Elmer Blogger

Friday, October 28, 2005

Comparing the Macau East Asian Games and Manila Southeast Asian Games web sites

About one month before the 23rd Southeast Asian Games will be held in Manila, Philippines, Macau SAR of the People's Republic of China will host the 4th East Asian Games.

Somewhat similar in name but a little different in geographical location.

Participants of the Manila SEA Games are Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Timor Leste and host the Philippines.

Participants of East Asian Games are Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Guam, Chinese Taipei and host Macau.

The Games are a little bit of division of Asian Games participants with the exception of countries in Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.

Among the two Games, it's quite obvious that the top three sporting powers of Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are bunched together in the East Asian Games while SEA Games will have regional powerhouse Thailand to be challenged by Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the hosts. While Thailand and Indonesia have been able to raise its game internationally -- Thailand winning golds in boxing and weightlifting and Indonesia in badminton -- the rest of the field is comparably minnows in the bigger playing field.

While it remains to be seen which Games will attract hype and fanfare (East Asian Games open tomorrow), what I can do is scrutize the web sites of the two Games.

Focus on the two:

East Asian Games (EAG)
http://www.east-asian-games2005.com/en/index.php

Southeast Asian Games (SEA)
http://www.2005seagames.com.ph/

1. Menu:
While EAG has good color combination, having the menu on the top is still better than the left side.

EAG: 0
SEA: 1

2. Overall Design:
I can guess EAG was done by a professional web development company. SEA was done by happy-go-lucky on the job training students at Trace Computer.

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

3. Page Layout:
EAG has inconsistent layout plus look at this sports schedule page! (hope that gets fixed by the time you view the link) SEA has not fared much better though.

EAG: 0
SEA: 1

4. Navigation:

EAG has a lot of pages to fix since I notice many of such layouts have commented codes which included tags which should appear in the page. SEA pages such as the reader of the Prayer Room News needs to click [Back] to view other stories. Can't click the Maskarra logo!

EAG: 0
SEA: 0

5. Content:
EAG has more or less prepared itself with necessary information. After all, site traffic is starting to build up. Prepare the standby servers. SEA has very poor preparation, to complement with the organizers with the venue which did not help the host athletes train.

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

6. Flexibility:
EAG is using PHP and ASP.NET to better maintain the flow of information through CMS. SEA is using plain HTML (is this only what is taught at Trace? C'mon).

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

7. Necessary Info:
How to apply for accreditation, where to buy tickets, sports information kind of stuff. EAG has done well. SEA is placing text that is not linked to any relevant document. Useless.

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

8. Countdown to Games:
EAG is counting by the minute and visible on every page. SEA is counting by days only found in homepage.

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

9. Language Support:
EAG by virtue of having multilingual participants supports English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Portuguese (no Mongolian, no Korean, no Japanese). SEA is lucky most countries are well versed with English and the people from Cambodia or Laos hardly complain about web sites.

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

10. Daily Summary
It's interesting how SEA will organize a daily recap of events and results without a centralized system to handle this (at least based on what I see now). EAG also has to live up to the expectations to provide comprehensive daily report based on the nice 'Daily Summaries' feature

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

11. Search engine-friendliness:
Both sites are number one when searched on Google for relevant keywords. But when it comes to individual pages it's SEA which has the edge.

EAG: 0
SEA: 1

12. Color scheme:
Macau has a green flag which I thought would be used sparingly in the site (and they did). Meanwhile SEA has a ridiculous color combination. Take a look at the country participants page. Was there someone from UIC who was part of the web team?

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

13. Photos / Graphics:
SEA has image bank that's bankrupt. Not displaying even the venues? EAG is showing the images of rehearsals and athletes.

EAG: 1
SEA: 0

OK, enough the beating. EAG web site won over SEA web site 9-3 on the 13 categories judged by me. It's a shame that the Vietnam SEA Games web site is better (at par with EAG site) and what the Filipino talent can show (after bragging we are exporting IT to Middle East, Americas and Japan) is this unfinished web site?

Thanks to Trace for volunteering this one anyway. Better look at www.coolhomepages.com for better ideas and inspirations.

Monday, October 24, 2005

United Nations at 60

Like the phoenix coming out of ashes of World War 2, the United Nations emerged as an organization which aimed to cast solidarity among nations of the world. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union disintegrated and therefore added more countries in the roster of nations, Germany united, North Vietnam annexed the South and dropped the directional name that separated the two. Hopefully South and North Korea will soon become one.

Turbulent decades of unrest, civil war, marred with bloody ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and Bosnia, United Nations had the difficulty to police its ranks. Dictatorship, human rights abuse and widening gap between the rich and poor have been haunting the organization more than ever. Globalization has brought benefits to many, but still more have been left out and are desperately asking for a fair share. Disease, wars and natural disasters have taken its toll and in many cases, countries offered help in

More often than not it's the so-called renegade territories are the culprit, it's also the bigger brothers who are to blame. And while Chechnya has become a haven for guerillas fighting against the more powerful Russian government, the US has been the biggest violator of Kyoto protocol which aims to improve air quality and reduce the incidence of global warming.

While we sang the United Nations song in our classrooms during my primary school days, we had little knowledge about where in the world can we find the countries whose flags we have intricately made out of colored paper and bamboo sticks.

We also organized Miss United Nations in high school, where contestants represent various countries such as China, Japan, USA, Switzerland and Holland. I am gifted at geography: I know what is the capital of any Central Asian country whose name ends in "stan" and easily point in the globe where is that tiny Liechtenstein. It was fun, until it lasted.

Now for a real dose of what is going on, tally the years where the world has experienced real peace. Begin in the Midieval era where barbarians, Crusaders and the undocumented warriors roamed the Earth looking for lands to conquer. Until this very day, war have not left us.

Though I still believe things will get better, it is said that the peace we are looking for cannot be granted here on Earth.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

NBA Dress Code Scrutiny

The wait is almost over and the 2005-06 NBA season is about to start in a few weeks. At last I do not have to deal with those boring golf shows in my favorite sports channel. What's not so exciting about my Phoenix Suns team is that Amare Stoudemire is going to spend the next four months rehabbing his knee after a microfacture surgery on the heels of his max contract extension.

While it's definitely not a good news to me, it will also be an opportunity for the team to mesh properly. There are only five remaining players from last season returning to the Suns roster: reigning MVP Steve Nash, Shawn Marion, Leandro Barbosa, Jim Jackson and Stoudemire. Stoudemire's injury is a blessing in disguise to the rest as his offensive touch has to be taken cared of by someone. And it means likelihood of increased playing time for everyone and keeping the roster intact without having to waive players in the preseason lineup. Think about Lucas Tischer and Dijon Thompson or even Pat Burke.

Now let me talk about the recent implementation about the dress code instituted by the NBA spearheaded by David Stern. It has drawn a lot of reaction from everyone. Tim Duncan calls it "basically retarded". Stephen Jackson, Allen Iverson, Jason Richardson and Raja Bell also expressed dissatisfaction on this ruling. Many of them looked at it as racist; most of the affected players are black Americans whose hip hop fashion is better supported with dangling silverware and baggy pants. I can't imagine players like Yao Ming, Nick Collison, Kyle Korver and Jake Tsakilidis adopting such things. In fact, Russian Andrei Kirilenko supports it.

While the objective has been clear -- to clear up the reputation and display a new image of the NBA -- dress code was less an issue for reforms. There are drugs and personality issues to be targetted first. Just recently Boston Celtics guard Tony Allen threw a punch to a Chicago man, for no apparent reason. Allen Iverson, Chris Webber and Kareem Abdul-Jabar on posession of marijuana, as I read in Alternet.org. And look at the whole Portland Trailblazers team whose players are often appearing on headlines for all sorts of bad news: driving under influence (DUI), caught overspeeding, domestic battery and posession of marijuana. These people are superstars with huge contracts, wardrobe endorsements, whose jerseys are selling hot and are looked up to not by the fans but fellow and upcoming NBA players.

I thought this is a problem that needs more solution; dress code is a cosmetic solution which cannot hide the inner chaos. It's like in the Army where you need to have your shoes and belt polished, hair trimmed to the max, uniforms neatly pressed before appearing in a platoon briefing.

Apparently when the news went out, players reacted negatively in different sorts of reasons:

1. Why newcomers need to pay thousands of dollars for suits when their stay in the league is almost not guaranteed.
2. It's racist.
3. It's uncomfortable to wear especially when coming off practice and hitting the road the next day.

Some even suggested a stipend from the NBA to pay for such clothing. As if it's so expensive that purchasing one will make them unable to pay for the bills and feed their family, no offense to Latrell Sprewell.

When we were in high school, Dennis, my classmate always gets stuck at the guard post for coming in the campus without tucking in his shirt. We were then like robots unable to express ourselves and abiding by the rules. Talking about tucking in shirt, it's also in the new dress code which injured players are allowed to be in their bench wearing shirt and jeans. But shirts have to be tucked in. That's why Tim Duncan, a superstar who often prefer to keep things on himself, minced no words, "A load of crap... basically retarded". He even pondered on staying at team locker room on games where he cannot play.

Call the dress code touching the egos of Earth's popular men and have them act like kids following simple instructions, but could it be too much?

The NBA is a myriad of players with diverse personalities and skills. Outside looking in, a lot of hopefulls want to come in but could not, simply because they aren't fit. Get invited to a preseason team camp is a dream come true but to be waived feels like the whole world is against you.

The persons who make the NBA look what it is right now should possess qualities of desirable citizens. Basically they are entertainers who wow the crowd, while receiving money more than 99% of the global population cannot get in their lifetime. They stay healthy, become popular and it seems that they have nothing to ask for. But from them, the viewing public needs their act to serve as good models.

Stay away from drugs, preserve good family and community relations and simply said, stay away from trouble. Could be easier said than done because I am not a celebrity and trouble seems to stay with celebrities.

Maybe very few players from NBA are obviously thugs, but it's the single rotten tomato in a bag of fresh tomatoes that ruin the package.

Dress code can wait.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Exploring Tokyo, Japan

The first and last few days in Tokyo is definitely memorable to me. The mornings have been rained out and plans of going to Hama-rikyu have fizzled out. Nevertheless I was never idle in this beautiful city.

I have brushed elbows with anime stars and expressive individuals at Harajuku, went contemplative at Ueno Park and Meiji Shrine, realized the expensive but delicious soba and tempura servings in Roponggi Hills and gazing at the huge Tokyo Tower as well as Yokohama's Clock Tower.

I also met Singles For Christ Tokyo friends along with Jun, who served as my host here in Shinjuku-ku. The feeling of Hong Kong winter has swept in me as the rain continued to pour over the whole day of walking and exploring.

In a day called Sports Day in Tokyo's calendar of holidays, free-wheeling Tokyoites roam the vast expanses of streets, in a neat array of transparent umbrellas as I noticed them in Omotesando's streets.

Tomorrow is another day of exploring, probably more challenging as I am doing the job on my own instead of shadowing Jun's footsteps. Trekking the subway has been a major challenge apart from reading instructions in Japanese and asking for directions. Insofar as my short unbiased thinking is concerned, Japanese people are very corteous, in fact quite different from those in Hong Kong, apart from their utmost discipline with garbage segregation which earned my highest praises.

I love Japan.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Tokyo: Hajime Mashite

Finally, one dream has come true. At 1:05pm my Dragon Air flight 362 landed in Tokyo's famed Narita Airport.

It's been a wish as a kid that I can reach Tokyo someday. I still recall my place in Davao City has been called Little Tokyo in World War II because of the heavy presence of Japanese soldiers and plantation workers. To this day, the erected tower in my elementary school grounds is a reminder of Japanese presence in my place half a century ago. Even as Japan is looked as an aggressor by many territories during the Second World War, it has at least tried to pay its guilt through assistance in government and non government projects.

I had strong affinity with Japan and its people when I was chosen as one of the RASEA scholars in high school. I tried learning Japanese on those years while communicating with benefactors: Kesheiro Saeki, Coco Izumi, Heiji Matsumoto, Yasukazu Kigasawa and other forgotten names. After college, I got the chance to exchange letters with Japanese pen pals named Nobue Ozawa and Rie Takahashi which opened up more knowledge in Japanese culture; I recall Rie painstakingly wrote hiragana and katakana characters for me to learn the language until we lost contact and I am unable to pay off her efforts.

I applied for Monbusho scholarship in 1998 and failed. I had to greet the panel of judges "hajime mashite" learned from a fellow candidate. I wished I could land a post graduate study grant on one of designated Japanese universities where I can further hone my chosen field of work. With the plans now in the drain, I had to find other methods. Achieving such goal can come sooner or later. I did not realize that until today.

