A dude from Lichtenstein discovered the Internet today and the week after, he’s giddying up to let the world know about his existence. He wants to start his own website–his own blog. Every day in one corner of the globe a hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new bloggers invade the bloggosphere.

According to recent statistics by Technorati, the bloggosphere is expanding exponentially. Most of these new bloggers utilize Blogger, Wordpress.com and other free blog hosts initially but as they start to get “serious” (it just takes a month or less) they’ll eventually opt to get their own domain and their own hosting plan.

With zillions of web hosts out there ranging from the dubious to the ligit, from the retailers to the mainstream, finding the right host to fit the bill is not an easy task. I for one struggled with having to move to a better location after 2 months of being with GoDaddy.

Had I known about a formidable web host rating site that has a comprehensive info on the good and the bad side of every major player of the biz. Webhostingrating.com is one of these sites and, to tell you the truth, seems to have a complete list of hosts and fair reviews. They also have articles which are not only educational but entertaining as well. Took me this long since I started blogging to know what Rubby on Rails is about thanks to their article.

The controversy between stem cell research has been one of the biggest in medical science since the onset of the new millennium. A lot of self proclaimed moral activists and so called pro-life advocates have raised their eyebrows when they learned about the potentials of stem cell research.

Stem cells research opened our eyes to the future of health science and how it can potentially cure most, if not all, terminal diseases we have today.

A colleague of mine back in my home town of Maasin has been suffering from juvenile diabetes since her 22nd birthday and now that she’s married, the disease is preventing her from bearing a child. Talk about 2 miscarriages in a row. With the help of stem cells which now can be harvested from women’s menstrual fluids or C’elle stem cells.

About the Science

The lining uterine lining or the endometrium is found to contain self renewing stem cells that can be preserved through cryogenic process. Based on preliminary tests, donor stem cells may benefit your biological family as well. A C’ell kit contains detailed instruction as to non-invasive collection of these stem cells.

Lot’s of women have been trying out this new technology which could potentially save their lives in the future. C’elle Client Testimonial can be accessed through their website.

High speed internet may have been considered a luxury during the last decade of the 20th century that only a handful could ever enjoy. During the turn of the century and thanks to the advancement in communication technology and the competition among service providers, high speed online access became part of what we call, “basic necessities”. This trend opened a lot of possibilities for people who wants to work at the comfort of their own homes and for educators and students to redefine the concept of a classroom.

In the effort to make the high speed online service accessible and, at the same time, affordable to all student, Charter Communications, one of the leading Internet Service Provider in the country, is launching the Charter Laptop-a-Day Giveaway as part of their back to school promo. They are giving away 1 HP Compaq Presario C770US Laptops every day for the 30 days of September. Each laptop is $600 of value.

Just order any Charter Communication service online ( Charter High-Speed® Internet at $19.99/mo for 6 months, Charter Digital Home™ and High-Speed Internet at $69.98/mo for 6 months or Charter Digital Home™, High-Speed Internet, and Charter Telephone® at $99.97/mo. for 12 months) and you’ll automatically get a chance to win your brand new laptop plus, you’ll also get a Shell gas card worth $100.

With a high speed internet connection and a new laptop, it’s easier to keep up and even get ahead of the competition.

Getting a call from a total stranger on your phone is one of the things that makes my blood pressure rise. Specially if they come from those pesky telemarketers. Prepaid mobile phone plans seem to make a lot of prank callers and psychopaths, who loves to make those heavy breathing sounds on the phone, more confident as it promise anonymity. Add to the list those anonymous malicious calls laden with harassment. I used to get a lot of it way back when I was still with the government.

Until recently, getting a phone book and searching for the number manually seems to be the only way to know who is behind the number that’s calling. It’s a tedious process and would take much of your precious time (or your secretary’s) and, sometimes, it could be very frustrating as the number on your phone book is limited only to people using the same phone service or your state.

Reverse phone directory lookup cuts the hassle and saves you more time. Before, this service is only available through private investigators and the Feds. Thanks to tracenumber.com, an online provider of this service,  the public can now have access to this information and it will just cost you less than what you’ll have to spend with a PI.  If you’re lucky, the number you’re looking up may just be available on their public list.

It’s now your time to get back at those pesky callers and give them a dose of their own medicine.

As friends and family start moving to other parts of the globe for employment, business, vacation and to marry that exotic Viatnamese they met on a chatroom, keeping the bonds together accross the miles could easily take it’s toll on the pocket. Long distance calls and international SMS service may have been easily available thanks to the Internet but only recently has it been light on the pocket.

