I love how KE's hits grow ever so gradually which means two things for me: A. They're not fluke-ish, having grown regularly over a span of time (unlike, say, when a blog posts something radical which spikes its hits then drops all of a sudden), and B. Our readership is loyal and follows the site regularly. Those details along with the exponential growth given our daily updates mean that we'll be hitting 1k probably by.. oh, Jan or Feb maybe?

But enough about the sites. This is about me, me, ME!

First and foremost I'm really happy that I don't feel 40, and am frankly unsure what 40 feels like at all. There are a number of sites that give advice to '40-somethings' and these usually involve health and talk about doing things like 'lots of walking'. I just played pickup ball the other week with the neighborhood kids and I really don't think I lagged that far behind. So if being 40 means taking advice like 'walk more' from websites with geriatric looking couples on the images, then by God I should thank my lucky stars and am probably luckier than I give myself credit for.

It's very scary to take stock of one's life whatever age you may be, birthday or not, but this tends to happen when you reach milestones like this. I'm sure it'd be valid to express anything from regret to joy at achievements or on the other hand 'dis-achievements' in my life, but at this point I've realized I really don't dwell on any particular step forward nor backward, and its probably healthier that way.

For the most part, since I've turned into an adult I've lived my life trying to make the best decision available at that time. The way I see how it works is: sometimes that gets fucked up, and sometimes that works out. But before you take too much time feeling sorry for yourself or patting yourself in the back, you need to get your shit together because you're dealing with the next big decision. Regardless, the one thing you take out from it is that you've become another level smarter.

How about God? Well I really believe God gets in there a little bit, providing help in bits and pieces. But ultimately, the decision is really up to you whether you're gonna fuck your life up or not. If you find yourself in a situation you're not happy in, the only person who's gonna do something about it is yourself. You have to take stock of your life, just stop what you're doing and ask yourself if you're happy or not, and if you don't like it you have to stand up and get the fuck out. God, Buddha, or the Great Whatever Spirit In The Sky is not gonna do that for you. There's no 'lifeline', no free handouts, no big get out of jail card that you can pull out your ass ad hoc. It's just you and you alone who can determine your path.

Having had such a well - formed idea of how to live life, what then can I show for myself?

Well for the most part, I'm not unhappy. I don't find myself pining to attain some impossible goal, and the marks I set for myself are ambitious, yet realistic, attainable and are actually on their way to fruition as we speak. Oh sure I could use more money, but I think I'd be telling myself that if I was earning 10 million a month or 10 thousand, so that's a given. I thank my lucky stars that during my youth I didn't get anyone pregnant and / or was forced into marriage, because Jesus Christ if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that all my peers who went through that, to a man, is completely miserable. Oh Thank God for the fact that I'm not in a situation where I'd be cheating on my wife yet staying married 'for the good of the kids'. Living your life as a fraud is the saddest, most pathetic life of all in my book. One that no amount of material riches can heal. I could name names but that'd be pointless. I'd just say 'all of them'.

Getting by the years of immaturity unscathed is good, but what makes it an achievement is using the wisdom you learned from it to good use.

And I think I did that too, with the girl I have decided to live my life with.

For inasmuch as its important to leave situations you aren't comfortable with, it's also just as valid to stay with that which makes you feel at home.

So yeah, I think I am lucky. I think I should thank my lucky stars, and that I do not give myself enough credit. Of course, I'm saying that now, being all wrapped in the glow of my birthday with text messages pouring in. And maybe I won't feel as well when I stub my toe on the bedside or Joe my car stalls on me in the middle of C-5 at 1am.

But hey it's my birthday so I'll let myself feel good today. Today I'm a lucky guy.

I've worked all day on MomEx and finally got some semblance of the Yahoo! Answers like system I've been saying I'm gonna implement for such a long time. Only thing I didn't get done was to put a voting system for the comments so that the person who posted the question (or the people) can vote which answer is best. I tried using the vote up or down module which can implement voting on nodes and comments. I can turn off voting on the nodes which I don't need, but voting on comments applies to all content types and not just the question content type I created. That sucks because again, I only want voting on comments for the questions, not comments on, say, the blog entries.

The solution apparently is to make comments into nodes, but the problem there is that you'll have to disable the core comment module and therefore delete all existing comments, so that's not gonna happen. It's obviously a good solution for brand new sites, though, so am applying that to the one I'm launching soon.

That's it really, that's the big drama of today.

Ok ok, enough nice talk. A site was compromised, and this means war.

Starting with getting rid of the OS that has, I suspect, let me down.

Then there's applying SSL on the server, and applying a few tricks here and there to make sure it doesn't happen again.

On one hand it's a sign that the sites are influential enough so much as to necessitate the surreptitious and nearly unremarkable manner said attack was performed.

On the other it's a violation of something I dearly love and own, and if I catch the motherfucker who did it I'll tear his heart out.

Whatever. Damage done. Lesson learned. Moving on.

Please keep in mind this is not to buy anything, sell you anything, hire you, make you attend a 'seminar' or anything of that sort. I need your opinion in the development of a project.

I only need an hour's worth of your time, and I can meet you at any mall in the Makati or Ortigas area (I am from Cainta). Coffee's on me.

In return for your time, I will help you PROMOTE your business, service or any property you are currently selling. You may contact me at 09214588689 or email ghmercado at gmail dot com.

Friends, if you know of anyone, please ask them to contact me.

