Exchanging gift is quite popular here in the Philippines during Christmas and I remember doing it when I was a kid with my sisters and household help, in elementary and high school, and even now that I’m already working. Usually, the group would set a small amount of price limit so it won’t be hard on the pocket but oftentimes, it only leads to things that people won’t really use.

You must have received an exchanged gift of something that you really don’t want or don’t have any use for. And what do you do? You recycle and gift it again on the next chance possible. Hehehe.

Do you remember these things? Here are the top 10 gift ideas I think would make a poor exchange gift.

10. Scented candles

Hmm, I don’t know why scented candles are popping up during Christmas considering that Filipinos are not fond of lighting it up. How many unused scented candles do you have with you. The only reason why we light up scented candles is to mask the odor of a dead rat or during brown outs. A good alternative? How about a pump of hand soap. Everybody needs a hand soap at home.

9. Personalized mug or tumbler

Awww, that’s sweet but most likely, you already have a tumbler or a mug on your office desk. You don’t want to replace your carefully picked mug or well-crafted tumbler with something that’s cheap but personalized but hey, too bad it’s your gf/bf who gave it to you. Use it. Hehehe.

8. Cute pillows

Nobody could resist these cute, soft pillows you see in malls and anybody could use a pillow right? Well unless it’s one of those regular-sized down pillows or a full-body pillow then it won’t be staying in my bed. I could use it at work but then it would attract dust, small cockroaches might crawl over it and there’s the occasional drool drying up on it. I’d rather get a real travel pillow instead.

7. Business card holder

Wow, a nifty leather card holder. Looks expensive. Chances are, the person who would be receiving it only see it as another accessory that he/she needs to bring. Or maybe he’s not the type who would be carrying a bunch of calling cards with him all the time. A Parker pen would be more useful don’t you think?

6. Beauty Kit

Remember this gift set? It includes a hand mirror, a hair brush, a comb, probably an unknown liquid posing as a soap or a bath gel. Really tacky but men don’t really care when they buy these things. We just see a neatly packaged set of handy accessories and we think women would appreciate it. Know what I learned? They would appreciate a single bottle of Bath and Body or Victoria Secret body spray or hand lotion more. Or a nice chapstick even.

5. Fruitcake

Ahhh, the safe food gift that represents Christmas. Who wouldn’t want it? Me… probably you… and the guards or household help that would be eating it. They should abolish fruitcakes and stop displaying it on aisles. I’d rather have a bar of chocolate or one of those tub of popcorn.

4. Self-help books

Well it’s neutral. Inexpensive. The topic is somewhat interesting and really helpful. Anybody would love to read it. Well do you? Maybe the first chapter or introduction but afterwards it gathers dust at the corner of your shelf along with other unfinished or undread self-help books you’ve received over the years.

3. Wall clock

Wall clocks should be just right on the budget and every household needs one or two or three. Well, unless the recipient are newlyweds or just moved in, chances are each important room already has its own wall clock. And do you really want to drive a nail into the wall just to hang this new clock? Exception would be those funky-looking, modern or futuristic wall clocks.

2. Personalized face towels or handkerchief

Hehe. How many personalized towel have you received in your life? This has got to be the default gift if you can’t think of anything else. Why not? It’s cheap, easy to acquire and have that so-called personal touch which doesn’t seem personal at all if your name got mispelled. Hahaha. Sure it may be useful if you’re the active type of person but otherwise, it will lay unused in your cabinet.

1. Picture frame / Photo album

Ok how many of you have received a photo album or a picture frame for Christmas? Where is it? It may be a nice idea before but today when all photos are mostly in the PC or Facebook, there’s no need for those cute photo albums or that intricate picture frame. Give me a digital photo frame instead, hehehe.

So there you have it. Now I’m not saying you don’t buy these things for your exchange gift. I mean these sort of things are not mean to exchange really good gifts that would cater to each person because of the budget constraint. I guess I’m just one of those few guys who’d rather receive money than a worthless but cute trinket during exchange gifts.

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Growing up in the 80s, kids were exposed to a lot of toys since there’s no such thing as Facebook games or PS3s to take up our time.

Unfortunately for me, I grew up with three sisters so most of the toys at home were Barbie’s. Doesn’t mean I don’t get to play with boys action figures though, most of my cousins are boys and they have a lot of robots and action figures between them.

Here are the top 10 action figures I used to play with during the 80s. I say boys were luckier because there were just too many choices to play with unlike girls who are stuck with their Barbie’s and the occasional Carebears plushies. Phew.

10. Go Bots

We already had Transformers but we still watch the poor man’s version which is the Go Bots. Remember Leader 1 and his nemesis Cy-kill? Or how about the gay-ish Scooter? A watered down Transformers this is since all you need to do is pull, twist and flip and you’ve already transformed the toy. Stupidly simple.

9. The Centurions

Power Extreme! They shout this just before they get slapped with different armaments onto their limbs and torsos. The cartoon was awesome but the toys not much although I had fun mixing and matching the weapons between toys.

