“You may experience slow downloading using peer-to-peer applications. Restoration is currently ongoing. We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. Rest assured that steps are already being taken so that the service will normalize the soonest possible time. Thank you for bearing with us,” Globe said in a press statement.

Globe said there was an incident last Friday, May 15, “that affected P2P applications.”

“This is being corrected today and your connection experience will be back to normal by tomorrow,” Globe said in the statement.

The statement by Menchie Cruz, Globe corporate communications head, included a listing of frequently asked questions that included a denial that the company implements bandwith capping.

“We are not implementing any bandwidth capping at this time,” Globe said.

But will Globe implement any bandwidth capping in the future?

“We will have to review our network set-up and take appropriate action, if we detect abusive usage that degrades the quality of the network and affect other subscribers’ experience,” the company said.

The company said it will cap bandwidth “if there is a clear need to protect all Globe subscribers from a few abusive users.”

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2. Globe offers unlimited calling to landlines with Globe DUO
3. Breaking news: Globe to sell iPhone in the Philippines

Zyb is a web-based service that stores your contact data. It has social networking features that plug into such sites as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

But Zyb’s core function is to make sure you have an updated (and backed up) copy of all your contact details. It is a very useful service especially when you get a new phone or use several units.

To make sure you always have the latest contact details of people, Zyb regularly reminds you to synchronize your phone book with its servers.

SYNCHRONIZING WITH ZYB. Zyb holds the latest copy of my phone contacts. The service regularly reminds you to synchronize your phonebook to make sure you have the latest copy of your phone contacts.

If you change your phone number, you don’t even have to give your new contact details to your contacts who also use Zyb. Your number will be automatically updated the next time they synchronize their phonebooks.

I’ve been using Zyb for close to three years and have become dependent on it. In all those years, I’ve never encountered major problems.

Until last Thursday.

The first indication of a problem was when I received a text message from an unlisted number asking me where I was and whether I wanted to go to Makati. I set it aside while working on an article for my section when I again received another text from the same number asking about the kids. Now, I’m pretty sure I only had kids with one woman so I knew something was wrong.

It was at this point that I checked the contacts menu to find that of my more than 150 phone contacts, only nine were left. These nine phone contacts were those that I saved in the past two weeks.

MISSING CONTACTS. Last Thursday, 152 of my phone contacts ended up getting deleted during a synchronization with Zyb. I was able to recover the phone numbers later.

With panic starting to set in, I decided to try synchronizing with Zyb again. After the second, third and succeeding attempts at synchronization, my phonebook still only had nine contacts and I was in full-blown panic mode. It’s bad enough to deal with such a technical snafu, it’s worse to do it on the road.

Zyb prides itself with keeping your data safe and I know I’d be able to restore all my contacts. I just wasn’t sure when and whether I could do it while on vacation.

Not knowing what else to do, I decided to check on my “Deleted contacts.” It was there that I found out that while synchronizing the 5800’s phonebook with Zyb, 152 of my phone contacts were deleted. It was a good thing the deletion wasn’t permit.

I just checked on the phone contacts I wanted to recover and after synchronizing my phone again, all my contacts were restored to my phonebook.

While everything ended well, the scare taught me to be wary of keeping data on “the cloud,” the metaphorical term for Internet-based services and data storage.

It’s not as if I did not have a previous warning.

In 2007, I had a lot of problems accessing key data and using online services when it took Globelines more than a month to restore Internet service at my home after that Taiwan quake. The service was cut off at the height of my experiment to make the Internet—The Network—my computer. The service cutoff was a very painful and costly lesson.

I have since transferred to a better Internet service provider and weaned myself from my dependence on online services. But Zyb was something I never thought would fail me. To be fair, it didn’t fail me last Thursday because I was still able to recover my contacts but it did give me a scare.

I’m buying a Rolodex.