Only costs a little less than P20k too.

I hardly ever go tech lusting, but with decent specs and at that price range it's a steal. I've had cellphones more expensive than that.

Only snag is the 3cell batt, which I assume only lasts a little more than an hour. Otherwise it's a pretty thing, with standard notebook ports and stuff, and a keyboard that fills up the space end - to end, a necessity for my large pudgy mitts.

I found a blue one at 19k at the mall the other day. We'll see though. By Jan next year I assume it'll be at least 10% cheaper, so if I'm still itching at that time and if resources approve, why not.

Notice the 'frequently'?

Dang, now comes the regret after wasting hours of my life on that game.

Pretty fantastic though. Finally deleted it.

I came about it when I checked out Rotten Tomatoes for some reason or other, and happened onto a Bill Murray movies compilation, which of course I checked out and, having realized I had watched most of them, focused on those I hadn't.

This is the part I describe Broken Flowers but it's not gonna be easy. It's the story of an aging Don Juan, Murray's character cheekily named Don Johnston, who lives a fairly empty life after having done well for himself and gone through several, obviously failed, relationships.

Johnston never shows any frustration, regret or for that matter, joy in the way things have turned out for him though. Rather, he lives everyday pretty much the same, falling asleep in front of his fancy TV and stereo in his upper middle class home alone.

His one saving grace could be his best (and only) friend and neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), who is his exact opposite. With 5 kids and 3 jobs to support them, he is a jolly person full of life. He is instrumental in the plot, where upon Johnston's receipt of an anonmyous, mysterious pink letter from a former flame claiming she has a son by him, Winston forms an elaborate plan to find out who she is which involves visiting each one of his exes scattered throughout the States, as if from out of the blue, pink flowers in hand.

It's a testament to Murray as to how he manages to play the aging lothario, a person so untouched and unaffected by anything he convinces the audience that sure, he'd go and do it even if he complains he'd rather not all the way. It's not like he has better things to do, but he doesn't want to anyway, although when he finally does he does so with just as much disinterested effort, inspite of the fact that you know doing such a thing - traveling all over the States and showing up at ex girlfriends' houses after 20 years - must take a lot of work.

This is one of the reasons it's hard to write about Broken Flowers. Murray's character doesn't make sense in the traditional movie - making style, but is identifiable regardless. I'd venture to say that Don Johnston, if not the movie as well, is interpretable differently depending on who and what the viewer's opinion can be at any given point. It never hands you explanations as to why this is so and that is that. It carries out the story leaving you with question marks in your head, but inspite that you are satisfied that what is unravelling before is no doubt, real.

The only way to interpret this movie is by asking yourself what it means to you. And so for me, Broken Flowers struck me as not a movie, but as a reflection of life itself. Many times I'd realize some scenes were striking not because of some cinematic brilliance, but because I recognized it as a feeling or emotion I may have gone through, understood or pondered at at some point.

It may be an awkward silence amongst people around a table, or the feeling of vastness or loneliness whilst staring at a traffic light at a busy intersection. It can be the radiating heat you feel from a person you find difficult to be with, or the hilarity of a couple of girls yakking away at a bus. Obviously it's not entirely all fun and laughter, but its a terrifically fulfilling feeling to feel that emotion nonetheless. Broken Flowers is a very real, emotionally strong movie, with its long quiet pauses and Murray's terrific, understated acting.

I'm starting to learn more about the terrific Jim Jarusch, it's director. This is a special kind of movie that demands the highest levels of work from its actors, and so while the star studded cast might be distracting because of the big names, I'm glad actors such as Julie Delpy, Sharon Stone, Jessica Lange and the great Tilda Swinton signed up because only they can pull something like this off.

Off the top of my head (I'm sure I'm missing out on more), I count Adaptation, Once, The Darjeeling Limited, another Murray starrer Lost in Translation and The Royal Tenenbaums as terrific slow paced, understated movies.

The first time I encountered this theme was with those Kurosawa classics I love so much, specifically in this case 'The Tunnel', one of the scenes in 'Dreams' which starts out slow but pretty much bursts in an emotional coming - to - terms in the end, much like those other films.

Movies like these make me feel very lucky to have found them and Broken Flowers makes me doubly so.

Here's the code:

I stole it from the website Reproductivehealth.com.ph, but I figure they won't mind.

Just cut and paste it onto your sidebar.

Some of my favorite movies of all was of course, the movie from where that scene was taken, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a VCD of which I can see on my top shelf right now. I bought it at one of those big VCD sales in the malls. He played the loud and fast talking Butch Cassidy to his alter ego the Sundance Kid, Robert Redford's cool character. In it was also Kathrine Ross, whom I remember for The Graduate.

Then there's Color Of Money, where he plays an aging pool player who decides to teach a pool genius played by Tom Cruise how to hustle, also in it was a very hot Elizabeth Mastrantonio (who I remember as Al Pacino's younger sister (?) in Scarface. Anyway, Tom Cruise, as usual, disappeared in this film, but the scene I remember most was when Newman's character realized he still had game in him, and wanted to play Cruise's character for real - not for money. A terrific character that went from smug forgotten hustler to determined pool player, wanting to get back into a game he pretends to use for money but he actually really loves.