Tabrio Mobile (Beta), a new player in the communication industry makes global text messaging and long distance calls way cheaper than what the established players are offering today and they even offer an easy way to manage your contacts like syncrhonizing your outlook express database to your mobile device.

Small business owners will benifit more from their services as it will cut communication costs by more than a half thereby increasing potential profit or strategically set the price lower than one’s competitor.

It’s added feature, 2 way text messaging lets you send and recieve message just like when you’re using an Instant Messenger and they even have a lot of other add-on products like the Tabio Mobile Website.

you may use Tabio online now to start making calls directly from your browser and you don’t need to install any software at all. Signup for a free account and register your phone and they will even give you $5 credit to get you started.

It sucks that most companies now are filtering access to specific websites on the net. We can’t blame them, really, cause most employees are abusing bandwidth like my friend who works for this insurance firm who just downloads mature contents everyday so most of his office mates are suffering poor browsing speed on the company website. Well, filters are there for a reason alright but so does proxy sites.

Proxy sites or anonymous surfing sites are just plain websites with cloaking capability to encrypt the real website address and meta tags so your server filter would not flag it. Proxy sites are popular among office workers, students and the Chinese people who’s internet accessed are filtered by the government itself. Most of the popular proxy sites before are now included in th ban list of most firms giving way for less popular ones to flourish.

Here’s a list of working proxies and their features.

• anonymously.ws -proven and tested using our company’s own filter. It’s, by far, my weapon of choice for accessing Gmail and Yahoo Mail. Just select the Youtube link at the upper right corner of the web page then type in your desired site of destination on the proxy’s own address bar. You may opt to turn off special scripts for java and flash. it does not play Youtube videos though.
• sitesurfs.com -it’s more powerful than the anonymously.ws since it can play Youtube and other multemedia from sites like metacafe and the likes. It also have less pop-up and ads so you won’t be bothered much.
• clickwish.info - simple interface and a weapon of choice for not so discerning  site surfers. Clickwish lets you browse websites just by inputting it on it’s address bar. It has limited powers, though. Some websites are not properly rendered and some are even detected by the filters.

Windows Vista has been in the market for more than a year now and although most PC users are still hesitant to upgrade their systems to the latest Microsoft offering, it has gained popularity among Windows converts and newbies alike. They may say it’s just a prettier version of the past operating systems but this baby has more to offer than just her looks. Yep, it has brains too. No wonder it requires more RAM, man.

To start with, Vista has an integrated security system that makes it easier to lock access from hackers and malwares alike. No need to shell-out more for Anti-virus and Firewall thus saving your money.

In terms of connectivity, Vista also leads by a mile with it’s self diagnostic and connection repair feature. You just need to go to Network Sharing Center and click on the “X” mark between that blocks your connection to the internet and it fixes itself for you. No need to go to the hassle of calling your internet service provider which could take minutes of your precious time. Wireless access is also a breeze since it automatically detects it for you and it is also loaded with encryption software so your data is safer even if you are on a public network like Starbucks.

Multitasking feature is also up by a notch and you don’t need to go to each window anymore to check on it. Just point your mouse on the specific tab on your taskbar and it will show you a preview of that window. You can also use the awesome windows switching preview which really fascinates even the non-tech savvy like my grand ma.

I may not have finished college but I’m sure i would be more in-demand than those who who finished those bachelors degree in whatever. This is not just me boasting my achievements but I’m talking of realities here.

With the overwhelming choices of college courses and my fickle mind, I had a hard time selecting which one to settle on. This leads me to shifting from one course to another until I decided to totally stop and focus on learning Information Technology from the net. That’s how I picked blogging up and learned about Cisco certification.

Basically, getting a Cisco certificate means that you are well versed with Cisco products which is currently the leading provider for networking devices for home and corporate use. It also means that more job opportunities will be opened as more and more companies are seeking for system administrators based on the forecast done by CNET and other tech giants.

Getting Cisco certification is one of the leading motivations for taking my job here in Cebu as Tech Support for a big company in the US. There’s no place where I could get certification back in Maasin so and Cebu is the closest option. Luckily, my workplace is just walking distance away from TESDA Cebu where I enrolled for Cisco certification training and they even have a schedule that matched with my available time.

The training is just easy to understand and it’s just like rocket science for geeks like us. It may be hard for newbies though. I suggest they get basic training before they venture to this field.

Perhaps, after I finish the short term training and, hopefully, get my certification, I could land that high paying job in Singapore and not take in calls for eight or more hours per day. It’s not a bad motivation, isn’t it?

