Globe Telecom is trailblazing another technology in the country. In the late 90s, it pioneered text messaging. This time, it’s WiMax.

March 25 formally marked the birth of this wireless technology in the Philippines although it has been pilot-tested in Cavite four years ago.

Based on the IEEE 802.16 standard (also called Broadband Wireless Access), WiMax (stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) provides up to 3 Mbit/s wireless broadband speed and is meant to complement the Wi-Fi technology, if not to replace it eventually.

Under Globe’s promise of rolling out hundreds of WiMax sites, its latest offering of broadband network is deemed as the first and biggest 2.5GHz WiMax (802.16e, the current version) in South East Asia. The service is initially available in selected areas in South Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

The WiMax package is initially priced at P795 per month and comes with a money-back guarantee.

The yearend is the time to re-phrase New Year’s resolutions for most people. While excited for what the coming year has in store for us, we tend to forget to look back to the year that passed, see what were the things that we did best, and ask why some things went wrong.

I never set New Year’s resolutions for myself; I have this gratitude list instead:

1. At last, we have somehow weathered the oil and rice crises in the Philippines. Although 2008’s record-breaking inflation rate pumped up the gas prices and raised the demand for NFA rice, we were at least able to stabilize the production-consumption chain and to calm down the hypertensive market.

2. At last, the global financial slump is slowly fading away from news headlines and we are seeing an optimistic trend in the affected industries. Just a little more investor confidence here and political will there and the past year shall soon become just a memory of the past and a learning experience for the future.

3. At last, the Democrats are in, the Republicans are out. Enough said.

4. And at last, I’ve got a new job, my family is living somehow more  comfortably, and more people are beginning to appreciate what I can do and understand what I cannot.

2009 may look like just another year to spend, but you can make it how you want it to be.

Make it best. Make it happy. Make it your year!

It’s 11 hours before Christmas but I’m still here at the office catering to various concerns from other departments. Workaholic as it may seem, I can’t help but to make sure that no stone is left unturned before the year ends.

After all, no new year will start out right if the previous year is left in discord.

Wish me luck…

This past week, I was welcomed into the workplace whose challenges I was initially reluctant to take. At the treshold were smiling faces of hospitality who showed me the way to a happy nook amidst a world of nerds, nomads and number-crunchers. I never expected I would deserve a seat in CARD’s IT Department.

But there was I, installing several apps into brand-new Lenovo Thinkpads on my first day and IBM servers on the second. Minor troubleshooting for Trojans and worms also nudged my consciousness that I am just a kindergarten in the computing field. I was grateful, though, that the few IT workhorses that I met always had an ear and a hand to lend this novice.

Some claim that name-dropping is unfit in the spectrum of corporate ethics. But let me do it in good taste.

Kudos and thanks to Sir Egay for letting me feel one with the IT family, to Sir Rick for making my online pseudonym “Red” official, to Sir Rey for the patience, to Sir Jhed and Sir Homer for generosity, and to Sir Ian for the warm hospitality from office to staffhouse. Oh, did I forget to thank the polar bear (peace, man!)?

I am lucky to have known you, guys. Technological complexities, social expectations and workplace demands wouldn’t bother me anymore because I know that I am sharing space with people who care.

This is Red, now stepping in and signing on.

I have just finished my two-week pre-employment training at CARD MRI, an impressive group of seven (but will soon be ten) institutions borne out of the aggressive growth of CARD, Inc. (see www.cardbankph.com for more corporate info).

The training was structured with a 5-day “exposure” to field operations and another five days for lecture classes in its resort-style development institute in Bay, Laguna.

It was a company orientation, on-the-job training, self-discovery, team building and soul-searching rolled into one. The best part was that it’s free — complimentary food and accommodations, reimbursible transpo expenses and an in-depth look into the companies’ operations through competent trainors.

The “exposure” days brought me up-close and personal to the fragile support elements of our society — the rural women. Beyond the realizations of myself being on a higher step on the poverty ladder and of having access to better opportunities, I was particularly impressed by how much our mothers, sisters and aunties in the countryside are doing just so they can shape a better world for their families.

Suddenly, my personal outlook geared towards a progressive career path broadened to include social responsibility. I can only say much. But I hope I can do more.

This is the beginning of my new journey.

When Endemol and ABS-CBN work together, it comes with an implied satisfaction guarantee. (At least that’s how I see it.) Now that the two broadcast giants’ latest production here, the Pinoy Dream Academy Season 2, is at its 10th gala performance, that guarantee reveals itself more visibly.

Who cannot get hooked on to this showcase of Filipino talents, not only to the “dreamers” but also to their exceptional mentors? And there’s the hyper-host Billy Crawford to keep the afternoons alive through “uberture.” What else can we ask for?

