Calvin's Hub » Cool links

Get your FREE Facebook cards from MOO now

Calvin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:56:00 +0000

MOO.com makes excellent business cards. Abe had a batch of minicards created for me before and it was a blast handing it out to people. The problem is they’re not exactly cheap.

Recently, MOO had a partnership with Facebook which allows you to print business cards straight from Facebook using your profile pic and Timeline cover. To celebrate, the first 200,000 users can request for a pack of these calling cards absolutely free. No tax. No shipping charges. It’s FREE!

Don’t believe me? Read this article on their blog.

Each pack will contain all your Cover Photos and each card will show your name, company or college, where you live as well as your Facebook URL, phone number and e-mail address. Also on the back of the card is space for you to add your own quotation or sentence about yourself.

Ok goodie. So how do you get started?

Well you must first have a suitable profile pic, preferably a real profile photo (just change it back afterwards).

Then go to your About page (https://www.facebook.com/yourusername/info) where you need to fill in your contact info (if you haven’t done so yet) or else the Print Card option won’t show up). I don’t like putting my number on FB so I just set it to private so it’s only me who can view it.

After that, just hover your mouse on the business card icon and click Print Cards.

It will redirect to MOO.com and will ask you to Allow their app to access your Facebook. Just click Allow.

Then it’s time to edit your card. You can remove Cover Photos that you don’t want used. You can edit the info on each field, don’t really need to follow the entries. When you’re done, just verify and fill in your shipping info. That’s it!

MOO.com said that they’re only limiting 5,000 requests per day so that will give you until mid-February to request for your Facebook card.

Taxikick lets you report abusive cab drivers in the Philippines

Calvin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 03:16:26 +0000

How many times have you ridden a taxi that didn’t meet your simple expectations? And when you get off, you always say to yourself you’re going to report the driver but don’t really know how to.

Well here’s a nice idea of a website. It’s simple but useful. Taxikick lets you report rude or abusive cab drivers here in the Philippines. All you need to do is take note of the plate number and taxi name then go to Taxikick.com to submit your report. The site is mobile friendly but they’re coming up with an iOS and Android app version as well.

You can choose from a list of predefined violations such as overcharging, refused boarding, no meter, broken meter and a lot more including dilapidated taxis and sexual assault. Place additional comments if you can like what time, where it happened, or if you got the name of the driver, etc.

So where does all these reporting go? Well according to the site owners, they will consolidate the list and submit it to LTFRB and MMDA for them to take action on. But will our government do something?

I contacted the creators of the site and they said that they pitched it to LTFRB but told them to talk to MMDA first. There’s no word yet whether MMDA will do anything about the reports submitted.

I can’t blame LTFRB or MMDA because it will be hard to prove if a cab driver really refused to board passengers. It’s easy to check though if a cab really has a smelly or dilapidated interior or tampered meter but will they have the manpower to do it?

The idea of the site is really nice and very helpful and the goal to eliminate or correct rude behaviors amongst our taxi drivers is something that we need. However, this thing can also be a double-edged sword, a rival cab owner can simply send bogus reports for his benefit.

In the future, when there are thousands of reports coming in, maybe the site can only submit reports made on the same taxi but from different IPs?

Hmm so what do you think? How else can we improve on this idea?

Online gadget stores in the Philippines

Calvin — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:16:49 +0000

Although online shopping is still not yet widespread here in the Philippines, having an online store is still convenient for those selling gadgets. Even if transactions are done by cash on delivery or bank transfers, having an updated online store is a boon to gadget buyers.

Filipinos love to get the best deals when buying gadgets and having an online store gives them the convenience of comparing prices without leaving their seats. Do note however that some of their products may not carry official warranty since they’re not considered as bought through official channels.

Here are some of the sites I visit if I want to buy gadgets at a cheaper-than-mall prices or gadgets that are not officially released locally (like Motorola). Or simply just to check local pricing.

Kimstore

I think this is the first site you would go to when you want to buy gadgets online. Kimstore is probably the most popular store in Multiply. They usually have the cheapest price you can find for a huge selection of gadgets.

Shopping experience is hit and miss as sometimes instructions are lost in translation when transactions are done over the phone. Usually the complaints are the meet-ups and the after-sales service but there are lots of good feedback as well.

I bought my 50mm Nikon lens from Kimstore and had no problems with the meet-up and the product. Granted, it’s just a lens and is very easy to inspect.

They don’t carry Canon products based on their website although I heard if you call and ask them, they might help you with your Canon needs.

DBGadgets

If you can’t find what you’re looking for at Kimstore, your next step would probably visit DBGadgets, another Multiply gadgets store. Actually, I think DBGadgets has more products by Kimstore. They have a wide array of digital cameras, lens and digital camcorders.

I haven’t shopped here yet although it was one of the stores I was considering when I bought my Nikon D90.

