Category: Internet

When the cousin of a dictator offers you part of his hidden wealth…

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date August 6, 2005
2 Comments on When the cousin of a dictator offers you part of his hidden wealth…

It�s called a 419 scam or advanced fee fraud. Many people have lost a lot of money to these scammers. The Urban Legends Reference page Snopes.com quotes a US Secret Service official as saying in a 1997 newspaper article that �We have confirmed losses just in the United States of over $100 million in the last 15 months.�

These scammers rake in a lot of money and it�s refreshing to see these fraudsters switch roles � this time as victims to scam baiters. The website 419 eater documents how scam baiters fight 419 fraudsters. If you check out the site, please make sure to read the Martins Jide scam and listen to the MP3 files of the phone conversations � it�s hilarious.

Internet Journalism

Coming soon: NerdTV

PBS will start NerdTV, its first downloadable series, on Sept. 6. The series will be broadcast exclusively over the Internet. Not only is PBS allowing downloads of the series, it is encouraging people to �copy the shows, share them with friends and even post them on their own Web sites – all legally.�

NerdTV (www.pbs.org/nerdtv) will feature columnist Robert X. Cringely�s interviews with personalities in the tech industry. PBS said the �viewers will be able to choose which content or format they download to their computer: MP4 video of the whole program, MP4 video of the “juicy” excerpt (for a more general audience wanting just a nugget) and MP4 video of the “nerdy” excerpt (for a more technical audience wanting just a nugget).� The site will also offer audio-only versions of the series in AAC, MP3 and ogg vorbis formats.

Government Highlights Internet Work

Barangay hall gets ‘wired’

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date June 28, 2005
2 Comments on Barangay hall gets ‘wired’

By Max T. Limpag
Sun.Star Cebu, November 27, 2004
Top Stories Section, Page 4

(Here’s a story I wrote for Sun.Star Cebu on the IT initiative of Bry. Calamba in Cebu City)

BARANGAY Calamba’s IT dreams are built on refurbished computer parts and donated units.

The barangay hall now serves both as an Internet cafe (although it tries its best not to call it that) and a dial-up Internet service provider (ISP) to its residents–at zero start-up cost to the barangay.

The term Internet cafe connotes a venue for gaming and chatting, “but we want to emphasize the educational aspect by calling this an online library,” said Mario Veloso, chief executive officer of Xconnect, the company that implemented the project for Calamba.

Tags barangay-calamba, calamba, cebu, cebu news, cebu-city, Government

Blogs Internet Mobile

Flickr improves mobile blogging

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date June 24, 2005
No Comments on Flickr improves mobile blogging

I used to send mobile blog entries through Flickr. Last month, the posts that I sent to my Flickr account stopped automatically appearing in my blog (I was still with Blogspot then). When the automatic postings stopped, I could still post blog entries using the secret e-mail address you configure in your Blogger account.

When Blogger launched its own mobile blogging system, however, the photos that I sent through the secret blog posting e-mail address no longer got published. What was published was the caption that came with the photos I sent.

On Wednesday, my wife told me that automatic blog postings through Flickr still worked. She found this out while configuring Sun.Star’s blog on the Cebu ICT 2005 Summit. Only this time, you get another e-mail address for posts you want automatically published in your blog. The e-mail address has “2blog” added to it.

I think this is a better system. There are photos you may want to send to your Flickr account but you don’t want published in your blog. With the different addresses, Flickr gives you a choice.

Blogs Internet Journalism

Sunnex blogs Cebu ICT

Sun.Star Network Exchange (Sunnex) has opened a blog to cover Cebu ICT 2005, which opens later today. I’m one of the bloggers, I might post by Thursday. I’m not feeling well right now, I might skip the opening.

Blogs Internet Personal

Changing the chat box

After trying out four tag board and chat scripts last night, I finally decided on using txtShout, a PHP tagboard and shoutbox system.

TxtShout is fairly easy to install and it doesn�t need a database. The script shares the code used by my previous chatbox, Cbox.

Cbox, unlike txtShout, is remotely hosted. This means that the script connects to a server in order to retrieve the messages and store new ones. This arrangement has its advantages — for one you don�t need to install any script, you just have to copy a piece of code and then paste this into your blog�s template. But when the server is down, your chat box doesn�t get displayed and loading is slowed because your website is trying to repeatedly retrieve data from the inaccessible server.

Blogs Internet

Chat boxes and pop-up ads

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date June 20, 2005
No Comments on Chat boxes and pop-up ads

I’ve been looking for a WordPress tagboard — the message board you see on the sidebar — since Friday. Cbox is great but it’s really annoying when their servers are down. When I read SepikMom‘s blog today, I found another reason to stop using Cbox — it generates pop-up ads. I never noticed this before because the popups never appear when I visit my blog since I always use Firefox as my browser.

Blogs Internet Personal

Opening a site in less than a day

Post author By Max Limpag
Post date June 19, 2005
1 Comment on Opening a site in less than a day

This is my fourth and final blog address. I started blogging last year when I wrote an article for Sun.Star Cybercafe on how you can build your own site using only free services and open source programs and script. Before I wrote the tutorial, I tested and installed Pivotlog, Nucleus CMS, Blog:CMs and Serendipity — that�s why the site is named the Cybercafe Experiments.

I hosted the site on a free 100MB PHP and MySQL account from 100Webspace. After the article was published, I decided to continue posting entries on the blog.

Later, I transferred the Cybercafe Experiments to one of the Sun.Star servers, using Serendipity as a blog engine. I tried to upgrade the site and botched the process because I forgot the password I used to connect to the database. I started a new Cybercafe Experiments blog, still hosted in the Sun.Star servers, and made sure I listed the settings and kept the paper in a safe place.