Liezl and Van were my early favorites in the competition but Bugoy and Laarni seem to win the popularity votes these days. Tonight, the “dreamers” each sang a duet with well-established artists. Saying this episode was great would be an understatement. Spectacular was perhaps the right adjective.

Miguel finally came up with a good perfomance to shun away his detractors. (Still, my mother insists that Chivas desrves to be a finalist more than Miguel does.) But when Laarni sang “The Prayer” with Jed Madela (no less!), I had goosebumps all throughout the song. How I wish the second season wouldn’t end soon so that I could watch more “concerts” for free.

Just out of my curiosity, I watched GMA 7’s Pinoy Idol in its final performance night. When it ended, I was like “That’s it?!”

I’m sorry for such an arrogant opinion but I expected a “finale grandeur” considering it is a franchise of my TV vice Amercian Idol. Being a Kapamilya though, I might be totally biased in this regard. But the Fremantle pride should have retained its magnificence especially here in Asia’s music capital. How were their ratings again?

All-in-one desktops are becoming more and more popular these days, thanks largely to the influential ripples of innovation from Apple. iMac started it all. HP, Sony, Gateway and Dell followed suit.

What’s good about copycats is that consumers end up having many choices, thus improving competition among manufacturers. iMac is the prime choice but if you are forced-fed with Microsoft Windows at work like me, the PC counterparts look enticing, too.

My top pick is the Gateway One. It has a 400GB hard drive that can be expanded up to 2 terabytes, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, ATI Radeon HD 2600 graphics and Wi-Fi 802.11n. As regards good looks, it boasts of a black-glass finish, a 19-inch widescreen LCD (1440 x 900 resolution), built-in speakers and 1.3-megapixel webcam, wireless mouse and keyboard. Peripheral ports are arrayed on a power brick which can be hidden away to finish that clutter-free look.

It is a borrowed beauty but it makes a lot of sense. Aspiring moguls, toss away those towers now.

I dared to ask. Then, I searched for the answer. Now, I am an inquirer and I am in the Inquirer.

Read my essay “Silent Mode” in the Philippine Daily Inquirer today and you’ll know why I kept this blog entry this brief.

(Alternatively, you can access that essay through this link).

Heavyweight. Literally or otherwise, that’s the word to describe Italy’s new art masterpiece, a book entitled Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano (“La Dotta Mano” means “The Wise Hand” in English). Launched May 29 in the city of Bologna, this book is a collection of black-and-white photographs of Michelangelo’s sculptures as captured by Aurelio Amendola’s lenses.

But beyond its interesting content, what makes it a real heavyweight is its price tag: a whopping 100,000 euros (about 6.8 million Philippine pesos)! This is luxury publishing at its prime.

So what do you take home at the cost of a house? It’s a 21-kilogram volume of grandeur with a 500-year guarantee. It also has detachable pages of reproduced drawings by Michelangelo.

The publisher Gruppo FMR wanted to make the book a “work of art in itself.” Thus, they covered it with marble that is a scale reproduction of the “Madonna of the Steps” bas-relief. Moreover, each page of the book is exclusively handmade for the project utilizing the stringent standards of 19^th century publishing.

The quality of La Dotta Mano calls for a labor-intensive and meticulous production, so our rich readers will have to wait for about six months more to have this black “goldbar” for themselves. This waiting makes buying one all the more exciting.

To magnify its exclusivity, only 99 limited copies of the book will be manufactured. Break the bank now.

Perhaps the reality has sinked into the senses of the National Telecommunications Commission. Instead of coaxing the mobile service providers to offer free SMS, it now opted to lower cross-network text and voice services by reducing the interconnection rates. But Filipinos are persistent. If we can’t uproot a whole tree, we’ll just chop it down.

So goes a new outcry around: If we can’t have free text messaging, then prepaid load must not have expiry dates. Seem simple? Well, not really. When that happens, the telcos may stop selling low-denomination reloads for cost-efficiency in their operations. As I pointed out in my previous blog entry, we can only look forward to lower charges for wireless services and longer prepaid load validity.

On a lighter note, Smart Communications will be pioneering Asia’s first ad-funded mobile phone network this month through its subsidiary Connectivity Unlimited Resourse Enterprise (CURE). CURE aims to provide mobile services for free by “pushing” mobile advertisements to its subscribers. The sponsoring brands or entities will “pay” for the charges that would otherwise be shouldered by the wireless consumers.