Related posts:

1. Back up your mobile phone data online
2. Zyb goes social with new version
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Bothered by the grumbling of my stomach because I skipped dinner to catch up on sleep, I woke up bewildered at midnight.

It took me a minute to realize how I ended up where I was last Friday midnight—on a strange bed in an unfamiliar room at the center of Siquijor town in mystical Siquijor Island. I was invited by Smart to test the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network it deployed late last year in Siquijor and Dumaguete City.

There are places where it would be fun to find yourself in at midnight. Siquijor is not one of them.

After a quick bite in what I suspect was the only open store at that time in the island—a Park ‘N Go bakery—I made of to explore the town. But less than a block on, I realized no one was up. And knowing where I was, I wasn’t so sure I’d be excited to see someone up that late.

REAL MEN USE PINK LAPTOPS. Smart engineer Ronan Garcia (left) checks the Smart Bro Plugit configuration in my wife’s hot pink laptop during a demonstration of the capability of Smart’s HSPA network in Siquijor, Siquijor. Although I found forum posts on how to make the Smart Bro Plugit USB modem work in Linux, I decided to suffer the ignominy of using a Windows laptop—and a pink one at that—because I didn’t want to deal with hardware issues on the field.

So I went back to my room, turned on the laptop, plugged in the Smart Bro USB modem and continued to follow the current Internet meme du jour—Susan Boyle and her performance in Britain’s Got Talent.

I watched videos of her stories and interviews on various US TV networks in news website as well as in YouTube. It was then that I recalled my mental note to check Elaine Paige on YouTube. Boyle, when interviewed by Simon Cowell, said she dreamt of being as successful as Paige.

I watched Elaine Paige sing “Memory” and was instantly captivated. Listening to her in the dead of the night in the halcyon town of Siquijor is nothing short of haunting.

It helped that my Internet connection was fast and the videos were loading as quickly as these were playing. A quick test at Speedtest.net indicated my connection was at the .5mbps level. The connection in Siquijor, Siquijor was so fast that earlier that night, Smart engineer Ronan Garcia had the moxie to load and play two YouTube videos at a time without the browser having to pause to buffer data.

Ronan was showing off. Earlier that day, however, he was perspiring profusely when, while showing me how fast the network was, the YouTube video he loaded stalled several times to buffer data. The videos would play but you needed to pause it first to let the browser buffer data for smooth playing.

It wasn’t that slow for me although to provide context, let me state that I surfed extensively even during the time of dial-up connections. I am more patient with these things.

Later, however, connection was cut off. I was told, after Ronan talked to some colleagues the day after, that the problem involved the network outside Siquijor and that even those in Dumaguete City encountered disruptions.

When this was fixed, however, I was surfing at high speeds. The HSPA signal covers a large part of the town, including several beach resorts a few kilometers from the town center. I told Ronan that if you make a living blogging or running websites, you could just relocate to Siquijor with the high-speed HSPA Internet access and a local Western Union branch to claim your Google AdSense earnings.

But apart from accessing the HSPA network in Siquijor through a laptop, I was also making use of the mobile broadband connection through a Nokia N96 unit. I continually browsed the mobile Web, checked my e-mail, posted tweets and even photos through TwitPic.

In Dumaguete City, I continued surfing at high-speed through the Smart HSPA network in the city. The signal covers the downtown area and the airport and its surroundings.

And while waiting for my order at the iconic Sans Rival Cakes and Pastries in The Boulevard in Dumaguete City, one mental image kept flashing in my head as if seared into my consciousness. In that picture, I was on a lounging chair, running my network of sites from the shores of one of Siquijor’s immaculate beaches.

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Pacquiao, who recently defeated Oscar de la Hoya, is on the top three search terms, including one that appeared to be a misspelling of his name, for Google News local searches in the Philippines: 1. manny pacquiao, 2. pacquaio marquez fight, and 3. pacquiao diaz fight.

