Codio Beta

I like the idea of being able to develop websites online, using your browser, without having to install a development tool like Eclipse. And Codio seems to be a step in that direction.

PROs

• your files are stored in the cloud under your account - less worries about losing them
• in a way, this is free hosting and about 1 GB of file storage, if you don't mind a domain named https://codio.io/yourUserName/yourProjectName/master/index.html
• works great with Angular JS as far as my testing was concerned https://codio.io/nathanweisz/Inventory-Management/master/index.html

CONs

• doesn't play nice with Bootstrap (I even made sure all the .js scripts on the html file were disabled and uploaded my own and bootstrap.js file)
• doesn't recognize icon html formatting
• doesn't play well with Parse
• don't like that I lose the top menu when too many folders in the left panel are open (workaround: just close some of the folders till you see the top menu again, or click on the Codio icon and work your way back to your project.

I know, it is still in Beta, and I'm probably being too demanding at this point. I will try to play with it some more and see if I can get a back-end to work. If that happens, then Codio for me is golden.

Try it out: https://codio.com/

Manny Pacquiao wins over Brandon Rios - November 2013

Congratulations to Manny Pacquiao who won over Brandon Rios by unanimous decision. Manny showed a lot of speed during the fight which took 12 rounds. There were plenty of times when Rios was hit, but he was never knocked down. But whenever he was about to hit Manny Pacquiao, the latter simply evaded him "like a butterfly", as another famous fighter would say. And even if Rios was not knocked down, his face at the end of the fight shows the damage brought about by Manny's punches.

This win should brighten up the spirits of Pacquiao's countrymen who were recently devastated by Typhoon Yolanda. Pacquiao, who had back-to-back losses has shown that even when a person loses, he can still get up and win once again. The Filipino fighting spirit lives on.

Praise the Lord Jesus for protecting Manny during this fight. As Christians, we try to bring all honor, glory, and praise to God.

ProjectY RTS

If you are looking for a game like Dune 2, Starcraft 2, or Command & Conquer: Generals for your tablet, then you will probably enjoy ProjectY RTS 3D Public Beta. It is available for free on the Google Play and you can check it out here.

The game requires Android 2.3 or higher and about 29 MB of space.

Like many RTS games, the goal is to conquer all territories in the entire map. Since this is a relatively young game, there are only a few maps free. This, by the way, is how developers will probably make money, by selling new maps.

There can be up to 4 multiplayers, but I haven't had the chance to test it with friends yet. Still, the single player customized campaign was good. There's also a tutorial campaign.

The main difference with this games and other RTS is you no longer create structures and harvest resources. Instead, the main resource are the robot brains, or pilots. These either drive vehicles or occupy structures like turrets and factories.

So, with prebuilt structures existing all over the map, the player (or AI) who can manufacture units and quickly occupy other territories will gain the long-run advantage in the game.

I find that once you have 3 rocket tanks (long range units) and a pair of repair tanks, you're good to go. Just support these with scorpion tanks for protection. The rocket tanks are your main offense. I hope that as the game progresses, The game gets more complicated rock-paper-scissor scenarios like Starcraft (still my favorite RTS of all time). But I think the reason why Starcraft had such variety was because it had 3 races. Maybe ProjectY could introduce a second race, maybe organic aliens.

Units have various types of upgrades like armor, health, range, etc. But there is an upgrade called automate upgrades which is what I go for since it can be a pain micro-managing on a tab. Although there are groupings of units, upgrades will still be done individually unless you automate it.

There are also specialized structures like an Air Control Tower which you can use to bomb areas in the map. But unless there are special buttons that can be assigned to structures, like what can be done to unit groups, then managing this is also challenging. I'm just thankful the factories have a rally point feature.

Overall, I give this game 5 stars. It is one of the best games I've played on a tablet, and I think it has a lot of potential. Hopefully, developers can come up with a story mode campaign, and air units, and more free maps. If your an RTS fan, you should give this game a try.

Help Out the Victims of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) 2013

For those who want to help, reposting this article from Manila Bulletin. International donors can also check the following websites for information on how to donate. 

Philippine Red Cross http://www.redcross.org.ph/
UNICEF http://www.unicef.org/
USAID http://www.usaid.gov/
World Vision International http://www.wvi.org/

http://www.mb.com.ph/help-yolanda-victims/

List of businesses accepting donations for ‘Yolanda’ victims

Want to help? Here’s a list of organizations and businesses that accept donations on behalf of the victims of super typhoon ‘Yolanda’.

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)
Location: NAIA Chapel Road, Pasay City (at the back of CAAP)
DSWD accepts cash deposits through their Landbank of the Philippines account
The account numbers: Current-3122-1011-84 Savings-3124-0055-81
If you wish to volunteer in repacking relief goods you may call 8512681 for schedule.

