Philippines Holds Guinness Record For 'World's Biggest Secret Santa'

Globe Telecom in partnership with Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), brought a new Guinness record to the country as the collaboration for the attempt to break the record for the World's Biggest Secret Santa gathering also known as "Kris Kringle" was successfully achieved today, December 18, 2011, Philippine standard time.

The big event which was participated in by Filipino families and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) across the four countries including Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong became a big accomplishment after surpassing the current record with an outstanding 3,500 OFW families who partook in the said event.  

United Kingdom was the current Guinness record holder of  the “kris kringle” with 1,562 participants only which was dethroned now by the Philippines. 

Prior to the event, Ms. Rizza Maniego Eala, group head for International Business of Globe Telecom said “The project was made because many of them have been away from their families for several years so thought of a simple, yet meaningful way to bond, stay connected to loved ones in the Philippines and celebrate Christmas even from thousands of miles away.”

Globe Telecom received the Guinness World Record certificate  after representatives from Guinness Book of World Records finally verified the official count.

Memorable pictures in the said event are shown below:

Sources: Gulfnews.com, Manila Bulletin, Globe Telecom Facebook, Globe Telecom Twitter

Freeze Your Monitor With Google's "Let It Snow" Effect

It's Christmas and Google has always got to share with us in this one of the most celebrated event of the year! We've been flabbergasted by this powerful search engine before by adding cool effects in Google search like the "Do a barrel roll", "Google Sphere", "Google Gravity" and many more and this time, it's time to do the "Let it snow"!

Go to Google.com and key in the words "let it snow" (without the quotes) in the search bar. After the engine displays the result, snowflakes will start to fall on your screen. Your monitor then will start to frost until the display is almost completely covered. You may noticed that the search button before becomes the defrost button which you can click to go back to the normal view. Don't click this yet as there is one last step to enjoy this effect. While your monitor is still frozen, click and drag your mouse on the screen. See what happen. The images below are screenshots of my own trial of this awesome effect!

"Let It Snow" by Google

Click and drag mouse while the whole screen is frozen

Globe iPhone 4S Postpaid Plans and Pricing

Globe starts offering iPhone 4S today, December 16, 2011, as part of their Globe postpaid plans revealing their pricing and consumables with lots of freebies!

At plan 1799, you'll have the iPhone 4S 16GB with a cashout of P4,800 only. Availing the unit in Plan 2499 or Plan 3799 lets you have the unit for FREE! See the table below for the complete iPhone 4S postpaid plans available from Globe.

Globe iPhone 4S Plans

For consumable postpaid plans, the fee will be charged on top of your monthly service fee. The table below shows the amounts available for consumables - postpaid plan:

Globe iPhone 4S Consumables

With a minimum of three (3) freebies consumable monthly, there are reasons to enjoy getting the iPhone 4S unit. You'll get 3, 5 and 7 freebies of your choice for Plan 1799, Plan 2499 and Plan 3799 respectively.

Globe iPhone 4S Freebies

Interested customers who may want to get this unit can submit a reservation here: http://iphone4s.globe.com.ph/iphone4sApplication

Smart iPhone 4S Postpaid Plans and Pricing

Smart Communications finally revealed their latest offering, iPhone 4S, today, December 16, 2011, for both postpaid and prepaid. The highly anticipated smartphone comes in a most affordable offering yet from one of the biggest networks in the country.

It is quite surprising that Smart is giving away this amazing phone for just P999 per month with plan P999. At plan P2999, you'll have the iPhone 4S 16GB phone for free! See the table below for the complete information.

Smart iPhone 4S Postpaid Plans

If you want an unlimited data plan, you'll get one iPhone 4S 16GB with cashout of only P12500 under Plan 1500, but you'll get it for FREE for both plan 4000 and plan 3000.

