Reaction Post (Chapter 16)

The 16th Chapter of the Getting Real E-book is about the conclusion of the book. The information showed here are for the reader’s final thought.

At the end of reading the E-book there are things that are mentioned for the readers. It is said that everyone can do all things, but it is on the execution that separates them. I believe in this because if you think about it clearly, it is in fact true. Everyone can read and write, but it is in their execution that makes them greats. Same goes with web development, every web developer can generate and make applications, but the results will depend on their execution. It is up to the person to determine his/her future.

Reaction Post (Chapter 15)

The 15_th Chapter of the Getting Real E-Book talks about Post-Launch. The proper things to do are listed on what to do after a successful launch.

It was mentioned that after the launch of an application, a one month tune up should be implemented. I agree with this because web developers should not just leave their applications as is the day it was launched. They should keep on updating new stuffs for the people to not get too bored very early.

Keeping the posts coming should be done for new information to flow in the application. New things uploaded or posted in the application would be something that people will look upon. They want new things not just the old stuffs.

I think that during the post-launch of an application, it is better to release the full version rather than putting up beta. People would get bored quickly if web developers would just put beta applications rather than  the full version.

The web developers should keep in mind that all bugs are not created equal. They should prioritize which are the bugs that should be looked at and managed and separate those which are less of a threat.

Whenever problems should occur, it is advisable for the web developers to ride out the storm before doing actions. They should look for answers first before doing something. Think first before commiting to the action in mind.

I think that it is also advisable for web developers to be informed with their products and competitors. They should know what their competitors are doing for them to cope up and change whenever it is needed.

A great advice for the web developers is to not make their applications bloated. Bloated in terms of putting different kinds of plug-ins and other application in their web based app. They should avoid putting unnecessary things in their app and think first before implementing to avoid future difficulties.

One last thing to think about in a post launch of an application is to go with the flow. Web developers should be open to new paths and ways in handling their apps. They should be open minded about the things happening around them.

Manila Auto Salon 2008

The Manila Auto Salon is a car show sporting different kinds of customized cars. It was held at the SMX Convention Center located at Mall of Asia. It is open from November 20 to 23, and will let people in from 10:00 AM to 8:30 PM. Different kinds of cars are present in this event, cars which are made from America, Europe, Japan, and Asia. Customized cars are the stars of the show but there are also girls that stole the show. One of their slogans fit the event perfectly. Why you ask? because one of their slogans says that “Where Everything Is Hot!”, they are accurate about this one. I’m sure about that one, saw it with my two eyes. Hot cars, hot bikes, hot engines, hot show, and save the best for last, hot girls.

Let’s divert our attention away from the girls for a while, and talk about the cars. There are tons of cars that are showing off what they have in this event. There is the rare Nissan Skyline GT-R, Porsche 911 Turbo, BMW M6, and Mitsubishi Evolution X to mention just the few who was an eye candy for me. The customization of the cars was one of a kind. Carbon Fibers were scattered almost everywhere and bass where thundering all around the place. You can really feel the vibrations from the sound systems that they have, some even have 9 amplifiers in one car. What the F is that for?! Talk about bass and sound system. The paint and bodyworks of the cars was also eye catching. Each one is unique and you will not see anything that has the same design. The variety of things are bountiful and it would take you a lot of time looking around.

There were also celebrities hanging out in the event. Unfortunately, the ones we saw were all males. Boo for us. For Morgan’s sake, they were Maverick, the guy from Maverick and Ariel, Brian Revilla, son of Bong Revilla, and Thou Reyes, the one who portrays Hugo Bosini in the show I Love Betty La Fea at ABS-CBN. How do i know this you might ask, actually I researched about it for the sake of accurate information in my post. Hehe.

Well, we had a great time overall, with the help of the girls of course. C’mon what do you expect? A bunch of guys with hot cars and hot girls. By the way, I really think it is not a car show without the girls roaming around and posing for pictures. They compliment the cars very well that surrounds them. I want to share some pictures to you guys, but people might think that it is an explicit content and for mature audiences only. They can shut down my site you know. So, i would just post a preview, and place all the other pictures on my other social network accounts. Well, there you go, thanks for reading. Comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

manila auto salon 2008

e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein’s proven right

PARIS (AFP) – It’s taken more than a century, but Einstein’s celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.

A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France’s Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world’s mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.

The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

The e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy, and energy can be converted into mass.

This is an interesting thing to take time and read about. I mean, c’mon, its Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity we’re talking about here. This theory has been one of the most popular ones ever existed in the world. Almost every people knows the formula E=mc². This is truly a great find for mankind’s search for knowledge. Congratulations to the French, German, and Hungarian Physicists who worked very hard for this find.

Reference Link: e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein’s proven right

Screencasting

Screencasting is a way for people to share information to others in the web. It is a recorded video with matching audio that teaches people to do something in the web. It is also like a teacher in the web that demonstrates things for people to learn.

I have done some screencasts that demonstrates how to create a web blog in Heroku using Ruby on Rails. Here are the links for my screencasts.

