December 30, 2010

The year in summary

Another year is almost over. And as I did last year, I am making a blog post summarizing 2010. This excludes the events and meetups I had attended and been part of, for I had already posted one about it.

This blog turned one last May 12. A lot has changed in my use of Blogger compared to last year. I was able to make more blog posts, most with longer contents. The design and layout has been improved by updating the existing widgets, adding a lot more, and using Blogger Draft. These changes has been made because of the inspiration I gained after having a look at my blog's statistics (using Blogger Stats).

This year also marked the first "anniversary" of my accounts in Twitter (June 22) and Plurk (September 3). Last July 27, I already created an account in LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking site. My LinkedIn profile is at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jomartigcal. I also made an account in Delicious and signed up for Google Adsense, Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.

This year, I continued studying about Android, Grails, Facebook API, and Twitter API. I also studied Plurk's API and Google APIs like Google Buzz API, Google Maps API and many more. However, I haven't really studied advanced topics yet. In the fast few months, I have been more focused on Facebook and Twitter. Now, I am developing a Facebook app, Post This, that allows users to post status updates in their Facebook wall and/or in their Twitter timeline. Also, I am still thinking of an app idea that will allow me to study, learn and develop "something good," like a nice Facebook or Twitter app.

Speaking of projects, I started a personal project, CvSEA (CvSU Student Election App). It is an open source app for student elections in CvSU (Cavite State University). It is based from Halalan, the open source voting system being developed and maintained by the UP Linux Users' Group (UnPLUG). I have started the development on the project while the talk with CvSU Naic Campus is still being done. The project is also hosted in Google Code. I also started doing a Google Chrome extension for GTUG Philippines while studying the advanced topics of the tutorial for making extensions.

I also have been more active in mapping using Google Mapmaker. There were some schools, establishments and places that I had mapped. I plan to continue doing this in the future. It is my goal to map at least one or two places every week, especially in my home town and province.

In the early part of the year, I became one of the group managers for GTUG Philippines. I'm one of those who post in the group blog and tweet using the group's Twitter account. As a group manager, I am also a member of the group for the worldwide managers of Google Technology User Groups. Now, I am listed as an organizer for GTUG Philippines chapter in the GTUGs directory page. This gave me a gtugs.org account and access to the chapter page, which I should update frequently.

It seems a lot has happened (and did not happened) this year. As 2011 comes closer, I will no longer make personal promises nor any New Year's resolution. I'll just do my best to accomplish my goals and make every day of the coming year the best day it could possibly be. So help me God.



December 23, 2010

Events and Meetups of 2010

As a software developer, I am active in my membership in some developer groups and in attending their events and meetups. I have been mosty active in Google Technology User Group Philippines (GTUGPH) and in the Association of Filipino Java Developers(PinoyJUG).

I attended all the meetups of GTUGPH. The first was the February 19 Android meetup in Room 3302 of Smart Tower, Ayala Avenue, Makati City with Miguel Paraz and Marc Lester Tan. The group had another meetup last March 10 with Dan Delima, Software Engineer from Google Japan and Christine Songco, Technical Program Manager, Developer Relations, Google Inc. about Google Visualizations API, Google App Engine (GAE) and Google Web Toolkit (GWT) at the G2iX Techbar (5F Orient Square Bldg. F. Ortigas Jr. Rd., Ortigas Center, Pasig City).

I was also present at the August 14 chill-out meetup at Cafe 5845 (Mall of Asia) and the September 14 meetup with Dan Delima at Gerry's Grill Glorietta 5. Last October 14, another meetup was held at the office of Proximity Philippines / BBDO Guerrero (11/F Insular Life Bldg, Ayala Ave., Makati City with JP Loh (HTML5 Websockets), Miguel Paraz (Web Runtime Development on Android) and Allan Ortile (Google Apps). After the talks, there was a demo of the Android-powered smartphones and tablet from Cherry Mobile, courtesy of Reggie Ramos.

Finally, I attended the Geo 3D meetup with Google Geo product manager, Bruce Polderman, and Geo community advocate, Nicole Drobeck last December 1. It was held at the office of Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Inc.

