Whew, finally after the whirlwind travels to Benguet and Davao, I’m finally back in Cagayan de Oro. Talk about much needed rest. Now is the perfect time to reflect on the events.

QITC Convention

The convention was really fun despite me having to rush because my flight the next day is quite early. I had fun meeting Ms. Yolynne Medina for the first time. We’ve been exchanging emails and chatting on Gmail for quite some time and the meetup at the convention was one meeting long overdue. The post-convention meetup of the speakers were held at the OIC restobar at Corrales Avenue. I was actually late for the meetup but what the heck I was preparing things for my trip . I’ve finally met Calen Legaspi and JM Ibanez from Orange and Bronze. I’ve also met Aileen Apolo of Google. Others in attendance were Hanie Caragos and John Kaamino of Syntactics, Matt Baluyos, and Yolynne.

Matt, Calen, JM, and I went back to the convention venue at Country Village Hotel, and I was treated to an intellectual discussion with Calen and JM. Calen appears to me as this forceful guy while JM appears to me to be the typical geek (in a good way. I’m a geek too!). I had fun engaging in discussions with them specially when the topic between Java and .NET came. I did not stay much longer and had to bid my adieu late in the night.

To JM and Calen, its been really nice meeting you guys. Hope to meet you again sometime and have those discussions again perhaps over coffee .

To Yolynne, its been great meeting you. Hope we can work together soon on how we can further FOSS intitiatives in Mindanao.

To Aileen Apolo, hope Google will have something in store for the IT guys in Mindanao

To RJIan, sorry I wasn’t able to meet you in person in the convention dude. Perhaps next time

To the QITC organizers, thanks for having me at the convention. Keep it up!

The first leg of my Manila trip was ok. Got fed up with the traffic at EDSA last night when I tried to go to Makati from my stay at Ortigas. A couple of taxis did not take me. Now, I’m in a mining town virtually owned by PHILEX Mining. The place is called the Padcal Operation. Everything here, from hospitals, schools, electricity, roads, cooking gas supplies were provided by PHILEX free to all the town inhabitants which are also its miners and their families. It was a tiring trip from Manila to here but it was great. And tomorrow, my training will begin.

I’ll be training five PHILEX Mining IT staff on Novell ZENworks Desktop Management. It’s just amazing that a location this remote, about an hour from Baguio city proper across rugged but well-paved terrain, technology is at its finest. The PHILEX Mining site is a huge area which, to my estimation, would actually comprise a couple of medium-sized towns/municipalities. However, its various sections and buildings interspersed across the vast area, wireless technology provided a vital data and communication backbone.

I was even surprised to find out that they have cable TV here. Still provided by PHILEX for free. They got the cable from DreamTV Satellite. And yes, they have internet here or else I wouldn’t have posted this. I dunno yet who the provider is, however, it’s a safe bet that this also runs piggyback on Dream’s own cable tv/satellite.

For now, I have to sign off and post updates later.

Technorati Tags: Benguet, Baguio, trip, Novell, ZENworks, training, PHILEX, mining
Site Search Tags: Benguet, Baguio, trip, Novell, ZENworks, training, PHILEX, mining

Whew, it certainly is a very busy week for me. Just this week, my trip to Manila and Baguio is confirmed. However, I’m not going for a vacation.

Despite the destination being a known vacation spot and all that, I’m not going to Baguio to relax. This coming January 29th I’m going to conduct a training for Philex Mining on how to deploy and use Novell ZENworks Desktop Management. For the whole week, I’ve been busy preparing training and discussion materials and doing simulations. There’s nothing better than making sure that your material works everytime you do the training. Sadly, as much as I wanted to, this training is not open source-related. However, there’s a big chance I can swing them over to give Linux and open source a try. The one thing I appreciate with ZENworks despite it being a proprietary product is that it does install on top of Linux, either SLES or Red Hat.

It really is a full week for me. For one, we just finished checking the mail server of a big client. They’ve had issues with POP3 authentication. Turns out its a DNS problem. All their machines point to external DNS servers owned by an ISP. Everytime their Outlooks authenticate to their POP3 server, their workstations shoot the hostname requests to the ISP DNS. If the requests push through and are received by the POP3 server, it then shoots the reply back to the ISP DNS. No wonder their POP3 accesses are having timeouts. We’ve recommended having an internal DNS server and they’ve already put it into their own development plan which will be put into action by February. We’ve checked traffic from the internet to their mail server and so far incoming mails are received and we can send mail through IMAP without any problems.

That very same ISP I was talking about, is having problems with their network and they are currently suffering from intermittent connections. It is also a mobile services carrier. Just last week, they’ve had big problems with mobile phone signals wherein calls and SMS not going through.

