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 Posted in Articles on March 7th, 2010
As a self-proposed geek and a professional software developer, it is hard for me to admit that I was totally clueless about online shopping for the longest time. Early last year, I got hit by the Hallyu wave and got addicted to all things Korean. KPOP, Korean hairstyle, Korean girls and Earmuffs!
 Isn't she cute with those earmuffs? At first, I thought “Can I wear earmuffs? I mean, those are for girls only right?” and then I found this:
 Even KPOP Boybands wear cute earmuffs! I was ready to get my own pair of those cute earmuffs but then I realized that THERE IS NO FREAKIN WINTER IN THE PHILIPPINES! Unfortunately, continental drift wasn’t on our side when it decided to the place Philippines near the freakin equator. So until the next Polar Shift, I’ve agreed to settle on a compromise: Headphones. So the search was on for my KPOP inspired headphones. I am glad to have watched the S.E.O.U.L music video by SNSD and Superjunior where I saw the SuJu guy wearing a very cute headphone:
 Mixstyle headphones! I am not really a big fan of Super Junior. But I am the biggest SNSD fan in the Philippines (Self-Proposed). So when I saw SNSD wearing Mixstyle headphones, I just have to get one for myself!
 Yoona, Sooyoung and Hyoyeon loves their Mixstlyle! So I tirelessly searched for a shop (online or not) that sells Mixstyle headphones in the Philippines. My search was fruitless. There are a lot of people selling Mixstyles on Multiply but a lot of them are fake! I saw a dude selling Mixstyles for only 1,500 PHP but how is that possible when Mixstyles retails for about 4,000 Yen (or about 2,000 PHP) in Japan (these are Japanese headphones, afterall)? My friend, Carlos, even told me that Mixstyles are available at Trinoma for only 500 PHP! Since I don’t really want to use cheap, fake ripoffs, I was glad to know that Mixstyles can be bought online for a reasonable price (around 50 USD). But there was a dilemma, I have never bought anything online! But fortunately, I found out that its so easy to buy stuff online! Read on and be amazed on how easy it is!
(For more of my experience with Yesasia, stay tuned next week as I will blog about my Yesasia shopping experience and my Mixstyle unboxing event!)
Continue reading “How to buy stuff online if you’re from the Philippines or My First Online Shopping Experience” »
Posted in Articles on January 24th, 2010
 Larry Wall haz dem Larry Wall, the creator of the infamous Perl programming language, has once said that the greatest virtues of a good programmer are Laziness, Impatience and Hubris. To not mislead the lazy “computer science” students, allow me to define each virtues:
- Laziness — The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer. See also impatience and hubris.
- Impatience – The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you write programs that don’t just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or at least pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and hubris.
- Hubris – Excessive pride. Also the quality that makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won’t want to say bad things about. Hence, the third great virtue of a programmer. See also laziness and impatience.
A few days ago, a tester at our company filled a track that contained multiple attachments (Screenshots, Error Logs, etc) to assist the developers on their investigation. As we are using Microsoft’s Team Foundation System for source control and bug tracking, the most obvious way to get these attachments is through TFS Web Access; Frankly speaking, this is the only “official” way to access the track (bug report) on our company.
 The TFS Web Access homepage UI I don’t know if its a lack of feature or what, but there is no way in TFS Web Access to download multiple attachments at once. Additionally, when downloading attachments that contains a space on their filename, TFS Web Access will automatically concatenate the filename and that will remove the file’s extension (EG: Screenshot of the bug.jpg will be renamed to Screenshot)… You still need to manually rename the file with the proper extension to open it. And because I’m lazy, I don’t want to log-in to TFS Web Access, type in the track ID, click on the attachments tab, click on the file(s) I want to download, browse for the location where to save the file, create a new folder for the track, click save, minimize my browser, open the download location and (unzip the attachment, it its zipped, which normally is) to just view a single screenshot.
Since I am a big believer of Wall’s three virtues, I created a tool that will automate those boring and repetitive tasks for me (and allow me to download *all* attachments from a work item + workaround the “spacing” bug). The tool is called WIF or Work Item Fetcher and it is currently in Closed-Limited Beta.
At first, I thought about parsing the web pages to download the attachments using HTML Sanitizers and Regular Expressions but then I remembered that only Chuck Norris can parse HTML using regular expressions! So I searched the web and found out about the TFS SDK! Go .NET! Go Laziness! Okay, enough chit-chat, the rest of the post will be dedicated to discussing how to use the TFS API to download attachments from TFS. 