CMK Cellphones

Strictly selling mobile phones before, CMK Cellphones now offers some laptops, tablets and digital cameras now. What’s nice here is that they are an authorized reseller for the brands that they carry.

Although their website is not that attractive, it loads pretty quick and prices are updated often. I usually refer to their site for prices, way cheaper than the SRP of the products.

They also have a physical store near LRT1 Roosevelt station so walk-ins are welcomed and you can also pay with your card.

Widget City

This site is very new to me but they seem to have a very wide selection of gadgets including accessories, headphones, memory cards and casings. They are the first to offer mobile phones that are still to arrive here like the BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 and Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray, and hard-to-find ones like the Motorola Atrix or the HTC Incredible S.

They caution you to call them up first for availability before placing your order though. Widget City accepts payment via Paypal and ship orders via Xend or LBC. I haven’t tried buying here yet but they also have a physical store (near Pedro Gil station) where you can pick-up your items.

eBuy Store

Here’s another online shop with a lot of gadgets to choose from including a few accessories. They have a number of cameras and mobile phones including cheap brands (Cherry Mobile, Torque and MyPhone), a few laptops and a handful of tablets. Saw the cheapest Xperia Play for P16,600.

This is another site that has its own shopping cart and they accept credit (even installment or deferred payment for some) and debit cards. The site says Paypal will be available soon as well as credit card swiping for COD payments. Their physical store is located at Gilmore in case you want to do a pick up for your purchase.

Conclusion

So there you have it. These online gadget sites are convenient and they are cheap but always ask what the warranty covers before purchasing anything. If it will be honored in authorized service centers if something goes wrong. Also ask for their replacement or return policy, shipping fees, and all those stuff. Oh and check first their How to Buy or FAQ page.

If you’ve tried dealing with any of these sites, do share your experience so readers will know where’s the best place to look for and buy gadgets online.

Switching from Torrent to Usenet

Calvin — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 14:46:19 +0000

I’m sure most of you use torrents to download but have you heard of Usenet? You probably have. I did… way back more than a decade ago in the days of bulletin boards.

Anyway, I heard again of Usenet a couple of weeks ago and found out that it’s now a premium service where you can download content off the internet. If you’re still scratching your head, Usenet is a worldwide network of commercial grade servers where members can post and download files.

Torrent vs Usenet

In torrent download, you download from peers and at the same time upload as well. The speed will depend on the number of seeders and their upload speed as well as your max speed. Not a problem if the torrent is new and popular, but when it gets old, the number of seeders will go down as well as your speed.

Now with Usenet, the files are already uploaded to servers. You can get them anytime you want and you will be downloading it at the speed your Usenet provider allows (most often its max).

Obviously unlike torrents, you won’t have to spend a lot of time waiting for the seeders to go online just to complete your download which is pretty much what you would experience when downloading old files.

The downside with Usenet is that membership is not free but if you rely heavily on downloading stuff, the price can be insignificant for the amount of things you can get from it.

Trying Binverse

I came across with a Usenet provider called Binverse and they gave me a promotional account to try Usenet out. We’re also going to give away a couple of accounts to lucky readers.

The account they gave me lets me download up to 50GB worth of files at max speed. After the 50GB is consumed, the speed will throttle down to 2Mbps which is still fast here in our country.

Putting it to test, I looked for an open-source OS called Meego to install on my spare netbook. Traditionally, you browse at newsgroups to get your .nbz files (think of it as the .torrent equivalent). Binverse however has an app that let you do this and download it at the same time.

The problem with the search engine of Binverse is that results are kinda cryptic especially when you’re used to TPB or isoHunt and other torrent trackers. What you need is a newsgroup indexing site that will help you search properly. I suggest you use nzbMatrix (need to register) to download .nzb files which you will open with Binverse.

Anyway, I was easily able to look for my MeeGo from the Binverse app. When I clicked download… whoa! Check out the speed I’m getting!

I was able to download this 737MB file in less than an hour. It even supports resume if you need to go. Also, there’s no need to upload anything in order to get more download which is good if you have a bandwidth cap on your connection. Nice huh?

Binverse doesn’t keep logs of downloads and they provice SSL encryption so your connection is secured and privacy protected.

Free Binverse Accounts Giveaway

Now the good folks over at Binverse has told me that they can give a free account to five of my lucky readers. The account is a 50GB worth of download at max speed that doesn’t expire until you consumed all 50GB. Here’s how we’re going to do it.

Simply leave a comment below answering this question:

“The most hard-to-find file I want to download from the internet is ________ “.

Be specific and leave a comment. I’ll choose ten of the best answers and will randomly pick three from that list.

Please use a valid e-mail account when leaving a comment ok? Deadline of entries is next Saturday, August 27 at 11:59PM.