PinoyJUG had four meetups this year and I attended only three. Its first meetup was the Selenium and Spring Technology meetup last January 29 at the G2iX Techbar with Aaron Tinio (a senior QA engineer at G2iX and specializes on test automation using Selenium and Ruby) and Jasper Blues (a software engineer at ValueCommerce Phils, and the founder and lead developer of Spring Ldap-ODM). The second was the February 26 JMeter meetup at the Orange and Bronze office with the topics "Introduction to JMeter" by Brian Tan Seng and "RMI Plugin for JMeter" by JM Ibanez.

The only meetup I was not able to attend, the April 27 meetup at the G2ix TechBar ("Profiling and Heap Analysis" by Franz See and "Client-Side Performance" by Alvin De Leon), was the third. On November 3, the last meetup for the year was held at the G2iX TechBar with the topics "Common Pitfalls Experienced in Java" by Julz Cutaran and "Dive Into Agile: What Your Scrum Master Didn't Tell You" by Michael Mallete.

Aside from these events and meetups, I also attended two developer events this year. The first one is DevCon Luzon at Function Room 1, SMX Convention Center last February 9. DevCon (Developers Connect) events are gatherings designed to facilitate interaction among the software and web development professionals. I was also a part of DevFest 2010 Manila. DevFest is a free Google-sponsored event where you can learn about Google technologies and other developer-related stuff.

There are some events I had missed due to various reasons. I do hope to attend more events next year, especially those that I haven't attended yet.



December 6, 2010

Civil Service Eligible

Yesterday, I just got my CSC Certificate of Eligibility. I am now a civil service eligible under a special eligibility pursuant to Presidential Decree 907. It was filed last year but I only got time to update my application yesterday. I eventually received it on the same day.

Until now, however, I still don't know if I'll be able to use it since I do not have plans to work in the government. I just applied for it before because I no longer need to review and take the Career Service Examination. I only need to submit some requirements, pay a smaller amount and wait for the application to be processed.


November 26, 2010

Projects and projects


I have been wanting to start a great project but I have no idea yet. So, the projects I have been doing now are those that I do while studying and learning. As of now, I have two personal projects.

The first project I did was Post This, a Facebook that allows users to post status updates. For now, it can post updates in Facebook and tweets in Twitter. I am planning to do integrations in Google Buzz, Plurk and on others as well. I have been unable to continue coding on it but just recently, after fixing a bug and refactoring the code, I decided to continue development on it.

I also started CvSEA (CvSU Student Election App). It is an open source app for student elections in CvSU (Cavite State University). It is based from Halalan, the open source voting system being developed and maintained by the UP Linux Users' Group (UnPLUG). I have started the development on the project while the talk with CvSU Naic Campus is still being done. The project is also hosted in Google Code.

I am still thinking of an idea for an app or a project that will allow me to learn while developing it. Participating and contributing to an open source project sounds nice too.


November 17, 2010

Installing Apache, PHP5 and MySQL in Ubuntu


I have been using Java for years. Now, there is an open source PHP project (using CodeIgniter) I need to study and modify. Although I have studied and tried the basics of PHP and CodeIgniter before graduating in college, I already forgot most of it by now. This means I need to study and review the basics and learn some advanced topics, especially those I would need. To start with this, I need to install Apache and PHP. Here are the steps I did to install Apache, PHP and MySQL. I also enumerated the steps I did to map folders outside the /var/www directory.

Installing Apache, PHP and MySQL in Ubuntu

  • Install Apache
  • Open the terminal and execute the command sudo apt-get install apache2. After that, apache will now be installed automatically.

  • Install PHP
  • Open the terminal and execute the command sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5(This installs PHP5).

  • Restart Apache
  • Execute the command sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

  • Test the installation of PHP and Apache
  • Go to the /var/www directory (This is the directory where you should put your PHP files). Create a file, like test.php and add in it. Then open the URL http://localhost/test.php in your web browser. You should see the text "Hello World!". If not, maybe something was wrong in the installation.

  • Installing MySQL
  • Execute the command sudo apt-get install mysql-server

  • Installing php5-mysql
  • Execute the command sudo apt-get install php5-mysql

  • Restart Apache
  • After installing mysql-server and/or php5-mysql, restart the apache server again. Apache, PHP and MySQL are now installed.