Continue reading “Laziness, Impatience and Hubris or How to download Work Item attachments programatically using TFS SDK” »
Posted in Articles on October 27th, 2009
Almost everyone that I interact with everyday knows that I have been a long time fan of So Nyeo Shi Dae (Girl’s Generation). I have been spazzing (google it) about the 9 girls for almost a year now. I even made it a point to know YoonA’s blood type so that on the rare event that YoonA accidentally fall off the stage while performing (God forbids), I will be able to donate my blood to save her. No, my blood isn’t actually compatible with hers but I am willing to change my blood type, even if it costs me my life. (I Kid, I Kid ) I’ve watched every darn performance, I’ve listened to all of their albums (Listened is an understatement, the album collection is on a loop on my mp3 player), and I followed the girls’ adventure by watching their T.V shows (Girls Go To School, Factory Girl, etc). Yes, I am an obsessed fan who smiles when listening to Gee at 5:00 AM before going to sleep. And I can actually enumerate those 9 girls’ names faster than I can name the last five presidents of our country. So yeah, I’m a big fan.
 My nine precious girls Continue reading “What does it mean to be Jologs? (Or my violent reaction to SNSD’s popularity in the Philippines)” »
Posted in Articles on September 17th, 2009
 Paul Graham (Author of Hackers and Painters) I love Paul Graham. The guy speaks my mind. Although I don’t agree with all of his ideas (E.G. Java programmers are stupid. PERIOD.), most of his ideas are golden. For those of weak hearts (and sensitive ego), please proceed with care. 
The essay that will follow, entitled Great Hackers, basically compliments the main idea of my previous post which is “To do something well you have to love it.”
Some quotable quotes from this essay:
“Ordinary programmers write code to pay the bills. Great hackers think of it as something they do for fun, and which they’re delighted to find people will pay them for.”
“Hackers like to work for people with high standards. But it’s not enough just to be exacting. You have to insist on the right things. Which usually means that you have to be a hacker yourself. I’ve seen occasional articles about how to manage programmers. Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you’re not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up.”
“The distinguishing feature of nasty little problems is that you don’t learn anything from them. Working on nasty little problems makes you stupid. Good hackers avoid it for the same reason models avoid cheeseburgers.”
“I’ve found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent.”
“The key to being a good hacker may be to work on what you like. When I think about the great hackers I know, one thing they have in common is the extreme difficulty of making them work on anything they don’t want to. I don’t know if this is cause or effect; it may be both.”
“One difference I’ve noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect. And I can see why political incorrectness would be a useful quality in programming. Programs are very complex and, at least in the hands of good programmers, very fluid. In such situations it’s helpful to have a habit of questioning assumptions.”
AND NOW, THE ESSAY
Continue reading “Ordinary Programmers vs Great Hackers” »
Posted in Articles on September 14th, 2009
 Judy Ann Santos - Philippine Superstar If there is someone that I hate more than Ms. Judy Ann Santos, that someone would have to be a person who has a job that he or she is not passionate about.
I don’t know if it’s the Philippine economy or just the Filipino culture that makes it “okay” for someone to live a life of suffering; enduring a job he or she hates for exchange of a comfortable life and a prestigious career. I’ve heard countless stories of teenagers being forced by their parents to take a course like Medicine, Law or Engineering (Courses which will attach fancy-sounding, age-old, titles to their child’s name) against their child’s will. I’ve accidentally watched countless Pinoy movies with the same theme. (Kid wants to major in Fine Arts, MOM aka Mrs. Attorney wants the kid to major in Law and be a lawyer. Sounds familiar?)
Five years ago, Nursing became a popular course for High School graduates to take in college. I know that because that was the year when I graduated from High School. During that time, some of my classmates took Nursing courses not because they want to be nurses but just because being a nurse would almost guarantee a free-work pass to the US and a chance of snatching that American dream. And you know what? I think majority of the newly graduated nurses thinks the same too.
Continue reading “High Salary is Killing the Software Industry” »
Posted in Personal on August 10th, 2009
Last Friday was my 120th day at work. August 7, 2009 was the day that I officially became a permanent part of the workforce. I am now a “regular”, full-pledged, software developer.  Society has decided to accept me into the “real world”. People from this part of the world will now start to refer to me as an “adult” despite my bubbly, child-like disposition.
 6 Months of Corporate Citizenry For those who are not acquainted with the Philippine’s Labor System, let me put you up to speed with the “regularization” process. When a new employee enters a company, there is a six-month “getting-to-know” period wherein the employer will closely observe the employee’s job performance and base on that performance, the employer would decide whether to keep the employee as a “regular” employee or not (Fired). During that “getting-to-know” period, you as an “irregular/probationary” employee, are not entitled with some benefits like full medical benefits, perfect attendance bonus, etc.
