September 14th, 2008 admin
I’m at a loss to explain this unless SmartBro’s DNS or proxy servers have been taken over. Here’s the deal. I’m surfing normally, and then suddenly I try to go to a normal site (economist.com, yahoo.com, facebook.com, google. com, iptools.com etc) and instead of getting the correct page, I get a weird spammy advertising page, even though the URL in the Address bar looks correct.
The image to the right is an example. Click on the image to get a full sized view. I have more examples saved if anyone is interested. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in General IT, Philippines, Security | No Comments »
September 14th, 2008 admin
I was just idly playing on the youtube site, and I discovered a neat trick which their designers used. All the images from the page (with the exception of the video previews) are held in a single image, which is then re-positioned on the page using CSS to create the illusion of several images. To see the big image, click on the grey bar at the top for example and select View Background Image. Or you can just click on this link:
http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/master-vfl55102.gif
Now check out the upload button for example. You can see this is made up of a section of the long yellow bar, and then the yellow lozenge at the top of the image overlaid to create the left and right rounded corners of the button. Very cool.
This approach means that the site only ever has to load a single image for all the design, and consequently the pages have a much quicker load time. Genius. Why didn’t I think of that …
Posted in General IT | No Comments »
September 12th, 2008 admin
Don't do it ...
I’m continually startled by the way people use email in the Philippines. Using a Yahoo address is phenomenally popular, even for business. I could forgive a mom and pop company from using momandpop@yahoo.com.ph, but when you get top management handing you cards saying ceo_888@yahoo.com.ph there is something clearly very wrong.
In no particular order, here are a few reasons why you should NOT use yahoo for your business email address. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Life, Philippines, Security | 1 Comment »
September 9th, 2008 admin
This is the ultimate breakage: a breakage in the beer chain! In a country where cheap beer is a lifeline out of the inefficiency and brokenness, the danger of an interruption in the beer supply cannot be overestimated. Nevertheless I’ve been noticing dwindling supplies of bottled San Miguel Beer in Manila over the last few weeks, and now virtually every supermarket I visit has empty shelves. A national disaster. No San Miguel Pale Pilsen, no SMB Light, and …. no Super Dry <whimper>.
That’s not to say there’s no beer at all, mind. There is canned beer, which has always been inexplicably more expensive than bottled beer — around an extra 30%. And of course because of this, its the only beer left on the shelves. And there is foreign beer of course, but who in their right mind would pay 120 pesos for a can of Heineken, when the local brew is a sixth of the price and tastes much better.
I’ll investigate further. Questions will be asked. Hang in there fellow Manilans.
Posted in Life, Philippines | 1 Comment »
September 2nd, 2008 admin
There doesn’t seem to be much information around the internet on this subject (well at least not in English), so I thought I’d post my notes here. I’ve been working on a Joomla 1.5 site with a client and they needed an Arabic site put up. I initially tried to do this using Joomfish translation agent, but didn’t have much luck, so in the end we decided to put up a separate site. Here’s how I did it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in General IT | 6 Comments »
I’m at a loss to explain this unless SmartBro’s DNS or proxy servers have been taken over. Here’s the deal. I’m surfing normally, and then suddenly I try to go to a normal site (economist.com, yahoo.com, facebook.com, google. com, iptools.com etc) and instead of getting the correct page, I get a weird spammy advertising page, even though the URL in the Address bar looks correct.