The Geek Brewery

University of the Philippines College Admission Test or the  UPCAT is just a month away (August 1 to 2, 2009). I believe most, if not all, test takers have started preparing for the big day. Some have harnessed the power of the Internet to look for UPCAT tips. As a response, here’s a compilation of high-quality UPCAT related articles and tips.

• Tips on Taking UPCAT by The Geek Brewery
  • Sample: Don’t answer questions the way they are ordered. Try answering in random order. Some easy questions are scattered on the end part, especially in the Math part.
• What to Expect from UPCAT by Academic Clinic
  • Sample: Most of the test items are written in English, though a number of them are written in the vernacular.
• How to Increase your Chances of Passing the UPCAT by Academic Clinic
  • Sample: When in Doubt, Leave it Blank
• TIPS for UPCAT Takers (ACET, too) by Dine Racoma
  • Sample: Know where your building is located and plan how to go there and be there on time.
• Tips for UPCAT Takers by Mukamo
  • Sample: Read the comments area and get some stuff.
• UPCAT Tips 2nd Edition by oyie is forever.
  • Sample: Water is the best choice of beverage. Others end up making you a bit more thirsty. Plus it gives you a feeling of freshness without the heavy feeling that comes with soda.
• UPCAT Tips by Isobar
  • To slack off some time and haggardness, familiarize yourself with the testing center days before the exams so as to know how you can be comfortable at the date of the exam.

There we go, a compilation of good UPCAT tips from different websites.

If you have questions regarding the exam, feel free to comment on this blog entry. I’ll try my best to respond to it as fast as possible.

Everytime I boot Ubuntu, I have to mount all the partitions I need to get them up and running. But seriously, I find it annoying. Here’s a workaround that worked for me.

Identify the partition you want to automount. Mount that specific partition and open its content using File Browser. Keep in mind it’s mount point, the ones found on the location bar.

Advanced knowledge in using Linux IS NOT A prerequisite.

Open System Monitor (System -> Administration -> System Monitor). Go to the File Systems tab and find the corresponding Device of the mount point. The format would be something like /dev/sd[a-z][1-9].

Now, open terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal). Navigate to /dev/disk/by-id by typing this command:
cd /dev/disk/by-id.

Get the list of files and directories on the path by typing ls. Find your appropriate device. If it’s /dev/sda3, it should end with something like -part3. Copy the file name and paste it somewhere else such as a text-editor. (more…)

Last June 1, 2009, Air France Flight 447 fell into the Atlantic Ocean. The fleet used was an Airbus 330, the same equipment used by Philippine Airlines for medium to long haul domestic and international flights.

Similar aircraft to the Yemenia Air Flight 626’s aircraft. An Airbus A310 used by Yemenia.

Several hours ago, Yemenia Airlines Flight 626 (Yemenia Air Flight 626 or Yemenia Air Flight 627) carrying 154 people including 11 crew was reported down in Indian Ocean the coast of Comoros, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. The fleet used was yet another Airbus, specifically an Airbus A310. This is the second fatal crash of an Airbus this month. (more…)

Last Friday, we had our Globe Broadband connected at the apartment. Globe Telecom deployed a PROLiNK Hurricane 5200 as our ADSL modem. Since we wanted to share the Internet connection throughout the room, we bought a Linksys WRT54G2 wireless router.

Configuring the PROLiNK Hurricane 5200 to work with Linksys WRT54G2 wasn’t that easy. Here’s a rough guide on how to do it. This guide must work with other models (such as Hurricane 9200) and other brands, but the steps will differ. (more…)

Globe Telecom uses a transparent proxy on it’s http.globe.com.ph access point. This means when you open a website, it passes thru their server for caching or whatever purpose it might server before it reaches your cellphone or computer.

URL of image when not cached.

I’ve noticed though that they replace the URL of images inside <img> tags with another URL on their server for caching. This, in turn, causes some problems with web applications that requires authentication and generates images on the fly such as StatCounter. This replacement/caching process is only done when Globe Telecom detects that you are using a web browser on a computer or on a mobile phone (I curl-ed this website and the output did not have any URL replacements).

URL after caching. Notice, the cached and compressed image is in Globe or a third-party partner’s server.

As a workaround, you can spoof your User-Agent by modifying the headers of your requests. You may do this in Firefox by:

1. Going to about:config. A warning will have to scare you but just continue.
2. Then, find the general.useragent.extra.firefox setting. Using the filter above may help you find it.
3. Once you find it, double click the entry and change it to whatever you want. For it to work, it should not contain words like Mozilla, Firefox, Safari or other web browsers. I’ve changed mine to MikkoFox.

Have fun browsing without cached images.