There are other roles I liked, such as Tom Hank's boss in Road To Perdition, and I distinctly remember his character in The Hot Tin Roof, the only Elizabeth Taylor movie I know (he plays his wife), where he plays, to the best of my knowledge (I was a kid then), a sad character obsessed with football, who remembers plays and in a scene, was explaining them to his disinterested but concerned wife. Whenever I realize I get too obsessed with basketball, I remember Paul Newman's character in Hot Tin Roof.

I remember him most though, for the 1982 'The Verdict'. A movie that for the longest time I thought was a Grisham book because it had a lawyer as the central character, until I realized lately that Grisham wouldve been in high school then or something.

Anyway, Newman again plays a boozing down and out character, and because of the film I understood what an ambulance chaser was. His character goes to funerals of people he doesn't know and offers his services, in one scene he gets kicked violently out because of. I can't remember the details much anymore, but at the end of the movie, the phone was ringing of the hook in his office, while he stretched back in his chair just letting it. I remember asking someone older what that meant, after which it was explained to me that he was 'made' already, after having won a big case which didn't have a chance. I began to be aware and look for similar scenes in movies after that, where stories were written for people who take the time to think, rather than have things spoonfed.

Strangely enough, such movies have dwindled rather than flourished over the years, and so The Verdict stands as a movie that symbolizes the 'they don't make movies like they used to' phrase we all hear far too often.

Such is the case I suppose for people like Paul Newman. I highly doubt we'll see others of even the same calibre as he anymore. I am sorry to see him go. I will enjoy his movies always.

Can you dig the awesomenesity of that scene? Fucking A right?

Anyway, T-Rex 1 (any one of them, since they all look the same), is problem number 1. T-Rex 2 is prob #2. And T-Rex 3 is, you guessed it, prob #3.

And me? I'm Kong. I'm gonna whup their asses by tearing apart their jaws all while protecting my girl.

Last week I caught one about how Pinoys like music so much and how it is so ingrained in our culture. A few minutes ago I just finished another one about eco - tourism in places like Bohol and some island I can't remember. Both times weren't fawnish or critical in any way. The music one covered showbands and young people joining and getting into bands to use as tickets to find gigs abroad, while at the same time featuring people like Charice Pempengco and a band or two that were into it purely for love of music. They even featured a tv channel in Cebu which shows old people singing ancient Bisaya songs live in a tone and pace unfamiliar to me and dissimilar to Kundiman. People just call a number flashed on the screen for requests and they oblige.

The more recent one I just finished discussed the near wasteland the Rice Terraces were turning out to be because their young people preferred working elsewhere or in tourism related jobs, effectively eroding the reason why tourists went there in the first place.

The second part of the same documentary featured a beautiful island somewhere (I didn't get the name) and a mangrove forest in Bohol, both excellent examples of eco - tourism featuring a community that lovingly and painstakingly took care of the rich environment around them, which in turn took care of them by providing for their needs as well as allowed for sustainable tourism.

There are two things I take away from all this. First is that the old adage about how we tend to trust foreigners more than we do our own countrymen is blatantly true in this case. These documentaries aren't National Geographic material. They are low budget and possibly funded by the Korean government, likely to help Korean Nationals in the country learn more about this place.

Given the budget look and feel, if I didn't know any better I would assume they were Philippine government funded and instantly ignore them, which is probably why it took awhile for me to start paying attention as I have. A documentary done here, see, would feature some actor dressed as a farmer, soldier, teacher or some such hapless victim singing praises for Gloria every five minutes, and in consideration for my health and desire not to throw the TV out the window, the best course of action is to avoid these immediately.

Seeing these aren't therefore, is almost like a breath of fresh air. The people they talked to, complete with translations, are completely ordinary Filipinos living their daily lives all over the country. The idea that I was watching something that was completely real is amazing, almost unbelievable really. It wasn't dramatized, cheapened or made to look anything else other than what it was, and it appealed to me no end. It reminded me of Tiaong, Quezon. It was real.

The second thing I take from this, after having been subjected to that reality, is this: That we who live in the city are by far, a great deal poorer than those people who live in that small Bohol town planting mangroves.

Over here, we stress about money, our things, pollution, our health, social status, consider living abroad and all other idiocy. Over there, their lives revolve around taking care of that beautiful, life - sustaining forest that stretches from into the land and way out to the sea.

Where here we spend thousands of time and money to find things to amuse us, over there they find fulfillment in fish spawning eggs underneath the mangrove trees, assuring the growth of another generation. While we question the quality of our food and the air we breathe, learn about anti - oxidants and eye what we take in our bodies with suspicion, over there they feast on fresh oysters of different varieties, shrimp, various fishes and vegetables picked fresh from the trees, plants and water around them. They take just what they need to make sure there is more for them the next day.

I'm not saying I'm packing up and moving over there asap. But it has got me thinking. I'm gonna watch a few more of those documentaries to find out. But as of now, I'm thinking as long as I get internet, I can probably live anywhere, so why not over there? Thanks, strangely enough, to a Korean docu.

Whew what a mouthful. 'Nyway here he is.

Seriously, Piven is perfectly cast in this brilliant character. Completely fictional of course (no one can come up with those one-liners on their feet), but still steals the show. Every moment he's on the screen he owns the TV.

And Season 3 (which I'm right into) confirmed what the viewers were only given a glimpse of previously - that he is a family man and loves his wife. That inspite of the most ridiculously self - serving, arrogant and abrasive attitude you've ever seen, he speaks truth and comes from the right foundation.