Mapping folders outside of the /var/www directory

Instead of using the /var/www for your PHP files and projects, you can use other folders other by mapping the directory in an alias in the configuration file. Open /etc/apache2/conf.d/aliasin your text editor (e.g. sudo gedit /etc/apache2/conf.d/alias). Add the aliases using the syntax "Alias /URL-path /location_of_folder/" where "/location_of_folder/" is the directory of the PHP file/project and "/URL-path/" will be its localhost alias. This example would map /location_of_folder/ to http://localhost/URL-path. Restart Apache after inputting the aliases.


November 5, 2010

The Week in a Post (10/30-11/06)


Another week has passed and it has been another busy one I had not posted anything in this blog. I wanted to update it at least once a week but since I was not able to do so, I am making another "week-in-a-post." This would be the second time I'm doing this, after my blog post for September 30 to October 06. I also noticed that during the last week of the month I have been busy making me unable to update this blog (Or was it just a coincidence?).

I have started with a personal project, CvSEA (CvSU Student Election App). It is an open source app for student elections in CvSU (Cavite State University). It is based from Halalan, the open source voting system being developed and maintained by the UP Linux Users' Group (UnPLUG). I just started the project even if the talks for it with CvSU Naic Campus is still to be formalized. It only has the initial commit for now but development will be continued in the coming days. The project is also hosted in Google Code.

Last November 3, I attended the meetup of the Association of Filipino Java Developers (PinoyJUG) at the G2ix TechBar. The topics discussed were "Common Pitfalls Experienced in Java" by Julz Cutaran and "Dive Into Agile: What Your Scrum Master Didn't Tell You" by Mykol Mallete. This, I think, would be the last meetup of the group this year. I am looking forward to attend more of PinoyJUG's events and meetups next year.

Speaking of user groups, I also had some time updating the list of events and meetups of Google Technology User Group (GTUG) Philippines in its Google Sites page, and in the GTUGs.org chapter page.

Aside from all of these, most of the things that kept me busy is work-related. That's it for now. I need to rest and relax.

October 28, 2010

PinoyJUG November 3 Meetup


The Association of Filipino Java Developers (PinoyJUG) is now back on track again. PinoyJUG had "performance series" meetups before. It started with the February 27 meetup at Orange & Bronze Software Labs ("Introduction to JMeter" by Brian Tan Seng and "RMI Plugin for JMeter" by JM Ibanez). The second and the last was the April 27 meetup at the G2ix TechBar ("Profiling and Heap Analysis" by Franz See and "Client-Side Performance" by Alvin De Leon).

There will be another meetup on November 3 at 7 o'clock in the evening. The topics will be "Common Pitfalls Experienced in Java" by Julz Cutaran and "Dive Into Agile: What Your Scrum Master Didn't Tell You" by Mykol Mallete. It will be held at the G2ix TechBar (5th Floor Orient Square Bldg. F. Ortigas Jr. Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig City).

To register for the meetup, sign-up at http://signappnow.com/sheet/HyAHWMZz.

October 22, 2010

Google Technologies I'm using


Aside from the search engine itself, Google has a wide array of products, services and technologies which are unknown to some people. However, these are easy to use, efficient, and free. Here are the Google technologies I am using and have used:

Being used always Being used sometimes Have tried using
Google (web search, image search)
Blogger
Gmail
Google App Engine (for Java)
Google Apps
Google Buzz
Google Calendar
Google Chrome
Google Docs
Google Groups
Google Maps
Google Reader
Google Talk
Goo.gl
Google Code
Google MapMaker
Google Translate
Picasa
YouTube
Android (SDK)
Go
Google Blog Search
Google Charts
Google Friend Connect
Google Gadgets
Google News
Google Realtime
Google Sites
Google Trends
Google Wave
Google Web Elements
Google Web Toolkit
iGoogle
OpenSocial

I'm quite sure this list remains incomplete. Also, there are still a lot of Google Technologies I'll be using soon. And Google might release new products or technologies in the coming days.

