Month: April 2018

SmugMug acquires Flickr

USA Today reports:

Flickr has been snapped up by Silicon Valley photo-sharing and storage company SmugMug, USA TODAY has learned.

SmugMug CEO Don MacAskill told USA TODAY he’s committed to breathing new life into the faded social networking pioneer, which hosted photos and lively interactions long before it became trendy.

Whoa. This blog is old enough to have witnessed and experienced Flickr in its heyday. But now, I can’t even remember the last time I logged in into my Flickr account. (On that note, I can’t remember as well when I last used my Canon EOS 30D.) My latest photos in there were reposts from my Instagram.

Have we come to a point where we don’t care anymore who owns Flickr?

GCash vs. PayMaya – The battle for Philippine cashless mobile payment platform crown rages on

Globe’s Gcash and Smart’s PayMaya have both been aggressively marketing their platforms just to stay ahead of the competition. Customers benefit the most with the plethora of discounts, rebates and raffle promos being offered left and right. Fortunately for us consumers, it’s not a question of whether you should get aboard one platform over another. If you ask me, I’d say why not get both?

Let me list down my thoughts and observations in using both mobile payment systems. These are based on my personal experience, thus I’m mum about the features I don’t use. I’ll update this list as developments and/or improvements come to mind: Continue reading

Using Autosweep RFID in NLEX/SCTEx/CavitEx (Easytrip)

You may have already read it somewhere, thatĀ you may now use your Autosweep RFID in NLEX-SCTEX, Cavitex, according to DOTr. It may be a step towards DOTr’s Toll Interoperability Project, but if you look closer, it is still far from the ideal integration.

The Autosweep RFID tag is the tag you use to breeze through the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system at South Luzon Expressway (SLEX), Ayala Greenfield Toll Plaza, and Skyway. From this recent development, you may now use your Autosweep RFID tag at NLEX, SCTEX, and Cavitex, provided that you maintain a separateĀ Easytrip account with them.

That means you may use the same tag but you should maintain two different accounts with the two different toll service providers. Two different accounts mean two different funding and monitoring of account balances. Its effect — very little!

This may be a step closer to DOTr’s goal of tollway interoperability, albeit very small. Can’t wait for the day of one tag/one account electronic toll collection between and among these tollway systems. And please, bring ETC to STAR Tollway soon!