Smart iPhone 4S Unlimited Data Plans

Couldn't get much enough? Add more to your plan by availing these bundled services available:

You may rather prefer to have the smartphone without being locked up for two years, Smart is also offering the phone in prepaid with the folowing price deals:

• P33,200 for 16GB
• P38,200 for 32GB
• P43,200 for 64GB

Apply now for a reservation by redirecting to: http://www1.smart.com.ph/postpaid/iphoneapply

Globe, Smart Set To Release iPhone 4S Tomorrow

Two of the biggest telecommunication networks in the Philippines, Globe Telecom and Smart Communications are set to release the much anticipated smartphone, iPhone 4S, tomorrow, December 16, 2011 in their respective stores nationwide.

iPhone 4S

iPhone 4S is the latest smartphone version released by Apple after iPhone 4 with not so much difference in terms of functionality to the latter model. It's main features include the dual-core A5 chip which brings optimum power, an 8MP camera with all-new optics that can shoot an 1080p HD video, the iCloud that lets you store your music, photos, apps, mail, contacts, calendars, documents, into the 'cloud' and the intelligent assistant named Siri who can make phone calls, sends messages, schedules meetings, sets reminders, and more by simply talking or making direction in a conversational way.

Both networks will be offering the gadget in prepaid and postpaid plan. Interested customers who want to get the said phone can have reservation and know more about the pricing by redirecting to:

Globe: http://iphone4s.globe.com.ph/

Smart: http://www1.smart.com.ph/postpaid/iphone4s

Free Online IT/CS Courses in Stanford University for 2012

A major research university in computer science, mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences, Stanford University in California is offering free online courses for next year, 2012 and you can already register today for a reservation. The university will bring distance-learning expertise to the table for both SCPD students and regular Stanford students, as well as the general public. Students will have access to the new online learning tools and are expected to read course materials, complete assignments and take quizzes and an exam.

Here are the list of free IT/Computer Science courses from Stanford University:

Course: Design and Analysis of Algorithms I

Instructor: Tim Roughgarden

Class Starts: January 23, 2012

Short Course Description: In this course you will learn several fundamental principles of algorithm design. You'll learn the divide-and-conquer design paradigm, with applications to fast sorting, searching, and multiplication. You'll learn several blazingly fast primitives for computing on graphs, such as how to compute connectivity information and shortest paths. Finally, we'll study how allowing the computer to "flip coins" can lead to elegant and practical algorithms and data structures. Learn the answers to questions such as: How do data structures like heaps, hash tables, bloom filters, and balanced search trees actually work, anyway? How come QuickSort runs so fast? What can graph algorithms tell us about the structure of the Web and social networks? Did my 3rd-grade teacher explain only a suboptimal algorithm for multiplying two numbers?

Prerequisites: How to program in at least one programming language (like C, Java, or Python); familiarity with proofs, including proofs by induction and by contradiction; and some discrete probability, like how to compute the probability that a poker hand is a full house. At Stanford, a version of this course is taken by sophomore, junior, and senior-level computer science majors.

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Course: Cryptography

Instructor: Professor Dan Boneh

Class Starts: January 2012 

Short Course Description: Cryptography is an indispensable tool for protecting information in computer systems. This course explains the inner workings of cryptographic primitives and how to correctly use them. Students will learn how to reason about the security of cryptographic constructions and how to apply this knowledge to real-world applications. The course begins with a detailed discussion of how two parties who have a shared secret key can communicate securely when a powerful adversary eavesdrops and tampers with traffic. We will examine many deployed protocols and analyze mistakes in existing systems. The second half of the course discusses public-key techniques that let two or more parties generate a shared secret key. We will cover the relevant number theory and discuss public-key encryption, digital signatures, and authentication protocols. Towards the end of the course we will cover more advanced topics such as zero-knowledge, distributed protocols such as secure auctions, and a number of privacy mechanisms. Throughout the course students will be exposed to many exciting open problems in the field.