October 14, 2010

Blog Action Day 2010:Water


Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action. This year, the issue is Water. Below is the official video for the event:

Here are the ways on how to support Blog Action Day:

  • Register your blog and create a post about a water issue or issues. The site has some suggested ideas here.
  • Sign the petition to encourage UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to continue the UN's life-saving work bringing water and sanitation to developing nations. The petition can also be embedded in your site by adding a petition widget from here.
  • Donate money through their fundraising efforts.

October 6, 2010

The Week in a Post (09/30-10/06)


Another week has passed. And as expected, I have been busy due to some factors I have been expecting. However, I do not want to keep this blog unattended. So, I planned to do weekly posts summarizing what happened in that seven days. This is the first post, covering September 30 to October 6, 2010.

Last September 30, I attended a Google Chrome event at Peoplen's Palace (Greenbelt 3). I didn't realized what the event was until I reached the venue. The place, the food and the drinks are all Google-themed. Much of what was said about Chrome were already familiar to me. What's new to me are the Google Chrome Extensions and Google Chrome Themes that were made by Filipinos.

My first Facebook app, Post This, attracted a few new users this week. Maybe it was because I had successfully added it in the Facebook Apps Gallery. I also got my first official feedback ("Looks cool.") this day. Well, I never really have any goals (like having a certain number of users) for this app. It was just a personal project I am doing while studying the APIs of Facebook, Twitter and other sites. I feel happy that there are persons who try and use the app without me asking them to do so. (This excludes some few times when I ask a friend for feedback after she used the app and found some bugs/errors.) If they find the app useful, they can use it and if they don't like it, they can remove the app. I would also welcome feedback and suggestions.

I also have started in the new work assignment (new team, new project, new workplace). As of now, I still have a lot to learn and I am hoping to do it faster to be an asset to the team. Some other things that I did this week are creating an account in Delicious, and clarifying some matters about the open source project which I am about to make a customized implementation, hopefully.

September 30, 2010

Adjustments


These past few days, I have been into a period of adjustment. I have a new work assignment: new team, new project. There's a lot of things I need to learn and I must learn them fast.

Also, I have a new way of managing time to get things done. I will try to minimize multitasking and concentrate on some tasks. Other things which are not yet that important or urgent will be scheduled in a later time. I want to do this to be able to accomplish something, even if it is just small, than finishing a few parts of different projects.

Finally, I am about to do a project, which is more of an open source development. I'll be doing this to help and hopefully, to advocate open source technologies and development. I'll just be blogging more details about this as soon as I start the project.

September 24, 2010

Post This now tweets


I have been developing a Facebook app while studying about Facebook API. The one I am developing, Post This, is an app that allows users to post status updates. Last week, I had finished my first working prototype. It is my plan to add features to it, like posting to Twitter, Google Buzz and others more in the future.

This week I focused on the code for posting status updates in Twitter. I already have basic knowledge of the Twitter API so I thought it would be easier. However, this has not been the case in real life. It took me a of retries and recoding. There were even times it was working in my account and not on other's. (Maybe I should blog about that experience in a future post)

All these proved worthy because It now works. My Facebook app can now post in the Facebook wall and/or in Twitter.

September 20, 2010

What's New?



Most of the recent posts has been focused more about this blog. Indeed, a lot has changed in this blog. From being a blog with a generic template, it transformed into a much improved one. It was good and blogging about the changes feels good too. However, this blog is not just about its design and layout; it is about me. So I decided to go back to blogging about the things I do. For starters, here are some of the updates in the last few weeks.

I have been busy studying various APIs, especially the Facebook API, in the last few months. Now, I am developing a Facebook app, Post This, an application that allows users to post status updates. While I study the Twitter API, Google Buzz API and other platforms, I'll continue coding this app. I am also wishing to develop a major Facebook app.

I also have been more active in mapping using Google Mapmaker. There were some schools, establishments and places that I had mapped. I plan to continue doing this in the future. It is my goal to map at least one or two places in my home town or province every week.

And finally, what are the new changes in this blog? After major changes in the past days, as posted in my previous blog entries, there were only some minor modifications done. The links widget near the footer has been removed. It was replaced by social media icons (linked to my accounts) at the upper part of each page. I added a space for the disclaimer and my personal projects. Also, I put a Google Talk chatback badge, a widget that would allow any reader to chat with me when I'm online, even if they don't have a GTalk account.

