOS. It even includes multiplayer support via wireless connectivity.

Two Games of Half Life 2: Survivor

I now have a new reason to head over to Resorts World and it has nothing to do with the casino. The new “Gamezoo” arcade is a two-storey haven for a lot of coin-op arcade machines that are practically hard to find. Case in point: Half Life 2: Survivor. This arcade series was never released in the USA and quite frankly I’m baffled as to how Gamezoo even knew that this game existed. It’s out and it’s in Resort’s World. A single game costs P20.00. Half Life 2: Survivor is a marriage between Team Fortress 2 and the Half Life franchise allowing up to 8 players to battle simultaneously in a single arena.

———–

These are just three cheap (and geeky) thrills you can get with PHP 50.00. What about you? What are your most favorite apps that retail for less than a dollar?

Pinspire vs Pinterest

Jayvee Fernandez — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:00:27 +0000

So Pinterest came first. Pinspire followed next, albeit rather quickly. Pinterest needs no introduction. But if it did, I’d say: If Path is the hot new social network of 2012, Pinterest is “new Tumblr of 2012.” Developed by the Samwer Brothers of Rocket Internet, Pinsire is a fascinating copy of the former.

So what gives? Rocket Internet’s strategy is to take concepts on beta and replicate them into their huge global network. The end result is well, something close to the original but scaled for regions that it otherwise would not be able to reach. End of the day, we can go on and on about copying a site and its features (in this case, copying most of it) but you will notice that the communities are both very different.

In any case, no harm in trying out both. We have a small offer for you though — and it’s for Pinspire, because they wanted some ad space on this little blog. If you want to win some great Apple products, courtesy of these guys, just follow these steps:

STEP 1
Sign up on Pinspire using this link and add some original pins.

STEP 2
Put the pin link in the comments section. Like this:
http://www.pinspire.com/board/show/267972 < — That’s my underwater album.

STEP 3
Promote it like crazy!
The most popular board wins an 8GB iPod Touch.
The top succeeding 10 boards win a 2GB iPod Shuffle each.

The popularity will be aggregately determined by the number of board followers, likes and comments. The winners will be announced on February 29, 2012. Deadline of entries is on midnight of February 25, 2012

N.B. Pinspire is an advertiser on this blog.

Google’s New SEO Algorithm: ‘Social Engine Optimization’

Jayvee Fernandez — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:30:03 +0000

EDIT: I was listening to an episode of TWiT three days ago and the end result of the controversy is exactly what I outline in the latter part of this post.

As of last week, most of your SEO tactics are rendered obsolescent. Somewhat.

Last year, Google’s top level mandate was “to go social.” And that reflected havily on Google employees with regards to performance so much so that company bonuses were to be directly associated with how Google performed in “social.” So last week, in the week of CES 2012, Google unveiled (secretly) its full blown foray into the new search algorithm making use of your social profile, starting with Google+. Google+ isn’t just a social network then. It does so much more:

- it helps Google see whether the content you post is actually yours and not scraped from somewhere else. How does it know which sites are yours? Well, your G+ profile under “About Me.” See the image on top? It says I contribute to A Bugged Life, NUDI (our SCUBA site), and Geekout (I write there once in a while). I’m not sure if this can be gamed — like I can ask 100 friends to say that they write on my blog to increase SERP, but then again this new tailored search feature will show different results depending on the account you hold. In other words, if you ask an SEO guy to work on your site and he gives you a screenshot of your blog on the first page of Google, that may be true for his or her account, but you may see something completely different. That’s how powerful the implications are for this new method. So be aware.

- it looks at other popular social sites (in this case Twitter and Flickr) and sees whether you own accounts currently signed in to. It links several popular social networks to G+ including Flickr, Twitter, Quora, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo!, and more. I hope it starts linking Tumblr and Pinterest soon. This makes me wonder whether sites like Path and Instagram should have official web versions for showing content (apart from Followgram) so they can get linked and indexed.

- Your “SEO” is only as good as how engaging you are with your content. There you have it — that is still the core ideal of “relevant content” but this time tied to your friends and what they share as well. If you +1 something, it means that you’re going to want more of that in your search results. In the same way, if you spam a friend, he or she can easily un-friend you and that’s it — bye bye social graph. Talk about tailored search.

- This new algorithm allows you to flourish in your preferred social space (as long as you have a Google+ profile HAHA!) whether it be a blog, Twitter, Quora, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. In other words, “blogging” is not the foundation of Web 2.0 (or whatever it’s called nowadays).

In short, for those of you saying that Google+ is useless and boring compared to Facebook, think again. Your site’s SEO will be determined by how much time you’ve invested in G+, the type of friends that you have, and what they share. Welcome to the new search. Now stop selling links.

Here you go –> CONNECT YOUR ACCOUNTS NOW.