Continue reading “My journey so far” »
Posted in Personal on July 19th, 2009
 Adidas Ozweego 365 It was just like yesterday when my Dad took me to a nearby mall to buy me my first pair of school shoes. I can still vividly remember that shoe – it was black, made of leather, and had those noisy “strap-ons”.
 'twas black, made of leather and had those noisy "strap-ons". I never chose that shoe. I hated it. It was common and boring. Everyone in school wore the same shoe except for the cool kids. The cool kids had those shoe that will light/blink whenever you take a step. I want that shoe and I remember crying and whining all the way home when my Dad forced me to “choose” the leather one. I’ve always hated leather shoes.
 Cool Kid's Shoes -- IT BLINKS! Time flies. I’m already 20-ish, and today is the first time that I bought my own pair of shoes! Without my dad telling me what to like, choose or buy. I also paid it on my own. Oh, the price of independence.
Posted in Daily Logs on July 5th, 2009
 A Typical Call Center in the Philippines WOW. After watching this video/documentary, I can definitely say that the state of outsourcing here in the Philippines is SO MUCH better compared to India.
What happens when a successful US-based computer programmer, who lost his lucrative job to outsourcing, travels to India to try to get it back?
Will he discover the secret of India’s success, or that sending jobs overseas is an unstable gamble?
The videos below share his incredible experience. It’s a fascinating and humanizing portrait of real Indians in Bangalore, the “Silicon Valley of India”.
This inside look shows how ridiculous it is to throw around terms like “slave labor” and “stealing jobs” without understanding the realities of this unusual world where best jobs start at 6pm and end at 3am…
Three suggestions:
1. Keep in mind which jobs are displacing foreign workers and which are not.
2. Notice the level of complaining among Indian workers. It’s almost non-existent.
3. Give the videos a minute to load. Patience, young Jedi.
This is hard-to-find coverage that will change how you think about “your” job. Highly recommended.
Watch the documentary here!
Posted in Articles on June 28th, 2009
Today’s post is a simple reminder that Localization is a dirty job!
 DateTime.Parse() will break your software on localized system So, after some time working on the migration project, we finally released a stable Release Candidate. While the Test Team is still running their Critical Regression testing (that’s the final test before release) on the release candidate, I was transferred back to the Localization project.
My current task is to make a certain web application work with the localized version of our product which is running on a localized version of Windows.
So far, there are 8 tracks filled against this certain web application. A quick look at the tracks revealed a common problem:
“String was not recognized as a valid DateTime.”
Continue reading “DateTime.Parse on Localized Systems” »
Posted in Site Related on June 23rd, 2009
BLOG.ianuy.com is now running Wordpress version 2.8! Remind me to never update Wordpress again! I also upgraded all of my plugins to the latest version.
 Wordpress 2.8 Upgrade, Pain in the as* A number of things had gone wrong during the upgrade:
- During the automatic upgrade of my plugins, some of them didn’t restart succesfully on their own so I have to manually activate them agian.
- Some widgets were removed. Needed to re-add it manually again (Most Viewed Widget).
- My custom smiley was erased. Need to re-upload them again.
- The Wordpress editor (TinyMCE Editor) font had defaulted back to its original font (Times New Roman, 12px). This is frustrating because I totally forgot how to set the editor font. You need to manually match the editor font to the blog font to have the WYSIWIG effect. (For my future reference, the settings are in wp-includes/js/tinymce/themes/advanced/skins/wp_theme/content.css . You need to click “Save Draft” after making the css changes to see its effect!)
- After upgrading to Wordpress 2.8, I checked to see if IE 8 will display the site properly (thankfully it did!). However, I noticed that my blog is now serving ads from specificclick.net! (I wasn’t able to notice the pop-up ad from Firefox because I’m using Ad Block Plus). At first, I thought that my friend’s hosting service / contract has changed and is now injecting ads into my blog (talked to him and he said that he hasn’t done anything). Then, I suspected that one of the plugin owners got broke and decided to sell ads thru their plugins… So I deactivated all plugin to no avail. So then I suspected that Wordpress 2.8 might be serving the ads (how pathetically stupid of me, Wordpress wouldn’t do that!). So after a few hours of searching, I found out that SiteMeter is the one who is serving unsolicited ads from my site! (Don’t worry kids, I already replaced the JS code with the HTML code to block the ads. More info about the scandal here.)
I have also added the Global Translator plugin (see footer) to boost traffic. (Hey, not everyone can read Engrish! )
I haven’t checked every function of the blog yet. So if you find something that looks broken, please hit the comments! Thanks!
PS (totally unrelated): Yuri is so freakin’ cute! New SNSD single out on June 25!
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