September 16, 2010

Post This


As I have been reading and studying about Facebook API, I decided to do a simple app. This way, I can apply what I learn and produce an output. I am developing Post This, an app that allows users to post status updates. For now, it only works in Facebook but I am still doing the codes for posting in Twitter, Google Buzz and other platforms.
Users can try the app by going to https://apps.facebook.com/post-this. The app's profile can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=140517145987751.

September 9, 2010

Blog Updates


After doing initial renovations to this blog last week, I spent some time again this week to do another round of changes.

I temporarily removed the twitter widget as it takes a fairly large amount of space. I'm still thinking if I should put it back because I already have a plan to put social media icons (with links, of course) in the blog. I added a blogroll containing links to friends's blogs, and the pages widget. For now, I have created a "Contact Me" page with an embedded Google Docs form to collect feedback. And last but definitely not the least, I added Twitter's Tweet button, Facebook's like and share button and Google Buzz' button in this post. Every post starting today will have these buttons. If I would have more time, I will add these to previous posts.

As of now, I am still working on more updates to the blog.

September 1, 2010

Initial Blog Renovation

After seeing my blog's statistics using Blogger Stats, I became more inspired to renovate and improve this blog more.

I updated the layout of the blog and changed the default number of posts in the home page from 1 to 3. Aside from these, I also added the following in the blog: Google search box, labels cloud, twitter widget, and the Proudly Pinoy logo. These are just the initial upgrades to the blog. There are more to come...

August 31, 2010

Blog Stats

Earlier, I saw and read about Blogger Stats from the Blogger Buzz blog. Blogger Stats is a new feature of Blogger where you can see statistics about your blog. What's cool about Blogger Stats is that it is already integrated in your blogger account, so you don't have to do anything at all to be able to use it. It can be found in the blogger dashboard. There's a new tab there labeled Stats. Also, it provides real-time statistics.

With Blogger Stats, you can see the daily, weekly, monthly, all-time and real-time page views. The page views are grouped by country, browser and operating system. You can also view the traffic sources of your blog: the referring URLS, sites and search keywords. And all these stats are presented in nice graphs.

So, I tried it out and discovered some great things about my blogs. I found out that my blog has been visited by people from US (26 pageviews), China (20), Russia (14), Canada (4), Spain (3), Netherlands (3), India (2), New Zealand (2), and Kuwait (1); aside from visitors from the Philippines (157) from May to August of this year. Of the said visitors, 45% used Google Chrome, 21% used Internet Explorer and 17% used Mozilla Firefox.

After finding all these out, I felt a little bit of happiness because others have viewed my personal blog. Because of this, I will really do my best to update the blog more frequently and to post more quality articles.

August 18, 2010

A new start?

It's been so long since the last time I last posted something in this blog. I originally planned to be more active in blogging but have been busy the past few days.

As of now, I am doing a lot of things: coding, studying, reading, watching, thinking, planning and many more. There are still a lot of things I need to do, should do and must do.

For now, I need to rest and sleep. I'll just continue everything tomorrow... one by one, step by step.

July 27, 2010

Linkedin Account

I just created an account on Linkedin. My profile is http://www.linkedin.com/in/jomartigcal. As of now, I only started adding connections and will continue to do so and also edit the profile in the coming days.

July 2, 2010

DevFest 2010 Manila

I will be attending Google DevFest 2010 Manila on July 6, 2010. It will be held at UP-Ayala Technohub from eight thirty in the morning to six in the evening.

Google D3vF3st is a free developer event where you can learn a lot about Google technologies and others more. The last time there was a DevFest in the Philippines two years ago. This year, I can now attend one. The topics this year are Chrome/HTML5, App Engine, Social APIs and Maps API and the speakers are Jeremy Orlow, Daniels Lee, Patrick Chanezon, Timothy Jordan and Bob Aman.

More information about the event can be found at http://code.google.com/events/devfests/2010/asia1.html.

June 24, 2010

A year on Twitter

It has already been a year after I started using Twitter. I signed up for my account on June 22, 2009.