The gruesome RCBC bank robbery ranked 4th while ABS-CBN broadcaster Ces Drilon, who was kidnapped in June, ranked 5th. The phrase “sona 2008″ for President Arroyo’s state of the nation address ranked 6th.

Here are the top Google News local searches

1. manny pacquiao
2. pacquaio marquez fight
3. pacquiao diaz fight
4. rcbc bank robbery
5. ces drilon
6. sona 2008
7. reproductive health bill
8. earthquake philippines
9. rudy fernandez death
10. zte broadband deal

“The fastest rising celebrity searches list was led by YouTube stars Charice Pempengco and Arnel Pineda. Local tourism was also alive and kicking with several beach resorts making the list. And while financial crisis-related search terms recently spiked, they were no match for homegrown boxing champ and fastest-rising newsmaker Manny Pacquiao,” the Google Zeitgeist report said.

The most popular keywords offer a peek at the psyche of the online Pinoy: 1. lyrics (we are, after all, a musical race); 2. friendster (yes, it’s still up); 3. you (RAM?); 4. games; 5. yahoo (in Google??!!); 6. youtube; 7. love; 8. google; 9. mp3; and 10. map.

Controversial DJ Montano was the 3rd most searched celebrity, owing largely to the lurid tales of sex, drugs, and a several thousand bucks.

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Many shops, at least the last time I went warbiking or going around on a motorcycle to check for free Wi-Fi hotspots, just depend on the services of Globe and Airborne Access for their customers’ wireless Internet access.

MUNISIPYO WI-FI. A man browses the Internet at the Argao town plaza. The Municipal Government turned the Spanish-era pueblo into a free wireless Internet zone last year. Click on photo to enlarge.

But not Argao.

The municipal government has turned it’s beautiful plaza into a free Wi-Fi zone. There you are—surrounded by Spanish-era buildings, three cannons once used to fight pirates, beautiful masonry, and music that comes from cleverly-hidden speakers—and you have free high-speed wireless Internet access.

It was good they were playing Spanish guitars the night I was there (the previous night it was Bisrock), had they been playing Gregorian chants, I would have had an uncontrollable urge to dance like Mel Brook’s Torquemada and video-stream the Inquisition.

I was told that the Wi-Fi zone was set up last year by Argao town officials. Now it isn’t, technically, municipal Wi-Fi—the term means the entire city or town or a major part of it is covered by wireless Internet signal—but it’s a start. It’s munisipyo Wi-Fi.

When I was at the plaza on a Saturday night, I saw one person park his multi-cab near the Argao town hall, take out his laptop and then access the Internet. I opened my Asus Eee PC, which is such a marvelous piece of gadget, and checked my e-mail. The connection was relatively fast.

I wasn’t able to do speed tests, though, because I was supposed to be on a quick vacation—to get away for “it” all and my family was already on their way to the museum.

BEAUTIFUL PLAZA, HOT ZONE. Argao deployed free Wi-Fi in its Spanish-era pueblo or town center last year. Click on photo to enlarge.

I asked Ruel Rigor, who showed us around, on the extent of the Wi-Fi spot’s usage and he said only a few locals use it.

The availability of free Wi-Fi in the town plaza is such a huge help for tourists and locals who need to access the Internet.

It also opens the possibility of using the signal in the plaza to make VOIP calls for free. If you have a Symbian-based phone, you can use Fring with Wi-Fi not only to chat with your friends but also call them via Skype or the application itself, if they’re also using it. The call is free because you’re connecting through Wi-Fi connection.

I was able to chat with some contacts using Fring but none of my Skype contacts were online when I was in the town center so I couldn’t test calling with Fring.

Wi-Fi access isn’t just limited to the area near the Argao town hall. I was able to detect another Wi-Fi access point, albeit secured, a few meters away. The resort I stayed in near the Mahayahay beach resort also offered uninterrupted free Wi-Fi access. The signal covers part of the public beach resort so you can probably get away with piggybacking near the beach, even at night.

