Leon Kilat: The Tech Experiments

Winning in the Philippine Blog Awards

In 1997, someone told me I’ll never understand FTP. Last night, I won in the best technology blog category in the first-ever Philippine Blog Awards.

What difference a decade makes, huh?

The colleague who told me I won’t be able to grasp FTP probably never meant it as an insult. He was grumbling on being given the added task of sending magazine pages via FTP to the server of a Hong Kong-based company. He was right to grumble, imagine the upload speeds in 1998. I asked him what FTP was and I think he meant it to be a brush-off when he said I wouldn’t be able to understand it.

I’ve gotten more familiar with FTP, among other things, since then.

I first got word of last night’s win from The Sassy Lawyer, who was also given the Blog Achievement Award for The Mommy Journals. She called me up as soon as my name was called.

The award is a huge morale boost. Now if I can only find a way to have the plaque sent to Cebu. The award also comes at a time when I’m starting to feel a closure on The Independent Post episode. The settlement of that case has lit a surge of energy in me I haven’t felt in years.

I haven’t been sleeping much these days and when I do, I dream of Drupal. I’ve been testing the open source content management system but I’ve never gotten around to tinkering with its innards. Last week, I got my hands dirty, they don’t call it community “plumbing” for nothing, and found I could work my way through the system.

It took me more than a month to get familiar with the way WordPress presents content. With Drupal, it took me a week to be as confident in making the system fit my needs. But this is because I’ve already learned a lot on PHP and CSS in my experiments with WordPress. In fact, I’m starting to rue my decision to use WordPress on certain sites I’ve set up. Seamlessly migrating from WordPress to Drupal seemed a complicated affair right now.

Expect more articles on Drupal in this site. I’m also starting work on several personal web projects. These are exciting times indeed.

The full list of winners:
Best Personal Blog: Misteryosa
Best Home & Living Blog: Wifely Steps
Best Socio-Political Blog: Philippine Commentary
Best News & Media Blog: Inside PCIJ
Best Fashion & Lifestyle Blog: Bryanboy: Le Superstar Fabuleux
Podcast of the Year: HappySlip
Best Technology Blog: Leon Kilat: The Cybercafe Experiments
Best Business/Entrepreneur Blog: Reflections of a BizDrivenLife
Best Entertainment Blog: Retzwerx
Best Sports & Recreation Blog: Who rides a Vespa?
Best Travel Blog: Ivan About Town
PhotoBlog of the Year: Señor Enrique: Wish You Were Here

Special Awards

Best Blog Design: Far from Neutral Notions
Best Free Custom Theme: Blu3zin3
Best Plugin/Extension: iPap
Best OFW Blog: Kwentong Tambay
Bloggers’ Choice Awards: MarketManila

Globe Broadband Awards

Blog Achievement Award: The Mommy Journals
Pinoy Ako Blog Award: ederic@cyberspace
Family Blog Award: About My Recovery
Blogirl Award: Well Whatever
Deliblog Award: Dessert Comes First

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13 responses

  1. Sonnie Avatar
    Sonnie

    Congratulations!

    Reply
  2. Dominique Avatar
    Dominique

    Congratulations, Max!

    Reply
  3. Jove Francisco Avatar
    Jove Francisco

    congrats!

    Reply
  4. Frank A Hilario Avatar
    Frank A Hilario

    May I invite you to my feature story on the Blog Awards? Names and URLs included; with this, now you have mine.

    Reply
  5. Connie Avatar
    Connie

    Congrats, Max! Re “The colleague who told me I won’t be able to grasp http://FTP...” I hope he gets to read your entry and the list of winners.

    Reply
  6. Jaypee Avatar
    Jaypee

    Congratulations! 😀

    Reply
  7. Gail Avatar
    Gail

    Congrats Max! Too bad you weren’t able to make it yesterday. Can you send me your mailing address so we can send you your trophy? Thanks! Again, congratulations! You truly deserve it. 🙂

    Reply
  8. PinoyBlogosphere.Com Avatar
    PinoyBlogosphere.Com

    Congratz!

    Reply
  9. jhay Avatar
    jhay

    Congratulations Max! The Drupal experiments would be a fun series to watch out for.

    Reply
  10. Aileen Apolo Avatar
    Aileen Apolo

    Congratulations! 🙂

    Reply
  11. Max Limpag Avatar
    Max Limpag

    Sonnie, Jove, Jaypee, PinoyBlogosphere.Com, Aileen,
    Thank you. Daghan kaayong salamat.

    Sir Dominique,
    Salamat sab. I will be Ubuntu living soon 🙂 . I’m waiting for Feisty Fawn but I already have 7.04 beta. I downloaded the ISO last night and I’m weighing whether I should do it now or I’ll just wait for the official release later this month. But I’m itching to do it now, just a bit worried with drivers and support for the PLDT WeRoam card. But Beryl, my God, Beryl. What the heck, banzai!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Connie,
    Thanks Connie. He just might 🙂 It would have been great to be there to finally meet you and the other bloggers. iBlog3 is out. Janette invited me to handle a panel but I can’t make it as I’m handling a training on those dates. Sayang. Next time.

    Gail,
    Thank you and congrats too for a great job with the awards. You should be glad I wasn’t there as I was stunned by the result and felt like Roberto Benigni, who freaked out when he won an Oscar and later told an interviewer:

    I just go mad! They call out my name and BANG! Off I go! I run down the aisle and then back-flip back down again. I jump on the back of Steven Spielberg’s chair and push a custard pie into his face! Squash! He love it! Then I moonwalk back up and show my bottom to Jack Nicholson. He love it! Next, I crowd-surf around the room. They love it! Yes! The crowd, she go wild! Then next, I squeeze Annette Benning’s boobies!

    Just kidding 🙂

    I will email you my mailing address.

    Jhay,
    Salamat. Kumusta na ang connection?

    Reply
  12. Frank A Hilario Avatar
    Frank A Hilario

    You may want to read my feature story on the Blog Awards at my website.

    Reply
  13. PinoyTechie.com Avatar
    PinoyTechie.com

    Congratulations on the award! 🙂

    Glad to know you have started to use Drupal. If you’re creating community sites, then Drupal is the way to go. I, myself, am using Drupal in my community sites, although it takes a bit of work to optimize — i.e., speed up — a Drupal site. (Especially 4.7 which is, in my experience, slower when compared to the Drupal 4.6 version. Am not sure about 5.0 though which I have recently used for a new site; am hoping it’s faster) .

    At any rate, the general advice out there is that Drupal runs best when its files are hosted in the same machine where the database is hosted, or better yet if Drupal is installed on a dedicated server.

    :)Dino

    Reply

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