Introducing Pinoy Tech Podcast

So I found myself joining a podcast over Skype last Friday night. It was fun and refreshing to banter with hardcore developers about a couple of topics. According to Jerome the Pinoy Tech Podcast is meant to be a biweekly discussion about technology in the Philippines. Maybe if I behave I'll get to join them again sometime soon =)

Top: Jon Limjap, Jerome Gotangco, Dean Berris

Bottom: Aileen Apolo, Migs Paraz, Rom Feria

In this episidoe we discussed about:

1. How the podcast came to be (I remember Jerome mentioning it to me a few weeks ago)

2. Plurk and Twitter, Twitter and Plurk

3. The Cyber-Boso Bill

4. Open Source in the Philippines

Listen to it here -

Or download it here. For more new podcasts visit Pinoy Tech Podcast (title's tentative).

Video Chatting on Tokbox

I know, I know we haven't actively blogged in the past few weeks. Life happens you know and sometimes you just get busy with other projects and sometimes yourself! Anyway, hopefully in the next few weeks I'd managed to post some of the videos I've taken for YouGotTech, especially the ones I've taken with our very own internet celebs!

Last night my dear friend Yolynne tested with me this new instant messaging service, Tokbox.com. No, I believe it's not just another IM service since it has these cool features (that actually work well!):

• call service (voice/video)
• video messaging
• conference

And you can actually use it to make video blogs and use it for video chatting in your website/blog! 

Tested the video service with Yolynne (she's in Zamboanga and I'm in Manila) and the video was very clear and wasn't lagging and the audio was quite clear. I haven't seen Yolynne in the flesh for about a year now and I was pretty pleased to see her. Oh and Yolynne mentioned that it works perfectly for Linux machines. And then I tested it with Jay, video (me)/audio (him). He was 25 kilometers away from me and we found the service to be pretty stable. I also tried out the video messaging service which I found to be quite easy to use.

I did experience some difficulty navigating around (but maybe that's just me) and loading takes a bit of time. I had to wait a bit and click several times for the pop-up to finally close so I can answer back via chat with Jay. I'm not sure too if my video streams publicly since a link automatically appeared on my YM when I logged-in. I guess I'll just have to explore it better. But the platform looks promising and quite easy to use. 

You might also want to try out the video chat on Gmail. Tried it out with my friend based in Dubai and we were just simply quite happy to see each other via the net with stable and clear connection.

Introduction to E-Commerce

I often get asked to talk about e-commerce and show various example of its implementation locally. However, when I'm out of the country, an option I always give is a video talk and this is the latest one I made for Chiang Kai Shek. Unfortunately, something went wrong during the recording and end up being split into two parts.

E-Commerce Talk Part 1

Find more videos like this on DigitalFilipino.com Social Network


E-Commerce Talk Part 2

Find more videos like this on DigitalFilipino.com Social Network


P.S. My apologies if I have been inactive. So much stuff happening now especially with the Busby SEO Test competition that I just joined. However, I hope posting more videos I've done lately and share with you.

My Internet Story

Janette started this off in her blog Philippine Internet Review where she blogged about how she got herself in this internet thingy. Well I thought it's something I can blog about too here at You Got Tech (which has sadly been quite for over a month now, so sorry).

Anyway, it was my brother who got me hooked in computers. I used to hang-out in his office in Dutch Boy and he'd let me play games using his computer. Eventually I became such a pest in the office he enrolled me in a logo programming summer class in Don Bosco. I was about 9 years old then and eventually he gave me his old XT PC when he got tired of it. 

I was in college when I first got exposed to the internet. This was even before Google was born. In school we were allowed to chat with our schoolmates online (provided you knew their ID number!). I also remember my professors back then talking about downloading files (about three hours at a time for a very small file!). Eventually I had dial-up at home and enjoyed doing online research and studied how to make websites on my own (my first one I think was hosted on Geocities and then Philonline) and did some sort of SEO to promote the sites I made. 

I got in the internet industry because I had interest in helping out exporters to promote their products online. My very first job in the industry was to be a product manager of an online exporters directory, that was 7 years ago and the rest is history.

So, how'd you get hooked to the internet?

Ep. 20: DevFest Manila

Almost two months ago Google announced DevFest Manila and the day finally came when developers from all over the country (as far as Zamboanga and Davao!) convered at the Bulwagang Tandang Sora, University of the Philippines (Diliman) for some serious dev talk on the following -

Open Socials

Maps API

App Engine

Youtube APIs

It wasn't all nosebleed geek talk though, there were lots of fun stuff and here's a video blog about it -

For more support materials about the event, please go here.

Winston, Coy, Aileen, Jay and Andrew

Ep. 19: Nokia Ovi by Gary Valenciano

I personally love sharing tons of content online (di naman masyadong obvious diba?). I share my photos, videos and other types of content and all of these are hosted through different Google services. 

One of the things that I've been seeing bloggers talk about lately was Nokia Ovi, but I never really had the time to check it out. I've been using Nokia though for about 8 years now, so I thought it's something I should check out.

Here's a video blog about the Nokia Ovi, demo was done by Mr. Gary Valenciano:

Thanks to fellow YouGotTech bloggers Juned (for the invitation) and Markku (for shooting my intro).

My Camera Evideolution, Part 1 of 2

It's now two years since I've had my first and very own digital camera. Back in October 2006, it was only $99 and it was given to me as an early birthday gift from my Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Phil in Florida. From then on, I've used a total of 5 different cameras in shooting my video blogs. Now let me show you how my videos evolved technically using these different tools - this is CokskiBlue's Camera Evideolution:

Aiptek DV5900 (October 2006 - August 2007) This has got to be the cutest digital camera I've used. The cam has this small LCD display and with it folded in, the DV5900 would look like a little coin purse. Its minimum functions are bearable when you're just the casual I-post-my-pictures-on-Friendster type of guy but the weak flash and poor video quality will make you irk once you see the results. No wonder its present market prize is now down to $39.99.

Despite the limitations, this camera witnessed the birth of CokskiBlue and I've used it for almost a year for many of my favorite episodes including this vlog on my very first bloggers meet-up: