OFF-THE-AIR

I received more than a hundred text messages on Christmas eve and on Christmas Day. I am posting here a few of them. Some messages were outright funny; others were serious and still others were inspiring. Instead of texting them all to you. let me just share them in this corner.

This Christmas season, may you be showered with girls, or showered by girls, or with girls in a shower …

It’s Christmas! Rejoice, for God is with us Praise and thank God for the everlasting gift of Christmas! Indeed, ‘Man will live forevermore because of Christmas Day!’ A blessed Christmas to you and your family! God Bless!

Maalab na Pasko at Mapagpalayang Bagong Taon po sa inyo at sa inyong mga kasambahay at katoto!

I want too keep three things: the sun, the moon and my friends. The sun for daytime, the moon for nighttime and my friends, for lifetime. Happy holidays, my friend! God bless.

Our merriest Christmas wishes for you and your loved ones. May we all have peace in our hearts as we reflect on the true meaning of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

May you and your family enjoy a meaningful, joyous celebration of the child Jesus! A safe and peaceful night ahead! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! May the Lord reward each thoughtful deed you do and hear each prayer you say. May He bless you and your family with His graces all through your life.

Fulfillment doesn’t merely mean achieving your highest dreams in life, but also living a life that has made the lives of others worth living. Merry Christmas!

(The following article was on the front page of the Dec. 22, 2007 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Unfortunately, this was not posted in the paper’s online edition.)

By Gabriel Cardinoza
Inquirer Northern Luzon

DAGUPAN CITY — Somewhere in cyberspace, Pangasinenses around the world converge. 

Pangasinan Online (www.pangasinan.org) has allowed them to connect and interact with their loved ones, find long lost friends, and organize help for the poor in their hometowns.

Thanks to Fernando Mariñas, a San Diego-based network system administrator of a US government agency, who created the website six years ago. Mariñas is from Tayug town in Pangasinan.

“This site is dedicated to the people of Pangasinan, Philippines and those who trace their roots, or who have studied, worked, lived in there or just simply love the place,” said the website’s home page.

To date, Pangasinan Online is the most visited Pangasinan website in the World Wide Web. Its hit counter has registered more than 3.3 million visitors.

“Many more are going through the backdoor, meaning they create a shortcut going straight to their hometowns or school pages, by-passing the site’s counter,” Marinas said.

According to Alexa (www.alexa.com), a website that provides web traffic information, Pangasinan Online visitors far exceeded those that visited the Pangasinan provincial government website (www.pangasinan.gov.ph), which was launched in 1997.

‘Bridging the distance’

Marinas said he started the website in 1999 as Tayug.com, a site “with the sole purpose of bridging the distance” that separated his town mates around the world.

Inspired by the growing Internet technology in 2001, Marinas said he created Pangasinan Online that included all towns of Pangasinan. He adopted a simple, easy-to-navigate web design.

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Students from the different schools of Dagupan City were impressed with the city fiesta committee’s presentation of an information technology (IT) road show and book fair, which was formally launched today at the Malimgas Market.

The activity, which is part of the Dagupan City fiesta celebration, will be staged from December 19 to 20.

The road show features different knowledge centers at the second floor of the market where information, technology and other learning materials are readily available.

According to event chairman Angel Reyna, Jr., the two-day event was participated in by various local and national guest exhibitors.

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DAGUPAN CITY—The ongoing battle between software developers and pirates in the country has continued to escalate, with no foreseeable victory for the government in the near future, an official of software firm Microsoft Philippines said here.

Jojo Ayson, Microsoft Philippines senior product manager, said software piracy in the Philippines is still rampant despite the government’s efforts to stop it.

“It’s still rampant [because] a lot of people still don’t see the value of intellectual property and it’s so easy to [buy] pirated software,” said Ayson during the local launch of the Windows Vista and Office 2007 last week.

He blamed the people’s mentality of settling for copied versions of software products than buying the original.

Read full story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer

It was Simon who invited me to BlogMad. And it was a good thing I accepted the invitation because through BlogMad, I was introduced to different blogs, whose owners have signed up to the blogging community.

Aside, of course, from accumulating credits by surfing other blogs, member bloggers who are doing the same get to see your blog, registering a unique hit and increasing your traffic in the process.

But more than just surfing to be surfed in return, the added benefits one gets by surfing are the valuable information in the other blogs. For instance, I never knew that the much-talked about Origami is a Microsoft product, which is actually a small PC. I have often mistook it for the medicinal plant oregano. They almost sound the same, don’t they?

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Did you know that the 12th most popular blog in the world as ranked by Technorati is owned by a Pinay? Yes, it’s owned by Michelle Malkin. As of this posting Technorati has listed 42,345 links to Michelle’s blog from 6,852 sites.

According to Wikipedia, an online free encyclopedia, Michelle was born Michelle Maglalang to Filipino-American parents Dr. Apolo and Rafaela Maglalang in Philadelphia.

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Ever wondered why telephone companies (telcos) call you and offer you to their DSL services? Then, you start asking yourself, “How did they know that I use a dial up to access the Internet?”

Now, it’s crystal clear that these telcos have been eavesdropping on Internet service providers’ (ISP) subscribers. They get the ISP subscribers’ names and numbers, call them and offer them their DSL services. (In some instances, telco representatives visit them in their offices.)

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Forgive the pun, but this seems to be the likely immediate reaction of Google on Yahoo!’s announcement that it has given up the battle against Google for market dominance.

What made the once dominant search engine throw in the towel this early is quite surprising. “We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google,” Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. “It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.”

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