The Geek Brewery

Yes, it is my blog’s first birthday!

Happy birthday to conradmiguel.com. Happy birthday conradmiguel.com. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday conradmiguel.com.

Offtopic: It’s  also my birthday today. Weeee.

Before I end, I’d also want to greet my birthaymates: AJ Maramag (who also ran for VC Externals in Kalai), Ms. Alegarbes (2nd Year HS Geometry Teacher), Ms. Palicte (2nd Year HS Biology Teacher) and the n other birthdaymates around the globe!

UPDATE as of Jan 12, 09. Comments section will be closed due to some fraud comments claiming that UPCAT results were already released. I already received 255 name-check requests, officially closing it. All further emails at upcat@conradmiguel.com will be purged. Sorry.

UPDATE as of Jan 10, 09. The Jan 9 rumor wasn’t right. According to UPCAT’s official website, it would be released on the third week of January. As of 10:06pm today, I have compiled everyone who requested for the results. Due to overwhelming number of requests, I beg that everyone follow the right format in sending the email to upcat[at]conradmiguel[dot]com as described below.

UPDATE: It’s unofficial but someone commented that it would be released on January 9. That day, anticipate heavy traffic — upcat.up.edu.ph is more likely to be inaccessible outside University Internet (DILNET). You may send your full names in advance to upcat@conradmiguel.com and I’ll email you back once I search your name in the list.

Please follow the format:
Message Subject: UPCAT – [FAMILY NAME], [GIVEN NAME] [MIDDLE NAME]
Message Receipient: upcat@conradmiguel.com
(e.g. UPCAT – GOZALO, CONRAD MIGUEL ESPINOSA)
Message Body: [Your personal message]

——————————–

Hey incoming college freshmen, I believe you’re super excited for the UPCAT Results. I will post the results of the August 2008 examination in this blog once it is released.

To keep yourself up to date, you may subscribe to my feeds thru an RSS reader or fill out the form below to receive email updates.

Good luck. Feel free to browse my blog while waiting for the results.

Recently, I’ve noticed the trend that more and more bloggers (including me) post sizzling-hot current events to increase their blog traffic. These events include heinous incidents (the RCBC Cabuyao Bank Robbery), board and college admission examination results release, controversial controversies, among others. We optimize our pages a lot to top the search engine results page. We tend to overlook the fact that this traffic is short-term, as short as a day – on lucky instances may even extend to only up to a week.

The tips I’m about to give you is how to convert your short-term traffic increase to long-term. These tips doesn’t guarantee success as I myself haven’t tested them yet. I’m still planning to shift to this traffic-increase model scheme this coming months.

• Make your pillar articles (your best content) as accessible as possible. Even if their reading a board exam result post, make sure that links to your pillars are visible. Once they get a chance to read your impressive and good posts, the more chances that they’ll return to your blog and subscribe to your feeds.
• Reduce the number of advertisements on your page, or make them less-likely to look like one. In the short-run, this might hurt your earnings a bit — but surely the short-run trade-off would bear even bigger fruits. Personally, I’m less likely to return to a blog which slaps advertisements on my face.
• RSS feed buttons and email subscription fields should be strategically placed. Usually, a reader expects an RSS feed button on the “above the fold” (top) part of the page. Also, putting an email subscription field at the end of an article is also effective especially for the techy ones who doesn’t understand RSS.
• Reply to comments. I rarely do this, but I’m planning to make this a habit. A visitor is more likely to come back to your site if they see that you reply to comments. Should they have questions, they’ll surely watch out if you’ve got them a reply.

That’s it. Just four short tips. Should you have more, just put place them on the comments and I’ll add them with a link back to you (instant link).

So the next time you’re posting a sizzling-hot current event, don’t forget to follow my tips. I bet their effective as they sound. Good luck.

Lately, I have been trying to amaze myself doing some weird stuff on Linux. Gladly, I thought of connecting my mobile phone to my Linux-running laptop for Internet.

I’d like to share it in case anyone might be concerned on how to do so.

