Aja Lapus

Author: Aja

  • PayPal for Philippines Initialized

    Support Paypal for the Philippines Just two days ago, I’ve signed up for the PayPal Now! advocacy for the availability of PayPal to Filipinos thinking that the widely used online money transfer service would be beneficial to me and all other Filipino Web designers/developers who are into freelancing.

    The guys from PayPal heard us. Now, our wishes came true! Well, partially …

    I’ve just got news from the PayPal Now! Blog that PayPal would be offering a limited send-only service to Philippine customers. That’s a start. But we want more!

    Hmm … might as well erase that first. *scratches off the our wishes came true part*

    Add your signature on the list!

    Note: Read the article from the PayPal Now! Blog (link above) for more information.

  • Buying the Competitor

    I first saw it with Adobe Systems‘ acquisition of Macromedia last year—i.e., buying Adobe SVG‘s competitor, Macromedia Flash, for one. Now the news is with Google Inc.

    I’ve just read in a press release from the YouTube Web site that the search giant would be buying them for $1.65 Billion in stock. But isn’t that Google Video‘s competitor? I really do not understand these companies making such actions, but still, with the proper explanation in the said press release, I think the merge could be beneficial to the users of the more popular YouTube.

    YouTube fans need not worry about this as they said that the YouTube team would still operate independently to preserve its brand and community.

    The complete press release is posted in the following Web pages:

    Note: Both pages contain the same content/press release.

    Now if only I could solve my connection problem with Google Web sites. [Yes, this is a different matter—completely unrelated to the news.] I could surf most sites but not Google and its sub-sites [Calendar, GMail] from time to time. I’ve checked my router and modem already, I just hope this is an ISP matter that is going to be fixed very soon as I don’t have time for fixing right now. Hmmm … I think I better study for the finals now. 😛

  • The Aftermath

    Yes, I know this is a story long overdue. I’ve had three very long mornings of derangement and two evenings of sleepful nights—very, very unusual for me. Bagyong Milenyo made sure of that. We lost power the morning of September 28. By the morning of the 30th, we’ve used up all stored water for bathing (since our village relies on water pumps and we do not have a big water tank at home). After going to school, I immediately went to my grandparents’ house in Quezon City instead of going home since their power was brought back just a day after the storm. My mother brought me clothes enough to last me for the weekend, and though electricity came back to our house the night we were on my grandparents’ house, I stayed there for two nights since I haven’t been with my cousins for a long time. Four days without blog hopping and mail checking dented me internally. *exaggerating*

    But that wasn’t the only aftermath I’ve encountered. Guess what the other one is …

    Well, I currently am taking Differential Equations, a Math subject, this semester. After Math? I would still take Differential Equations. Yes, I failed it this sem; my *curses* professor announced it right after the last class of the semester. T_T

    Hmmm … looking at the bright side. I am exempted from taking the final exams since I would still fail anyway. No need to bother studying that right now. *tee-hee*

  • Capturing Moments

    Being one who has interest in photography but never actually learned from another on how to do it, I just take whatever photo my simple digital point-and-shoot camera could take; copying the manner of how other photos were taken, and not taking into account the features my camera possesses. [Raindrop photo taken during the seminar] In fairness to me, some [non-photography inclined] people say that I, most of the time, take good pictures—well, on automatic.

    Having the chance to attend the Basic Digital Photography Seminar of the Engineering Student Council, I then learned a lot about the insides of a camera. Representatives from Canon taught us how aperture, shutter speed, exposure, flash and all other things work together [or separately] to produce a certain quality of photograph.

    Photo exhibiting a macro focus on the flower foreground.

    The seminar was just a short one, as most of the time was spent printing them. [For free!] But the Documentation Committee who managed the seminar took my [four] prints to be placed on a future exhibit. I still have the digital copies of course. Take a look at my Flickr set.

    By the way, my nose bled when they were setting up their equipment. They displayed three Canon Digital SLRs with one having almost the same price as a used car! They also had a two printers with them. One of which prints borderless postcards directly from the camera. *holding onto my nose now*

  • Musing #0006

    Why be bitter when you should have been proud you’ve had a chance to show what you’ve got?