I have been using Twitter almost daily to tweet and read other's tweets. I have been following friends, officemates, IT professionals and open-source projects and individuals. It has been my source of real-time information, news, and even jokes.

Usually, I use twitter.com but I have also used other ways to connect to Twitter. Twitter is one of the few sites I browse using my mobile phone. Sometimes before, I have also tried using Ping.FM and gladlyCast to tweet. I have used the auto-post-to-Twitter feature of Plurk. There are a lot of other apps built on the Twitter platform and famous Twitter clients. I have used and tried a few Twitter apps but I still haven't used third-party Twitter clients yet.

What I just don't like about Twitter is the frequent fail whales.

June 14, 2010

A year of blogging

I started blogging on May 12, 2009, a few days after being employed at Orange and Bronze Sofware Labs, Inc. Blogging doesn't really attract me that time. Part of the reason why I finally wanted to blog is just to have a chance to write again because I am already missing writing (I have been a campus journalist in college). Although the medium is different, I still feel satisfied after posting a new blog entry.

What I blog before includes articles about me, my work and my experiences. Then I started blogging some things I learn at work. However, most of what I post now are about some local developer communities and events. This includes Google Technology User Group Philippines (GTUG Philippines) and the Association of Filipino Java Developers(PinoyJUG).

During free times, I am writing articles for my blog. I told myself that I will update this blog more often by posting articles at least once a month. After learning it's already a year since I first blogged, I visited the blog. There are already many posts but I noticed my inactivity for months. I have been working on various activities that I had almost forgotten about my blog. Aside from work and other work-related matters, the following are the things that keep me busy the past days:

  • I have been studying Android development. We decided to join the Globe Challenge for Android, an Android app competition sponsored by Globelabs. The deadline of submission of entry is on June 28, 2010 but as of now, we are still cramming in the development (I am praying we finish this on time). We are not really after the prize money but on what we will learn in developing using the Android platform.
  • I also have been reading various learning materials about various subjects and topics. This made me learn additional information but took away some of my time for blogging.
  • I have been watching more videos, movies and TV series on my free time. This includes Naruto, Chuck and other recent films.
  • There are some personal matters which bother me in the last weeks. These private issues kept my find busy.

I am hoping that I can now be more active on this blog and on the GTUG Philippines blog where I am a contributing blogger.

May 4, 2010

Mapping using Google MapMaker

I have always been thankful to Google Maps. It has been a great help for me since the time I first used it. Now, it is time to pay back by contributing in Google Map Maker.

I tried using Google Map Maker yesterday and mapped some schools. Actually, I mapped these schools as part of Google's Find Your Precint, an ongoing effort to map precincts/voting centers. I only had mapped a few locations. I hoped to map my Alma Mater Elementay school as the first to map. However, it has already been mapped so I chose the school nearest and it has became my first published contribution to Google Maps.

I am hoping I can help even more by mapping more locations starting today. I just wish I will have more spare time for it.

April 23, 2010

Working at Orange and Bronze

This day mark my first year anniversary at Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Inc. I originally planned to make a post about it but had been very busy these past few days. To make up for it, I posted below the employee testimonial I made and submitted last month.

As of the time of writing this, I have been working at Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Inc. for almost a year. I still remember the time before I got employed here. I was hesitant to accept the job offer because of several reasons. First, I am just new to Java. I have been using Java for less than a year (for my thesis) and everything I know was because of self-studying. Another was the distance of the workplace from our home. I need to adjust to the new environment and culture.

It even came to a point that I had to seek for advice from my mentor in school. Then, after thinking about it for a few days, I told myself "Why not?" I belived that becoming an Orange and Bronze employee would be the best career choice for me.

On my first weeks in the company, I had attended their Java Boot Camp. It made me re-learn what I already knew and understand what I thought I knew before. I also learned new things about Java and software engineering, the type of things my teachers could not teach me.

Now, I am really happy that I had decided to work here. I am so proud that I am now a member of the Orange and Bronze family. A lot has in me changed after I joined the company, aside from the natural physical changes. What I am now is so different from what I was a year before. I have learned a lot and I am still learning every day.

