BusinessGeeks

BusinessGeeks’ Own Wordpress Theme now Online!

Noel Nuguid — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:33:45 +0000

In my previous post, I shared about my desire to learn HTML and CSS. Today I am very proud that my long nights of coding and more coding is has reached an important milestone. Not only was I able to finish my HTML template, but I was also able build a wordpress theme based from it.

This theme was built from scratch but was heavily influenced by Joomlart’s Ja-Teline theme and Michael Jubel’s Arthemia wordpress theme. Although, this is an initial launch, I’m sure i will find some areas in this theme that I can improve on. Special Thanks to the following individuals:

Maia Nuguid - for all the support even though i was sleeping very late because of this theme.
Raymond Selda - for a lot of his CSS coding advice.
Mark Renn Caluag - For helping fix that darn breadcrumbs :-D.
Beam Mariano - for checking the theme in IE6 and IE7 (im running Linux).
Chamie Castillo - For helping with some other css coding issues.

So my next step will be building this theme in Joomla.

Google Chrome - Will Google’s new Browser be Linux Friendly?

Noel Nuguid — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:06:43 +0000

Google Chrome. I recently got news that Google is indeed planning to release its own Web Browser. Rumors have been flying around but it seems that this new kid will bring a whole slew of features that will definitely change the Web Browser industry. But will it support the Linux platform?

Google Chrome Features

Blogoscoped has published a good list of Google Chrome’s upcoming features. Here is a quick rundown:

Google Chrome uses WebKit - Google’s new browser will be using the web brower engine used by Apple’s Safari web browser.
V8, Cutting Edge Javascript Virtual Machine - “chromey” will be using a new Javascript VM build from scratch. This version emphasizes great performances gains and features a “task manager” which can users identify offending processes within the browser.
Google Chrome’s take on Tabs - acknowledging the usefulness of tabs, Google Chrome will sport an alternative way of using browser tabs. Instead of the usual below the address bar, the Tabs will be above the address bar, whether this will provide better usability remains to be seen.
Omnibar in Google Chrome - This feature can be found in Firefox 3.0. It simply tries to help the user find previously visited sites when the user types something in the address bar. Instead of associating the text to the URL, the browser finds all text matches in the previously visited sites’ title tags. I like it in firefox, so im sure it would be nice to have in Chromey too.
Singing with Opera with the Speed Dial - Chromey also features a speed dialish feature similar to the one use by Opera but adds a ilittle more extra’s like a recently bookmarked section and some other stuff.
Privacy Mode - I am INVISIBLE - following the latest industry concerns on privacy. Chromey implements an “incognito” window which acts quite similarly to Internet Explorer’s InPrivate.
To know more about the features of Google Chrome, I like to call it Chromey, feel free to visit Blogoscoped or The Official Google Blog.

My ony wish is that.. THEY MAKE SURE TO PROVIDE A LINUX VERSION! If they dont, well im going to pissed… or umm… sad. waaaahhh!

UPDATE September 3, 2008: Google Chrome for Windows has been released. And still no Linux Version. You can download the Windows Version here: Google Chrome for Windows.

Is your development process like this?

Noel Nuguid — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:35:17 +0000

I came across this funny comic/cartoon that describes (quite accurately) how most companies carryout their development process. And a huge majority of these company, never realize that they are using the same development process as the one described in this picture.

Learning HTML: Reimplementing JA-Teline in HTML

Noel Nuguid — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:42:44 +0000

I wanted to learn how to build my own wordpress themes but I realized that i didn’t have the skills nor the experience to make one. Yes, I do possess working knowledge on how to tweak and edit existing HTML / CSS code but to build one from scratch is something I always wanted to learn and do.

Going straight into building a Wordpress theme maybe too ambitious so I decided to build a HTML template first. I choose to re implement a simplified Joomlart’s Ja Teline Theme for Joomla as my practice template. So after a couple of weeks of nose bleeding and hair pulling, I have made considerable progress. Here is what i was able to do so far:

Still a lot of work but for sure, this is a very good learning experience for me. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Update: As of August 21, 2008. I was able to cleanup the overall layout of my template. Next step would be to tweak the typographies.

How Name Calling can hurt Open Source.

Noel Nuguid — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:57:12 +0000

I have been using opensource software for quite some time now. And goes without saying that I spent my fair share of time reading through community forums and blogs related to the software I use. And in all of the sites i went to, there is always a selected few who namecalls alternatives. For example, I browse a linux community forum and i find some posts wherein members “poke fun” of Microsft and Microsoft Windows (calling them Windoze, Microsucks - you get the picture). Why all the namecalling? isnt this some kind of habit preschoolers do?

