in retrospect…

[am not a researcher nor a true writer, so you must forgive me the title and the following texts... i just want to rant and look like i know what i was saying... ]

the Internet has become a regular part of our daily lives and rue the day we find that we cannot go online to check our email, read online news, blogsurf, and such mundane, simple things that we’ve taken for granted thinking that they will always be on hand when and where we need them… true enough, there are now free WiFi connections sprouting around the metro — i even heard from a lady friend that Davao has a free city-wide WiFi connection — and you can’t turn your head without seeing an Internet cafe… it has become so commonplace that we can expect to be online anywhere, anytime even without a computer… there are now cellphones and phone services [3G, for example] offering online services for a measly P10 per 30 minutes!!

we’ve really come a long way during the BBS period of 1992-1994 when we dial [yes, dial!] to an online server one at a time, download conversations and emails from other people, read them offline, reply offline, dial again, and upload these replies and possibly download new ones… and later on, those text-only web pages and IRC really made things so simple… we definitely do not need a very high-speed connection then… a 14.4K modem and a phone line are all that’re needed to get to the world wide web… then…

and today?? stop a regular guy from the street and ask him how his Internet connection is at home… and normally than not, he will tell you that, although he is connected to a big-name ISP, his connection is so crappy or so slow or both, that he is considering of going to another ISP he heard has good services… at least, that’s what i’ll tell those interviewers, not that i’ve been stopped before and asked a question like this… but i will… tell them, i mean…

Sick of paying for broadband that you have to, well, pay for?

Introducing Google TiSP (BETA), our new FREE in-home wireless broadband service. Sign up today and we’ll send you your TiSP self-installation kit, which includes setup guide, fiber-optic cable, spindle, wireless router and installation CD.

now, Google offers Wifi connectivity for F R E E!! they will even send you the kit you’d need, plus all the instructions manuals, when you sign up with their service…

all you’d need after signing up and receiving the kit is a properly working commode and a little knowledge of splicing a fiber-optic cable… how hard is that??

TIsP, as the service is called, also has advanced options:

• Professional Installation Service
• In-Commode Package Delivery
• TiSP for Enterprise

anyway, if you’re already tired of the constant disconnections you are experiencing with your current provider, or sick of that slow speed, you can try out TiSP… in any case, this is free, so what have you got to lose??

Ciao, sweetie…

i chanced upon this news story today from CNNMoney and i am glad that i do not live in the US nor am i its citizen…

in a very bold move, a US federal court judge overturned a law which restricts children’s access to Internet porn as being too restrictive and unconstitutional, and which violates its people’s right to free speech… the ruling which came out March 22nd ruled against the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 due to a challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union…

i have yet to find anything why the ACLU challenged the said law right after it was signed by US President Bill Clinton, that was why i reserve my comments on this… but why anyone would want a law protecting their children in general is totally beyond me… again, that was why i don’t want to live in the US… they have such stupid laws that will make you want to cry: WHY???!!!

to wit:

Louisiana: It is illegal to rob a bank and then shoot at the bank teller with a water pistol
Maine: You may not step out of a plane in flight.
Massachusetts: Mourners at a wake may not eat more than three sandwiches.
Michigan: A woman isn’t allowed to cut her own hair without her husband’s permission.

and on, and on, and on… for more of this, go to Stupid Laws…

again: WHY???!!!

anyway, whatever my son may say or do, he cannot enjoy [yes, the word is enjoy] Internet porn until he can prove to me that he can handle it maturely… what?? no age limit?? you ask…

oh no, none… i said maturely because i know of some people in the age range of 25 to 45 who still act like kids around a popcorn… :S

aren’t you proud to be a full-blooded Pinoy??

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ stupid US laws | ACLU | free speech | internet | porn ]

:[

it all started about 3 months ago, when my Internet connection bandwidth from Globelines Broadband started declining for some reason... i later found out that the connections were broken due to the earthquake that happened in Taiwan and Globelines was not the only one affected [although i heard they had the worst of it]… the connections only started stabilizing about a month and a half ago…

but since then, i was in constant conversation [if you can call ranting a conversation] with their customer service [though, if you ask me, they should be just called the secretaries pool, since all they do is take down notes on what the problem was... tsk tsk tsk] because, every so often, like every 15 minutes or so, the donnection will suddenly drop for no apparent reason… and so, i called, and called, and called it was like during my younger days when i was on the phone with a lover all day and night…

it came now to a point that i am considering extending my connection from SmartBro which, although is a little slower, but at least is stable enough that i don’t get disconnected all the time… sheeshhh…

Globe technicians have been coming to the house almost everyday now hoping to pinpoint the problem and fix it, but to no avail… it prolly is just that connections in my area is really next to nothing… the problem was, i cannot have this connection discontinued as i have a contract with Globe for at least a year… and i still have 9 months to go of this… tsk tsk tsk…

i hope Globe gets to read this and finally get this fixed as i am already so frustrated with their service… haaayyy… :S