Here are some of the reasons why I love working at Orange and Bronze:

  • The office is like a second home and the O&B family is your family.
  • The working environment is too nice and comfortable that sometimes you would not think you are at work.
  • You are surrounded by awesome people who are skilled and knowledgeable, if not experts. Anybody can and will serve as your mentor.
  • It feels so nice to work with O&B employees, for they are friendly , helpful and approachable, even those in the management.
  • Nobody ever goes to work late. The standard working hours is from nine in the morning to six in the evening but you can come in at 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 or even in the afternoon. And you can do this without being fined!
  • There is no dress code to follow. You can even go to work in shorts and slippers.
  • There is virtually no limitation on the usage of internet connection. You can browse sites like Facebook and micro-blogs like Twitter and Plurk, listen to music streaming sites, watch videos in YouTube and other related websites, play games and even download files.
  • You can take a nap or even sleep during working hours. There are couches for that purpose if you dont want to sleep in your chair.
  • There are a lot of books about different topics, which you can read while at work or borrow and take home with you. (And most of these books are not available in the local bookstores.)
  • Free rice, free water, free coffee, and free iced tea! (I think these freebies are some of the reasons why I now look fat to others)

April 19, 2010

New Look (via Blogger Draft)

After almost a year, this blog's design will be improved again. It has been changed once before but due to time constraints, the blog was not fully beautified. Now, despite being busy in work and other important matters, I will be improving this blog's look slowly.

This can now be made easily using Blogger Draft. Blogger Draft is a new feature in Blogger where you can edit the blog, including its design and layout, while viewing the changes before you apply them. Using this, you can try out different styles and customize the blog without the unnecessary side effects. It will be a great help for me as I revive this blog.

Aside from constantly improving the blog, I am also planning to post more entries in the future.

March 10, 2010

GTUGPH meetup (March 10, 2010)

This blog entry was originally posted in the GTUG Philippines blog.

The Google Technology User Group (GTUG) Philippines had another meetup last March 10, 2010 with Dan Delima, Software Engineer from Google Japan and Christine Songco, Technical Program Manager, Developer Relations, Google Inc.

Dan discussed Google Visualizations API, Google App Engine (GAE) and Google Web Toolkit (GWT).

The meetup was held at the Tech Bar of G2iX.

February 26, 2010

PinoyJUG JMeter meetup

The Association of Filipino Java Developers(PinoyJUG) had a meetup last February 26, 2010. It was held at fifth floor of Orange & Bronze Software Labs, Inc. office.

The meetup was about Performance testing and JMeter. Apache JMeter is open source software, a 100% pure Java desktop application designed to load test functional behavior and measure performance. It was originally designed for testing Web Applications but has since expanded to other test functions.

The speakers were Brian Tanseng, president and CEO of 98Labs Inc. and JM Ibanez, a software architect from Orange & Bronze Software Labs. Brian's topic was Introduction to JMeter. He covered basic terminologies, setup, distributed testing and interpreting results. JM discussed the RMI Plugin for JMeter he developed. The plugin is open-source and allows developers to leverage JMeter's GUI and infrastructure for load testing to also load test RMI-based client-server applications.

February 22, 2010

GTUGPH Android Meetup

The Google Technology User Group (GTUG) Philippines had another meetup last February 19, 2010. It was held at Room 3302 in Smart Tower, Ayala Avenue, Makati City.

The meetup was about Android, the open-source mobile operating system from Google. Miguel Paraz and Marc Lester Tan served as the speakers.

February 9, 2010

DevCon Luzon 2010

Developers Connect: that is what DevCon is. As the name implies, it is an event for developers to connect with each other. However, it is more than that. DevCon is designed to be a premier gathering of all Filipino software engineers.

When I first heard about DevCon last year, I became curious and wanted to attend it. However, it was held on Cebu and Davao so I just waited for the event in Manila. After months of waiting, I had finally attended DevCon Luzon which was held on February 9, 2010 from four in the afternoon to nine in the evening at Function Room 1, SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.

DevCon was co-located on the second day of the 10th e-Services Global Sourcing Conference and Exhibition, the government-led business event for the ICT and BPO sector. It was sponsored by Oracle, Accenture, Microsoft, and G2iX.