I hope other local officials, especially in tourism areas, follow Argao’s Wi-Fi deployment. Heck I hope more Cebu shops follow Looc Garden Resort, where we stayed, and start offering free W-Fi to costumers.

The last time I was in a coffee shop in Ayala several months back, I was told to buy a card when I asked about Wi-Fi access. But things are starting to change. I’ve been told many coffee shops are starting to offer free Wi-Fi to costumers.

Asking the city where I live in, Lapu-Lapu, to follow the example of a 3rd class municipality like Argao might be a pipe dream or a financial nightmare. Lapu Lapu City Hall, after all, was accused of purchasing computers for nearly P50,000 when the specifications indicated these cost less than half the contract amount.

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1. Reporter’s notebook
2. Mapping Cebu’s Wi-Fi hotspots
3. GlobeQuest rolls out Wi-Fi in Manila malls

Several reporters and editors in Sun.Star Cebu had wanted to purchase an Eee PC since the start of the year but we couldn’t get a supplier with enough stocks to provide the initial 10 purchases. Cebu shops, I was told repeatedly, had waiting lists for purchases.

TRULY MOBILE OFFICE. Trying to beat a column deadline using the Asus Eee PC in a beachsite resort in Argao. These are my mobile work tools: the Asus Eee PC, a Moleskine reporter’s notebook, and a Sony Ericsson P1i. Click on photo to enlarge.

The two boxes of Asus Eee PC arrived at the office last Wednesday. We got the 4G model. I chose the pearl white version but at the back of my mind, I was still thinking of the Lush Green version of the 2G model.

For such a small device, the Asus Eee PC packs a formidable arsenal: Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity, 3 USB ports, a built-in webcam (4G and 8G models), a VGA port for external displays, built-in stereo speakers and a microphone, and a built-in MMC/SD card reader. Any more feature and it could probably write a story for you. But it’s best feature, I think, is that it runs on Linux.

I talked to two Scandinavian open source guys recently and I asked one of them, a Linux and Asterisk geek, whether he thinks the Asus Eee PC will help introduce Linux to mainstream computer users. His answer: absolutely!

For many in the newsroom, the Eee PC is their first encounter with Linux. I have been repeatedly promoting open source, including Linux, among my colleagues. Still, I was apprehensive on how they’ll take to the version of Xandros that runs on the Eee PC by default.

INSTALLING JEDIT. Installing JEdit on the Asus Eee PC for some code work. Click on photo to enlarge.

My newsroom cubicle neighbor was a cause for particular concern (needless it turned out later) because among his questions to me when I talked about the difference between the Eee PC and a regular desktop was: what’s an operating system? But a day later, he had upgraded his Skype installation to enable video chat support. That’s how easy the Asus Eee PC “Easy Mode” is to use.

The Eee PC costs less than a high-end cellphone but is worth more.

It’s so small and light it feels as if it doesn’t add anything to your luggage. The MSI S260 I use is small and yet, after a while, I get tired of lugging it around with me all the time.

Since it uses a solid state drive, it boots up quickly. This and its size make using the Eee PC to write notes for articles such a convenience.

I still haven’t asked the reporters who bought the Eee PC for feedback on their use of it but I’m sure the experience will be a positive one. I’ve used the Eee PC to work on several articles (this blog post among them) in blocks of free time I have in the newsroom.

EEE PC SHIPMENT. One of the boxes of Asus Eee PC units for Sun.Star Cebu editors and reporters. Click on photo to enlarge.

I’ve used the Eee PC to continue writing, send and check on e-mails, monitor the websites I’m running, upload photos for blog articles, and write a blog post even during a trip to the far-flung town of Argao in southern Cebu. Every once in a while I’d turn it on to continue working on an article when my wife and the kids are busy checking out the Spanish architecture you still see in the town up to this day.