Management principles may be crowding most bookshelves nowadays ranging from the popular Six Sigma, which was developed by Motorola, to Human Sigma, to the older Theory Z, and such other literature that are claiming to be revolutionary and effective when it comes to bringing the best in the organizations but these principles may not hold water in actual practice.

Six Sigma, for example, when applied by the book in the Philippine context may be taken as something that is too confrontational which may lead to subordinates being too offended by the evaluation and calibration process and make them loathe their managers to the point where they would rather want to quit their jobs.

My five years experience in the Sangguniang Kabataan has thought me a lot about management. Of course the first year has not been easy cause most of us where more into our studies than our official duties plus the fact that we only meet once per quarter except for emergency meetings and federation activities.  It’s hard to craft a suitable management style if you don’t know well the people that your going to handle and it’s also a lot harder when you got to manage 69 young people like myself who were in the peak of adolescense and worse, I was still 17 then and struggling to make myself sociable even though I was a loner ( and still am). After the first year, I was able to know which cherry to pick from the bushes of proven effective management styles. It’s not really good to rely on just one and it’s always best to add a personal touch to it.

A little help from simple project management softwares such as the one provided by Pelotonics would have made it a bit easier for me when I was still starting off. Project management softwares help makes colaboration easier as it allows a centralized messaging portal where everyone can keep track of updates and avoid ”Didn’t you get that?” syndrome.

With the right tools, the best attitude, a cooperative organization and, a little help from modern technology, managing a team these days is easier even if you’re handling an organization as big as, well, the Maasin City SK Federation.

P.S.

How I miss those days. 

Technical support representatives, specially those who have been on the job for less than 2 months, rely mostly on application emulators in guiding customers through the troubleshooting process. However, only a handful of websites or blogs cater to the needs of a growing population of technical support specialist or call center agents, in general.

Having been on the job for almost two weeks now, I think it’s the best time to post a definitive list of the best application emulators or simulators both for Mac and Windows Applications. 

• Temulator- The premiere go-to site for Windows OS simulators. It carries and almost complete and realistic simulation of Windows operating systems and common applications from Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows  Vista. It also house simulatiors for other popular web browsers (Avant, Maxthon, Opera, Mozilla, and Firefox), mail clients (Outlook 2000, Eudora Mail, Incredimail, The Bat! and Mozilla Thunderbird), and security softwares (Norton Antivirus 2007, AVG 7.5, Symantec Antivirus and Nod32).
• Oyah- Oyah’s database of Windows virtual desktop application emulators is also comprehensive. However, since it uses a slower flash technology which takes a longer buffering time, it comes only next to Temulator in terms of speed but makes up for it in the number of emulators available for use. You may need to register for free to access the protected simulation though.
  • Operatings Systems
    • Windows 95
    • Windows NT
    • Windows ME
    • Windows XP 
    • Mac 9,
    • OS X
  • Security Suites 
    • FSecure Internet Security Suite 2004
    • McAfee Security Center 8, Norton Antivirus 2003
    • Windows One Care
  • Email Clients 
    • Mac Mail 2.0.7
    • Eudora 6.0
    • Incredimail XE
    • Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5  
    • Microsoft Outlook 2007
    • Windows Mail 6
    • Windows Mail 7
    • Microsoft Outlook 2003
    • Microsoft Outlook 2002
  • Web Browsers
    • Safari 3.0.4 for Mac
    • Safari 3.0.4 for Windows
    • Mozilla Firefox 2.0 for Mac
    • Mozilla Firefox 2.0 for Windows
    • Flock1.0.9 for Windows
    • Netscape 7
    • Netscape 4.7
• NeotechCC - Although it’s obvious that no one is maintaining this site anymore and it just uses the oldschool hotlinking of screen shots to simulate applications, it’s popularity amongh the tech savy population has remained constant. It’s got walkthroughs for oldschool applications and the likes.
• NetFAQs - If NeotechCC is oldschool, NetFAQs could then be considered premitive. It does not use any hot linking or flash simulators. It can’t even be called a simulator at all. It’s merely a collection of Frequently Asked Questions with detailed screenshots on every step taken to arrive at a given directory or problem resolution. It’s non-tech-savy friendly and loads faster than the rest. It supports Windows, Mac and even Lenux.
• CAISS, EZ Armor Emulators - Computer Associates Internet Security Suite, EZ Armor, and others
• Chasms - Updated and comprehensive collection of virtual applications and simulators including those for game consoles and latest browsers including Firefox 3
• VirtualApplications - Complete simulator for Mac and Windows. May take longer to load but worth the wait.

More reviews coming soon.

If you have a similar Virtual application site, just give me some link love and I will give you a backlink too.