Looking for a Flash Guy
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 14th, 2006Our company, Hinge-Inquirer Publications is looking for a flash designer for a not-so-small project. If you know anybody who is interested or would want to apply yourself, please send an email to jfernandez at hip dot ph. Please address the headline of your email with “Flash Designer.” Thank you!
Ending my term at MaPalad
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 12th, 2006
A few days ago, the organization upon which I hold a VP position for was featured in INQ7.net. MaPalad, the Philippine Palm OS user group was featured in article by Alex Villafania.
The organization was formed in 1998 by Jason de Villa, a local user looking for applications that will make him fully utilize his Palm device. After forming Mapalad, joined by a select group of people, the forum eventually grew its membership and now boasts of 6,000 registered users.
Currently, Mapalad is headed by Guthrie-Jensen Training Consultant Sharon Agoncillo, herself an avid Palm Treo user. She is also the second female to head the predominantly male organization.
In its eight years of existence, a lot of restructuring has occurred within the organization, mostly having to do with semantics – due to the way Palm, the company formerly known as pa1mOne, and also formerly known as Palm, that had acquired Handspring, whose founders were part of the original Palm, which had some relation to 3com, kept on changing names.
And it is with this post that I step down as VP of the organization. Sharon texted me this morning asking if we still want to “run for office” next year but I told her that I’d want to help out in other ways because of time and other commitments.
Several reasons really – to give chance to others for 2008, because it raises eyebrows that I do not use a Palm unit anymore (technically I still do – my trusty Visor Prism is still somewhere in the closet along with a Palm V in one of the drawers of my study), and finally because I don’t need to be Vice Prez to contribute to the org of which I have been a part of since the early 2000′s.
A fun group we are – MaPalad is currently involved in productivity seminars with MindShare with Luli Arroyo, a few outreach programs, the org’s band (we used to play at Conway’s in Shangri-la hotel), week-round “wala lang” meets. If you own a Palm-powered unit and would like to learn more about the organization, do visit our happy forum at Mapalad.org.
Pictures courtesy of the MaPalad photo pool.
ReviewMe and how it affects the status quo of stuff
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 11th, 2006There has been a lot of buzz in the blogosphere with the launch of ReviewMe, a product from the guys that brought you Text Link Ads. What astonishes me most was how a lot of bloggers have posted about this rather quickly in the past 6 hours. And the answer to this is quite obvious – they are being financially compensated for it.
As a writer for print publications, I see nothing new with the concept of paying people for writing product reviews or features. But since the true nature of blogs are hard to discern (am I blogging for fun or for profit?), one has to disclose that he or she is being paid to post something. The concept is pretty similar to being paid to work versus being paid to do something you love. (Don’t you wish you had that job that paid you to travel around the world?) In both cases what differs is the orientation of the individual towards his work – both statements refer to “being paid to do your job” but there is a difference in the person’s disposition in receiving his compensation. Thus, if we apply the same example to blogs, someone who is being paid to post falls under the latter description – being paid to do something you love.
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The good old days of MPH TV
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 9th, 2006
Not a lot of you may know this but MPH, the magazine that is now known as Mobile Philippines used to have a television show many many months ago. We had a couple of episodes that were produced by Poch, Ideal Minds and the staff of Hinge Media Inc (now known as Hinge-Inquirer Publications). We went off the air after a few episodes because we needed to find a better time slot. The show aired (let’s see if I remember this right) on channel 5 at 1PM every Saturday. This was a little scary too, since that time slot was dominated by the variety shows.
In any case, the show was hosted by the trio composed of Jaymee Joaquin, Franco Mabanta and Paolo Soler. There were times when some of the editors would guest appear to talk about some of the latest gadgets out in the market and we would do this in Digital Walker in Parksquare 1.
So, for your enjoyment, the staff of Mobile Philippines has uploaded the first three episodes of MPH TV. Download and enjoy!