Prerequisites

1. A Bluetooth, GPRS and/or 3G (but preferably with 3G) capable mobile phone.
2. A machine with a Bluetooth adapter.
3. Bluez Bluetooth GNOME applet (the Bluetooth icon on your system tray).
   1. If not installed, may be obtained by typing sudo apt-get bluez-gnome.

This works pretty well on my Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and Linux Mint 5.0 installation.

Here’s how to do it:

1. First of all, enable Bluetooth for the mobile phone and workstation (laptop, desktop, etc). Make sure both devices are discoverable.
2. On your workstation’s terminal (on Ubuntu, go to Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), type hcitool scan .
3. You should see your mobile phone’s name and address.
4. Now, let’s bind your device to rfcomm. Type sudo rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 <replace_this_with_address_of_device> <replace_with_channel> .
   1. Replace <replace_this_with_address_of_device> with the address you obtained from hcitool scan (the ones on the left of your phone's name).
   2. Try the values 1, 2 or 3 for <replace_with_channel>. In case the whole process doesn’t work, just unbind your device to rfcomm by typing sudo rfcomm unbind rfcomm0 and repeating the whole process again with another value.
5. After doing so, click on the network icon in your system tray (near the clock) and choose manual configuration. Unlock it with your password. Change the settings of point-to-point connection by double-clicking the option.
6. Check “Enable this connection”.
7. Choose GPRS/UMTS as Connection Type. Change access point name to “internet” without the doublequotes. For account data, just enter any username and password.
8. On the second tab named “Modem”, type /dev/rfcomm0 to modem port field.
9. On the third tab, check “Set modem as default route to internet” and “Use the internet service providers’ nameservers”.
10. Hit OK.
11. Now, check the checkbox of point-to-point connection.
12. By this time, you should have an internet connection on your workstation. If it doesn’t work, repeat the process. Note to try other channels (described in the fourth step).

That’s all. Hope it works.

These past few days, I’m having a hard time balancing my academics, house council work and the slack culture I’ve been used for so many years.

I’ve been guilty for not performing well on my academics. I’ve been guilty for not being so active in doing house council works. But I’m extremely guilty for slacking all day and night in front of my laptop playing with PHP Frameworks (CakePHP and CodeIgniter).

As the end of the semester is fast approaching, I promise myself to perform well on all three fields. I’ll try not to miss a single class, not to miss another house council deadline, at the same time not to deprive myself on entering my sweet slack culture.

Good luck to me. I still have to study well for my upcoming Math17 4th Long Exam this Friday. I still have to finish all my Machine Exercises due this Monday (it was supposed to be by groups of three but since I missed the special Monday class, I have to do it alone). I still have to reply to inbound nonrhetorical House Council letters. I still have to finish collecting data for the Kalayaan Residence Hall Association resident database. I still have to reduce my slack time that it yields an equilibrium when I sum those three fields up.

*******

I got a sure 5.0 for Physical Education 2 (Scuba Diving) for a reason that I was not able to find my class. I went to the venue of my class as stated on my Form 5, time of my class but did not find them there. I chose to enter another class on the same venue (Pool 1) – Skin Diving, for fun. I was not able to “Change Matriculation” from Scuba Diving to Skin Diving for a reason that I can’t find my instructor. I was not able to drop my subject ’cause as I’ve said I can’t find my instructor.

But it’s okay. PE units are not included on General Weighted Average (GWA) computation. At least, I’ve enjoyed swimming on the pool without the snorkels unlike my other classmates. I was able to survive in the middle of a 12-foot pool, again without the snorkels. I was able to enhance my swimming skills. I was able to increase the possibilities of me getting admitted to the Swimming Varsity.

*******

Partner Residents – our buddies from our partner corridors (in the dorm). I had three partner residents, but only know two of them. Since we’re required to have a documentation of a “date” with the partner residents, we dated. We had our dinner last night at the Treehouse (a restaurant near SOLAIR and University Avenue). Since I’m the guy of the trio (supposed to be quatrio [not sure on this], it was my treat. We shared a fraction of our lives to each other. Badly, we had to go early since I still have to attend to a House Council meeting.