Argao, which I’ll write about later, offers free Wi-Fi access in the town plaza. It was deployed last year by the municipal government. The Asus Eee PC also picks up Wi-Fi signals well, better than my MSI S260. I haven’t checked but maybe it’s using a better chip. A signal that’s only, say, 70 percent in my MSI S260 is picked up in the 80 percent plus range in the Asus Eee PC.

The first time I used the Eee PC, I promptly checked on the popular EeeUser website, whose forum and wiki provide a lot of tips for users of the device. I also checked on J. Angelo Racoma’s Asus Eee PC journal, which has a lot of great articles on the gadget.

WRITE ANYWHERE. The Asus Eee PC makes it convenient to work on articles and blog posts whenever you have free time. In this photo, I’m checking the connection of the free Wi-Fi deployed by the municipal government of Argao in its town plaza. Click on photo to enlarge. (Photo by Max Dylan Limpag)

I initially thought of using the full desktop or advance mode but chose to stick to the easy mode for at least several weeks. The only application I’ve added is JEdit for some code work. I checked around for instructions on installing Bluefish but couldn’t find any so I installed JEdit using the instructions here.

I also installed SublimePorte’s launcher editor to edit the icons and add more launchers. I’m thinking of adding Gimp later to edit photos for blog and website articles.

My first few days with the Asus Eee PC have been awesome. It truly is a writer’s notebook, or sub-notebook if you’re technical about it.

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1. Munisipyo Wi-Fi
2. From here on, Heron
3. Newsroom tech: Sharing and a call for help

Unlike the previous Cebu Living theme, which I ported from an open source CSS/XHTML design, I built this new one from scratch. And it shows. I’m not a designer, in fact, I’m bad at designs. But the new theme incorporates elements I, as publisher, wanted from a site run as an e-zine and using WordPress as content management system (CMS).

I will be releasing the theme as soon as I finalize it. If you have comments on the new design, please leave it in this post or send it as an e-mail so that I can consider incorporating it in the theme.

I would have wanted to give svn write access to anyone who wants to work on it but not right now. The theme will not work out of the box because you need to replace category IDs in template files. Work on the theme is geared toward a specific site and having multiple people with svn write access simply will not do, unless we share the same test WordPress install as reference.

I built the theme using Yahoo UI grids and pieces of code I discussed in a previous article on how to use WordPress as CMS for magazine and news websites. I will be writing a new article on the subject.

The major difference between this version and my earlier template is that I did the homepage customizations in home.php, which I should have done in the first place.

The index.php file is used as default template whenever other template files, say for rendering a single post, archive, or search results, are missing. If you have an index.php file that contains custom queries, it will not be able to render parts of your site whenever a template file for a certain task is missing.

WordPress recently got criticized for being a “blogware, not a content management system (CMS).”

I disagree. I think WordPress is a lean CMS that can be used for more than just a blog. I think it’s a great online publishing solution, especially for independent publishers.

Related posts:

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3. Nautica05-WordPress theme released

When I first tested it (read the previous post), it immediately synchronized all compatible files in the desktop and the My Documents folder. It offered no interface to designate which folders or files to synchronize with your Google Docs account. I found this lack of control unnerving.

But when I opened the DocSyncer application late yesterday afternoon, the list of folders now had an edit button. The edit interface allows you to specify which folders, in the desktop and My Documents folder, will be synchronized.

The change is a tremendous usability improvement.

CHOOSING FOLDERS. DocSyncer now allows you to specify which folders, in the desktop and My Documents folder, should be synchronized with your Google Docs account.

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DOCSYNCER. The service synchronizes your Microsoft Office documents with your Google Docs account. It’s still being tested and far from being a dependable day-to-day application. But you should bookmark DocSyncer as it holds a lot of promise. Click on photo to view larger image.

The service is still in beta but DocSyncer holds a lot of promise. I tried it out for close to two hours last night and found that it’s not quite ready for daily use. It is, after all, still in beta or testing phase.