Oh if you’re interested with what Binverse has to offer, do visit their site at http://www.binverse.com/. If you don’t win an account here, you can try them out for three days for free.

Basta Pinas travel web portal will help you plan your next Philippine trip

Calvin — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:06:59 +0000

Did you know that domestic travelers, or Filipinos who travel within the Philippines, spend an average of P1,200 per day for their trips? And 25% of that amount is spent on pasalubongs (souvenirs).

I just learned that from DTI yesterday as Bonamine in partnership with DTI launched the Basta Pinas travel portal to encourage and help Filipinos all over the world plan their trips to places around the country.

Basta Pinas is a travel advocacy campaign launched last March by Bonamine to encourage Filipinos to discover known and unknown treasures and see the usual Philippine destinations through a new and fresh perspective.

The first part of the campaign was the Basta Pinas Facebook Page which now has 120,000+ fans already. The Basta Pinas travel portal is the next phase where you can read travel stories, get destination ideas, guides, and travel packages.

There’s also a page in the portal called Library of Experiments which challenges you to do something different during your trips like visit all locations where a local film was shot or take a photo every 100 steps.

The site is really, really new so contents are still scarce but they already showed us some more stuff that they will be adding bit by bit.

To encourage more people to submit their travel entries, a specific experiment will be featured every week in the Basta Pinas travel web portal and visitors who share their stories can win exciting prizes. To enter, guests can register on the webpage.

The Basta Pinas travel portal shows a lot of promise and the challenge now is to sustain it with new and helpful travel ideas and articles regularly. As a regular traveler myself especially within the country, I wholly support this campaign.

I hope they can reflect the success of their Facebook Page to their site and really be the one-stop shop for pinoy travel. If you want to support the campaign and domestic travelling, sign up and be a member of Basta Pinas won’t ya?

Top 5 sites where you can download free magazines

Calvin — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:31:21 +0000

So you have your own tablet (hopefully iPad-sized) already. You know what’s the next common thing you use it for aside from watching videos? Read magazines! With the huge display, you can read magazines fine without having to zoom in or zoom out.

Imagine bringing 100s of magazines (or comics) with you while waiting at the airport or doing a No. 2 in the bathroom all in one portable device. Tia does the latter one while reading Cosmo or US Weekly or other mags for the ladies on her iPad. She would always ask me to download the latest edition of her magazines and update her bookshelf.

If you’re wondering where you can get your free magazines (or comics), here are the top 4 magazine sites I refer to:

1. Storemags

This site has a lot of selections. Lots of categories from travel to food and photography. It even has a filter per country so you can download popular local magazines. The magazines found here are properly scanned and there’s even a preview of the pages inside a magazine. Some of the premium magazines here require you to have a membership to download.

Note: The site has some Not Safe For Work (NSFW) images although you can filter it by choosing Adult Off from the dropdown on the upper right.

2. PDF Magazines.org

A fairly new site but packs a lot of magazines and comics as well. The site looks nice and easy on the eye with a well-designed layout. Just like Storemags, most or if not all PDFs and CBRs are stored in Oron.

3. eBookee

What I like with eBookee is that there’s not a lot of pages which makes it really quick to load. When you select a title then you will be prompted with the scan of the cover and the download links. There are also some e-Books that can be found on this site.

4. Magazines Download

A no-nonsense magazine download site in blog format. Not as many collection as popular sites out there but this one’s updated and they also have a listing of all magazine titles that they have.

5. DownMagaz.com

This looks like your usual DDL site but concentrates only on magazines. Pretty much like Magazines Download but with more content.

The magazines are not stored in these sites per se. What they they have are direct links to the magazines from file sharing sites such as filesonic, hotfile, megaupload, oron, etc.

Happy downloading. Did I miss a critical site?

Learn proper camera exposure with CameraSim

Calvin — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 03:48:50 +0000

Any budding photographers out there? What good is your new DSLR when you will only be using it on Automatic settings? Automatic is good but sometimes you just want to play with manual settings to get some interesting or better effects on your photos.

When I got my Nikon D90, I forced myself to study and read about camera exposures. The first and most important aspect of DSLR photography that you need to learn is about exposure. This will determine if your shots will be blurry or sharp, grainy or clean, and light or dark. And having a correct exposure revolves around ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed. If you don’t have time to study on say for example, the starting ISO when you’re indoors or what aperture to use when under bright light, here’s a website to help you out.

CameraSim allows you to play with different manual settings under different lighting condition and instantly see the effects.

What you want to aim for when playing with the different settings is to balance the exposure meter to 0 (it’s the one at the center, with the -2 to +2) to get the correct shot. You would also see this when you look at the viewfinder of your DSLR.

You would learn that using an ISO 400 on a sunny day will tend to overexpose your shot unless you have a super-fast shutter speed. Using a focal length of 55mm and low aperture value will give you that “bokeh” effect. A high shutter speed will freeze the pinwheel.

