Google Desktop Gives Not Much Lovin’ to Macs?

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 5th, 2007

It’s not true that Mac users get the better deal of things. In the same way that it took Yahoo! Messenger for Mac a couple of years to release an update, it is going to take a while for Google Desktop for Mac OS X to fix its quirks.

The Mac version of Google Desktop is somewhat slim compared to its current Windows counterpart, only consisting of the Quick Search—no toolbar or gadgets yet. However, the search box works well—it’s significantly faster at searching my files than Spotlight is when searching for the same files. Bringing up the search box is easy: simply press the command/Apple key twice in succession and it pops up over the top of your screen. The user can change the keyboard command in Google Desktop’s system preferences at any time, however, if they prefer some other key combination. [source]

The thing is, Macs already come bundled with the Spotlight search feature and my brain has been hardwired to it. Plus, coupled with Quicksilver, I feel that I have enough “getting things done” search apps to help me throughout the day. Although Google Desktop is supposed to work in conjunction with Spotlight – and based on the initial review, even better than, I highly doubt I’d want to make use of a similar feature when that is all it can do, as of its latest version.

Too many apps spoil the search, and I would like to keep things simple

Oh. My. God.

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 30th, 2007

[courtesy of Emerging Earth]

The Crumpler Store Opens in the Philippines

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 27th, 2007

It’s official. The Philippines is now an eccentric geek hangout based on the standards of the owners of Crumpler. These guys are the makers of the bags that changed the geek world to what it is today – fashionable, quirky and still geeky! No other bag has created such a cult following in the world as the name Crumpler is backed by a few years of quirky personas and drunken copywriting skills for their product catalogue.

That’s me in the pajamas with Gabe Mercado of SPIT and in the middle is the famous Pineapple Ju-ju of Crumpler. You can view other interesting Crumpler videos here, such as the Bag Rider (do not try this at home) and Crumpler at MacWorld.

You can view the rest of the pictures of the parteh here.

You Don’t Know Jack! Goes to the Web

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 26th, 2007

More than ten years ago, our high school group used to come by to one of the homes of friend to swoon over his 486DX rig with Sound Blaster Pro speakers. The speakers were the most important part of the set as we needed them to play a now classic trivia game called You Don’t Know Jack!

Dubbed as Jeopardy with an eccentric twist, YDKJ has reinvented itself into a web based game where you can load up several “episodes” into a flash player. Many aspects of the game were preserved such as the minimalist use of visuals, the quirky announcer with dozens of side comments, the Jack Attack!, and the “DisorDat” segment.

This is definitely a good move for the Jellyvision folk as flash games are becoming cheaper and cheaper to manufacture and distribute over the web, thus making their “innovation” back in the 90′s just some plain old. But YDKJ has carried itself rather easily through several years of cult following so now, it will be easier for you to experience the Jack Attack with friends anywhere with an Internet connection.

A word of caution – you need to play the game show with your speakers turned on for the full You Don’t Know Jack! experience. [via Play Girlz]

StudioNow: Online Video Editing While You Wait

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 20th, 2007

Minic Rivera wrote about StudioNow, a new service that allows the public to submit video editing jobs to a pool of editors worldwide.

The launch of StudioNow ushers in a new era of video production by directly connecting consumers with expert video/movie editors. The StudioNow Editor Network includes a range of expert editors, from film-school students to major-network TV and Hollywood feature film professionals. Editors can sign-up to feature their editing talents and are assigned projects matching their skill level through the StudioNow website.

In the social media scene …

This is especially helpful for bloggers who do not have the resources or knowledge to create good quality video shows. All they need to do is create the raw recording with a cameraphone and submit the content to the pool of editors who will execute your project with all the specific instructions taken into account.

StudioNow is also hiring video editors who can work from anywhere around the world

Tech Bloggers Wanted: Palm Treo 750 Launch at The Fort

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 16th, 2007

Yesterday, Amor Maclang of Geiser-Maclang PR asked me rather nicely if I could bring some blogger friends to the Palm Treo 750 launch at The Embassy, The Fort.

Geiser-Maclang is one of the few PR agencies in the Philippines that has been rather active in taking bloggers seriously. Of course, this is a loaded statement, as it still is not obvious how “serious” they have been. But nonetheless, Amor is taking baby steps in getting to know the Philippine blogosphere (she is a blogger too). Parteh anyone? I only have limited slots (I can’t acommodate the entire blogosphere … hindi kaya ng powers ko yan)

If you are interested to come (preferred: if your blog’s niche has to do with technology), please leave a comment with your name and blog title and I will forward your names to her. The cool guys and gals from MaPalad (Philippine Palm OS Users Group), the Pinoy Windows Mobile friends and the Microwarehouse peeps will also be there.

The Treo 750 is the Palm-manufactured device that runs on Windows Mobile. Some say this spells the death of Palm, but in a world where you can boot Windows on an Intel Mac, there’s no saying where technology will go today. From the first impressions of the 750, the word is that Plam did a very good integration of the Windows Mobile 5 OS onto the Palm hardware.

The said event will be at Embassy, The Fort at around 8:00 to 10:00 PM on Tuesday. March 20 2007. In return, please blog about the event.

Bayan Telecommunications: RELOADED!

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 16th, 2007

Today I witnessed the press launch for the new and improved Bayan Telecommunications. Yep, they’re back! With a vengeance. Bayan Telecommunications released a consumer satisfaction survey on telcos and they have seen that:

• 90% of landline, 85% of Internet and 92% of cellphone users have experienced frustrations with their service.
• Billing problems, slow connections and poor customer care were among those cited as reasons for their frustrations.
• 25.7% of respondents stated that they are “steaming mad” with communications technology.
• 45% of Internet, 23% of landline and 32% of mobile phone users in the country have “moderate or higher levels of distrust” for communications service providers.
• 1 out of 4 Filipinos feel that telecommunications companies in the country have not been able to deliver on their promises.

