noel alanguilan

i don’t normally do this but i just got mail from boss janix that its taking a while to bring the site back up as they don’t know the cause of the problem. so in the meantime just sit back and relax and know that people are looking for solutions.

you can temporarily use the pinoy roadies group in facebook. there’s another temporary site but i forget the address.   i’ll post any news i get about the site here.

bata

i was taking a picture of the caged capiz window and this boy passes by.

the cyclist is actually wearing a face mask / air filter

administrative order no. 254: mandating the department of transportation and communications to lead in formulating a national environmentally sustainable transport (est) for the philippines.

i came across this tidbit from the blog of the tour of the fireflies organizers.

first, let’s get familiar with the acronyms:

tgff — task group on fossil fuels
est — environmentally sustainable transport
pacc — presidential adviser on climate change

the gist of the administrative order along with my comments below the items i find interesting:

a) Reform the transport sector to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. The new paradigm in the movement of men and things must follow a simple principle: “Those who have less in wheels must have more in road.” For this purpose, the system shall favor non-motorized locomotion and collective transportation system (walking, bicycling, and the man-powered mini-train).

walking would actually be a fantastic option if the powers that be could maintain clean and proper sidewalks free of parked trucks and cars, tricycles, motorcycles, pedicabs, vendors, guard houses, utility posts and garbage as they are suppose to. in other words, make the sidewalks walkable as they should be. this applies not only to the major roads but for the minor ones and the side streets as well. people will walk as long as the places they can walk on is clean and safe.

now, using bicycles as an alternative form of transport in the metro is a bit more complicated. consider the jeepneys, taxis, passenger buses, tricycles, pedicabs that endlessly weave in heavy syrupy traffic for no apparent or logical reason and compete for that 1-meter space near the street corner just to get a single passenger. where would one place the bike lane? would these drivers even respect the bike lane when half of them do not give a hoot about the pedestrian lane? i am aware that people have been commuting to work by bicycle under these circumstances but the idea here is to get more people into it. how to accomplish this feat is going to take a lot. i’ll leave that for another post.

bicycling i get, but what exactly is a human-powered mini-train? the engineer in me is absolutely curious.

b) Through the DOTC and the DPWH, immediately transform roads using the aforesaid principle.

if this is what i think it is then i am so looking forward to even, well maintained sidewalks and bicycle lanes. i am just curious as to how the lanes can be managed and respected considering metro manila’s convoluted vehicular and human traffic.

c) Through Malacañan Palace and all Cabinet offices, bring down by fifty percent (5O%) the consumption of fossil fuels within two (2) years from the issuance of EO 774.

50% is an admirable target but is it realistic? i know the principle of leading by example is a good one but i think 20 – 25% would be a more practical target, wouldn’t it? and what with the two-year target? is this administrative order co-terminus with the current presidency?

these are the points i am mostly interested in. if you want the full text of administrative order you can download the pdf file from the website of the office of the president.

despite some of my comments being somewhat tainted by sarcasm, i am hopeful that manila can become cleaner. i have always found that there are always some difficulty in implementing laws especially new ones but i will try to be optimistic on this one.

dining table one afternoon.

i’ve started playing with film photography again. its not really expensive as before, believe it or not. i spend more on the camera batteries than the film. i am looking for rechargeable cr123a batteries and i haven’t found any yet. bummer.

in the meantime, click.

wordpress 2.7 introduced me to post revisions — these are draft copies of your posts. these copies are saved in your wordpress database along with your posts, comments, etc. sometimes my revisions it gets to be ridiculously too many. apparently, the revisions are retained even after you have published the post thereby occupying unnecessary space in the database. so far, there is no built-in point-and-click method of getting rid of these revisions from the database.

i’ve found two ways to delete these revisions.

first, the hard way. fire up your phpadmin; choose your wordpress database; click on the sql icon and a window will pop up where you can enter and sql command:

DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type = "revision";

then click on ‘go’.

phpadmin will tell just just how many revisions were deleted. you’re done.

of course, there’s always the easy way. download and install a plugin called wp-optimize. this plugin can remove all post revisions plus optimize the database tables–the two functions that i usually use phpadmin for the maintenance of the sql tables (aka wordpress databases). other plugins have more database features but more is not necessarily better. its just more. this one’s right for my purpose.

2.5 kilometers. this morning. i know its not far by my normal standards but its far enough for me today. its the first time i’ve been out on a bike on the open streets since april last year and my cycling skills are a bit rusty. this ride was meant to familiarize myself with the road and the traffic and to tell me what my body can do and where my skills were at.

i didn’t fall. that’s one good thing. i can really still balance the bike. that’s another good thing although i found out that i am more stable at speeds faster than 10 kilometers per hour–a strange but welcome thing. i weave at lower speeds which i do not like and i would have to work on that skill. i can clip in and out easily enough. my hands got tired halfway through the ride which means i have to do more hand exercises.

today, i accomplished what i set out to do for myself. i think this is good. its a great short ride. thanks to gerry, lito, felix and al for the encouragements–it helped a lot at the start. i’ll probably do a longer ride next sunday but for now its time to rest.