I'm not even gonna get into how blah the other characters are. To do so would be to make excuses for them. Only thing I can say is the onus is on the other actors to perform well enough without Piven erasing them off the screen, and the writers writing good enough stuff that won't make the other characters' personas disappear into the background.

Watching Ari Gold get his shit together is inspiring and teaches you a thing or two. Watch Jeremy Piven perform a role so perfect for him is like watching Michael Jordan at his peak winning championships. It is a rare privilege that makes you feel lucky to see it.

Title is from 6:13 in the video.

Anyway after the explosion, the lights go out, but only for ten minutes or so, then things are ok again.

Which is why I'm writing this because I'm waiting for it. And I can't start work or anything because I know it'd all have to stop as soon as I hear my UPS beeping, indicating (quite loudly) that I am dependent on it, and will need to shut things down and find something to do till it comes back on.

Which is stupid really.

And.. (no am not yet finished), I experienced that explosion closer once, when I had a haircut at a barbershop near the village gate, and I swear that thing almost made my barber cut my ear off.

And the thing is, it's turning the nearby residents into nervous wrecks, especially I assume the guard on duty at the gate. They've started to anticipate how the transformer would explode, and of course people joke about it (like my barber), but I could tell he was actually nervous talking and waiting for it.

Just as he was explaining it, BOOOM there it went, and I swear to god he almost dropped the pair of scissors he was using, scissors close to my head. I mean, what if he was shaving my neck or something? Damn.

and yes I know that's 'Semi Charmed Kind Of Life' but what I'm saying doesn't really have to do with the song. Rather, it has to do with the fact Third Eye Blind is coming over, and GODDAM I'm not gonna miss that, and It's not even October yet and I already feel blessed, truly blessed, that I get the chance to check them out.

Am so in that moment right now.

Addendum: Didn't go since concert tickets left were p1.5, which is the next (big) tix after the p300.00 ones. I'd have gone for at least p700 or so but as it is, too steep for a ultra cheapo like me. Oh well.

Well ok not exactly. I was still far off both by time and result, but the thinking is the same. In order for Google to roll out the kind of products they want to work in the way they want, they have to deal with the environment their apps work in, and that means working with the browser - which so far makes varied results. It therefore makes sense they make their own browser given the ever higher level of complexity they want their apps to do.

The average Joe is probably aware we developers hate IE, but may not completely know why. Explaining why is not the point of this post, but let me just tell you - IE sucks seriously big time. Anyone who's ever had to deal with CSS, UTF or language standards, or Java for example, will understand why developers have thinning hair or zero social life as they spend too much time trying to get their apps to work on IE. Firefox helped save them a bit with its standards compliancy, but has so far not been entirely reliable imho, and it still lags behind with approximately 30% market share. I love it and support it, but it's been crashing on me recently, and anyone who knows code knows that a crashing browser is serious stuff.

So where's the Microsoft in all this (other than my disliking IE)?

Now that I see Google creating its own computer based program (as opposed to web-based), I am reminded of MS's age - old strategy of creating its own operating environment. On the surface of course, to promote the stable operation of its applications and predictably advertised as for the benefit of its users, but secondarily and rather disguisedly, to kick out everyone else.

The big difference though is the two companies' reputation.

MS did that so often and so brazenly that no one trusts them anymore. Go to any web board, blog or tech news site and every MS move is met by suspicion and distrust.

Google of course still enjoys the high moral ground. 'Do No Evil' says it all, and people like and enjoy that.

But will they still after this?

Controlling the browser is the next step after controlling the search engine. Having such power is akin to controlling the information we rely on on a daily basis. If for example, something is not listed in Google, to many it may as well not exist at all. A successful implementation of their browser would make them even more powerful, at a position of control even stronger than before.

There's really nothing we can do about it. It's just a company that's doing the right thing every step of the way. As such they are gaining ground more and more. The only thing that bothers me is that you could say exactly the same thing about MS ten years ago. The only difference between then and now is the level of trust, but even that can change.

To save gas I usually leave Joe (my car) near the village gate and take the more convenient FX or bus instead.

A lot of other Valley Golf residents do the same, such as the owner of this rusty red VW.

I know Wall-E is modern and all, and even boots to the Mac sound (cheeky one, that), but during my trip the idea of Joe sitting there all day staring into the VWs eyes makes me smile for some reason.

x backup momex db
x backup momex files (everything)

x create mom1 (backup of wp)
x make mom1 work

x activate zen / momex
x activate offline mode

x download momdrupal in delayed inserts (works with bigdump)

x delete all modules in stock momdrupal
x copy all modeuls in 192momdrupal
x upload all modules from 192momdrupal to new momdrupal

x edit settings.php

Some terms:

• Mom1: the previous MomEx in Wordpress.
• Zen: The amazing Drupal Zen Starter Kit theme that takes the pain (well, not totally but still quite a lot) out of Drupal theming. Love it.
• momdrupal: The 23mb. sql backup.
• 192momdrupal: My test momex installation on my server.
• bigdump: The absolutely essential open source tool that allows you to migrate large sql dbs. Absolutely essential since php only allows uploads of 2mb., so if you've got anything larger than that, you're in a fix. Oh did I say absolute essential? Just in case I forgot to add: Absolute Essential.

The only thing left is a weird clean urls issue that prevents me from using the permalink structure wordpress was using. Losing the permalinks is gonna be a disaster SEO wise, so I gotta try and make that work. Seems like I have hope though, with PathAuto, which seems fit for the job.