The course will include written homeworks and programming labs. The course is self-contained, however it will be helpful to have a basic understanding of discrete probability theory.

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Course: Natural Language Processing

Instructor: Dan Jurafsky and Christopher Manning

Class Starts: January 23, 2012

Short Course Description: The course covers a broad range of topics in natural language processing, including word and sentence tokenization, text classification and sentiment analysis, spelling correction, information extraction, parsing, meaning extraction, and question answering, We will also introduce the underlying theory from probability, statistics, and machine learning that are crucial for the field, and cover fundamental algorithms like n-gram language modeling, naive bayes and maxent classifiers, sequence models like Hidden Markov Models, probabilistic dependency and constituent parsing, and vector-space models of meaning.

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Course: Human-Computer Interaction

Instructor: Scott Klemmer

Class Starts: January 2012

Short Course Description: In this course, you will learn how to design technologies that bring people joy, rather than frustration. You'll learn several techniques for rapidly prototyping and evaluating multiple interface alternatives — and why rapid prototyping and comparative evaluation are essential to excellent interaction design. You'll learn how to conduct fieldwork with people to help you get design ideas. How to make paper prototypes and low-fidelity mock-ups that are interactive -- and how to use these designs to get feedback from other stakeholders like your teammates, clients, and users. You'll learn principles of visual design so that you can effectively organize and present information with your interfaces. You'll learn principles of perception and cognition that inform effective interaction design. And you'll learn how to perform and analyze controlled experiments online. In many cases, we'll use Web design as the anchoring domain. A lot of the examples will come from the Web, and we'll talk just a bit about Web technologies in particular. When we do so, it will be to support the main goal of this course, which is helping you build human-centered design skills, so that you have the principles and methods to create excellent interfaces with any technology.

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Course: Probabilistic Graphical Models

Instructor: Professor Daphne Koller

Class Starts: January 2012

Short Course Description: In this class, you will learn the basics of the PGM representation and how to construct them, using both human knowledge and machine learning techniques; you will also learn algorithms for using a PGM to reach conclusions about the world from limited and noisy evidence, and for making good decisions under uncertainty. The class covers both the theoretical underpinnings of the PGM framework and practical skills needed to apply these techniques to new problems.

  

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Course: Computer Science 101

Instructor: Nick Parlante

Class Starts: February 2012

Short Course Description: CS101 teaches the essential ideas of Computer Science for a zero-prior-experience audience. Computers can appear very complicated, but in reality, computers work within just a few, simple patterns. CS101 demystifies and brings those patterns to life, which is useful for anyone using computers today.

In CS101, students play and experiment with short bits of "computer code" to bring to life to the power and limitations of computers. Everything works within the browser, so there is no extra software to download or install. CS101 also provides a general background on computers today: what is a computer, what is hardware, what is software, what is the internet. No previous experience is required other than the ability to use a web browser.

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Course: Software Engineering for Software as a Service

Instructor: Armando Fox and David Patterson

Class Starts: February 2012

Short Course Description: This course teaches the engineering fundamentals for long-lived software using the highly-productive Agile development method for Software as a Service (SaaS) using Ruby on Rails. Agile developers continuously refine and refactor a working but incomplete prototype until the customer is happy with result, with the customer offering continuous feedback. Agile emphasizes user stories to validate customer requirements; test-driven development to reduce mistakes; biweekly iterations of new software releases; and velocity to measure progress. We will introduce all these elements of the Agile development cycle, and go through one iteration by adding features to a simple app and deploying it on the cloud using tools like Github, Cucumber, RSpec, RCov, Pivotal Tracker, and Heroku.

Prerequisites: Programming proficiency in an object-oriented programming language such as Java, C#, C++, Python, or Ruby. Basic Unix command-line skills are helpful; we will provide a cheat sheet. You must also have a computer running Windows, Mac OS, Linux, or Solaris operating systems and running x86 or AMD64/Intel64 hardware on which you can install and run VirtualBox virtual machine. It should have at least 512 MB of memory, or at least 1 GB if running Windows. See www.virtualbox.org.