The Philippine Red Cross
You may donate through SMS by texting RED and send it to 2899 for Globe and 4143 for Smart. You can donate the following denominations: Globe: 5, 25, 100, 300, 500 or 1000 and for Smart: 10, 25, 50, 100, 300, 500 or 1000

For cash deposits:

Banco De Oro
Peso: 00-453-0018647
Dollar: 10-453-0039482
Swift Code: BNORPHMM

Metrobank
Peso: 151-3-041631228
Dollar: 151-2-15100218-2
Swift Code: MBTCPHMM

Philippine National Bank
Peso: 3752 8350 0034
Dollar: 3752 8350 0042
Swift Code: PNBMPHMM

Unionbank of the Philippines
Peso: 1015 4000 0201
Dollar: 1315 4000 0090
Swift code: UBPHPHMM

For in-kind donation you may send it to Philippine Red Cross – National Headquarters in Manila. You may also contact them to arrange donation pick-up.
World Food Programme Philippines

They accept donations via credit card or Pay Pal.

Operation Walang Iwanan – Gawad Kalinga
They accept cash donations only at their Philippine Peso Current Account number-3101 0977 56 BPI EDSA Greenhills and US$ Savings Account number-3104 0162 34
* BPI EDSA Greenhills. Their swift code is BOPIPHMM

Caritas Filipinas Foundation is accepting donations online. You may visit their website at http://ushare.unionbankph.com/caritasfilipinas/

Ayala Foundation also accepts donations online. You may visit http://victoryplatform.everynation.org.ph/victorygiveviacreditcard/giveviacreditcard.aspx or http://victoryplatform.everynation.org.ph/giveviabpi/giveviabpi.aspx

Victory also accepts in-kind and cash donations. They suggest that the items that should be prioritized are instant noodles, canned goods, bottled water, biscuits, coffee, mats and blankets.

* For cash donations they have Bank of the Philippine Islands. The name of the account is Victory Christian Fellowship. The account number for savings is 0063-3205-52. If the address is needed address it to the Fort Serendra Branch, Ground Floor, Serendra, BGC, Taguig City, Philippines. The Swift code is BOPIPHMM.

Cebu Provincial Government also calls for volunteers to repack relief goods for Northern Cebu, Leyte and Bohol victims. For those who are interested you may contact Evelyn Senajon at PSWDO, Ground Floor Executive Bldg., Cebu Provincial Capitol at 254-7198 and 254-8397.

For students who wish to donate yet they do not have time to travel due to their busy schedule, some schools are accepting donations. These are the following:

University of the Philippines System
UP Office of the Student Regent are accepting donations in cash or kind.
Their drop off pointis Vinzon’s Hall, UP Diliman, Quezon City. You may contact Alex Castro at 0917-8725396 or tweet him at @uscupdiliman, Eds 0927384-1392 and Zie 0916796-5740.

Ateneo De Manila Disaster Response and Management Team
Ateneo is accepting cash donations. You may visit their website for donations.

St. Scholastica’s College also accepts donations in any form. You send your donation at 2560 Leon Guinto St. Manila. You may also deposit at BDO account number 4580-000-210 and name it after St. Scholastica’s College Manila.

De La Salle College of St. Benilde
They will conduct a “Yakap Mo Yakap Ko Benefit Concert.”The entrance fee is P300. They will accept donations during the event on November 22 at 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Mapua Institute of Technology accepts relief goods. You may send it at 333 333 Gil Puyat Avenue Makati City.
Some restaurants are also donating for the victims of Yolanda for every food purchase.

Zark’s Burger which is located at Taft near De La Salle University is donating P20 for every order of their Jawbreaker burger.

Yabu: House of Katsu will hold a “Dine for A Cause” event on November 13. All 100 percent of their profit will be donated to the affected families in the recent calamity.

Fast food chain Mc Donald’s is also accepting donations in all Manila branches until November 15.

Installing Linux Mint 15 (Olivia) from a USB drive

I decided to install Linux Mint on an old laptop that had Ubuntu 12.10. I decided to do a clean install, erasing Ubuntu since it wasn't performing properly.

Used Universal USB Installer 1.9.4.7 to create the bootable USB drive.

Went into BIOS and made sure that the laptop's first boot device was the USB.

Booted up with the USB drive plugged in and just followed the instructions on the screen. At first, it wasn't recognizing my wireless internet connection, so I had to plug my DSL modem directly into the laptop's Ethernet port to get things going.

I also had to do some skipping while it was installing language packs since that was simply taking too long.

Finally, the last "hiccup" was when there was a message prompting me to restart - I pulled out the USB drive, thinking it was safe, and so that it wouldn't boot to it on restart, but there was a kernel panic error message. I hoped for the best and simply did a hard shutdown, and when I booted up (with the USB drive unplugged), Mint was fine.

First thing I did was test if it now recognized my wireless internet connection. Still did not, so just went into settings, networks, and entered my password for wireless access. Was able to surf just fine on Firefox.

Tested an .mp4 and .mp3 file on VLC, and they played ok, so there were no problems there either.

My laptop's keyboard was causing all sorts of weird behavior, perhaps because of sticky keys. I decided to hookup a USB keyboard from a desktop. I then ran a terminal and typed in xinput --list. This gave me a list of all devices and I looked for AT ... keyboard and made a note of its ID. Then, I ran xinput float ID to disable the laptop's built in keyboard. According to some forums, you'll have to do this everytime you restart in order to disable the keyboard. I think there might be a more permanent solution out there, so that I don't have to do this process for every reboot, but for now, this temporary fix will do.