I haven't read through it yet since at this point, I've gotten tired. At the moment if you go to MomEx you'll see a 'we are offline' page which is an edited version of Drupals. I added a Feedburner Subscribe form to increase my subscription whilst working on the site. Cheeky, but I think it's useful.

At this rate MomEx will be up either tomorrow or Wed.

Then again, you can also say that it was 15 songs just right.

Just like real life, it really is all up to you. And when the announcement was made (at exactly 10:14PM) that they weren't gonna continue, I could sense that people were trying to make up their minds exactly which side it would be. Too little? Just enough?

I dunno.

I love the 'heads. Their songs will always be a part of me, wherever I go, whatever I do for the remainder of my life.

Hearing each song was wonderful. Knowing that it was probably the last time I'd hear those songs live again added so much weight to the whole thing. You had to absorb, listen to and sing along each and every song. Easily live through the memories. Suddenly remember the sights, smells and feel of that era when the 'heads were making hits. When they just made songs because they were songwriters and you just listened to them because you loved them, gleefully ignorant of any internal strife. When everything was right with the world.

Knowing now that's not gonna happen anymore, I think I'm happier now and can put that era to rest.

The people older than us had to do this when their own idols for some reason or another had to stop what they were doing. There really is not getting past it, and no doubt the newer generation will have to deal with that too.

I will now put the 'heads into the past. And while I do so, I'll take the road more positive. It was 15 songs just right. I'm happy with that.

Cause I'm going that's why. And all of a sudden at that (I just found out this morning).

It's hard to explain, to begin with, how important they were to me growing up.

For the first time in a very very long time there was finally a local band with a voice that reached out and appealed to the desperately fragmented Pinoy youth. From the jologs to the sosyals, the promdis and the tambays, everyone loved the Eraserheads. They talked about love lost and gained, typical annoyances, school, folks and what's mostly on young Pinoy's minds but in an irreverent 'wala lang' tone that you just understood like it was someone you know telling you it was happening to him. It just clicked, and I listened and deeply appreciated them. Their songs, their messages, their very existence. I was so glad we had the 'heads.

I think however, there is a general non plussed attitude for most people going into tonight's gig. The reason primarily I think, is the fact that they're getting paid a whole lotta moola to do it. In other words, you have to question their heart. Watching their old YouTube clips, I saw a band that talked about not getting gigs, finding it hard to get signed, etc. In other words, they were united and together, and while they were striving to get acknowledged, they only had their desire to be together keeping them intact.

And now, it's plainly about money, and that's a downer.

But whatever. I've no expectations from tonight. I don't even know if my hair will rise on end as it used to when I first saw them live at a mall tour of all things. It was a free thing at Megamall and to this day I can't remember seeing that place look more packed. People were literally dangerously hanging on to siderails and dancing and singing along in the aisles. It was really a sight and for once, it felt great to see people just having fun and strangers smiling at each other. I truly believe getting Pinoys to trust, or even smile, at each other is a really big thing.

The 'heads has that special ability to do that. I think that's what makes them special.

But then again that's what they are to us. What they are to each other is an entirely different thing, and because they broke up, apparently a negative thing. Nothing that 1M each (reportedly) can't fix though. Sigh.

I'm not telling outright because I might end up not doing it. However, like the title says, I really really really really really want to.

So I should right?

Hmm.

Drupal would be a great platform, because CCK would allow me the taxonomy to properly arrange all the details and Views can show them off properly as well. It can then help readers easily sort through top to bottom of ranges of data. PLUS, I would be starting from scratch, unlike what I'm doing now - migrating from WP to Drupal with the other sites. Always better that way obviously.

One other thing I need to check with Drupal - if there's a functionality similar to Wordpress' fantastic Postie, which as I mentioned before, desperately needs updating to the latest WP versions as it looks like it had been abandoned by the orig developer. Sayang talaga yun. That terrific plugin alone can help zillions of writers either start blogging or convert to WP, imho.

On the content side, I'd need to personally talk to each vendor specifically to a.) ask how frequently they can provide me PRs and data, and b.) promote it to them of course. A plus is that the subject matter is international, so the audience would primarily be local, but would also be interesting to most anyone else all over the world. So that's nice right.

But the downside?

Dang, another web project. Patong patong na naman ang mangyayari nyan, and I'm afraid to be running around like a headless chicken again not knowing where to start.

But at the same time, I know better now. I learned my shit from the previous attempts and I can apply myself better imho. Hmm. Hmm talaga.

As is my habit, I will test it here for a few days before going on and updating the other sites. Which of course would be a completely useless test if I don't write on it, so here I am. Writing. Ok, let's do some highlights as to what's going on, bullet point style (my favorite):

• Super sick but ok again. - Actually I've been worse, but Thu to Sat last week I felt like I was in outer space from a super head cold that completely knocked me out. I've figured out I got it from playing Tekken on the PS2 with my sick nephew. Trading game consoles with a sick kid transferred the virus. Coupled with low energy from sleeping late all the time I was out cold for two days with difficulty of breath, constant dry cough and the worst - pain from seemingly every joint in my body. I'm completely ok now - don't worry my legions of fans, and am actually quite raring to go.