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Course: Game Theory

Instructor: Matthew O. Jackson and Yoav Shoham

Class Starts: February 2012

Short Course Description: game theory is the mathematical modeling of strategic interaction among rational (and irrational) agents. Beyond what we call 'games' in common language, such as chess, poker, soccer, etc., it includes the modeling of conflict among nations, political campaigns, competition among firms, and trading behavior in markets such as the NYSE. The course will provide the basics: representing games and strategies, the extensive form (which computer scientists call game trees), Bayesian games (modeling things like auctions), repeated and stochastic games, and more. We'll include a variety of examples including classic games and a few applications.

Can Social Media Land You A Job?

Apparently, the growing community of people who goes online is dramatically increasing each year and there is no doubt that more and more people are using social media not just for communication but also for looking opportunities and careers. On the other hand, most popular companies especially those involved in business process outsourcing are utilizing social networking sites to get their target employees.

Among social netowrking sites we have today, Facebook which the largest online  community on the web with over 800 million active user, leads in those social media that many users used to seek and successfully get their career although other social media platforms like Linkedin and Twitter are not left far behind.

See the infographic below as published in jobvite.com to learn more the statistical data on how social media strategy worked for getting and landing a job. 

Top Apps and Games 2011 for iPhone | iPad | iPod Touch

Apple's annual year-end retrospective for apps and games revealed that Instagram made it to the top and be heralded as defenitive 'top iPhone application of 2011' while Tiny Tower is this year's 'Top iPhone Game of 2011'. For iPad, Snapseed held the 'top iPad application for 2011' while Angry Birds HD earned both this year's 'top paid selling and top grossing' tablet app.

Instagram is a free photo-sharing application that allow users apply different effects and filters to captured photos and share it on different social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, Flickr, Foursquare and Posterous. Its major update included more features like instant tilt shift, four new filters, high resolution photos, optional borders, one click rotation, an updated icon and use of hashtags for user and photo discoverability, The app has already reached an outstanding 14 million+ users who posted about 400 million photos online.

This year's apple game of the year Tiny Tower is a freemium, highly engaging and addictive game. It was released to iTunes on June 22, 2011 and the game was well-received by users and was even featured as game of the week. The goal of game is to upgrade a small building into a skyscraper, brimming with both residential and commercial establishments. The game requires a sense of strategic thinking, cost and time efficiency and a decent amount of commitment which made this game a winsome.

Snapseed has some similarities to Instagram that let's you add flavors to your photographs but more features to offer. Snapseed enhances your photos with one tap, tweak photos to perfection with Tune Image or selectively adjust only a part of your photo with revolutionary Control Points. User can also add incredible effects with innovative filters like Drama, Vintage, and Grunge and share photos with friends and family with social network support, or print photos directly in Snapseed.

Other categories in the 'iTunes Rewind 2011' include 'Artist of the year' which was took by Adele with her song 'Rolling in the deep' also as the top-selling song and her '21' as the best selling album.

The top-selling movie of 2011 was the Oscar winner 'The Social Network.' Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 was also awarded 'Best Blockbuster', while 'Bridesmaids' was named best comedy. Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris' was best indie, and 'Beginners' took best romance. 

"Steve Jobs", an authorized biography by Walter Isaacson was this year's best-selling nonfiction title of 2011 while other books that also made it in the market include 'The Tiger's Wife' by Tea Obreht (best novel), 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett (best-selling fiction novel) and 'Boomerang' by Michael Lewis (best nonfiction).

PLDT Telpad: The Next Big Thing In Landline

In today's modern times there are just a lot of ways to communicate and be in touch with everyone and everything we want! From the people we love who are in a far distant place to the people we're doing business with down to the stuffs (music, games, photos and videos, useful utilities and apps and social networking profiles) we're addicted to. It is an amazing truth that all these things are achievable with only one palm to cover!