Speedlinking: November 2 2006
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 2nd, 2006
Windows Vista delayed by 18,000 years
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 1st, 2006
Found this random tidbit off The Register. It’s the one on the upper right in red.
Clicked on it and yes, by jove, it is true. Windows is delayed. No upgrade till 20007. Damn. You pulled a fast one under our noses again, Microsoft!
List of Firefox 2.0 Compatible Plugins and Themes
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 28th, 2006After a horrendous experience with a Firefox 2.0 upgrade on Windows I decided to link everyone to a listing of Firefox 2.0 compatible extensions and themes.
I installed Firefox 2.0 this morning and all of a sudden my bookmarks were not showing up on the tab area (but they were still on the bookmarks folder), pages were not refreshing, and tabs were not working.
It turns out that after disabling all my plugins and reinstalling everything from scratch, the problem was twofold:
Program Files --> Mozilla Firefox and start with a clean install.PayPal is now in the Philippines … sort of!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 12th, 2006The moment we have been waiting for is finally here!
Albeit in a lite version. I guess when they said “Paypal, they really just stressed the “pay” part. Apparently you can only send money but not request. Nonetheless, this is a step in the right direction to our eCommerce.
Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!
Other people covering the PayPal PH developments:
PayPal now available in the Philippines
INQ7.net: We’re still friends!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at October 6th, 2006The online gossip is just too hot to handle. I deal with the people from Inq7 fairly often due to the online media group I’m building for Hinge-Inquirer Publications. Well, the rumors are NOT true. I repeat, NOT true.
I had a pitcher of mojitos with a good friend from the staff (partly to celebrate the $2M funding of b5media) just now and she told me that “we’re still friends! hindi pa kami nag-break!” (we’re still friends, we haven’t broken up!). This was in reference to the rumors that the breaking news media giant INQ7.net is breaking up the partnership – GMA7 and the Inquirer are no longer “sila.”
I asked if its OK to post this piece of PR and they said go ahead! Well, that’s that. The intrigues of the technology industry…
HP Officejet 4355 All-in-One Printer
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 24th, 2006
I’ve survived without a printer at home for almost two years. It may seem odd, since I belong to the publishing industry. If ever I needed to print something, there was always Station 168 right outside my village or I’d bug my neighbor. Of course, that would be really embarassing in the long run.
So last week I decided to buy a printer, but I went as far as buying a complete mini office suite. If you’re looking for an affordable All-in-One solution, I’d highly recommend the HP Officejet 4355 for the following reasons:
One of the downsides though is that I still won’t be able to photocopy my face since the copier uses a roll feed method. Darn. But for P6k, this is a good price. In terms of affordability, the next cheapest is about P4,000 but does not include a fax component. For two thousand more, why not?
The Microsoft Zune business model
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at September 18th, 2006Here’s the answer – viral marketing. (Oooh just like blogs)
Wait, let’s go back a few notches and let me tell you how the Zune will work. I had actually written about it here, but I believe this deserves some elaboration due to the unique way Microsoft will market this product.
So you have ten songs from the April Boys Greatest Hits and you walk into a room with three of your friends also with Zunes. It just so happens that your other friend (friend number 2) has this album too (April Boys rulez!) which causes an exchange of high fives, pressuring your other friend (number 3) to share in this revelry and he gets beamed the entire album via WiFi which he can listen to for three times or carry for three days, whichever comes first. Since it’s an April Boys album, it would be the former.
The next day, friend number 3 comes with his Zune loaded up with a lot more songs which he proudly wants to share with his friends. The graph of the number of songs bought by each small ecosystem gets flatter and flatter, until everyone has almost exactly the same type of songs in a given demographic. Secretly, Microsoft has some way of determining what songs were bought where, allowing them to introduce album promos and concerts.
Here’s the thing though – you will need a very influential group of early adopters to start the Zune viral campaign. One of my commenters suggested we give Zunes to bikini clad women.
Here are some music blogs that elaborate on the Zune’s specs and functions:
Do you think the Zune will take off in the Philippines?