• It's KE's 2nd Bday today. Wrote a longish piece re how I felt about it, which was like a status report of how things are. Hope people get excited about KE 2.0, coming soon, but MomEx first.
• PLUG is going to join it's first IT event after, I dunno, half a decade? Longer maybe? I organized it, which is to say, I said yes to the organizer's ex-deal proposal, and announced it on the mailing list. I have high hopes for PLUG, and am hoping the event will serve as a rallying point, a step towards bigger things. I have already indicated however, the limited involvement I can provide, which looks like its even more limited granted the increasing number of activities I will be undertaking for Kikay as December approaches. I imagine however, that the same is the case for most of us eager to help, and I'm convinced if we all do our little parts good things will happen. As is applicable to most anything, actually.
• MomEx will be working on a joint project with another website plus a sponsor for a series of events, and the schedule's gonna be tight. There's a web project in there as well that I wanna take on because, well, I want it done right - and frankly, just sourcing it out to some webdev kid, talented or otherwise, but sans a stake into whether what we'll do will be a success or not is most likely not gonna cut it, really. I should know, I understand that process a lot. I'm gonna be upbeat about that and see to it things'll work out nicely for all of us.
• There are soooo many things that are gonna happen for KE. I really dunno where to start. No, I mean, seriously. I need to get a list going and try to get a grasp of priorities. A lot of people want a piece of the site and the fact that it's the last quarter push for 2008 means I'm being asked to send proposals and discuss this or that. I'm raring to go but really, I gotta be prepared before I even open my mouth or go to a meeting. I have to make sure we don't miss out on anything and respond to anyone who's shown even mild interest. The last thing I want is for the period to pass without closing down at least one or two deals and start kicking myself later for forgetting to respond to a query. I hear my ex-boss's voice in my head when these things happen, sarcastically asking me if I tell myself I've 'too much money already, thank you!', and hence would not act on new opportunities. The man, as I said in a previous post, chases opportunities down like a ravenous wolf with its eye on a rabbit, pursuing each like its last meal. Well if there's anything I've learned running my own biz, that analogy isn't too far from the truth. Each deal may very well be your last. It's entirely up to you to figure out if you're eating well tonight, or hugging your pillow tight to drown out your empty stomach's growl. That's the way of the world and frankly, it's the way I like it. There really isn't two ways about it. Knowing that the world isn't kind to lazy asses, and conversely, merits the sedulous cuts the bullcrap and puts things in the right perspective, as well as challenges me.

Hmm what else. That's it for now I guess. Mostly I'm just glad I'm not sick anymore. This happens maybe once a year or every two years, and while it sucked I knew I'd had worse, so I pretty much just babied myself and slept it out my system.

Today was a nice day, bright and sunny, and I got a bit of work done as well. Writing about KE's 2nd Bday helped focus me on what I needed to work on plus why I was doing what I was doing in the first place. Again, reminiscing about another old boss helps. When I told him my decision to leave to do what I do, he said, without being a downer (proper Englishman that he was), about the challenges that I faced in the highly competitive field I was going into.

To which I said, that after all that was said and done, I cannot not do it.

He looked at me and asked me to repeat what I said, and I was glad because I wanted it to be clear. I said:

I cannot NOT do it.

Of course he got it. He nodded his head vigorously, I presume to be at comprehension of what I was trying to say, and comprehension of why, regardless of challenges, that I needed to do what I do. I cannot see myself not doing it. It is just something that needs be done.

He then grunted his appreciation and shook my hand, thanked me for helping him out. Right now I feel like the way I did when I left his business, ready to work on my own.

Except this time, I'm smarter.

Now it looks like this:

I have to admit, two recent individual's reaching out to MomEx one after the other to work with us in various ways and help grow the site have inspired me to get a move on in releasing MomEx 2.0.

I've decided to use the extremely powerful Zen theme, which describes itself as the 'ultimate starting theme for Drupal' for good reason. It has ready - made CSS files which act as 'placeholders' for whatever styling rules you wanna use. You just slap in code, refresh your site and voila: results! Provided you understand CSS, which admittedly isn't the easiest of things to grasp, especially absolute and relative values which I remember, when I was starting out, may as well had been written by extra terrestials since I couldn't understand head nor tail.

But again like all coding, it's really a mix of RTFM and experimentation, in my case, 20% of the former and 80% of the latter. Literally I just delete files or comment or uncomment lines in code, refresh, and keep doing so until I get desired results. At that point it becomes easy.

Anyway, I think I'm 10% away from releasing version 2.0. It's gonna have exciting features that will promote self - sustaining content from and by the users, and the value of becoming a member will exponentially increase from the number of things they can do with it. Sorry if I am intentionally indirect but a lot of this is pretty new stuff - much like what MomEx was when it started out - so I wanna keep things in wraps until the release.

I'm flattered so many people find it valuable to their lives, enough to want to invest so much in enhancing it.

However, it's my baby. All my sites are my work and therefore, extensions of me in the sense that they are products of my thoughts on how the Internet should be used by ordinary people. When I started working on the Exchanges all these were just untested thoughts in my head. Now that they've become influential I look at them with pride, as well as serving as validation for my theories.

Drupal now allows me to grow them even further. I have ideas which I think will enhance what we already have and make them even bigger, even more influential. I know I may sound like I'm blowing a lot of hot air right now but whenever people congratulate me about the sites, I feel like saying they haven't seen anything yet. The stuff we're gonna do is gonna be earth shaking. Right now, people see the sites as occasional entertainment - a respite, something to look at when you're bored. By the time I'm finished, they're gonna see them as absolute essentials. Websites that they absolutely positively cannot do without in their lives. Not just something interesting to read, but something they absolutely, without question, need to access in order to, say, buy the right item, or choose the right school, check if a product is safe or outright purchase something for their use.