*******

Computer Center (UP Computer Center) serves as the central hub that interconnects the fiber-optic backbones in UP Diliman and other UP campuses (Wikipedia). For four months, I’ve been having a good time accessing the Internet thru the facility’s wireless internet. It was fast, as fast as downloading a 700mb file in 40 minutes. How fast is that? One SpeedTest.net evaluation gave me a download speed of as high as 9,000+ kilobits per second [equivalent to 1.xx MB per second download] on a nearby testing station and as low as 1500 kilobits per second [200+ kb per second download]. Cool! But just recently, the internet users there are stuck with a slower and unstable Internet. What do I mean by slow? Only about 700+ kbps on most servers.

I know that 700+ kbps is a pretty fast home internet but being used to lightspeed Internet, it’s crappy slow. Huhuhu, I hope that it gets fixed as soon as possible.

–end–

Yesterday, me and my sister swapped laptops. While browsing her music library, I saw this interesting song, UP Naming Mahal. I listened to it and I could describe my amazement indescribable.

It was a new rendition (version) of the U.P. Naming Mahal performed by Noel Cabangon, Cooky Chua, Chikoy Pura, Gary Granada and Bayang Barrios. (more…)

Salinggawi is University of Santo Tomas dance troupe representative to the 2008 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) cheerdance competition while UP Pep Squad is the University of the Philippines’ bet. Sawi is a Tagalog term for ill-fated or more appropriately used in the sentence as unsuccessful — meanwhile wagi means the opposite.

Salinggawi did not win this year’s UAAP cheerdance competition. The said dance troupe lost against this year’s champion, the UP Pep Squad, by 8 points (85.3 against 93.3 points).

I had the chance to watch this year’s cheerdance competition at the Araneta Coliseum. Despite our attempts to buy a ticket a week before the event, we were only blessed by it on the day itself — from a scalper.

I’ll bore you off by narrating our adventure to acquiring a tumataginting na ticket — but I’m giving you the complete freedom to skip this part and proceed to the real fun.

Our first attempt to buy the ticket was a week before the event at the UP College Human of Kinetics (CHK – Gym). We woke up about 6:30am, had our breakfast and did other stuff (minus taking a bath) and by 7:15am, we went straight to CHK. The queue was already a bit long by that time. We had to wait for a long time till the sale of tickets started, 9:45am. We were shocked by the magic note on the door. It said “Tickets for September 6 Game for Sale. UPPER BOX only”. And so, we left since we were there for the September 7 event. Days later, we discovered that September 7 tickets were sold the same day at about 10am. Amf.

As days passed, rumors that the event’s tickets were already sold out. It was sad. It was very sad. (Sige, papatulugin ko kayo sa post ko!!) Gladly, a friend told me that tickets will still be sold on-site. Weeeee.

September 7, the 2008 UAAP Cheerdance Competition date. We rose up from bed from 5:45am and left the dorm by 7:30am. This time, we had our baths (wahehehehe). We rushed to Araneta Coliseum, literally. We were like crazy looking for Katipunan jeepneys, running thru the LRT hallways, etc. We reached Araneta Coliseum at about 9:00am — then found ourselves in line.

The queue was very long, spell LOOOOOOOONNNNGGGG. Same as what happened in CHK, we waited the sale of tickets to start. Gladly, the agony was limited on the 2-hour wait (for the sale of tickets). The line was progressing very fast once the sale started. Toink, toink, toink. I was already three persons away from the magic ticket when the Event Security closed the gates. The general admission tickets were already sold out. Waaaaaa.

So we ran on the red gate to get our Lower Box tickets. Again, we started at the end of a very long queue. That’s when we decided to let our friend San buy a ticket from scalpers. On desperate times, we resort to desperate measures. Fortunately, San was desperate-looking enough that scalpers were approaching him like hell. More scalpers = more choices = more competition. Final price, PhP 150.00 per ticket versus the PhP 50.00 original price. Still a good price as compared to other scalper prices (average of PhP 250.00, as high as 500)..

Weeeeeeeeeee. Some shortcut. I’ll proceed to the real fun.

The first time I watched a game in Araneta was during the UP vs NU basketball game. UP won. Yesterday was my second time, a UP vs OTHERS cheerdance competition. UP won. I think it has something to do with my presence. Wahahahaha.

I’d like to quote of this tarpaulin poster by University of Santo Tomas (UST).

Photo credit: scarereyes.blogspot.com

Photo credit: nocturnalgoddess.multiply.com

That’s a 400 [Pacman <] 100 poster. Sadly, 400 isn’t clear enough. What is 400 years of EXISTENCE to 100 years of EXCELLENCE!

Honestly, I don’t have much to tell you regarding the actual event. Tatapusin ko na ito. Waaaaaaaa.

P.S. Galing talaga ng UP. Grabe!

I am writing this offline. It is exactly 4:05am. In a dark room. In a silent place.

For the past few days, I was used to waking up by around this time. It is quite unusual for a person like me – but I did it. I did it, for the love of Y4IT. For the love of an event I always wanted to participate in since I was in high school. Blame the very early volunteers’ call time.

Y4IT is the Philippine Youth Congress in Information Technology, an annual event organized by the University of the Philippines Information Technology Training Center. It is the dubbed as the country’s biggest IT event, consistently breaking the last year’s record. The most recent one was held last September 2 to 5, 2008.

So yeah, Y4IT! I have been very busy for the past few days. There’s Y4IT, Kalai House Council, Math17 and the the supposed-to-be-held-yesterday CS11 exams. Add my other GE (General Education Subjects). What a busy week. Waking up at around to 4 to 5am, report to the Y4IT registration booth by 6 and do some volunteer work till 5pm — leaving the booth only during scheduled classes and short breaks.

Some disposition check. House council-wise, I wasn’t really active during the entire week. I can’t remember a significant stuff I made for the council. Academics-wise, I was still able to attend classes. Still on the pace of my GE subjects. So-so in my Math17 — fortunately I had ample time to review the lessons before our third long exams. Y4IT volunteer-wise, I was active.

Now, I am learning to manage my time properly. My body managed to live with only very little sleep. Honestly, I did not have the feeling of giving up — it’s just my body that’s complaining. The nice thing is that – UPITTC never failed to feed us during the Y4IT. There were lots of food in store for us, lots of carbs and protein.

This morning is the most-awaited WordCamp Philippines 2008 – the first WordCamp in South East Asia. Matt Mullenweg, the lead developer of WordPress, is in the country for the event. I don’t think I’m coming, but I’d like too. It’s up on my body to decide. My body’s thinking of getting some enough rest as of the moment, amf!

I, shifting a topic, in the middle of this rant post is odd. But I have to do this.

Zorro is one of UPD’s (University of the Philippines in Diliman) mysteries. He is this man roving around the campus in his superhero costume. A guy with a sword, a cape (the Philippine Flag), knee pads and other superhero accesories. Others claim that he’s crazy, but he actually looks (and feels) like one.

During Y4IT, Zorro hanged out in front of the event venue. Some participants, particularly from other school, was trying there best to stay out of him. But I decided to do the latter. I went near him, and heared him ranting stuff about the Government, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other stuff.

Personally, I was quite intimidated by his English skills. He spoke English better than I did. He was way more fluent than I am. I found him very interesting as he was very smart, really smart. I also heard from another an acquaintance that he was also good in Math (can still remember Calculus). My acquaintance also claimed that he was once invited for a talk and spoke well — did not speak senseless stuff as crazy people would do.

Zorro has may respect now. I’m very interested on knowing him more, maybe for an interview. My weekend goal is to find Zorro and have a documented interview with him. I’d be posting it on my blog, in case I’ll succeed on my goal.

Lastly, last night I watched Pisay for the first time. The movie was great. I prejudged it as a campus-biased (biased on the Main Campus) movie significantly focusing on the Main Campus culture. My prejudice was not right. There were some experiences there that I can relate to — we both refered to the dorm as a cage, had the same dillema of being limited to a Science and Technology related course at very young age, cafeteria experiences, etc. The movie had a very strange effect on me. I can’t understand why the last part struck me.

That would be all for now. I’m going back to my sleep.