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Mostly Everything

Enjoy our Tubbataha 2011 Video

Hi! This is a short, 3 minute video summarizing our 6 day, 15-dive trip to Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea. Mantas, eagle rays, turtles, schooling jacks and barracudas and a visit to the ranger station.

video by Chie Clemente
edited by Jayvee Fernandez
music “Summer” by “Ike as in Dwight”

Categories
Mostly Everything

A look into Plancast or what’s about to be called “Social Scheduling”


Nobody wants to watch Kenny Loggins with me 🙁

There’s a new web app I’m loving and it’s called Plancast. People who don a social media marketer hat call this thing “social scheduling” where users can share events they’re attending based on location and category. So I decided to try it out and I must say that it has its uses: (1) you don’t need to be a member per se to see events as you can get invites via Facebook and Twitter. (2) Unlike Facebook that’s very much promotes friend-centric events, Plancast pushes events around your area. Yes the app asks for your geo-location.

The screen grab above is me inviting two friends whom I think would highly appreciate watching Kenny Loggins Live in Manila on the 22nd of May. I can invite them, send them an automated Twitter DM and I can even add Plancast to my Google Calendar (or Outlook or Yahoo! Calendar) so any event I approve automatically gets scheduled and synced. Just like Facebook Events for some devices. Right now it only seems to work for the web and on the iPhone.

Of course, the business application here is quite obvious. If I search for “Makati” and your establishment has a happy hour event listed, that’s how I’m going to discover it. So the difference here is that unlike Facebook where you’re most likely going to get passive event invites from people who were tagged by friends, Plancast is a more pro-active events finder as it’s more targeted by location and interest.

As of today’s writing, there’s only one event listed under Makati: the Android April 2011 Community Meetup organized by Charo. I can share this event to friends outside Plancast as well. If your friends are on Twitter and Facebook you have the option of auto-subscribing to them when they go on board.

I suggest you give Plancast a try. And then we can schedule our own Zombie Apocalypse!!!

Categories
Mostly Everything

Earning from your blog: The Realities

As more and more people are taking on the role as bloggers to make money, a lot become misinformed about how EXACTLY you earn and what degree of commitment it takes on your end. How relevant is Adsense today? What are the consequences of paid posts and sponsorships? Does SEO still matter? What are the real reasons why companies hold blog events?

When: April 30 2011 2:30pm – 4:00pm
Where: Asian Institute of Management
Admission is free. Bring your friends.

FACEBOOK SIGN UP

The Blog & Soul is holding another session on April 30 to discuss what monetizing your blog really means. Included in the panel are veteran bloggers who earn from their blogs and representatives from advertising networks. We’re also trying to get business owners who have dealt with bloggers before (or are thinking of inviting bloggers) to attend, so we can discuss the expectations and responsibilities of each party.

Come. It will be epic. This is a series of seminars we are organizing for free to help the blogging community understand what they’re really getting into when they decide to make money from blogging. We are composed of volunteer bloggers and representatives from digital agencies.

Categories
Mostly Everything

Giant Manta in Tubbataha

A giant manta ray “flying” past our dive group from one of the walls in Tubbataha.

Video by Chie Clemente. Taken with the JVC FM1.

Categories
Mostly Everything

The No Bullsh*t Speed Test of SMART’s LTE (Warning: Video is 25 minutes long)

There is a satellite station for the LTE booth located near my hotel. I heard that they degraded the signal to “divert all power” to the central booths where Rico Blanco performed. I got a bright idea. I decided to do a real speed test. What would happen if we had a degraded LTE signal (without shifting to HSPA) trying to go through several layers of concrete? I was at the Real Maris Hotel. The center stage is located near Aria in D’Mall fronting the beach. That’s relatively far PLUS the fact that my hotel room is located near the road. At the booth I am guaranteed over 50Mbps — that’s about 6 MEGABYTES per second. But in the real world, I don’t think this will hold true given location of you in conjunction to the cell sites and the number of users accessing the signal.

Also, what if we were pinging servers from the USA? Here’s a screenshot of what kind of speeds you are getting if your server is located in Washington and the sites you are accessing from the PH are not cached OR not being downloaded from a dedicated server.

So I ran back to my room, skipped a massage (haynaku), fired up my ScreenFlow and spent the next 30 minutes making this actual speed test. I promised myself that I would post whatever findings I had here — good or bad.

You be the judge!