The proper way to use the Internet isn't just for viewing things passively. That's so TV. The Internet allows for interaction, a two way experience between user and a web based service which serves as a way for them to interact with others still, and others even more.

One person sharing a thought or opinion, either by uploading a video or showing or explaining something on a website doesn't seem to be worth much, but a lot of them, collectively, sharing thoughts, ideas, opinions and using different media, makes that web service far more powerful. THAT is what I wanna do. THAT's what the 'net is all about. THAT is why I called it 'Exchange'.

Which of course, isn't worth crap if I don't finish it. But like I'm said, I'm really close. Baby Steps.

Not enough yellow though.

But at least everything's not drenched all the time.

I used Wordpress Import, a pretty powerful tool which is still in development mode. On the surface it's a straightforward process of installing the module, uploading your Wordpress .wxr file and then mapping out which posts are 'owned' by which users (aka authors). It then transfers both posts and comments associated with it.

It becomes a hell of a lot more complicated though when your .wxr file is 17mb. like mine, and I have nearly a hundred different subscribers and authors.

The actual migration is extremely resource intensive, so to upload the big file and handle the job you need to tweak these things: One, php.ini to allow for a large upload (the default is only 2mb.), and Two, Drupal's settings.php to allow for both a longer session time and to for more RAM to do the job, otherwise you will receive errors midstream like I did, and only transfer, say, half your posts or an increment instead of all.

To be specific, I changed the line at php.ini from this:

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 2M

to this:

; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 64M

Then you'll need to add these two lines to your settings.php:

ini_set('memory_limit', '128M');
ini_set('max_execution_time', 0);

Naturally you'll need to restart the webserver and make sure everything, including your other sites hosted on it, is fine. If you're doing this on a live server (meaning there are people reading the website), you need to do it quickly, then return the settings to their original immediately.

It so happened I bought a new domain so I'll be practicing on that one first before finally jumping onto MomEx.

Another issue that's been licked is the 'Clean URLs' problem. As I use Lighttpd, using .htaccess rules is out of the question, but I managed to find a good tutorial here, and another one that deals with imagecache issues, an important feature to handle images, using Lighttpd here.

There's only one more issue I need to fix before finally getting it all together.

MomEx's pageviews are counted by a Wordpress Plugin called Clickcounter, which as the name suggest, registers a 'click' everytime someone views a page and displays it on the page plus stores it in the db.

A transfer to Drupal will negate all the registered hits! Drupal has its own click counter equivalent I'm sure, and I could probably tweak it to start counting where it left off, but that would require some MySQL magic which I'll have to investigate.

I know it sounds a little vain to want to keep all those registered hits but hey, we worked for those, some of which have gone up to the thousands. It'd be a pity to just lose it all.

When I do get that fixed there's the issue of finally migrating the site while it's online. That means I'd have to take it down for a a day or two just to make sure everything works. I can probably start on it in the morning and if I don't get it working, use the backups and go back to the old site in the evening, then start again the next day. The documentation I've read never mentioned these, as they all assumed you'd be migrating to a different domain. Migrating from Wordpress to Drupal using the same domain is something new, so I plan to document it.

As with most daunting techie tasks I'm usually overwhelmed at the start but I eventually get over my wussiness and fix it, usually realizing it wasn't all that hard as I thought it was. In other words, I'm confident, and let's face it, getting something to work when a minute ago it seemed impossible feels GREEEAAAAT.

I'm excited about the fancy stuff I can implement once I get it on Drupal for sure, but the tremendous geekiness of it all is partly why I'm doing it as well I think.

In a glass half full sort of way, I like to think myself fortunate to have lived through the 80s, if only to have experienced songs like these.

Still waiting for that day actually. But until then, Fridays will do.

Jesus Christ the gall of this woman to plaster her face all over the fucking LRT2.

Am I, and everyone else I know, completely out of it so much so that this sort of PR actually works? Does the masa lap this up? Do they really believe she represents any interest other than hers and whoever it is latched onto her?

It's almost like getting repeatedly kicked after already writhing on the ground, covered in your own blood from stab wounds. It's like penny pinching every single peso you have and being told there are people who feel that 'ramdam na ramdam nila ang asenso'.

It just makes me sick sick sick.

Asides: I wanna show posts (or post titles, or post titles with excerpts) from specific categories on the sidebar. I have done this with limited success on BallEx on a category I called 'PBA Notes' (ftg. news fresh from the PBA), but unfortunately Wordpress counting mechanism counts these posts as part of the posts that it should display on the front page, so everytime I post to the PBA Notes category, it removes a post from the index. It's not a terribly difficult issue and is 'resolved' somewhat by merely posting more (which I should be doing anyway), but it's kept me stumped for too long a while already, and prevents me from putting even more categories on the sidebar. At the moment the setting on BallEx for 'Options > Reading > Blog Pages show at most:" is set at 30.

As I mentioned on this post, the best Aside Plugin seems to be Katesgasis' Sideblog, but it has unfortunately not been since 2006.

Limited User Info: A lot of other WP users out there wanna do this as well. I'd like to put more relevant fields for users, such as address, mobile numbers and so on. Drupal users know this is very easy with CCK + Views. I haven't visited this issue for a while though, so there may have been developments.