Visiting Japan can be very expensive. Dinner we had at Fuji-Mama's at Omote Sando cost my hosts 13,000 yen (approximately PHP 6,500) for seafood bisque, calamari and a few other appetizers and drinks. That makes it more expensive than the traditionally accepted rocketing food prices in Hong Kong. Gaijin and locals happily mix up in the commonly accepted tongue -- Nihongo. Conversations are pleasantly listened better than the polymorphic Cantonese accent.

The first day of the sojourn has finished very well. Hopefully rains won't spoil the rest of it.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Finally a Selling Point for Friendster?

Looks like Friendster has scooped the idea that will keep its longstanding followers even stick even more. Loyalty check was in question when the unusually large number of registrations did not easily translate the site into a money making machine. While the introduction pages show Caucasian members, the mass base of the registrants come from the socially closely knit communities in Asia and minority communities in the United States. Based on conventional wisdom, I think the list is not the best targeted advertising audience. I have a strong feeling the feature about "most popular searches in my network" is a ploy to entice curious members into clicking ads through keywords such as "gucci bags" or "free nokia phone".

I joined Friendster late 2003 and found the recent enhancements a welcome change to arrest site boredom and declining popularity. I am amazed on the innovation of looking through other people's profiles which was kind of addictive; I used to designate a few nights a month dedicated for "Friendster-eavesdropping". Personalizing profile through color schemes, more photos, horoscopes, blogs have further enhanced Friendster's functionality that earned it several innovation awards shortly after its inception in 2002. But technical problems amid huge member traffic and mind boggling SQL queries in the backend finally took its toll and as always, when a system shows its vulnerability, its feel-good image is tarnished badly. I hardly saw the ill effects of an overburdened network though. The dark age of Friendster saw its CEO resign and cut 9% of its workforce.

Other communities like High5, Xanga, Ringo and MySpace thrived but somehow never created a stir out of the doldrums Friendster has experienced. It's thought that successes of such groups relied more on its focus activities like the musically-inclined Myspace groups. Pinoyster, a Filipino spoof, was also part of this mania.

The latest addition of "spying-on-me" featured created a much needed boost according to my personal observation. The usually wait-and-see attitude underwent a facelift that I saw several photo and blog updates and profile changes. The feature allows me to be identified as the one who viewed someone else's profile. Though most will prefer to set viewing anonymously, being identified will definitely create buzz ("oh, I did not know this person has viewed my profile even if I am a total stranger"); oh, adding suspense in this crowded but happily established online community. If only viewing anonymously is taken off the options, same as being unable to bookmark a profile without letting the owner know, it may be more fun.

What do you think?

Monday, October 03, 2005

The Global Office

Everytime I take a vacation, there always seems to be a possibility of heavy workload in the office. Many times project schedules do not block off days when the encoder or project manager takes a vacation or gets sick, the tendency is to squeeze development hours to the days when he or she is capable and present.

This brings to the discussion of global office. I often want to create a journal of my travels and one testament to this is the trip to Beijing in September last year. I was with Jun, Dodo, Melissa, Mike, Gino and Weng. It was a three month long piece I never bothered to edit out of excitement and exhaustion. (My "Amazing Race" trip to Singapore, KL and Bangkok exactly a year ago still is an unfinished true story.)

What global office is this all about? Well, I am bound to travel again soon, and the hazards of keeping the travel plans in wraps (limited to a few confidantes and direct boss in the office) soon blew my way. And even while I was on travel, I made sure I get contact with officemates who may need assistance in office task along the 15-baht per-15-minute cafes in Khaosan Road. Likely this is the product of technology where people are bound to take care of business in the office while on holiday. Men usually do much more than women, though.

With wireless connections, broadband access and telecommunications never thought possible not so long ago, office workers are assured that as they lay on the serene beaches of the Maldives, they are assured office operations are smoothly running. Got source codes or RFP templates to inquire? No problem, dial this person's number.

I also took the job of receiving calls and answering emails about product support which was kind of nervous and subject to insults of unsatisfied complaining clients. I was reluctant to call the main person who is 12 hours behind my time zone for fear of interrupting his lovely holiday with the family. But this is business, whether you are having headache or constipating, service must be at its best form.

When the "Amazing Race" commenced, it did not start in the haggling of tickets in the counter, it started when I was literally hopping in and out of the bus and prefer running to get the next train going to the airport. The culprit? My erratic behavior for details which still haunts me. I had to finish a multilingual mini site to be launch on the same hour of my flight.

