The Apps I Use

When I brought home Daisy, I knew I had to install a couple of applications so that my computing experience would be seamless between any of the PCs I use.

Here are a couple of must-haves on your PC (and all of them are FREE!):

Avira Anti-Virus - I've been using Avira for a couple of years now and I never had any problems with viruses. And what's great about Avira is it's free and there's an update every few days. 

Open Office - I've been using Open Office for over a year now and there's really not much difference between using it and MS-Office. Most of my documents though are on Google Docs since I oftentimes change the PC I use. And it was a hard lesson learned when George (my old PC) crashed when I was out of town, good thing I always backed up my files.

Google Desktop - I love using Google Desktop because I just need to press Ctrl twice and I can easily search for a file in my desktop. I also use it for some RSS feeds, notes, a Picasa slideshow of my photos and it's where I anchor my Gtalk. 

Picasa - I use Picasa to keep my photos organized. I love the fact that you can have your name/URL stamped automatically on the photo when you upload it to your web album. My other favorite button is the "I'm feeling lucky" button which edits your photo automatically. And I also use the "Blog This" button and I'm currently learning how to edit videos using Picasa too. Plus you can also use Picasa to import photos from your phone!

Gtalk Gadget - I use Gtalk 99% of the time now, so I just use the web version of YM. I like using the gadget because it's easy to send files and chat (by voice) with friends. Gtalk on Gmail is also quite exciting with the video messaging feature. 

iTunes - Can't live without music. `nuff said.

So those are my standard installations whenever I have a new PC/laptop. And it's all FREE!

What about you? What do you install on your PC/laptop?

MSI Wind

I've wanted to buy a small notebook since last year since Happy's growing old and heavy. Month after month my mind changed and eventually I limited my choices to: an Acer Aspire, a HP Mini or MSI Wind. My choice for an OS also swung, Linux vs. Microsoft Windows, but that was an easier battle to settle since I realized I had to make sure that if I had to a presentation my laptop should work on any type of LCD projector. 

So, why did I limit my choices to the three? Here's why:

1. Acer Aspire - one of the best brands and during the third quarter last year they came out with their line of smaller notebooks. I also liked the fact that the notebooks are available in red, black and blue. (I liked the red one!).

2. HP Mini - At some point during the decision making process I thought I wanted an HP Mini, because HP's a really good brand too and I remember getting excited back then because HP had one of the bigger harddisk sizes (most of the netbooks had very small HD's).

3. MSI Wind - My tried and tested brand. I love my MSI S262 and I still use it often. In the 20 months that I've had it I never experienced any problems with it (even though I lug it around whenever I travel). So I naturally thought that getting a MSI Wind was a shoo-in.

So come Saturday I thought I'd finally get a new laptop. My requirements were:

(1) should be light

(2) should run on Windows XP

(3) hard disk size should be more than 100GB

(4) memory should be at least 1GB DDR2

(5) should be less than 10" 

I realized that I didn't like how the HP Mini looked like. I don't have any issues with having smaller keys since I have small hands. I chose the MSI Wind because it had 2GB DDR2 memory compared to the Acer laptop.

And meet Daisy, my new laptop -

I got Daisy at The Hub, Parksquare. It's the second time I bought a PC there since they give very good service. I was assisted by Reymond this time around.

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