Well I personally know two people who has this habit of name calling Microsoft in the forums and I do understand why they have that attitude, its their past experience with the MS products that pissed them off. Now, I am sure that a lot of people would say “im just expressing myself” and for that I respect them. But how about we look at this from a different point of view?

Don’t you think that all this namecalling can negatively affect your favorite open source software’s visibility / image on the Internet? Here are two ways namecalling can affect Open source software.

Namecalling can project a level of childishness. Granted not all communities do this but project leader of opensource software or forum moderators encouraging this type of behavior only shows the attitude of these leaders about the other alternatives. A mature open source community will always respect other people’s work even if it sucks big time.

Missed Opportunity in Terms of SEO - For those of you who knows a little a bit of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), namecalling (read: misspelling) other products make you miss opportunities to target these keywords. For example, if your group is dicussing about “Windoze Alternatives” you are missing the opportunity to reach to people who are looking for “Windows Alternatives” in the search engines.

So what do I suggest? Well there is the Golder Rule to follow. But this is just me. What do you think?

Cuil Search Engine tries to wack Google

Noel Nuguid — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:35:00 +0000

Cuil Search Engine was recently launched by a group of former Google employees. Found by husband and wife team - Tom Costello and Anna Patterson, Cuil (pronounced “cool”) takes a different approach in sorting through all of the web pages on the web. Rather than using PageRank and its principles, Cuil was designed to primarily analyze the content of the websites.

Cuil also highlights the fact that they do not “study” their users as Google does to increase user experience and search relevancy. Cuil boasts that it “remembers nothing” as they state in the Cuil Privacy Policy:

When you search with Cuil, we do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies (more on this later). Your search history is your business, not ours.

What does it mean to us End users? Well doing a “vanity search” for my targetted keywords displays weird results. Here is a screenshot. Click on the Image to Enlarge

According to Cuil, it found 4,307 results for the search term “filipino business technology blogger” but its only displaying one result — Mine. Well I guess i should be thankful that its my site that pops up but the weird thing is, where are the other 4,306 pages? is Cuil filtering it? I tried turning of the safe search but still ended up with the same results.

Also, please note that the graphic thumbnail that cuil displayed for my entry is NOT mine and you will not find it ANYWHERE in my website. So how come Cuil used it for my site?

Just for comparison, here are the search engine results for the same keywords using Goolge, Yahoo! and MSN/Live.

Conclusion? Well I’d rather not make one right now since it would be unfair for Cuil to make one this early on. But one thing for sure, they need to get their engine to show better and more accurate results (ie do not use the wrong thumbnail) if they hope to challenge the Big G or even middle Y and little M/L. But for now, Google stays as my preferred search engine page.

Anybody getting better results than I have?>/p>

Google Ad Manager Invitation Email

Noel Nuguid — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:51:38 +0000

I just received my Google Ad Manager invitation email and I am very excited about it. For those who are still unfamiliar with what Google Ad Manager is all about, Google Ad Manager is a free service that allows website publishers like ME to manage the Ads/banner inventories on their site. This generally means having advertisements not only Adsense but from other ad networks. It is a direct competitor of OpenX ads management system but the good thing about it is that its a hosted service unlike OpenX which is software that you need to install and maintain on your servers

It is a direct competitor of OpenX ads management system but the good thing about it is that its a hosted service unlike OpenX which is software that you need to install and maintain on your serversI just opened my account and will be looking into the features! Here is the whole Google Ad Manager Invitation Email. Woohoo!

Hello,

Congratulations! We’ve activated your account for early access to the beta
release of Google Ad Manager.

Please note that this product is currently available in English only. If
English isn’t your preferred language, you can switch to Ad Manager in
your local language once we make this option available.

Ready to start using Google Ad Manager?

1. Visit http://www.google.com/admanager and sign in with your AdSense
username and password.

2. When you sign in, you’ll be asked to select a timezone and currency.
We suggest that you select your local timezone to schedule ads on your
site. We also recommend selecting the same currency you use to bill your
advertisers. Your timezone and currency choices will be permanent,
although they won’t affect your AdSense language and payments settings.

For immediate assistance, visit our Help Center at
http://www.google.com/support/admanager/publisher. You can also join the
Ad Manager Help Forum (http://groups.google.com/group/admanager-help),
where you can share questions and information with other Ad Manager users.

If you need help setting up your account, refer to the Getting Started
Guide located in the help center:
https://www.google.com/admanager/static/pdf/getting_started_guide.pdf

We hope you’ll take advantage of this exclusive beta launch.

Thanks,

The Google Ad Manager Team

Now I’m really Excited!