And the comings of the latest technologies that umbrella these capabilities (and for sure even more capabilities in the near future) are unstoppable! Every now and then, there are new releases and upgrades of hardware and software that some of us may be annoyed of this approach because the array of options to choose from is large that makes it hard for us to select what's really the best and practical technology for communication we could use today.

Over the years and until now the most common means of communication we have is through the internet, mobile phones and landline. While most of us are severely addicted to using internet applications, mobile phones and tablets, we've almost forgotten that the preference of using a land line is still a better deal. And the best part is, we can now  have both a landline phone, a tablet and an internet connection all in one same package!

PLDT Logo

The Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the leading telecommunication provider in the Philippines, came up of revolutionizing the landline from the way we see it by offering a telpad. A telpad is a telephone and a tablet in one that you can use for all your communication needs. Unlike an ordinary landline phone, the integration of a telephone and a tablet expands your capabilities from the basics of making and receiving calls to enjoying other features like playing audios and videos, taking and browsing memorable pictures, creating and viewing document files and internet surfing. More than that, you'll also get an exclusive access to PLDT contents like askPLDT and PLDT@Home!

PLDT Telpad S7 Slim

The telpad comes in two different units namely: the AD-1000A and the S7 Slim. The latter unit will be the center of this blog so as for me to clearly discuss the features of a telpad and what you can do with it. Either way, both telpads have almost the same functionality and lineament.

So the S7 Slim unit comes with a landline phone and a tablet. The 7-inch tablet has a multi touch display and is powered by Android 2.2 Froyo. With the screen resolution of 800x480 pixels, it is large enough for you to enjoy watching your favorite movies and videos and playing games. You can take calls or browse your directory from either the handset or the tablet and even take down notes while answering phone calls. Telephone calls over the internet (VoIP) is easy because the plan comes with a dedicated internet connection. You can choose a plan with an internet connection from 1 up to 5.5 Mbps! 

Other calling features include PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), PLDT custom dialer app, speakerphone, call log and speed dial. The caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding and 3 way conferencing are all available via subscription.

You'll not get compromised with the tablet because it is built in with 1 GHz Qualcomm processor, capable of Wifi, Bluetooth and micro USB port for connecting with other device and a 2 megapixel camera for capturing moments and video recording.

Since it is powered by the Android 2.2 operating system, many applications are already pre-installed like Google search, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and many more. The android market is the door to more than a hundred thousand apps you can download and use for your tablet like e-books, chat applications like Yahoo Messenger, Google talk and Skype, your favorite games and other useful apps. Of course, all of your files and downloaded apps are highly customizable.

Search through the web with the built-in browser! Just set up your WiFi connection in the tablet's setting and you're ready to browse the information you need online.You can visit your favorite websites, check emails and get live feeds of latest news in just real time.

With the PLDT Telpad, you'll get almost everything you need in communication in one single package. It's important especially when you always want to get close with your family and loved ones and at the same time experiencing a breakthrough in landline! Choose a better deal, prefer a better plan, upgrade and get a PLDT Telpad now!

For more inquiries and information about the PLDT Telpad you can visit the Telpad Microsite link (www.pldttelpad.com) or like them on facebook: www.facebook.com/pldtlandline

Watch the PLDT Telpad TV commercial

Experience Windows Phone 7 On Your Android Or iOS Phone

Fact is, if you have an android or iOS phone, you can also test and see for yourself the Windows Phone 7 (WP7) environment almost everyone is curious about. Use your android/iOS phone now and redirect to this link: http://aka.ms/wpdemo for a working demo.

Image courtesy of geeky-gadgets.com

Just a week ago when Windows posted it on their official website and the intelligent move allows everyone with android and iOS phone to have a touch experience with the WP7 environment without requiring to install anything or go to a mobile store to see an actual exhibit- How I wish all mobile phones with varying units have this kind of working demo- It will be a great experience and at the same time practical!