February 3, 2010

Installing Microsoft TrueType Fonts in Ubuntu

In using OpenOffice, we might see that the document created using Microsoft Office looks different. This is because OpenOffice does not have Microsoft fonts by default. How do we solve this?

But this should not be a problem. You can do it through Microsoft True Type Fonts. To install it in Ubuntu, just open a terminal and key-in:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts.

When the msttcorefonts package is installed, you can not only view the document the way it was created and styled, you can also use the new fonts in creating your own documents using OpenOffice.

The Truetype Microsoft fonts in the package are:

  • Andale Mono
  • Arial Black
  • Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  • Comic Sans MS (Bold)
  • Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  • Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  • Impact
  • Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  • Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  • Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic)
  • Webdings

January 26, 2010

PinoyJUG 2010: Selenium :: Spring Technology

The Association of Filipino Java Developers(PinoyJUG) will have another set of activity from 7:00 to 11:00 PM on January 29, 2010. It will be held at the G2iX Techbar (5F Orient Square Bldg. F. Ortigas Jr. Rd., Ortigas Center, Pasig City).

This time, there are two topics: Automated Testing with Selenium and Spring Technology. The speaker for the first topic is Aaron Tinio, a senior QA engineer at G2iX and specializes on test automation using Selenium and Ruby. He is a contributor to the Selenium-Client Project, the official Ruby client API for Selenium Remote Control.

He will discuss the advantages of Selenium and how you can utilize it to save you time and achieve flexibility and greater control over your testing.

The next speaker will be Jasper Blues, a software engineer at ValueCommerce Phils. He has been working in the software industry since 1997. Prior to ValueCommerce, he was involved with the development of a product strategy and the design of Microlink's next generation core banking solution - which is based on a grid computing infrastructure. He has also worked for SpringSource Australia - the company behind the leading enterprise framework for Java. During his days at SpringSource, he actively contributed to a number of Spring projects, and was the founder and lead developer of Spring Ldap-ODM, on of the first object to LDAP directory implementations.

In his presentation, he will code live on stage to demonstrate some of the Aspect Oriented Programming features that the Spring Framework provides. It'll all conclude with a bang, when he shows off Spring's answer to the "Aneamic Domain Model" anti-pattern - creating rich domain objects using AspectJ weaving.

According to the organizers, the event will also streamed. Those in Cebu can watch the stream at the G2iX Cebu Techbar.

January 3, 2010

2009: The Year that was...

The year 2009 has been one of the busiest yet greatest year of my life. Now that it is over, I made a blog entry summarizing what happened to me last year.
There are too many events in this year that are worth remembering. Most notably, I had finished my undergraduate thesis just in time and graduated cum laude despite all the hardships and troubles that came my way. The best thing that happened is my employment at Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Inc.
I attended Orange and Bronze's Java Boot Camp during my first few weeks in the company. During that time, I had gained more knowledge in Java, especially the Java Best practices. It also made me realized the truth about Object-oriented programming. I had learned JSP (Java Server Pages) and Servlets, along with Agile practices, Version Control System, Trac, Design Patterns, Unit Testing and TDD (Test Driven Development). It also made me aware and interested in Groovy and Grails and Java frameworks like Struts, Spring and Hibernate.
I also joined various meetups of the (Association of Filipino Java Developers (PinoyJUG) and Google Technology Users Group Philipines where I learned various technologies and updates. I also attended a Globe+Google Developer Workshop where I have seenththe Google APIs(Application Programming Interface) , Globe APIs, Open Social APIs and other APIs. I became interested to try and use them. My interest in Google technologies extended to Google App Engine and Google Wave. I was one of those who was given a Google Wave developer sandbox account and also one of the few who received Google Wave account early.
In 2009, I also started to read and study books and other instructional materials. As of now, I am studying Groovy and Grails. I also developed a simple Java-based records management app for the student publication (where I once was a part of) of my Alma Mater, Cavite State University Naic Campus. It has already been deployed and is starting to be used. I am already doing the reports feature to be added in the app so users can view and print hard copies of the records.
Other events in 2009 are my creation of a personal blog and registration for accounts in Twitter and Plurk.
Now that 2010 is here, I am expecting it to be another fun, exciting, and educational year. There are a lot of things, technologies and frameworks I want to know more of.