Google starts indexing Flash media

Noel Nuguid — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:42:53 +0000

Google is currently in the process of improving the ability of the Googlebot to index flash media. This is being made possible with the recent announcement of a team up with industry leading search engines to be able improve its search results by including information from flash media. The announcement was made by Adobe in San Jose California.

Through this team up, leading search engines will be able to crawl flash dynamic content and rich internet applications (RIA’s). Working with Adobe, Google has already begun to rall out Adobe Flash Player technology into its search engine results pages and Yahoo will be soon updating with the same concept.

With Google and Yahoo moving into indexing and crawling Flash Media, one just have to think, how will this affect the adoption of Silverlight? My guess is that silverlight will die a slow death as Adobe is effectively stumping on it with the help of leading search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Yet another Opinion about Piracy Part 1

Noel Nuguid — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:30:40 +0000

Being an Anti-Piracy advocate for around 4 years now, I think its time for me to actually discuss about what is my perception on piracy, the possible roots of piracy in the Philippines and my own suggestions on how to help reduce piracy in the Philippines.

This article will be the first of three articles on Yet another view on Piracy in Philippines. In this series, I will be:

Painting a Picture of Piracy in the Philippines
Discussing and Disecting some of the many reasons behind piracy
Suggesting and voicing out some of my opinions on how to reduce Piracy

Painting a Picture of Piracy in the Philippines

Piracy in the Philippines like any other country in the world is very prevalent. It has come to the point that vendors actually peddle pirated movies, audio’s cd and software in the streets themselves rather than being discreete about it. In fact, people actually brag about them patronizing pirated movies. Some even are proud to show of their entire DVD collection of pirated movies. Although there is no denying to there people who ARE buying legit items, how many people do you know that actually have a firm stand in NOT buying pirated movies, audio CD’s or software? Consider the following scenarios:

Scenario # 1, I am online one evening when a friend in the medical profession suddenly comes online in yahoo messenger so I started a friendly conversation and found out that she was downloading the latest Grey’s Anatomy season FROM Limewire. Now I dont know about you but I believe that 9 out of 10 of the movies and music files in P2P networks are pirated.

So I made a friendly question, “That’s piracy isn’t it?”. My friend defensively said, “Hindi ah, for personal use ko lang at hindi ko naman ibebenta (Of course not, this is for personal use only and besides, I wont sell it).”. Nger… Ok, another way of NOT defining Piracy — If its personal use, its ok to download from the Internet, even if you’re not paying for it.
Scenario # 2, how about in the school setting? Well picture this, a lot of schools whether elementary, high school and even colleges now offer computer classes aimed to making their students competitive in the IT industry. So they load the classroom computers with Microsoft, Adobe and other industry standard software and teach these in their curriculum. Nothing wrong with that, but at the end of the day, when these students go home or when they graduate. do you think they can afford these software so they can continue using it?

True, the training in school will allow these students to be comptetive in finding a job. But nowadays, would you really want to work for a company and have yourself tied to it, rather than going on your own and build your own business? And if you do start on your own business, how much do you have to invest in just getting the right software at the right price?
Scenario # 3, We all know that a lot of businesses use pirated software. From the single entrepreneurship business to mega sized corporations, Pirated software is everywhere. Her are some examples that I have encountered personally:
- Startup Company: I got on board as an IT specialist, and the first thing I noticed is that two out of 25 computers have licensed Windows XP installed and all of them are running Microsoft Office Professional 2003. Plus selected workstations dedicated for Web Designers and developers are using unlicensed Macromedia and Adobe products for Web development work.
- Big Established Company: With a big company, you’d think you wont come across any pirated software. Well almost, this company is quite established in many fields and is starting to get into a web business. Yes it has licenses for the operating system and productivity office suite. but if you study the operations a bit closer you will find out that most of the major tools need for web development (Adobe applications) used by its employees are not licensed. This is worsen when some of the clients use certain applications that are not used by the company like Corel draw for vector images.
- Entreprenuers: Here you will find Internet Cafe’s, Freelancers and others. Owners of these tiny businesses needs to stay compettive but are not willing to invest in the right software to be software compliant. This also happens for many home-based businesses.

So many ways, piracy has been observed as the norm in the Philippines. Although I violently disagree, we all know that to resolved this problem, we must know the reasons behind it. I will be sharing my views on the reasons why people get involved in piracy in my next article.

Aquarium Philippines - A blog for Arowana Lovers

Noel Nuguid — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:00:20 +0000

An officemate in my current work place has decided to start a blog about Arowanas and is very eager to share his knowledge about the world. This guy, Ermand Laborte, knows a fantastic amount of stuff about this type fish. All I know about it is that you can sell a fully grown arowana for quite a considerable amount of money. So I guess thats a business opportunity in itself. To know more about Arowanas feel free to visit Aquarium Philippines.