That is how I understand it. I’d love to see how social search unfolds in the next few weeks and months. Comments, reactions most welcome.

Is i.PH shutting down?

Jayvee Fernandez — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:36:51 +0000

Bad news for the relatively huge blogging community of i.PH. Straight from Joel Disini’s mouth, i.PH is closing its blogging service. He’s giving bloggers 6 months to export their blog posts to other services.

Unfortunately, he said that he will be closing down i.ph soon so it would be best for me to start copy pasting all my posts and blog files. I couldn’t believe it. He said i.ph is no longer making profit and he’s giving us bloggers around 6 months before it fully shuts down.

Well, it was bound to happen. I’ve talked to many friends working for this company, (the mother organization owns the rights to the .ph registrar) and I’ve observed that while there were so many great ideas in the boiler room (i.e. mirroring services like SquareSpace, premium services, etc) none of these ever shipped. And in this industry, shipping is really important.

And it’s really not just about i.PH itself but the presence of so many other great blogging platforms — Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, SquareSpace.. competition is fast improving services while domain registration and hosting is getting cheaper by the day.

Thus far there is no official word on the i.PH blog. This piece of information comes from an encounter with Disini. If the news is 100% true (and it looks like it is), sad to see it go. Here’s a way to go out with a bang: have the community do one huge “transfer” party where everyone exports their blogs at the same time to other services.

Open comments on the DTI blogging promo final draft thing

Jayvee Fernandez — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:36:48 +0000

To those who are concerned (this would include bloggers who make money online and agencies who tap bloggers for campaigns), the ongoing DTI thing really sucks but there’s a final draft being spread online with comments due till the 19th. Would be great if you could read it, be informed and send a note to Juned or Tonyo as they are appointed members of a committee that will work on this for us.

I mean yeah, let’s just get this over and done with.

The full report can be found here (in blog format by Juned) and here (in Scribd format by Tonyo). Deadline for comments is on the 19th. Best we say what’s on our minds.

The crux of the report, however is in the last part. These are the recommendations and I will paste it all here:

RECOMMENDATION

The BTRCP recommends the following:

1. Individual bloggers are not required to file and secure sales promo permit.

2. Individuals who work with companies or are being utilized by companies in their product advertising and marketing using blogs must file and secure sales promo permit.

3. Businesses who use blogging as their venue for product advertising and marketing should file the sales promo permit application.

4. Blogging community must police themselves and determine those professional bloggers who use blogs associated with business.

5. DTI – NCR should brief IMMAP member associations/organizations to have them familiarized with DAO No. 10-02, Series of 2010 and JAO No. 01, Series of 2008 stating the rules and regulations on Sales Promotion and Electronic Commerce.

Comments:

1. Regards to recommendation #2, it should clearly be stated that this should only apply if a sale is involved. Raffles and contests should not be included.

2. I’m all for DTI permits in order to prevent Mickey Mouse campaigns but applying for one should be made easier. And when I say easier, it should be done online and ready within the hour. The DTI should push itself to adapt to these changes and that is the only time the industry can take them seriously. Apply online. Ready in an hour. Delivered to your email. Otherwise the whole thing is a joke and can potentially lead to another venue for milking the cow and corruption.

3. The permit should be applied for by the agency or company that sponsors the contest, not the supplier of the service. In this regard, #1 and #2 are confusing when put together.

4. Good luck with #4. It’s a vague call to action.

5. Let’s clearly define “business.” Does it mean an exchange of goods (x-deal) or making money? It’s vague.

6. Let’s clearly define “professional.” Because you only become a professional “something” if you’re cashing in around 40% (I may be mistaken with the percentage) of your total income. So if, say, you’re making PHP 100,000 a month and PHP 40,000 comes from blogging while the rest comes from your sideline as a circus clown, you are considered “professional” in your blogging field. What if this income isn’t fixed? Also, will it matter? The permit only applies to cash sales promotions.

7. Let’s condense the whole thing into one rule: Corporations that do online campaigns with a sales component need DTI permits. Application for permits should fall on the responsibility of the sponsor.

That’s all. Hope you chime in.

Draft DTI Final Report on online sales promotions by bloggers

Boy Abunda auctions off his glasses in Ebay Philippines for Charity

Jayvee Fernandez — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 08:13:28 +0000

So I was browsing Ebay Philippines today and saw this.

Wow, PHP 2,000 pesos starting bid. All items will be donated to the environmental efforts of WWF Philippines.

My Solution to Watermarks

Jayvee Fernandez — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:55:44 +0000

I don’t watermark photos. That’s because the photos that I sell are always printed on canvas anyway and I never give out the high resolution files so it’s really not a big deal for me if people grab my shots and post them all over the place. I’d love a linkback but if that’s not given, well, welcome to the Internet. So unless photography is your bread and butter I don’t see the need for you to batch watermark everything. Here’s a work-around solution to watermarking photos.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I think this is actually makes more sense than having a huge www.mywebsite.com at 50% opacity in the middle of your photo. It’s informative and you can even get creative with the use of empty space in your shots. I prefer doing text because I can’t draw but if I did, I’d doodle on them (<— that cooking blog is amazing).