For my trip, I’ll be stopping by Manila for a day to take the Certified Linux Professional practicum exam. I’m hoping to be able to pass. The sad thing is that with my very hectic schedule, I did not find any time to do any review nor got the time to study throughly. It’s anybody’s guess whether I’ll pass this or not. I’ll give myself a 25% chance of passing. My regular daily schedule by the way is consumed by doing client visits, reviewing products from Novell and Alcatel-Lucent, doing product presentations, planning and doing SLES deployments and Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Office IP-PBX deployments, planning for technical demos, and if a little time could be spared, keeping watch of the company mail server and proxy server. Yeah, its quite a handful. But I get by somehow.

Before I go on the trip, I’ll be giving a talk about Linux at the Quantum and Information Technology Convention organized by Xavier Computer Enthusiasts League (XCEL) and the Ateneo Information Management Society (AIMS) of Xavier University. That’s going to be tomorrow January 25th (26th in the US).

Along with members of various Linux and opensource enthusiasts, I’ll be meeting with Ms. Yolynne Medina, Channel Consultant and Networking Staff for the International OpenSource Network (IOSN) on January 26th to talk about the current status of the local groups and their plans and directions. I’d be happy to help out in this arena.

On the 27th, after arrival in Manila if time permits, I’ll be meeting Greg Moreno and hopefully also Bobby Santiago of the Philippine Ruby Users Group. I just hope there’s going to be a Ruby meeting so I can also attend .

This week alone is quite tiring with all the things I need to do to resolve some pending works and preparing for the trip. Hopefully the training will go seamlessly so I can relax and enjoy the trip. I also hope that I’ll have a little more extra time later, should some Ubuntu Philippines guys would like to meet up (hint, hint).

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Baguio, Manila, trip, Linux, OpenSource, Ruby, SLES, Ubuntu,
Philippine+Ruby+Users+Group, Novell, Alcatel-Lucent, IOSN, QITC,
Site Search Tags: Baguio, Manila, trip, Linux, Ubuntu, SLES,OpenSource, Ruby, Philippine+Ruby+Users+Group, Novell, Alcatel-Lucent, IOSN, QITC,

My sis just popped up a comment in the tagboard saying she just “tagged” me. No, I don’t really know what kind of “tag” she’s talking about. Perhaps this is the latest “in” thingy for most of the blogozens. The only “tags” I know of are the HTML markup tags, the Technorati “tags” and blog tags, and those tags you get to see on clothes .

Anyways this is for you Sis.

1. How long have you been blogging?

Almost 3 years. Started August 2005. Baudizm’s archive lists it

2. What inspired you to write a blog and who are your mentors?

At that time, I was just curious how it is to blog and tried it. Later on, it caught on me and been blogging eversince. Nobody taught me really. I just love to write.

3. What are the 3 things you love about being online?

- learning things
- communicating with family and friends
- sharing what little things I learn to others

4. What are the 3 things that you struggle with in the online world?

- none as far as I can remember.

It’s not always that I post an entry that is somewhat too far away from what this blog is all about. However, I just had to put this on in here. I just finished watching the final night of ABS-CBN’s Pinoy Big Brother along with the family and guess what? For me, it is the best season of Pinoy Big Brother ever. Yes, despite being a geek and a nerd, I too have a life, and I do watch PBB from time to time when taking breaks from the geek stuff.

What sets this season apart is that one participant came from Mindanao, most importantly from Davao. Although I grew up, lived, got married and had a kid in Cagayan de Oro, I was born a Davaoeño, and still have the heart of a Davaoeño. (Both my parents are University of Mindanao alumnis.) I was rooting for a fellow Davaoeño Ruben Gonzaga to become PBB’s big winner. And win he did! Nope, we do not know him personally. However, there’s just the feeling that somehow, the whole of Mindanao won along with him.

During the start of the season, it seemed as though the odds are against him. Typical “promdi” - colloquialism for “from the province”. His personality was way different from those of the other participants who either were big actors and actresses or ready-made, established, half-bred models.

Ruben’s biggest “bomb” that he showed to televiewers I think came during the Christmas season when each housemate was asked for the gifts that they would like to have for Christmas. Almost everyone asked for something material and mundane like that cool LCD TV, a laptop, an organ, and other thingamajig. Ruben asked that he be able to see his mom, his aunt, and his grandma. PBB reunited them all on the show. Yeah, it added viewership and drama to the show however for Ruben, reuniting his family is all that mattered. Added drama also was when he proposed to his fiancee, and when the show organized his wedding on public television.

I’m pretty sure the forums at the PBB site will be swarmed with tonight’s results. I’m also pretty sure that Davao will be preparing for a big welcome for their triumphant son. I on the otherhand will be looking from afar, clapping my hands and nodding my head for a job well done for Ruben who showed them that being a “promdi” is not such a bad thing and that the heart of a Mindanaoan transcends boundaries regardless of where you are, who you’re with, or where you’ve been.

Congratulations Ruben for a job well done! Enjoy your newfound leash on life!

And now back to your regular geeky programming…

Technorati : PBB, Pinoy+Big+Brother,
Site Search Tags: PBB, Pinoy+Big+Brother

This holiday season is quite long for me. Aside from the hectic shopping, and being busy preparing for the holiday feast, I’m actually quite bored. So I decided to prep up the layout for this blog and update it for the coming New Year.