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Globelines | broadband | internet ]

have you ever done something stupid that costs your company millions of pesos worth of data??

if you have, then you prolly know how this computer technician in Alaska felt when, after formatting a hard disk, found out later on that it contained $38 billions worth of accounts of applicant information for an oil-funded sales account… it still wouldn’t have been so bad except for one thing: the daily backup tapes were unreadable!! :o

so, their final approach was to recover from another source of backup… they turned to the most unlikely source of information: paperwork consisting of application forms, birth certificates, and proof of residence stored in more than 300 cardboard boxes, costing the Permanent Fund Dividend Division more than $200,000 to re-enter everything over a period of 4 months to re-enter everything using 70 people working overtime…

i remember my biggest mistake when i was first starting out in network administration… this was way back in 1998 when i was given the task of deleting unneeded directories in a server… i was just supposed to delete the contents of the /tmp directory in a Linux server, but i didn’t look where i was at the time and simply typed in rm -rf * denoting delete all thinking that i was where i was supposed to be… you know what happened next, right?? no?? well, when the prompt was supposed to return after a brief period of time and it didn’t, i suddenly realized my mistake and immediately hit the off button of the server…

obviously, i was at the root directory, and the command proceeded to delete ALL the directories one-by-one… fortunately for me, it did it alphabetically… and since the /home [where the most important user data were in] was right in the middle of the list, and i was able to turn it off at the right time, it was saved… i simply re-installed Linux, and it was like no one knew what happened… **whew**

after that time, i was very conscientious of the things i do in a server, most especially if i was deleting something… even if it was just a file… and that was the turning point of my career in administering Linux servers…

anyway, whatever happened to that computer technician??

Ciao, sweeite…

Tags: [ computer | technician | Linux | humor ]

aside: are you looking for New York City face lifts??

i was blog surfing today when i came upon Rommel Feria’s blog where he was inviting trackbacks to his blog for a chance of getting an invite to Joost… what is Joost?? from their FAQ, it is defined as:

Joost™ is a new way of watching TV on the internet, which uses new and established technologies to provide the best of both the internet and TV worlds. We’re in the process of making it as TV-like as we can, with programmes, channels and adverts. You can also see some things that we think will enhance the TV experience: searching for programmes and channels, for example, as well as social features like chat.

finally, an Internet TV!!

i wonder how this will impact the local bandwidth?? anyway, Noel, if you are reading this and i win that invite, you may contact me at chris @ haravata . com… gets??

Ciao, sweetie…

WARNING: a loooonnnggggg post… really…

i am sure, after my post on how to set up a blog using free providers like Wordpress and Blogspot, thousands of you trooped to those sites mentioned and created your own blogs… i am also sure that, by now, you’d have learned the limits of these free blogging sites… like, you can only customize the theme so much… like, you have a favorite plugin but you cannot install this in your new blog… like, you created a photoblog, only to find out that your particular blog has a limit in terms of hard disk size… or many others that, although you can live with them at the start, but you find restricting as you go along…

so what do you do?? well, for a little amount of money and a little patience, you can now start your own blog using your own domain, can have as little or as large hard disk space as you’d want, and put in as much content as you can think of…

how do you go about doing it?? read on and find out…

what is it with the Internet that its main purpose for some people is either to get smut or offer sex for a fee?? in today’s Jessica Soho Reports, one episode tackled how, in remote provinces in the Philippines [Cebu, for example], there were Internet cafe’s operating 24 hours which have private rooms… and what were they used for?? so that some Internet users can hold private shows for some of their foreign parukyanos…

this way of earning money is not limited to just teenagers or gays only, though…public school teachers also offer cybersex shows to foreigners for a minimum of $100 per!! one was a 24 year old, and the other one was [wait, you'd better be sitting down for this] a 66-year old!! goodness!! :o

the National Bureau of Investigation cannot do anything against these cybersex “dens”, though, due to the fact that there isn’t any law against this… in effect, all they can do is raid these dens for pornography [which we have laws against], confiscate the machines used to perpetuate, and that’s about it… till next time, amigos!!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY, everyone!!

don’t do what i wouldn’t do…

constant edits will happen to this particular post… these edits will happen as often as i find new material, so come back often if you want to be updated… this will form part of the talk i will be giving during iBlog3: The 3rd Philippine Blogging Summit entitled Blogging for Newbies

with the rise in number of pinoy blogs popping up left and right, it is only assumed that setting up a brand new blog is as easy as A-B-C… we often forget that there are newbies who don’t have the faintest idea on how to start setting it up… so, how do you start a new blog??

there are several things you have to take into consideration and options you can choose from, software to use, server, hosting, blog genre, etc, etc… but first things first… what is a blog??

a blog is short for weblog, an online journal [or diary or newsletter] that may or may not be frequently updated, where the author posts informal journals: his/her thoughts, comments, and philosophies… it can be private or public… it can be a group blog, or a blog all your own…