Month: September 2008

Join My NBA Fantasy League

I created two NBA Fantasy Leagues, one in Yahoo! Sports, and another in NBA.com.

If you are interested to join my leagues, kindly drop me a message below so I can invite you to the tournament. A lot of slots are still available. The more the merrier, as they used to say.

Implementing Rules and Regulations – RA 9504

At long last, the BIR has issued the final IRR (Implementing Rules and Regulations) of Republic Act No. 9504, an Act Amending Sections 22, 24, 34,35, 51 and 79 of Republic Act no. 8424. It’a available for download from the BIR website. Thanks to Nora for the heads up.

For sure, a lot of people who have long been waiting for this release will deluge in the website and may bring their server down. I already downloaded a copy (including annexes) and compiled them myself.

It’ll be available for download here.

The Trip Back Home

Just wanna share a video from my recent trip back home to Iloilo.

The shooting took place in various areas including:

  • NAIA Terminal 3;
  • University of the Philippines in the Visayas – Iloilo City Campus;
  • Deco’s La Paz Batchoy in Robinson’s Place – Iloilo;
  • Molo Church;
  • Jaro Cathedral;
  • Lou Franz Beach Resort, Brgy. Barroc, Tigbauan, Iloilo;
  • Miag-ao Church;
  • Tigbauan Church; and
  • Iloilo Airport

Pictures to come soon.

Watch the video in youtube.

Audio credit: Arms of a Woman by Amos Lee

World Chess Championship 2008 in Germany

The match will be a best of 12 games. Players score 1 point for a win and half a point for a draw. Time control will be 120 minutes, with 60 minutes added after move 40, 15 minutes added after move 60, and additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61. The match will end as soon as any player scores 6.5 points.

If, after 12 games, the score is equal, a tie-break of four rapid games will be played. Time control for these games will be 25 minutes plus 10 seconds per move. In case of equal scores two additional blitz games will be played (5 minutes plus 10 seconds per move). If these games do not decide the winner, a decisive Armageddon game will be played (6 minutes for white, 5 minutes for black, black declared champion in case of a draw). There will be a new drawing of colours before rapid games, as well as before blitz games and an Armageddon game.

World Chess Championship 2008
Official Website

I find a head-to-head match-up like this more exciting than a round-robin (e.g., the World Chess Championship 2007) for a world chess championship. In the former, you’ll have the opportunity to witness the rush of blood as players hammer each other on a round per round mental combat. Get yourself marveled at how each player switch strategy in the middle of the match to accommodate the outpouring pressure. In the latter, oftentimes you’ll just wait and see till the last round who has the nearest reach to the crown.

A round-robin world championship will be just like a boxing match, with eight players inside a ring at the same time. The last man standing will be the world champion. In chess, most likely you’ll just wait and see by the end of the show who will come out victorious. But in boxing, hey, this is pretty exciting!

The Back-End Story

It has been a gruelling experience. Deuts.NET even has been down for sometimes.

I hate that Hotlink Protection feature in Bluehost’s cpanel. It almost drove me crazy figuring out how can I salvage all my posts and files in the webserver.

I just hope everything’s fine now. If someone finds irregularities and bugs, please help me and bring them to my attention immediately.

Creating and Maintaining a Personal Website

As a response to Suon Dondi‘s query here:

Personal Websites and Blogs

Most people maintain personal websites through blogs. A blog is what makes a personal website pertinent by posting updates every now and then.

When it comes to blogs, the first thing that should come to mind is WordPress. This is so far, in my opinion (and I’m sure a lot of bloggers will share my opinion), the best blogging platform.

A .com, .net, or .org domain name usually costs around $10 per year. That’s around P470 a year — cheap!:D

Blogger/blogspot actually permits mapping of domain names into your blogger blog. Say, you have a domain name at example.com, you can make it map to your existing blog at blogger.com so all your posts will appear within your domain name (example.com) and all your former permalinks (e.g., example.blogspot.com) will automatically redirect to your new domain name. This service is called Custom Domains. Refer to this documentation to set-up a custom domain at blogger.com.

But blogger.com alone does not offer that much flexibility as compared to when you host your own website. Hosting puts you in total control of your website. But hosting entails additional cost on top of what you paid for the domain name.
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Friendster Introduces a New Blogging Platform

Hello deuts,

We’d like to introduce you to your new blog on Friendster! We’ve been very busy building out Friendster Blogs 2.0 and your blog has been moved to the new blogging platform. It’s ready for you to customize, edit, and add even more content to it!

Some things you should know about your new blog:

  • Your blog has been moved to the new platform.
  • It is likely that your blog layout or colors may not appear exactly as they were on your old blog, you can edit or add new customizations to your blog by clicking the ‘Design’ tab or ‘Change Theme’ button when you access your blog from your home page.
  • All of the photos you’ve uploaded to your old blog will soon be moved to your new blog. When they are moved, they will be in your Blogs Media Library (Manage –> Media Library). Don’t worry, we’ll move all your photos for you! We plan to have this complete by September 17th.
  • If you experience any inconsistencies with your blog during the next few weeks, please bear with us and please do let us know what you find so we can build a better product!

To get started with your new blog, please go to:

http://jotuvillo.blog.friendster.com/

We look forward to your participation and your feedback on our new blogs property. We value our global community and members like you who make Friendster the success that it is!

If you have questions or need additional assistance, please contact Customer Support by clicking “Send us a Question” from our Help page.

Thanks!
The Friendster Blogs Team

The message from my inbox the other day. After some time, Friendster eventually migrated the blogs it used to offer from Typepad to WordPress Mu. Could it be another proof that WordPress is winning the blogging platform market against its closest rival, Movable Type?

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