What’s evident when you try the service is the lack of user control over such things as designating which directories to synchronize and refreshing the list of files due for synchronization.

When I first ran the software that you download to work with the service, it immediately synchronized all Power Point files, Word documents in .doc format, and Excel files contained in My Documents folder as well as the desktop. It did not ask me to specify which folder to synchronize with my Google Docs account. (This has changed in the latest DocSyncer update)

As a result, documents I did not intend to be uploaded into my account got uploaded. The documents I had wanted to be sent there were not. This is because many of my important documents are in .txt format. DocSyncer, in my test, synchronizes only documents in .doc format, not .txt, .rtf or even the recent .docx formats.

NO CONTROL. DocSyncer does not offer the user control on which directories to synchronize or files to upload.

When I added a new document (in the correct .doc format) in my desktop, the software could not detect the addition. I also had no way of letting the system check the folder again for files to synchronize. Even when I restarted the application, it still couldn’t detect the added file.

In synchronizing documents, DocSyncer was quick. It took less than half an hour for the Power Point presentations I didn’t know were still in my PC to be sent to my Google Docs account.

While I won’t depend on DocSyncer to synchronize my files right now, I will be keeping my eyes peeled for updates to the service. DocSyncer is a service that will be useful to someone like me, someone who works in multiple computers with different operating systems.

The software currently works only with Windows 2000/XP and Vista. The team, however, promises a Mac OS X version soon. I hope they will also release a Linux version as well as extend support for Open Office. Now that would really be useful.

I don’t know how difficult it will be but I wish someone can release a similar program but with shell integration, similar to what TortoiseSVN does in Windows.

GRANTING ACCESS. When you first run the DocSyncer application, it will ask you to grant it access to your Google Docs account.

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The phone will only be available early next year so you might want to postpone your Christmas phone upgrade by a month or two.

FUNKY COLOR FOR A COOL PHONE. The lime on white version of the Sony Ericsson K660i, an HSDPA-enable phone that has been engineered for the mobile Internet. Click on photo to enlarge.

The K660, which will be marketed as the K660i in the Asia-Pacific region, is an HSDPA-enabled phone. The phone can access so-called “mobile broadband” networks that offer higher connection speeds. This not only makes browsing on the phone faster, it also makes it a good laptop accessory—as mobile modem.

I don’t know how wide HSDPA coverage is in Cebu but in my previous experience with PLDT WeRoam, I got strong and consistent HSDPA signals within downtown and mid-town Cebu City areas. I got a consistent GPRS speed at home in Lapu-Lapu City but this was a few months back. I suspect things have improved since then, based on my wife’s experience with using her Sony Ericsson K800i as modem.

The phone was engineered for mobile web browsing. Martin Winkler, head of web marketing at Sony Ericsson, said the company’s ” vision is to offer ‘Generation Web’ a mobile Internet experience that’s rich, user-friendly and satisfying.”

It offers landscape browsing, an option that allows you to view and navigate pages sideways, to make use of the wider screen. It comes with Google Maps for Mobile and I might work with the My Location service, a really cool service that places you in the map by using triangulation of the cellphone towers being used by your phone. I tried the service in my K750i and my wifes K800i but both phones don’t work with the service.

The phone, as with any multi-media unit released in the market today, also serves as a media player. It comes with e-mail and instant messaging clients. I also comes with a camera with a two-megapixel resolution. In my experience, this picture quality will do for online publishing. It has Bluetooth connectivity and serves as a USB mass storage when connected to a PC. It can record both audio and video.

It comes in a funky color “lime on white” or the so-so “wine on black.” It got me in “lime.”

Will I be upgrading to this unit? Nah, I’d wait for the latest in the K750i, K800i line to have a lime on white model.

Related posts:

1. Sony Ericsson unveils K770
2. Upgrading to Sony Ericsson K800i
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