It is a promising venture and if it proves to be as successful as the free TV and free email that we enjoy now, we won’t get shocked by “Check Operator Services” or “SMS Barred” warnings from our phones again. Who would buy non-expiring prepaid load by then? That would be the time to afford ourselves an Apple iPhone, a Nokia 8800, or a MOTOROKR E8.

In the midst of high inflation rates, oil crisis, and the plunging economy, the government is now pushing for free text messaging in the country. It sounds salutory at first but when you piece together the administration’s political jigsaw puzzle, it looks more like a reversal of the President’s “rather-be-right-than-popular” initiative. Just recently, it was MERALCO being pounded for ownership and billing disputes. Now, it is the telecommunications companies’ turn on the judgment seat. The former was more logical, though.

Putting political intentions aside, free short messaging service (SMS) here is impractical and barely possible. The Philippines is the world’s texting capital accounting for more than 300 million text messages sent daily. Unlike in other countries where SMS is a supplement to their primary revenue-generating voice services, many Filipinos spend more for text messaging than for voice calls especially the prepaid subscribers. Calls are usually made only when there are very important or urgent matters to relay or when text messages become incomprehensible.

The National Telecommunications Commission ruled out that SMS, being a value-added service of wireless networks, must be free-of-charge. In a land of ten-peso (about $0.24) prepaid airtime reload and 30-peso SIM cards, asking for freebies can mean getting mediocre services and hurting the underground economy.

We are already complaining of dead spots (i.e. areas beyond wireless coverage), delayed or lost messages, and erroneous load deductions in prepaid accounts. How then can we be assured that the upgrading of network infrastructures and improvement of cellular techonologies will continue if a major (in the case of the Philippines) wireless service suddenly becomes a public service? SMS servers will surely clog as the quantity of messages balloons up while network capacity sits still.

The income of cellphone dealers and small retail stores will also get dented as prepaid reloading demand will significantly drop down. Reloading business may seem marginal but it actually caters to the majority of the local mobile market.

The healthy competition within the telecom industry is already a potent force in driving technology forward and its prices downward. Of course, consumers will appreciate lower voice call rates, longer validity period for prepaid load, and cheaper inter-network messaging. Nevertheless, SMS must not be a free service for now as it can spawn text spams and other abuses, affect related businesses, and encourage further insensibilities among texters.

If the politicians really want to offer us some things for free, I’d rather that they be a transparent government free from corruption and a globally-competitive country that we would rather measure by Gross National Happiness like Sudan’s than by Gross National Product which feels nothing more than a press release each time. Let the cost of text messaging send itself down at its own rate.

The best things in life are free. The better ones come cheap. The worst are desperately trying to win votes for the next elections.

We have a winner! The seventh season of the American Idol will end soon but weeks before it happens, David Archuleta is soaring aloft and proving he deserves all the fame and fortune that are coming his way.

With only four contenders left, AI paves the way for the best of them to stand out and really shine. This is rock-and-roll week and I thought David Cook, the resident rocker of AI7, would take the floor and leave everyone else in the dust.

But look at what happened: Archuleta rocked and claimed the spotlight all for himself! After singing Stand By Me and Love Me Tender in this night’s episode, he was definitely just heartbeats away from stardom.

Simon Cowell couldn’t have put it better when he told the young and talented David, “You didn’t beat the competition tonight; you crushed [it].” Now I love Simon.

Star Records recently redefined collaboration in the Philippine music industry with the launch of Project One and their first hit single Ang Sarap Dito. The slightly upbeat song synched to a superb mix of strings and percussions came out as an inviting and provocative tract, yet a wholesome and jolly one. What is amazing is that Project One is not just another band — it is composed of select musicians from different known bands working and jamming together to create a fresh music experience.

Ang Sarap Dito is made one notch better when Coca-Cola reformatted it with smooth vocals and heavenly tunes for its latest TV advertisement.

This is surely another laurel for the Filipino artists. Kudos!

While Metro Manila and most other places in the Philippines are already getting a hint of the coming summer, I am still waking up to 16-degree Celsius mornings. As  I play with my foggy breath and take a sip of strong coffee, I can foresee what sunny days will bring Mount Banahaw.

 I am lucky to have been born and living right at the ankle (somewhere higher than the foot) of this mystical mountain. Summers here do not just mean basking under the sun, trekking challenging trails, experiencing the freshest countryside air and drinking from the clearest spring water. There are also side effects from accommodating more than half a million tourists and mountaineers especially during the Holy Week.

Aside from footprints, also being left are truckloads of garbage, soapy rivers and waterfalls, eroded rock formations, dead plants, and traumatized wildlife species. It’s a totally altered ecosystem. What is worse is that these side effects remain long after the tourists and memories are gone.