The demo which is actually built in HTML5 is pre-contained with user information like messages, contacts, calendar memo, Emails and so on. You can browse them with all the tapping, scrolling, swiping and flipping experience until you get to the end of the page demo and eventually reach the option if you want to start the demo all over again.

Give it a try now and indeed you'll never regret this awesome experience well done by Microsoft! Don't forget to comment what you think!

Do More With Your Googling Skills

          We use Google search everyday and it is a fact that we won't be getting the best of world wide web without using google! From searching the best place to hangout or related study for your academic research down to looking for images that you could use for your next photoshop image background, Google search is just the right tool that could give you the most comprehensive results.

Google Search Engine

          However powerful, there are still ways on how you could get the best results when using Google search! If you know these simple tricks, the right information is at your hand in just few seconds.

SEARCHING FOR SPECIFIC INFORMATION WITHIN A WEBSITE

          To search for a specific information within a website use the following keywords:

• site: followed by the website where the information will be searched.
• ~ followed by a word or phrase to search for related words/phrase.
• " Use quotation marks to search for specific word
• - (dash) followed by the word to exclude in the search.
• .. Use two dots if you will be searching for the information between a given year or to limit search within a time frame for example 2010..2011.

Searching for the list of CPA board passers of 2011 at prcpassers.com

SEARCHING FOR DOCUMENTS

         If you are looking for a document, the easy way is to use the filetype: keyword then the title of the document to search. If you are looking for some references  or papers of academic and scholarly work for your research paper or thesis, it is better to enter the Google scholar then do the search.

Use Google scholar to search for file or documents of academic and scholarly work

• filetype: Search only the file type you designate. example of file types are pdf, doc, txt, jpeg etc.
• intitle: Only shows the result with the exact word in the title. In the given example above the word to search in the title is 'kiosk'.
• * followed by the the word or phrase will replace itself with common or related terms in your search

SEARCHING FOR AN AUTHOR

          Use the author: keyword to search for an author of a particular paper or document.

Author search with Google

          Highlighted in red is the author: keyword followed by the author name then the word or phrase to search related to the work of the author (highlighted in violet). For specific results, you can use quotation marks ("") then the full name or initials of the author (highlighted in green).

SEARCHING FOR A WORD DEFINITION

          You can use Google to search and define a specific word by directly typing it on the search bar and by following this simple syntax (convention): define:<word to find and define>. See this image below.

Searching a word definition

         The keyword define: is a reserved word for Google search that automatically looks for the definition of a word you put just right after it.

GOOGLE SEARCH AS A CALCULATOR

          More than a powerful query search engine, you can also use Google search to compute simple mathematical calculations. Just type simple equations with addition(+), subtraction(-), multiplication(*) and division(/) operators and you'll get the right answer.

Google search as a calculator

GOOGLE SEARCH AS A UNIT CONVERTER

          Worry not if you don't have an application to convert unit from one to the other. Just type it in the Google search bar and the answer is right away.

Using Google search to convert units

OTHER SHORTCUT KEYS YOU CAN USE WITH GOOGLE

         The following are also applicable for browsing other contents within your web browser. Familiarizing these shortcut keys will allow you to efficiently search content within the webpage you are currently viewing.

• Ctrl + F / Command + F - Sometimes when the page content you're viewing is too crowded, words are difficult to find. Just use this shortcut keys then type the words or phrase to look for, then press enter and all the matching words are highlighted!
• Ctrl + L - Highlight the URL in the address bar of the current window.
• Ctrl +, Ctrl - and Ctrl 0 - Use the keystrokes control plus and control minus to zoom in and zoom out into the webpage or document and control zero (Ctrl 0) to go back to the original view size (windows).

For more exciting experience with Google search engine, visit: Google A Day