A lot of people ask me why I choose to stay in the Philippines instead of going abroad to earn a bigger salary. I never really had a straight answer to that question. Most of the time I would just say that I prefer staying in the Philippines, or that going abroad is a sign of weakness, and sometimes I even say that I’d rather stay here and help my country men. After receiving the below e-mail I got to thinking that maybe, just maybe, it might be my love for the country …

MY SHORT ESSAY ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES
Jaeyoun Kim

Filipinos always complain about the corruption in the Philippines . Do you really think the corruption
is the problem of the Philippines ? I do not think so. I strongly believe that the problem is the lack of love for the Philippines .

Let me first talk about my country, Korea . It might help you understand my point.
After the Korean War, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. Koreans
had to start from scratch because entire country was destroyed after the Korean War, and we had no
natural resources.

Koreans used to talk about the Philippines , for Filipinos were very rich in Asia . We envy Filipinos.
Koreans really wanted to be well off like Filipinos. Many Koreans died of famine.
My father & brother also died because of famine. Korean government was very corrupt and is still very
corrupt beyond your imagination, but Korea was able to develop dramatically because Koreans really
did their best for the common good with their heart burning with patriotism.
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Don’t you just love ergonomic design? I know I do. Long hours of driving would usually lead to severe pain in the lower back, so yesterday I purchased an ergonomic backrest for my car. Boy did the pain go away. I started to enjoy my driving more. Not only did it help ease the pain, but it also provided ventilation for my back, which usually gets wet after hours of driving. Today I drove for about 2 hours under the scorching summer sun and my back stayed dry.

Probably one of the better applications of ergonomic design would be in the office. You know, that place where you spend 8 hours a day sitting, staring in front of the computer screen typing away at who knows what. Thank goodness ergonomic computer peripherals are widely available. You can see this in the Logitech mouse, Microsoft keyboard, chairs, etc. I even discovered a site dedicated solely to computer ergonomics. Wonderful!

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The Inheritance Funding Company (IFC) helps heirs of probate estates by providing cash advances, regardless of credit status, employment, or income history. IFC provides cash advances amounting from $5,000 to $100,000. According to this website, a the term “probate” refers to the process by which “… court supervises the processes that transfer legal title of property from the estate of the person who has died (the “decedent”) to his or her beneficiaries”.

The usual process if or heirs to fill out court forms and appear in court to:

• Prove to the Court that the Will is valid (this is usually routine),
• Appoint a legal representative with authority to act on behalf of the decedent,
• Identify and inventory the decedent’s property, and have that property appraised,
• Pay debts and taxes, and
• Distribute the remaining property according to the terms of the Will or to the decedent’s heirs.

This takes a lot of time, and that’s where companies that provide probate cash advance services become useful.

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Her skin is just too thick. She didn’t even say sorry.

Anyway, have fun watching the dance remix by DJ Dense Modesto entitled “I CAME FROM ONE OF THE TUFF TEN”:

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Wordpress has released a sneak peek into the new and and upcoming improvements in Wordpress 2.5. Most notable among these is the visual refresh in the administrative dashboard which, I must admit, looks very very slick. Gone are the monotonous blues and rectangular buttons, replaced by a bolder color palette consisting of orange, gray, blue and rounded buttons.

It is also said that the new dashboard is customizable. The article does not explain this feature in-depth, and the screenshots do not show any hints of customizability, but I assume this lets administrators choose which modules to load and where to load them.

Wordpress promises this to be more than simply a “fresh coat of paint”, and introduces a whole bunch of new features, which simply eliminates the need to install additional plugins that perform the following:

• Multi-file upload (finally!)
• Built-in galleries (Flickr support would be nice as well)
• One-click plugin upgrades
• Tag management
• Built-in Gravatars
• Full text feeds
• Faster load times

That may be a bit too much for some users, who may prefer to keep the core Wordpress installation at its barest minimum (e.g. lightweight), but the new features sure look handy.

Considering that this is a minor release (Wordpress is currently at version 2.3.3), the update seems a bit heavy. This makes me wonder how smooth the transition will be. Many sites have their blogs setup to the point where everything “just works”. If upgrading to 2.5 means breaking most existing themes and plug-ins, then I doubt the majority will be rushing in on the upgrade.

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Anyone who’s into the ad serving / CPM business knows how daunting it can be to setup an ad server. This time however, it looks like Google has a hot product in its hands with its free ad management solution, the Google Ad Manager.

Currently in beta stage, Google Ad Manager is a very promising free ad management solution that provides a host of features while complimenting other Google products.

Ad Manager promises to deliver a wealth of features to help site owners with:

• Inventory management
• Yield optimization
• Ad targeting
• Trafficking, ad delivery, and order booking
• Creatives and rich media management
• Reporting
• User interface navigation
• Account administration

It also promises to be free, does not require exclusivity, and will not be bound to AdSense or to any ad network.
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As boxing fans are split into two on the latest boxing match between Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines and Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico, it appears that a third match is to be expected, if not just to calm the Marquez camp who clearly felt robbed of the championship belt.

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And the winner is …

Ms. Vivian Tan!

Oh wait. Ahahaha. I’m so sorry. Ahahahaha.

It’s actually the buck-toothed underage with the annoying giggle who refuses to converse in Tagalog.

Ahahaha (if my phone could play wav files this would be my new ring tone)

I actually saw this live on the television, but being the numb person that I am my reaction was a deadpan, “what a lame contest … is that what Bb. Pilipinas contestants are like nowadays?” My amusement drive kicked in one day later, where she was the highlight of every Filipino conversation. Only then did I find out that she was actually the only oddball in the group — the other contestants spoke fluently and gave very intelligent answers. Because I did not bother to finish watching Bb. Pilipinas after seeing Janina San Miguel’s stupidity, only through friends was I able to find out that she actually won.
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It has come to my attention that I have been listening to way too much Jack Johnson. Looking at my Last.FM profile, I am very close to scrobbling my 1,000 Jack Johnson track:

I did some simple math. On my 1,000th play, assuming the playtime for each scrobble averages at 3 minutes, I would have played a total of 3,000 minutes. Divided by 60 that’s 50 hours total or 4 days 4 nights and 4 hours of non-stop playing. It doesn’t sound so much anymore when you place it in that context.

But still, you gotta love Jack especially with his new album Sleep Through The Static.

“Recorded using 100% solar energy, printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper, and carrying the 1% For The Planet logo.”

Awesome.

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I enjoyed making fun of IE8 in my latest article so I thought I’d share it with you guys

http://cssvault.com/blog/2008/03/10/internet-explorer-8-beta-released-fails-to-excite

Have fun

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