my brother tagged me in facebook. 25 random things about me. i’m not sure that if i ignore it the sky would fall on me so rather than risk bike, life and limb i’m listing 25 things down. now if i tag you, you’re not required to make your list but there is that possibility that the sky might fall. on me. would you want that on your conscience? besides its fun. (later on i found out that it was also difficult)

despite the seeming mayhem there are rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

1. sometimes my dreams come with subtitles.
2. i’m a hopeless romantic.
3. they wanted to name me after the holy family but someone realized it was too long and dropped a name hence–emmanuel jose.
4. they nicknamed me “cute” in college. the name is still used–on occasion–to this day.
5. my roots are in san pablo city. i was born and bred there.
6. i want to ride my bicycle in tuscany.
7. someone said i am an old spirit. i guess i’ve been around for a while now.
8. i am reasonably obsessive compulsive.
9. i’m a beach person. i like the mountains but i’m a beach person first.
10. i’m trying to see if sketching is for me. pencils. two of them. i have yet to use the eraser.
11. i prefer wine over beer.
12. i’m getting back into film photography. i found out how to get everything a lot cheaper. thanks kat.
13. i really want to speak and write in japanese.
14. i like romantic comedies and sad/depressing movies.
15. i like to keep my kitchen knives sharp i have one those sharpening rods.
16. yes, i can cook. but not as well as my girlfriend, brother or mother. well, at the least, i am comfortable in the kitchen.
17. according to my girlfriend, i make great omelettes.
18. i like my hotdogs toasted and my coffee black.
19. i name inanimate objects that i regularly use — chong for the car, kikay for my bike and oscar for my workstation.
20. i was able to bike from my house near ust to tagaytay and back. 130 kilometers total.
21. 59 kilometers per hour is the fastest i’ve gone on a bike. it was made on my way home coming from tagaytay.
22. i wear an earring. left ear.
23. i actually saw the bone inside my left pointy finger. gross. i was trying to create a wooden gun with a bolo and at one point i missed. it was a mess. five stitches.
24. all of my jeans have a hole over the left knee. and none of them was intentionally made.
25. i shook hands and had small talk with former presidents cory aquino and fidel ramos (he was then secretary of defense), and john taylor (of duran duran and power station fame).

i’ve thought about a handful of ways for technology to maybe help businesses (and maybe homes) to save a little money.

• use what you have. do not upgrade your software to anything unless its free. if you’re using windows xp then stay with it. there’s no point in switching to linux when you already have the license for xp. same goes with whatever version of microsoft office you have installed — if you have it installed at all. there’s also no point in pirating ms office when there are a bunch free alternatives already just waiting to be downloaded.
• standardize on the  basic file formats to adopt within the workplace especially with documents and spreadsheets. choose the common “denominator” — the file format that all word processing or spreadsheet program can save as.  this way, you can use different versions of the word processing or spreadsheet programs and not have to worry about compatibility or forced to pay to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of that program.
• make use of old computers. if possible, max out the memory or plug in at least 1 gig then install linux. you probably should use at least a 1 ghz pentium 4 or equivalent for desktops. mind the type of memory modules needed by the computer. older computers need older memory modules.
• you can possibly use these old computers as print or file servers. just max the memory, put in a really large hard drive and you’re in business. install a server-specific linux distribution and you’ll save a lot from server licensing especially if you have a large population of users.
• if your company is buying new computers, try purchasing them with linux installed. it should come out a little cheaper compared to when windows xp or vista is installed. if it isn’t cheaper then tell the vendor that windows is not free and when you woke up that morning it still isn’t free and that you’re just buying the hardware and not the software. for office applications you can always download and use open office.
• not buying new hardware? give a little speed to your old computer by increasing its memory to 2 gig. 4 gig would be nice but 2 seems to be the sweet spot. this is certainly cheaper than buying a new computer.

i woke up with an update notice on the wordpress dashboard. i usually dread this event because it meant two days of updating nine wordpress installations that i keep. it takes two days because i have to backup my wordpress databases and files then manually delete almost all the wordpress files then upload the fresh. i have to do this nine times and my internet connection is relatively slow. tedious.

the good new is that with version 2.7 i can easily update my wordpress installations — they included a update script. heed the advice and backup your wordpress database and files before doing the upgrade.

once you got everything backed up and you’re sure that the backups are good take the jump and press that upgrade button. all of my upgrades were successful so far. there are two more upgrades i have to do.

i upgraded seven wordpress installations in less than an hour. that is a huge savings in time.

i just got a heads up from the firefly brigade — this year’s tour of the fireflies will be on the 19th of april. the start and end will be at tiendesitas and “we’re doing edsa this year“.   it sounds crazy but fun! edsa. wow.

to anyone not familiar with the metro manila area, edsa is an acronym for epifanio delos santos avenue. it is the main highway of metro manila. it is mostly 10 lanes passing through five cities so its a pretty big roadway used by 225,000 vehicles on average per section per day.

you can watch for updates at the brigade’s multiply site.

i am not sure if i can tackle the stop and go nature of this ride (it might not be the case because its going to be edsa this year) but i had fun the last time i joined. i’ll post news as i get them.