This should keep the users happy. All they want is a computer to access the internet from.

I must say, for new software an old device, Mint sure runs smoothly and looks good. Might help you breath new life into your aged computer.

Product Review: Tenda 300Mbps Wireless N Easy Setup Router

With an increase in gadgets requiring Internet access in our home, we finally decided to go wireless. And out of all the existing routers available, we picked one on the lower end of the cost spectrum. The entire product cost around PHP 1200 and comes with a one-year warranty.

This package comes with an installation CD, an Ethernet cable for connecting the router to a desktop computer, manuals, a power adapter, and of course, the router itself.

Setup of the physical connections of the router was pretty easy. Just hook up port 1 to the desktop (where your DSL modem was originally connected), and hook up the DSL modem to the WAN port at the back of the router.

Detecting the router proved to be slightly challenging even though I was already using Windows 7. Even though I went to 192.168.0.1, I wasn't going into the router's management interface. I had to pop-in the router setup CD, and after running setup, I was given an option to CONFIGURE the router.

The first page you see will allow you to change the SECURITY KEY, which will hopefully prevent unauthorized access to your internet connection.

First order of business is to change the admin password which is the same as the admin username. You can do this from the TOOLS tab at the top menu then choose CHANGE PASSWORD from the left side menu.

In case you forgot to change the SECURITY KEY, you can go to the HOME tab at the top menu and change it from there.

Next, configure the type of internet connection. You can do this from the ADVANCED tab at the top menu then choose INTERNET CONNECTION SETUP from the left side menu. Our internet provider uses DHCP instead of PPPoE so I chose DHCP.

After doing this, our wireless gadgets were able to connect to the internet. But the desktop was not able to. The reason for this was because the DSL modem was also configured to the address 192.168.0.1 by default. This was conflicting with the router's default assigned address. This was probably the reason I couldn't detect my router initially and why I needed the setup CD.

To solve this problem, simply assign a different address to the router. Do this from the ADVANCED tab at the top menu then choose LAN SETTINGS from the left side menu. Assign a different IP Address for your router. Try something like 192.168.5.1.

After changing the IP address for the router, my desktop was then also able to connect to the internet.

There are some additional features that I haven't explored yet, and I'll most likely try tweaking those in the future.

So far, I'm pleased with this product and would recommend it especially if its your first time to configure a wireless internet connection at home.

X-MEN: Days of Future Past Official Trailer 2014

Warning: Possible Spoilers

I just watched the trailer of  X-MEN: Days of Future Past and I have to say that out of all the movies scheduled for 2014, it is the one with much anticipation from Marvel comic fans all over the world. This movie combines members of the cast of the original X-MEN movies headed by Patrick Stewart with members of the successful franchise relaunch, X-MEN First Class. I hope that the movie will be as good as the trailer.

I think this may be the plot, based on the trailer. But you will have to watch the movie to be certain.

We will probably see a future where there is a raging war. Its mutants against mankind. The government has activated the Sentinel program, created by Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones fame). It seems that at some point in the past, Charles Xavier (Professor X) loses hope. And that is the reason why the X-MEN are in a post-apocalyptic future. But in this future, Professor X and Magneto seem to have aligned themselves with each other. And they want to change the future by changing the past. To do that, they must send Wolverine back in time. (I'm not sure if its actual time travel - which may be why Blink is in the trailer, although from what I understand, her powers involve teleportation, not time travel.) Or maybe, Professor X will simply transfer the present Wolverine's memories into the past Wolverine. Why pick Wolverine? He's very old, and is probably the only surviving member of the X-MEN in that future timeline aside from Professor X and Magneto. Why not Magneto then? Well he's wearing that helmet that protects him from guys like Professor X. (But Michael Fassbender wasn't wearing one in the trailer... couldn't Professor X simply have imprinted the memories of the future into Magneto, or his younger self? Well, we know that having Wolverine in the movie will draw more fans, so I guess its a Hollywood thing.)

Ok, back to the plot. Magneto is wrecking havoc in the past. This will probably trigger the war between mutants and mankind. And with a dejected past Professor X, then there's no X-MEN to stop Magneto. So once Wolverine is sent back in time, I'm assuming everything will be peachy after a few fight scenes.

But where does Bishop fit in? And Storm, Rogue, Iceman, Shadowcat, Mystique, Quicksilver, Beast and Blink? Well, that's why we have to see the movie.

There is the scene where the future Professor X (Stewart) seems to be talking to the past Professor X (McAvoy). This again is puzzling. Does Wolvering fail, and therefore Charles resorts to "talking to himself"?

And why isn't Bishop the one sent back in time, just like the cartoon series? Again, more questions than answers, which is more reason to watch the movie.

It is good to see the both the X-MEN and the Wolverine franchise rebound. There are still plenty of great stories about the X-MEN that can be explored. And we haven't even seen an Avengers, Fantastic Four, X-men ensemble. That would probably be too expensive to make. While we're at it, why not wish for a DC - Marvel crossover.

As a bonus, enjoy the introduction of actors in the video below.