Here’s a tip, use the correct ISO setting first when playing with manual mode. ISO 100 on daylight outdoors, 400 on bright indoors, 1000 and up for indoors with limited lighting.

I wish I would’ve known this thing before. It’s easier than reading a bunch of articles about correct exposure. Of course, after learning this shortcuts, it’s still better how exactly the ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture works and what each of them do for your picture.

The Intel’s Museum of Me is cool!

Calvin — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 08:41:20 +0000

Guys check this site out: The Intel Museum of Me.

It’s a site developed by Intel that borrows data from your Facebook account to create your own museum. Intel calls it a visual archive of your social life.

You would first explore the Friends gallery, then the Photos, Videos, Likes and even text. I also dig the room with robotic arms manipulating tiles containing photos of your friends. It sounds rather simple but the execution is just amazing.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this site is but I think it’s to showcase the fluidity of viewing the whole thing when you’re using an Intel Core processor. Don’t know if it will run smoothly on Atom-powered netbooks though. But do check it out still.

How to generate images for Facebook Profile Banner

Calvin — Wed, 18 May 2011 05:23:10 +0000

Remember the guide I wrote previously on how to create your Facebook profile banner? Well if you’re having a hard time following it, or you’re not that good with Photoshop, here’s a site that would allow you to generate images automatically by just uploading your photo.

PicCut will slice your photo for you into appropriate sizes for you to use as your Facebook profile banner. Just upload your photo and PicCut will generate the images for you to upload to Facebook. This is better than another easy solution via Facebook app if you’re particular about giving apps access to your info.

First, upload the image named “profile-pic.jpg” and set it as your Facebook profile picture.
Create a new photo album, then upload the other images in the order of their filenames.
Tag yourself in all 5 photos, starting with “image5.jpg” and ending with “image1.jpg.”
Hide any tagged photos you do not wish to display on your profile. That’s it!

Still, doing things manually produce better result because you can properly position your photo as opposed to having PicCut slice your photo for you.

Keep track of your group buying deals with these sites

Calvin — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:50:06 +0000

A couple of days ago, I listed almost all of the popular group-buying deal sites we have in the country. If you’ve signed up to a lot of these sites, you would know that it’s hard to keep track of all the latest deals of each site.

Be prepared to get a lot of e-mails from these sites if you availed of their newsletter. You can also add them in Facebook or Twitter so you can get updates as deals are made available.

Or you can check out these deal-aggregator sites instead. These sites compile all the latest deals from a lot (not all) of group-buying sites and will categorize it for you so you can just check what you want and filter out the rest.

Frugal Panda

Here’s my favorite local deal-aggregator site. Frugal Panda has a really nice layout which is easy to navigate. However, included deal sites are still limited at the moment but they do have the popular ones.

Deal sites included: Buyanihan, CashCashPinoy, Twangoo, MetroDeal, Ensogo, Beeconomic, CleverBuy, Deal Grocer, DealSpot, Local Roam.

Manila Dealies

This site looks half-baked still. The filters doesn’t seem to work and the links are are confusing. It has a lot of deal sites listed but it looked like it’s only getting deals from a select few. A site to watch out for though.

Deal sites included: Twangoo, MetroDeal, eBay.ph, Ensogo, Beeconomic, Plejee, CleverBuy, Buyanihan, Awesome, filodeals, CashCashPinoy, TipidTo, Muraito, Presyong Patok, Pakyaw, Local Roam, Daily Deals Asia, cuponz, Crazy Deals, Deal Spot, Taralets Buy!, myShopmates, melodeal, Deal Grocer, Groupie, discounts.ph.

PH-deals

PH-deals gets a lot of deals from a extensive list of group buying sites (including new ones) and looks pretty updated. It arranges the deals on a list which leads to a lot of scrolling. One major drawback is that you can’t filter by category. Say for example you want to only view Food deals or you want to view only deals from a select number of sites. The only sorting you can do is for deals that are latest, ending soon, by price, or by discount.

Deal sites included: CashCashPinoy, DealGrocer, Beeconomic, Pakyaw, Ensogo, Buyanihan, Twangoo, Awesome, Deal Spot, MetroDeal, Plejee, Local Roam, Crazy Deals, couppie, couponz, ebay.ph, Daily Deals Asia, Salamat.ph, Deal Dozen, Winila City, Wow, Alooph, Mura ito, TipidTo, eTreet, Presyong Patok, Groupie, Melo Deal, CleverBuy, My Shopmates, Discounts.ph, filodeals, Tara Let’s Buy, Nakamuraka.com, dealsTent, CityPoynt.

Do you know of any other deal aggregator sites out there? Please hit the comments.

You may also want to read my rundown on the popular deal sites we have in the country.