2009 – Page 5 – Deuts.NET

Manny Pacquiao Knocks Out Ricky Hatton in Round 2

It was a very short fight that on twitter:

@Pimplepopper: Lesson learned: if u buy tickets to a pacquiao fight, watch the undercard fights to make the most of the admission price.

Lesson learned indeed. For those wanting to watch the two short videos of the fight but are behind office firewalls or proxy server that makes youtube and other video sharing sites inaccessible, good thing you can access this site. Just come visit again for more!

Round 1

Round 2

Continue reading Manny Pacquiao Knocks Out Ricky Hatton in Round 2

Geocities Will Close; Adios Geocities

Geocities, a free webhosting company owned by Yahoo! closes its doors to new account registrations, and total shutdown coming later this year:

Existing GeoCities accounts have not changed. You can continue to enjoy your web site and GeoCities services until later this year. You don’t need to change a thing right now — we just wanted you to let you know about the closure as soon as possible. We’ll provide more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data this summer, and we will update the help center with more details at that time. [Yahoo!]

Continue reading Geocities Will Close; Adios Geocities

When WordPress is Getting Bloated

It has been discussed in some forums, blogs and in the comments:

There are certainly features in WordPress that I don’t particularly use. And I believe a lot of users are not using them as well. Yet, these features are in the core, and we can’t even avoid them.

Continue reading When WordPress is Getting Bloated

Food Photography: Sans the Dirty Tricks

I once wrote about the dirty tricks used by food photographers to enhance the photo of their subject product.

What really happens without those dirty tricks? See how reality differs from the ads. (The photo in the left represents what is in the ads, and in the right – the reality.)

arbys-beef-and-cheddar

Each item was purchased, taken home, and photographed immediately. Nothing was tampered with, run over by a car, or anything of the sort. It is an accurate representation in every case. Shiny, neon-orange, liquefied pump-cheese, and all.

mcdo-sausage-breakfast-burrito

See more examples in the original article at “Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality“.

Has Akismet Really Been Smart?

I don’t know about you but at least in the last six months I received comments obviously are spam past through Akismet anti-spam filters. Even the akismet stats, I don’t think they’re telling the truth about how many spam they missed –the ones I manually marked as spam. The numbers are just definitely way off the count that I everyday mark as spam.

The missed spam –these are comments that all have to only say, “they liked my website”, “I have the best website”, “they’ve subscribed to my RSS feeds”, and sometimes asking “they can’t understand how to subscribe to my rss feeds”, without adding any single value whatsoever to what my post was about to which they are commenting. They are usually coupled with strange names and url’s or domain names that looked really bogus (e.g. insurance, some medical drugs, etc.).

I love your website.

So do I, now what? Do you want me to visit yours? No way!

I enjoyed your website.

Really? I hope you enjoy more!

Or maybe, the reason these comments go past the Akismet filters is because other people just simply approve them for their own blogs without second thoughts. And Akismet is left confused, don’t know what to do with the same ip address, name, email address, and website url.

Yeah, I’ve seen some comments like these published in other blogs.

Maybe the blogosphere has become too crowded that rendered anti-spam filters like Akismet ineffective.

Barangay Ginebra – The Immortal Team

I have to admit, I was a big fan of Barangay Ginebra in the Philippine Basketball Association, especially the team of the years circa 1996-1998. The team that was immortalized by the songs of Bayang Barrios and Gary Granada. The team whose game results either make or break my day.

Those were the days that I used to watch closely the developments in the league.

As a tribute to my favorite team, here are the songs and a video:

Pag Nananalo Ang Ginebra

Play the song from this page.

Sinusundan ko ang bawat laro
Ng koponan kong naghihingalo
Sa bawat bolang binibitaw
Di mapigilang mapapasigaw

Kahit hindi relihiyoso
Naaalala ko ang mga santo
O San Miguel, Santa Lucia
Sana manalo ang Ginebra

Continue reading Barangay Ginebra – The Immortal Team

DSLR Cameras: What’s the Take?

If you’ve been from vacation lately, or even in malls and parks, you’ll see a lot of Digital SLR’s (DSLR’s) around. They seem like the regular digital point-and-shoot (P&S) cameras of four years ago. Owning one don’t seem like a luxury any longer, although they are yet worth a fortune especially the accessories (financial crisis, my a**).

The good thing about it is you won’t attract much attention anymore as you would before – maybe around 2-3 years ago – while lagging that big black camera around.

DSLR manufacturers likely have succeeded in selling their products. DSLR’s of today are treated like P&S, the sad thing is more often than not, they are used like one. The weight and the bulk is the bonus.

But of course, there are serious hobbyists and amateurs. A lot of friends who got their own DSLR lately have been asking what and where to start. And my suggestion has always been:

Read the manual;
Read about techniques; and
Practice

A lot of things are available in the manual but not in the internet or in any other books, especially when it comes to the functions specific to your camera.

One can always refer to resources available from books to digital e-books and various articles all over the internet. To start with, I always suggest the article, “Beginner’s FAQ” from the Photonotes.org. Take a look also at these 21 Settings, Techniques and Rules All New Camera Owners Should Know.

Practice – ahh practice. I definitely myself lack thereof.