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE6GejfMjF0

Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/2287847

Sun to cut up to 6,000 workers, 18 pct of staff (AP)

SAN FRANCISCO – Sun Microsystems Inc. plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as sales of its high-end computer servers have collapsed. The drastic move announced Friday highlights Sun’s desperation to cut costs and survive as an independent company. Sun’s shares have fallen so steeply they’ve crossed an ominous threshold, driving the company’s market value below its cash on hand. That means investors believe the company itself is essentially worthless. After eight years of devastating financial problems and multiple attempts at restructuring, Sun’s latest woes have ramped up speculation that one of the most storied names in computing could be snapped up dirt-cheap by a bigger rival. Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., and Dell Inc. are all possible suitors. “The magnitude of the work force reduction is certainly overdue,” said Brent Bracelin, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. Bracelin said the move puts Sun in a better position to return to profitability, but added that the company is facing hard questions about a possible sale or spinning off parts of the business. Sun shares fell 2 cents to $4.06 in midday trading Friday. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said the job cuts will include between 5,000 and 6,000 of its 33,000 employees over the next year. The cuts should save an estimated $700 million to $800 million annually. Sun expects charges of $500 million to $600 million spread out over the next 12 months to pay severance and other restructuring costs. Sun also said its software chief, Rich Green, has resigned, as the company splits its software division into three new business groups. One will handle Sun’s Java programming language and open-source database offerings. Another will be responsible for Sun’s Solaris operating system, which is used to run servers. The third will focus on developing programs for “cloud computing” services delivered over the Internet. “These are hard but necessary changes,” Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s chief executive, said in an interview. He said the company has been deeply wounded by the credit crunch, because customers can’t get loans to buy expensive servers. A quarter of the Sun’s business comes from the ailing financial services sector. Schwartz said the restructuring of the software division reflects the company’s increased focus on open-source software, whose underlying code is available for free. Sun’s strategy, which some analysts believe isn’t paying off as promised, is to sell support services for that software. Schwartz said he’s pleased with the company’s process in picking up new customers through its software offerings. The company’s problem is “isolated to a single line item”: sales of its high-end servers, which fell 27 percent in the latest quarter to $576 million. That’s a staggering shortfall for a division that contributes a quarter of Sun’s overall revenue. Sun’s sales last year were nearly $14 billion. “Across the board we feel great about our direction,” Schwartz said. Breaking up the business units also serves another purpose: it packages them nicely for possible spinoffs or sale, analysts said. Sun’s share price gives the company a market value of roughly $3 billion. Yet at the end of September, Sun had $3.1 billion in cash on hand. The gap indicates extreme pessimism about the company’s prospects. Sun posted a loss of $1.7 billion in the latest quarter, largely because it wrote down the value of the business by $1.45 billion. At the height of the dot-com boom, Sun’s stock price, adjusting for splits since then, topped $250 per share. The company was riding strong sales to Web startups and boasted that its servers “put the dot in dot-com,” a catch phrase that became a punch line after the meltdown when Sun’s sales shriveled. The company has done several rounds of big layoffs in the last three years. Sun has cut 2,700 jobs since August of last year in two separate restructurings. The company had previously cut about 4,000 jobs after Schwartz took over as CEO from co-founder Scott McNealy in 2006.

Reference of full article: Sun to cut up to 6,000 workers, 18 pct of staff (AP)

This is truly a shocking news to find because of Sun Microsystems being popularly known as a company who is truly remarkable in the world of computer software. Making this tragic move is a heart wretching one for those 6,000 workers. 18% of staff being removed is a big fraction for some people. Things must be done to survive and this is one of those things that should be implemented.

The new look

When I was leisurely doing some modifications in my site90, I encountered a problem that brings horror to many people out there who are into the web. My homepage suddenly crashed because I edited something in the website. It is a file named “index.php”, basically it handles the page which constitutes to the homepage of my site.

Due to the fact that when I edit something in my website I had been accustomed to download the file and then upload it again when I am finished editing. When I edited it and then when I uploaded it again, there was a fatal error which suddenly popped out. It is an error which is difficult for me to diagnose and cure because with my current level, I’m still not that good in programming.

Fortunately, I didn’t lose any hope. I just started to try on fixing the problem and a theory in my mind just hit me. I thought that if the file directs only to the home page, my other files are not affected. Just the template provided by 000webhost is the cause of the problem. So I went to the 000webhost and changed my template into a new one. After I changed the template, voila! my website is back in business. It is ready to meet again with people who are curious enough to visit the site.

Overall, i just thought that my site90 website just wanted to have a new look. Personally, i was getting kind of bored with the old template anyway. So it was an opportunity for me to give a new look to my site and at the same time learn some new things about the web. Btw, I don’t have much to do that is why I made this blog.

Just to give you guys an idea with the templates that I’m talking about, here are some pictures.

I don’t know why but I’m drawn with black backgrounds with light foreground colors. It’s just me.

Reaction Post (Chapter 14)

The 14_th Chapter of the Getting Real E-Book is about Support. The writers of the book wants to impart to the readers what are the things that should be noticed when supporting the web application for the customers.

It is advised that web developers should also feel the pain of the customers. They should know what are the feelings that their customers and end-users are having from using their application. When developers know what the things are bothering the end-users, they would have an easy time repairing or fixing the problems that the users are encountering.

A great way for developers to help the users is that they should provide an application that requires zero training. This simply means that whenever the users are using the application, they should not encounter any difficulties that would throw them off the side and be pissed of in using the application. A way to counteract this is to place FAQs to avoid making manuals for them to rad first before using.

Whenever the users are asking something about the application, web developers should be quick on their feet to answer these questions. Answering quickly will let them gain the answer right away avoiding any bad tempers. It is also courtesy to the users to be answered quickly when asking because first and foremost, the application created is for them.

Each time users and customers ask for new features, web developers should show tough love. This means that developers should not always do what the customers want because the customers are not always right. Especially regarding about the features placed in the application.

An inline forum should be created for the customers to hang out and share knowledge to others who are in need. Questions are always present and that is why developers should always be quick to react to the questions thrown at them by the users.

The final thing that is mentioned in supporting the customers is to publicize your screwups. This means that each difficulties encountered by the developers should also be known by the users of the application. Even if the effect is minor, they should still inform the users about it.