What do you think?

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The Worst Kind of Facebook Tag Spam

Jayvee Fernandez — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:04:05 +0000

EDIT: They removed my name. Such an odd campaign! Who cares about my opinion on shoes? Di naman ako fashionista (Magaling lang magdala – LOL!).

Spamming Facebook walls is one thing. But mentioning your name to quote you on a manufactured opinion is just the worst thing you can ever do. Grabe, bastos!

Kevin Durant is new endorser for SMART Mobile Broadband

Jayvee Fernandez — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 01:22:11 +0000

This is an announcement I’ve been dying to make (and help break) today but yes folks, NBA 2010-2011 scoring champion Kevin Durant is SMART’s newest endorser for mobile broadband. It seems like a lot more was happening behind the scenes during the recent NBA-PBA exhibition game sponsored by SMART. The move to get Kevin Durant as SMART’s new endorser enforces SMART”s commitment to further push its mobile networks to HSPA+ and in the near future, LTE.

If you wish to know more, you can check out the newspapers today for the ad and full press release =)

Disclosure: I’m a consultant for SMART Communications.

A Bugged Life: Journey Through the Years

Jayvee Fernandez — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:41:42 +0000

Hello. My name is Jayvee Fernandez and I’ve been the sole proprietor of A Bugged Life for more than 5 years. Back then, the site was hosted on a free platform with this URL 20six.co.uk/abuggedlife. This post, thanks to the way back machine, is a look into all the past templates of my personal blog.

Click on the images for bigger versions.

I had wanted to buy a domain and move to my very own .com but didn’t know how. So I contacted someone from Big Sky Media by the name of Ferdz Decena, who today now happens to be one of the country’s most popular travel bloggers.

2006

My grade school friend Rico Mossesgeld suggested that I keep the “A Bugged Life” branding and thus the site was born in 2006. Today Rico is the endorser for Globe Tattoo. This was the first template I used:

I kept this design for several more months but decided to change into a 3 column layout and install widgets. Widgets were really the in thing in 2006. I had a photographer friend take shots of me and this first header /logo was born.

Those who remember still feel that this was the all time favorite header that clearly defined my site.

2007

In 2007 I opted to change my layout again. I asked the help of superstar WordPress couple Gail and Marc to redesign the site. This is what they came up with — the first bug logo which further solidified my ID to my readers. My instructions were to make the bug antennae send out signals (since this was a tech site). A Bugged Life was also ahead of its time — it was the first blog to have its own QR code embedded on the template. Sadly, nobody used these back then.

Today, Marc and Gail are happily married.

Small trivia — that post you see is a screenshot with Minic Rivera during my days with b5media. We were comparing snacks.

2008

In 2008 I wanted to redesign my site once more. There was a point where I temporarily used the Copyblogger theme but quickly opted for a redesign. I really liked reds and whites and blacks on websites. The site was designed by a very talented Argentinian lady by the name of Gisele. My blog sits on her portfolio. This template marked the first appearance of the bugs you see today. I bought the rights to the vectors so all these bugs were to be known as the mascots of my site.

2010

Since then there were minimal changes to the template. I experimented with featured posts at the header but found it to be too taxing to update. The general layout remained the same. I wanted to keep the look and feel of the site as is. The minor changes were all done by Karlo Licudine of ~~PinoyBlogero.com~~ (whoops … how time flies) AccidentalRebel.com, one of the PH blogosphere’s more talented ~~designers~~ indie game developers.

2011

This is A Bugged Life as you see today. It’s cleaner and I dedicated more space for content. All my previous blog layouts had body widths from 450px to 500px to the 600px that it has today. I’ve removed all unnecessary widgets as well and went back to the simple two column layout. I also put a huge banner between the content column and the header which I use for both advertising and promoting posts. Usually, it’s used for showing off my underwater photos.

A Bugged Life has gone a long way. All thanks to you guys!

Jayvee Fernandez | Pinoy Tech, Diving, Gadgets » Blogging

Geeky things you can buy for P50.00

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Pinspire vs Pinterest

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Google’s New SEO Algorithm: ‘Social Engine Optimization’

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Is i.PH shutting down?

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Open comments on the DTI blogging promo final draft thing

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Boy Abunda auctions off his glasses in Ebay Philippines for Charity

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My Solution to Watermarks

Random Posts

The Worst Kind of Facebook Tag Spam

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Kevin Durant is new endorser for SMART Mobile Broadband

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A Bugged Life: Journey Through the Years

2006

2007

2008

2010

2011

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