Working from home has also been a preferred choice over coming to office on weekends. But my bed is just next to my PC and the effort of switching from sitting to lying burns only a few calories. Pffft. The next thing I realize is that it's the next day already with the computer silently grinning, humming over the supposed hard work at home.

Yes, technology gives you more convenience in working away from office. But it also diminishes the reasons (or alibis for the inefficient people like me) why you can't deliver a task at any given time.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Remembering Davao City in 1992

This post will appear at UIC Computer Engineering Class 1997 Web Site (www.cagape.com/batch97/). Looking back on our yesteryears has been essential to see where we came from and gauge where we are now.

1992
====
* Bosnia votes for independence from Yugoslavia.
* Boxer Mike Tyson convicted of rape.
* Winter Olympic Games held in Albertville
* John Major re-elected British Prime Minister
* Summer Olympic Games held in Barcelona
* William J. Clinton elected US President
* Fidel Ramos wins the Philippine Presidential elections

This is the year that we came into the University, shortly after its declaration as the city's newest University. Mind you Immaculate Conception College started its operation as a parochial school ninety years ago. In comparison, Ateneo de Davao University was established after World War II so the wait for ICC to become UIC was quite long.

Nevertheless, this development was a welcome news to our entry to this institution.

At the time, computer studies was a very hot career prospect. As we emerge from our little known barrios and enrol in this course, we became instant celebrities who talked and acted like geeks even if at this stage we never pressed computer keyboard or how to use the mouse and were not taught computer subjects in our freshman year.

The Computer Engineering enrollment in UIC swelled that gyms and backdoors were considered classrooms. At 108 pesos per unit, the cost of education is still cheaper than in Ateneo, which offered Computer Science and not Computer Engineering.
The other school which offered the same course is AMA Computer College, but the school has been battling with reputation problems as well.

With Fidel Ramos sitting in as the first male President of the Philippines since Ferdinand Marcos reigned for almost 20 years, problems such as energy crisis and rebellion remain. His predecessor, Corazon Aquino, has been a target of several coup attempts, largely due to her government's inability to reverse the tide that has kept crooks inside the government and therefore inability to meet the expectations of EDSA revolution.

Favorite hangouts were Cherry's in CM Recto, the dark rooms upstairs which reputably has some moving creatures lurking under the tables and featured some of the finest music in vinyl turntables. CDs were relatively new at the time that WTFM and Radio Romance had to pride themselves in playing these music by inserting blurbs such as "WWWWTTTT CompactDiscCompactDiscCompactDisc". Ben and Beth Eatery also thrived with the increase of UIC student population as its carinderias are strategically located near the premises of the UIC Annex Campus. "Do The Rave Stomp" ushered the continuation of technomusic passed on from the synthesizer-rich music of the 80s commonly found in the music of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and New Order.

Music was at its transition period, whisking away from the decade long new wave and ushering its way to rap and grunge music. 1992 saw hits of Eric Clapton (Tears in Heaven), Mr Big (To Be With You) and Right Said Fred (I'm Too Sexy) land in the airwaves as we study Algebra, Calculus and Inorganic Chemistry. With over a dozen FM stations in Davao City (now it's about two dozens), it's not surprising to be legitimate music lovers and performers.

Victoria Plaza, with its jingle "Victoria Plaza, the plaza for all" is Mindanao's first mall and started a new trend of shopping experience. We used to go window shopping at Gaisano Center, across University of Mindanao's Bolton campus. NCCC and Gaisano Ilustre is quite far for a walk, though the latter is a scant distance away from UIC's main campus.

Jollibee has its first store in Bolton, often overflowing with excited patrons queuing at the counter and savoring the moment they sat on those rotating seats -- the fastfood used to be seen on television is now at hand -- we were among them.

Who can forget the commercial jingle of 2-2-1-0-0-3-0, 2-2-1-0-0-3-1 of a local pizza outlet? Perhaps the name of the shop is forgotten but not the number, whether it still serves delivery or now directed to a residential owner who keeps on getting pizza prank orders. Davao's ingenuity hasn't began in the uniquely concocted durian flavored Blu Gré coffee. Zed Pizza, Papa's Pizza, Chinese-inspired Sani Sweets
have been providing Davaoeños the delicious pizza pies and other delicacies.

1992 was indeed a year to remember for us as UIC Computer Engineers of Class 1997. Not just because of the fond memories we shared. We were the first students of the University; our predecessors went to the College.