Overall them is almost the same as previous — black, orange, red. Updated the overall layout and a new banner graphic. Nothing fancy. Just something simple and basic. Sticking to simplistic layouts will make it easier for me. Afterall, I’m busy with other matters than tinkering with my blog . Some link buttons were not incorporated yet. I will integrate them one by one later on. That’s pretty much it.

For now, do let me know if you like the layout. You can leave a comment, or just use the tag board.

Happy Holidays!

Because of my very busy schedule, I wasn’t able to check up on Google’s reply regarding my AdSense dilemma. However, checking my email, I was able to see Google AdSense Team’s reply. Short, concise, and totally worthless…


Delivered-To: << my email >>
Received: by 10.90.35.5 with SMTP id i5cs111661agi;
Tue, 9 Oct 2007 14:12:32 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.66.251.3 with SMTP id y3mr1148963ugh.1191964351537;
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:12:31 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <bounce-20-201178509@trakken.google.com>
Received: from smtp-out.google.com (spaceape17.eur.corp.google.com [172.28.16.151])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id c24si9747619ika.2007.10.09.14.12.30
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:12:31 -0700 (PDT)
;
; other header info snipped...
;
;

Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:02:16 -0000
From: "Google AdSense" To: << my email >>

Subject: Re: [#201178509] None of the above

Message-ID: <#14.bfdbd8d.5d70fcf.470bec58.590@google.trakken.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
In-Reply-To: <000fea81eb2d043ab3251316e99820@google.com>
User-Agent: Neotonic Trakken/cortex-3.1.21C

Hello,

We're working as quickly as we can to address this issue. As soon as we
have more information for you, we'll be sure to send you an email.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

If they make the gesture on following up on my case, fine and good. If not, then we can’t force the issue. I’m fine knowing that the Google AdSense Team and the AdSense service isn’t worth my time.

Technorati : Google, AdSense, follow-up, ads, advertisement, monetize, web
Site Search Tags: Google, AdSense, follow-up, ads, advertisement, monetize, web

Blogging has caught on with the masses and it is pretty evident that virtually anyone that is connected to the net, and spends a great deal of time connected, will eventually decide to put up his or her own blog. Mine’s no exception.

However, it is really quite a challenge to keep this blog up and running and having some dedicated readers (if at all) interested in reading my posts. Plus add to the mix a wide assortment of spam bots that flood the commenting feature. To remedy the situation, for quite some time already and to a certain degree of success, I have put up some restrictions to what one can do with the commenting functionality of the blog. The comment feature is here for all the readers to post comments on certain topics. If a comment is not related to a specific topic or related to the overall theme of this blog, the comment will be considered spam and will not be tolerated.

I have been using Kitten’s Spaminator to watch over the comments posted on this blog. I have also enabled that comments be reviewed by me personally first before the comment appears. This is not basically tantamount to censorship to your opinions and everyone has a right to your opinions. And I am very much thankful for your participation and continued support to this blog (even if there’s only a few of you reading this).

Like any method or technology the Spaminator is not perfect, and might from time to time be able to block comments that may contain obscene/pornographic, or derogatory statements and expletives. It may also block excessive links that is contained in the comments. It also blocks some “known” IP addresses (yes this blog logs your IP) that are known to me to have dubious and malicious intentions against me, or my personal integrity.

However, from the first day I started to use the Spaminator, its the first time that it blocked and otherwise okay post. And it is with this that I would like to apologize to James Ryley. Spaminator detected his post as having excessive links when in fact it is not. Here’s his original comment as emailed to me directly by Spaminator:

The details:
Strikes : 18/5
How : excessive links, empty field - author url, url dashes
IP Addr : xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Referer : http://baudizm.blogsome.com/wp-comments-post.php
Client :
Request : POST /wp-inst/wp-comments-post.php
Post ID : 99
Email :
Author : james ryley
URL : FreePatentsOnline.com
Body:
I saw your page at http://baudizm.blogsome.com/2007/05/25/opinion-eff-and-novell-partnership-against-software-patents/ and wanted to suggest a resrouce to add: http://www.FreePatentsOnline.com. This site allows free patent searching, free PDF downloading, free alerts, and more. It is a good resource for IP attorneys, patent searchers, scientific researchers, students, and small businesses.

To James Ryley, sorry for the mishap and thank you for visiting my blog and taking time to comment on one of my post and sharing another great link resource. I will visit the link you gave me and take a look at it. I might even add it to my Link list. I will also add your comment myself on your behalf. Thanks once again.

To all the other readers and visitors out there, I might not have enough time to put up sometime, however rest assured I’ll put up something much more informative in the posts to come. Thank you very much for your support and God Bless!

Technorati : blogging, comments, spam, blocking, censorship
Site Search Tags: blogging, comments, spam, blocking, censorship