Postie: Postie is a plugin that allows you to publish posts via email. While WP hanoles that natively using (the very simple) wp-mail, Postie allows great flexibility such as category, author, subject, comments closed or comments open, and even set a delay from 1 day to 1 minute. It's terrific if you are, say, posting from the road, or like me, which needs to publish multiple posts to multiple blogs at any given time. It also allows for an automated system that will allow me to post rss feeds or emails from mailing list subscriptions. In other words, I don't have to login each time. Instead, I just send an email. It's wonderful.

It also has not been updated since 2005. Recent comments on the Postie page are mostly requests for updates and pledges of donations, but no go. I am unsure if Drupal has a direct solution to this problem, but for some reason I am confident I can either find one or hack one in.

EventCalendar RSS: For some reason the RSS feeds for the EventCalendar category (I named rather unimaginatively as 'events') RSS feed does not work, inspite of using the instructions here. Meanwhile, I've managed to get all RSS feeds for all categories (and all my blogs) to work properly, so in other words, I'm stumped yet again. This is frustrating as I really wanna do fancy things with my Events Feed - something that's been on my todo list for.. months I think.

Updating: Finally this is an issue that has to do more with blogging software per se rather than WP itself. I read an interview once of BoingBoing.net's owner saying that we shouldn't be afraid to update specific posts as necessary, even if they've been posted already (as opposed to making a whole new post, especially if the updates are merely incremental). The solution is to edit the post and write 'UPDATE:' or something like that, underneath. This isn't very elegant.

I wanna look for a better solution for situations such as those. The dates and permalinks to posts that have been updated remain same, so on the surface, there is no indication that it has been updated. Once a post has been updated and re-updated, it's RSS feeds, I believe, still shoot off to RSS readers, but they look like the same post (unless the subscriber of course, investigates to check if there's something new). Otherwise if they just look at the title and excerpt, it looks the same. There must be a better way.

Drupal things I can do in addition to resolving above issues:

A much better Shopping Cart: I've been bleeding for a better shopping cart than the handmade one I have. I am currently testing Drupal's Ubercart.

Forum: Drupal's simple forum is way better looking than phpbb. PhpBB, from which I trace my programming roots, is great, no doubt about it. But it also doesn't look very good imho, and aesthetics is important whilst dealing with my target audience (girls and moms). Besides, if I use Drupal's Forum, it can integrate with other services like the blogs, and can be turned into a service that I really wanna try (which shall remain secret because I don't want anyone preempting me).

In summary I basically wanna take my blogs to the next level, and convert them into full fledged, gloves are off, firing on all cylinders, WEBSITES. Featuring community abilities, membership, relevant user info, public and (membership only) private information and so on.

The blog ability will always be its main draw. Great Writing and Content is what makes really good terrific blogs in the first place. People love to read, learn and be entertained, and that's what blogs deliver. But once they're 'there', I wanna make them do other things as well, and WP falls short of that because that's not what it was designed for.

I think I'll do MomEx first. It's gone from being number 1 in its category at PhilTopBLogs to number 8, so it needs more help than the others.

am gonna liveblog Game 1 of Red Bull v. Ginebra game on Sunday, 7PM

This is my little way of helping out all those desperately homesick Pinoys out there. Actually pretty excited.

Even made a nice graphic with an almost unnoticeable hint. I am the master of subtlety.

Sidenote: ive also updated ballex to wp 2.6. Had to do the 'trick' mentioned at previous post again. Am gonna observe it first before i take the plunge and update the others.

I have reverted this to use Wordpress Default, and am not using permalinks at the moment.

I am investigating the sql file and my (very few) plugins but I don't know if the issue is there. I think it may have to do with rules for Lighttpd. Using lighty has been a struggle really, especially when you encounter errors, because at the back of my mind I often wonder if it has something to do with it.

And no I didn't make a backup, so SEO with this site is screwed. I'm glad this blog is only targetted towards friends and family. Otherwise if I had done this to Mom, Kikay or BallEx I'd be banging my head against the wall right now.

UPDATE!: Reported it here, and realized I was not alone in the issue, as there are reports of permalink errors worldwide on what I suppose are non - Apache webservers (lighttpd, IIS, etc.). I realize I have the option to restore this blog by downloading the most recent version (2.5.1) and getting the backup sql from yesterday, but I think I'll wait for a resolution instead. Besides this is just a personal blog, unlike the others.

Thank God for wp-backup which I programmed to email a sql backup copy to my gmail everyday. Of course I auto-archived it on Gmail, so I totally forgotten about it. Isn't it great when things just work?

As for Wordpress 2.6, this issue looks like its on its way to becoming as bad as the categories to tags issue that went unresolved a few versions ago. I'm glad it's not a security update because damn, I can't update all my blogs until this error gets resolved.

UPDATE AGAIN!

As of this post, you merely need to go to Settings > Permalinks then enter the word 'Category' at the 'Category Base' and 'Tag' at the 'Tag Base' like this:

and Voila! Fixed. Super thanks again to Otto, for consistently saving the ass of bloggers all over (including mine) consistently for years (yes years).

Won't be updating the other sites yet though. I gotta wait till everything gets resolved first before I commit the other blogs. Downtime with those things gives me high blood pressure, dizzy spells, panic attacks, demonic visualizations, end of the world cataclysmic visions and rheumatism.