Aja Lapus

Blog

  • Tagged—I’m It!

    My mind is filled with everything I am concerned with right now the only thing left to happen is for it to explode. But, at the same time I could not tell which to write—from my point of view on the future of HTML to my own personal life to the things happening at school. Then, I was tagged by Shari. Since I haven’t got anything concrete to blog, might as well go on with the meme. Now, here are:

    Ten weird facts about myself.

    1. I could spend over half a day everyday [literally] reading encyclopedias and fact books or articles.
    2. I love solving logic books, puzzles and games.
    3. I could only sing well—I think—inside a Church with a lot of other people, or in my room alone.
    4. I am not used to wearing anything other than my clothes and a little hair conditioner. (i.e., perfume, facial powder, moisturizer, etc.)
    5. I never liked WYSIWYG editors.
    6. I thought being exposed to bright light could really make anyone sneeze[1] until I’ve read about this condition.
    7. I sometimes practice writing with my left hand.[2] I could, however, do many things at ease using either hand. (i.e., texting, typing, eating, shooting basketballs)
    8. I am a neat freak only outside my own bedroom.
    9. I enjoy being involved in a lot of organizations, but I hate too much red tape.[3]
    10. *place one more weird fact here*[4] 😛

    I really hope I get out of this blogger’s block soon. *tee-hee*

    Hmm … Who would I tag next? I really do not know who reads my entries. Lurkers de-lurk! Alright—Arvin, Andy and Erna—Tag! You’re it!—or them?

    Oh, this entry could really add to my trivia page—not that it really concerns you. 😀

    Notes:

    1. ^ I do sneeze whenever I am exposed to bright light; I thought it was normal
    2. ^ for my mother told me I could when I was little
    3. ^ especially those where my superiors are the ones who cannot agree with each other
    4. ^ maybe it’s time you tell me one weird fact you know about me. 😉

  • An Appeal to Globe Subscribers

    Globe Telecom has raised the UNLIMITXT service charges they require of their subscribers since today. From PHP 10[1] to PHP 20 per day, the rebranded service UNLITXT with the doubled rates frustrated a lot of subscribers given the fact that they weren’t warned even a couple of days before the implementation of such scheme.

    I was one of those frustrated, surprised customers.

    My girlfriend and I have always been registering for the service at almost the same time. Yesterday was the end of our five-day registration last time. Since it was almost midnight, we put off registering for another five days to today. But when we did register during noontime earlier, we were surprised to have received a different response from the service. It wasn’t the type that postpones the registration for later because of server overload. The message so long it could not be contained in a single message looked like the spam they always send us. But, I read it anyway….

    They’ve changed a lot about their service—from UNLIMITXT to just UNLITXT; from 50 Pesos for five days to 80 for just four. And, they added time-based unlimited texting packages such as UNLITXTD or UNLITXTN corresponding to day and night, respectively.

    Now, who the hell is so trustworthy enough that just pops out without warning and tells you to pay more than what you used to? No one. Even Globe shouldn’t be an exception.

    People thought they received just rumors about Globe’s increased rates. But, they weren’t rumors as I told my friends. Please take note that many people changed their numbers to Globe since they put their UNLIMITXT promo to a regular service—count me and my girlfriend in. But we’re dusting our old Sun SIM cards for tomorrow since Globe’s shitful of services are robbing us off of our money.

    I ask of you to do the same. Not only for two to three weeks just like what’s spreading through SMS—they would just wait that off until people start registering again. We should hold them back until they lower their prices again.

    Globe has better signal, thus, better service than Sun. That doesn’t mean they should increase their pricing so surprisingly exorbitant—their prices weren’t even at par with Sun in the first place. Why can’t they keep their prices where they were? I know they know its easier to get a lot more customers with better pricing. But, now that they did with the former prices of their service, they shouldn’t think we’d stay with them now that they increased them so suddenly.

    Now, if you feel the same way, please let people know by posting similar entries to your blogs and commenting on each other’s posts. Petitions could go a long way as long as there are lots of support and publicity.

    Update: I have finally found a petition site for the rollback of Globe’s UNLIMITXT rates. Sign the petition to roll back Globe UNLIMITXT pricing!

    Footnotes:

    1. ^ with the five-day plan worth PHP 50

  • Ituloy Angsulong Spam

    I’m sorry, I just have to rant about this.

    Don’t get me wrong—I have nothing against Marc Macalua‘s Philippine SEO Contest dubbed Ituloy Angsulong, even though I really do not know the purpose of having a certain key-phrase pointing to your Web site where that phrase isn’t even about what you passionately blog. But the prize money is so good, I have even thought of joining the first contest (Isulong SEOPH), though I was ineligible for they do not accept the participation of those using old domain names.

    From my understanding, the goal of the contest is to produce the top ranking page on the SERPs of Google, Yahoo! and MSN search engines with the term Ituloy Angsulong. Sounds easy, right? I thought about ways to win it for no reason at all [since I am not participating]. Then it came to me that with WordPress, one of the most used blogging platforms to date, automatically including rel="nofollow" on comment links, and the fact that I don’t participate in public forums makes it really hard [at least] for me to win it. Another thing is my hatred for spam that I most probably won’t comment with the key-phrase unless it is on topic.

    Now, why would someone comment on one of my non-SEO related entries with the term Ituloy Angsulong linking to their contest entry URI? I guess it’s someone who’s so desperate to win. It seems to me that no one else hates spam more than I do. I’m thankful Akismet really knows spam—even if it is made by real people. Aren’t there rules about the contest not to spam anyone? Just a thought. I hope Marc Macalua could answer me with this. Please note that I check my Akismet spam list at least five times a day. Oh, I’m so glad it caught yours! Yes, I’m talking to you, Marhgil Macuha.

    If you still can’t figure how Akismet knew what to block then you’re really a dumb ass. It’s spam—not the one I love to eat.

  • Internet Connection Problem Resolved?

    I would have blogged the buggy Internet connection I was experiencing since December 26 after I heard from my father news about the Taiwan earthquake that damaged undersea communication lines, but it was all over the Philippine Blogosphere with news from Jhay, Yuga, et al. that I decided to stay quiet instead—its no use blogging the same entry all over again.

    The early times during the lowered bandwidth period, I ,as well as my friend Jayson, noticed that we could still connect to our ISP, but it cannot resolve host names. I immediately turned my PC on and searched my browsing history for IP addresses. Alas! I found a Google cache URI of my site where Google used its IP address instead of its domain name. Great Google! Since it is a search engine in itself, I immediately searched for a Google cache of OpenDNS—I could not open its homepage in itself as my ISP currently could not resolve its domain name to the IP address—thus a cache is more than sufficient. My [and Jayson’s] DNS issues are resolved.

    Though I sometimes experience the reduced bandwidth and intermittent disconnections, I guess it’s still enough to say that it could have gotten worse than that, and I still feel somehow satisfied. But after reading Euri’s recent rant about crappy Internet connections from a café, I decided to test my own connection.

    Results from testmy.net

    I was shocked with the results considering I was downloading bittorrent files at 30-40 kBps, I’m on PLDT‘s slowest myDSL, plan 999, and test results from testmy.net prior to this one never reached 400 kbps! I even tried the Speakeasy Speed Test but got these lower but similar results from its Seattle, WA server:

    Last Result:
    Download Speed: 502 kbps (62.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
    Upload Speed: 114 kbps (14.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

    I really can’t tell whether or not I am the only one experiencing this, but I know the intermittent connections would likely last for several weeks. Was it really resolved so fast this time?

  • Musing #0008

    Why is the Microsoft Windows’ Turn Off Computer command on the Start menu?