Get this. The new and improved Bayan Telecommunications will offer rebates on downed services and have invested a sizeable amount just for this:

With a 50-million peso rebate program to back this quick-repair promise, the company assures subscribers that it does not just talk the talk, but also walk the walk. Mr. Fafunwa explains that in their program, if a phone or DSL connection remains un-repaired for more than 24 hours, “a 1-day refund (equivalent to 100 pesos) will be given for every four hours the problem stays unsolved”. If a subscriber’s connection is out for more than 72 hours on the other hand, his or her service fee for the month will be waived. [Quoted from PRESS RELEASE]

In addition to this, Bayan Telecommunications also launched their SPAN service which is basically the “mobile landline” product, allowing you to bring about your landline and do unlimited calls. This is the Zen between mobility and fixed lines.

So Filipinos, what do you think? Will this PHP 50,000,000.00 rebate program of the new and improved Bayan Telecommunications (note that they have done a name overhaul also from “Bayantel”) prove to be the competency that will push them ahead of the other competitors? Or is it a bit sketchy?

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Are You Ashamed of Your Yahoo! Messenger ID?

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 15th, 2007

I’m sure you can relate. Whenever I ask new acquaintances if they use Yahoo! Messenger (or any other IM that asks for a username), most of them give a grin and hesitate before disclosing that “hey I made this account when I was in college so pardon the name.” Usually these ID’s would consist of a very creative ADJECTIVE + NOUN + NUMBER combination such as “purpledragon8300″ or “cutefairy1978″ (I thought of these at random so any similarities to real life ID’s is purely coincidental). These ID’s which we formed back in high school and college really catch up with us when we start working and our boss asks us for our IM ID. It’s embarrassing. It’s mortifying.

It’s one of those things which people have to ask you over lunch at the office … as to why the VP of Sales has the userID ‘kissmebebe144.’

Four Reasons Why Twitter Works

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 13th, 2007

A few days ago, Aaron of Technosailor wrote a piece on Twitter and how it further accelerates the machine known as social media. Though the noise may prove to be seemingly useless but entertaining (I’m eating peanuts now. They’re in a big bag … not a small one) he points out something that can spike interest:

Then someone posted yesterday, I thought it was Scoble, and commented that he uses Twitter because it gives him an eye inside the mind of early adopters. Now that is useful. So I set up my account and to be honest, it’s addicting. [source]

And so like him, I went on and created my account, added up a few friends and amidst knowing what everyone does on an hourly basis (so far, everyone on my list thought 300 was WOW) but I also have some occasional gems like knowing when Leo Laporte uploads his TWiT podcasts and know when Chris Pirillo asks for feedback on tech events such as the recent SxSW conference.

Why Twitter Works:

It gives an eye inside the mind of early adopters. Aaron explained this already.

It can replace live-blogging. It is much faster and easier to do live twittering as all you will need is a phone connected to GMail chat

It is cheaper than SMS. Similar to how people in the Philippines (the SMS capital of the world) use web based applications for SMS such as Chikka, Twitter can work the same way as long as you and your friends are configured to receive messages only from each other.

It can be so useless to the point that its engaging. I remember my old literature professor talking about how useless literature and the arts can be — but then he added that “in the most useless of things can you find the most profound lessons.”

Are you on TWITTER? Add me up. My profile page is here. I’m going to try to do a live twittering of the Davao Blog party this weekend and the Philippine Blog Awards this 31st via Blackberry chat.

Engaging Commentary on Online Office Suites

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 5th, 2007

With the rise of Google Apps and several other online productivity applications like Picnik (online photo editing software), you can now be more efficient with your work since more often than not, this generation is online most of the time.

But you know what?

I just had a bright idea.

Bear with me here and tell me if you follow what I’m about to say.

Wouldn’t it be really cool if these online applications could be translated into a package where you could use them even if you are NOT connected to the Internet? This “offline office suite” would be really handy in places where there is no Internet connection. You’d be able to write documents, do spreadsheets and edit photos without the need to go online. Isn’t that cool? I wonder why no one ever thought of that in the first place.

Now that’s a revolution!

*sarcasm mode off*

EDIT: For those who don’t get my sarcasm …

I’ve been using Web based applications since the launch of Meebo, Protopage and Writely (which was eventually bought out). Free apps such as this one serve as an alternative to Open Office but with the way the Internet works here in the Philippines, you’d be in for a lot more inconvenience than anything as consumer DSL can go down like an unexpected bowel movement. And as Veronica Belmont said in the last episode of TWiT, it is just so hard to re-learn another Office Suite when MS Office is just so engraved into our system already.

I steer away from Open Office for one traumatic reason. It saves files by default using a proprietary format which renders them harder to open in a non-techie environment. I had many scares as articles were submitted for editing using the Open Office extension and none of the editors had Open Office. The poor editorial assistant had to resave the file in a MS Word document format and resend, thus wasting everyone’s time. So there. No biggie in truth, but when you’re surrounded by people who are most familiar with MS Word (a microcosm example of why Microsoft still wins in the corporate environment), I don’t want to take risks.

Make Way for Philippine Online Political Ads

Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at March 1st, 2007

There is a lot to know about the man called Chiz Escudero. In fact he has dominated the Internet with his online presence. The banner ad above will show you that he’s really dead serious about the elections.

However, there is a lot more to the man called Chiz Escudero. Which is why Sasha has pointed us to the REAL ULTIMATE FACTS about Chiz Escudero. Sample real ultimate fact:

Chiz is behind the “Let’s make baka, Don’t be takot” chant.

HAHAHA! Too hilarious.