Let this therefore be a call to everyone planning to visit Mt. Banahaw (or any other tourism hotspot for that matter) from now on. Please do your part in helping to preserve the fragile luxury and biodiversity of the mountain. Remember that we are not just here to enjoy its natural beauty; we also live to make it available to future generations. And there is no better way to do this than by starting with ourselves.

We have always been thinking what our vacations can do for us. But we also ought to think what we can do for our destinations. It can simply be proper waste disposal or just not taking anything from the forests.

The happiness that you can gain from exploiting the environment is a happiness lost by your children. Responsible tourism is the key to ensure environmental sustainability. Have your share of indulgence but do your share of caring for nature.

Many thanks!

Sony has consistently been on the forefront of cutting-edge technology eversince, keeping its loyal market satisfied and everyone else salivating at every gadget that the company releases. From the first Walkman in 1979, Hi-Fi’s, Playstations, HandyCams, Wegas, Bravias, and Vaios have graced our homes and shaped our lives, successfully earning a reputation for topnotch quality.

Just few months ago, a newborn was the 8.1-megapixel Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T2 digital camera with 4 gigabytes of internal memory; touch-sensitive widescreen LCD; scrapbook, retouching and photo album functions; full HD capability and the impressive Smile Shutter feature. Smile Shutter allows the camera to automatically capture photographs when it “sees” a smiling human face. This Cyber-Shot rocks!

But how can I get more tempted when I came across the Sony Ericsson K850i Cyber-Shot phone in the pages of the Philippine Star? It boasts of a 5-megapixel camera, a second camera for video calling, and a large (2.4 inches) screen in an amazingly small body.

Add to that its image stabilizer for shaky hands, timer function when no one wants to be a photographer, and the BestPic feature that renders nine different pictures in one capture. More adventurous shots are possible with the Xenon Flash and the Landscape Twilight, Sepia, and Black & White modes.

To justify it overload of talents, the K850i is dressed up in designer coat. It is not your ordinary LCD, number keypad and joystick but a fresh new experience for textaholic fingers as its rectangular cursor key is embedded within the number keypad layout enclosing the digits “2″ and “5.” Neatness!

It’s getting more confusing to choose a mobile phone, though, as aesthetics, ease-of-use, and technology get into the equation (think W960i vs. K850i). But with all the sensible innovations that Sony Ericsson phones are now offering, we are finally coming to convergence nirvana. As with me, I need a philantrophist to satiate my craving for the K850i. Anybody?

The 39th issue of Developments magazine looks at India from various significant angles. What caught my attention though is its feature on how farmers, a paper mill, and the environment all benefit from small-scale eucalyptus plantations. It is undeniably an innovative natural resource management practice wherein marginal farmers are assisted by a paper mill in securing agricultural loan and in planting eucalyptus in otherwise uncultivated land parcels. The paper mill also commits to buy the timber upon harvesting after only four years from planting.

The twist comes in as a non-governmental organization assesses the carbon value of each plantation and pays the farmers additional amounts of up to 20% of the timber price. The World Bank, in turn, buys the carbon values from the NGO which are then sold as carbon credits to the world market. (Note: The concept of carbon credits is a product of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol aimed at industries generating greenhouse gases to pay for the neutralization of their emissions by CO₂-absorbing products.)

Now that global warming is becoming a serious threat to the existence of human life, I hope more countries will soon adopt collaborative strategies like this. Our efforts to ensure our survival through changing times will never be complete without ensuring the survival of our planet itself.

The documentary The 11^th Hour produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio shows us how we are directly responsible for the Earth’s fate. For us to have a sustainable future, we must all be on the frontline of reconstructive environmental priorities. Sustainable forests sources of paper are a good start.

[Note: For a free subscription to Developments magazine published by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, please visit www.developments.org.uk]

Steve Jobs is cool. Apple is cooler. The iPhone is the coolest. Now, what is the adjective for the MacBook Air? Oh, yes, it’s the hottest!

 This is not a grammar practice on comparatives and superlatives. I just want to say Kudos to the Cupertino guys. The Redmondians are still left in the dust, gasping for breath, and clueless about the next big thing from Apple, the tech innovator.

I wonder until when the Windows world will be left behind. Can Microsoft ever come up with something as creative & revolutionary as iMacs, iPods and iPhones? How about an OS as robust and people-friendly as Macintosh?

 Let’s wait and see, and wait, and wait until Apple takes Microsoft’s market share and vice-versa.

What a beautiful world it will be…

It’s really a “Hello World!” greeting just like the first time I coded my first program and created my first webpage; this is my first day blogging using WordPress (though I’ve been blogging in a different portal before this).

Welcome to “inkwell insights!”