8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Cowabunga! One of the toys I enjoyed playing with my neighbor. He had all the turtles and Splinter as well as the bad guys and even the pizza van. How cool is that! Because we can’t sit and play TMNT all day on the Nintendo, we continue it with our toys. Heroes in the half shell, turtle power.

7. WWF Wrestlers

Wrestling was big even while I was growing up and they even had a Saturday morning cartoon for it. I was lucky enough to have a neighbor who has loads of these toys and even a ring for us to duel them with. I remember letting the Rockers do moonsaults or having Brutus the Barber Beefcake shear Big Bossman. It seems that every week my friend has a new wrestler figure, even Jimmy “Superfly” Snooka and Doink the clown! I mean who would buy those characters??

6. He-Man Masters of the Universe

By the power of Grayskull. I know I’ve played one of these when I was a kid. I distinctly remember Ram Man and his pogo-like action as I let him propel to knock off He-man from Battlecat. I like how the sculpts remain true to the animated series especiall with He-man.

5. Zoids

I don’t remember seeing any cartoon shows of Zoids growing up. Maybe it came later. Anyway, even without any TV show to promote it, every kid seems to have a Zoids toy. They don’t really transform. They’re just robot animals/monsters with a cockpit where you put a tiny pilot then you wind them up to move. Later version have a lot of weaponry that either shoots or lights up. I remember trying to blind my playmate with one of those firing missiles.

4. Voltes V

Lander missile!! Voltes V or Voltron? Those were the two big robot shows during my time… oh and Daimos too with Richard and Erika. But I digress, I was lucky enough to have played with a full Voltes V line, combining and disassembling the five parts and letting them duke out with the ultimate volt-in robot which is…

3. Voltron (Lions)

There are two Voltron cartoons but the Lions were the first and in my opinion are the best. It also helps that their toy version kicks serious ass. I mean who would’ve thought of letting kids play with heavy chunks of metal lions that combine to transform into a heavier and bigger chunk of metal robot? I mean you can bludgeon someone to death with this robot. Or you can open up a gash on a kid’s forehead when you bop him with one of them lions. This toy is deadly and looking back, it was a realllyyy cool toy. If you’re to choose one of the lions, always go with black, yellow or blue then red or green in that order. Black is the biggest and red and green are the smallest piece.

2. Transformers

I know a lot of kids who grew up in the 80s have a Transformer. I remember my cousins having the cool ones. Not just simple old Bumblebee or Iron Hide or Prowl. I remember playing with the full set of Dinobots (these are big) and the Constructicons and even complicated Triple-Changers like Astrotrain. Who can forget Soundwave and his cassette tapes Ravage, Laserbeak, Frenzy and Rumble? Transformers of the 80s will kick the butts of the Transformers toys of the 20th century.

1. GI Joe

And the number one action figure of the 80’s? Yo Joe!! These are cheap and well-made with all its articulations and they’re easily available at Duty Free so we would always get one or two of these whenever somebody from the US comes home. You know who my first Joe was? Wet-Suit! I wanted a Stormshadow, or a Snakeeyes, or even one of the twins Tomax and Xamot, or even BeachHead or Bazooka but I got Wet-Suit and his stupid flippers. My friends would always say that I can’t join the fight because they’re fighting on land.

Man it was sure fun being a boy in the 80’s. Sad thing is, as kids we didn’t know how to value our toys. I don’t know where the toys I’ve played with are right now. Voltron, Grimlock, and all the Joes I owned are now gone. I wonder if my old neighbor still has his huge toy collection.

So what was your favorite action figure growing up?

I don’t claim ownership of images used here. Credit goes to their respectful owners.

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More post-fight discussions appeared on the net where people are accusing Juan Marquez of dirty tactics by stepping on Pacquiao’s foot numerous times during the fight. Observe the video below:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ydlW-jjNI

That’s just a few instances since other people are reporting that it also happened in the earlier rounds and some believed it caused the cramps that Pacquiao experienced during the fight. When Roach was asked about it in Twitter, he casually mentioned that it’s just a common occurrence when southpaw fighters (Pacquiao) go against orthodox (JMM) ones.

Boxing fans, especially Pacman fans, believed it’s a dirty tactic by JMM since if it’s common, how come Pacquiao didn’t get to step on Marquez’s foot (that much at least?). Good point. But if it’s intentional, how come Manny or his corner told the referee about it? Does that mean it didn’t affect Pacquiao’s fighting?

UPDATE: Well it turns out that Manny was also stepping on Marquez’s lead foot a few times during the match and the announcers caught it too. Here’s a compilation video. (thanks JB)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB6gEExQrqA

If you want to watch the fight again, you can download the Pacquiao-Marquez III video here.

Going back to the Pacquiao-Clottey match, most of us saw the same thing happened on a number of occasion and the referee warned Clottey to stop doing it.

Now with Pacquiao-Marquez, if you’ve seen their previous fights, it’s part of Marquez’s clever footwork to negate Pacquiao’s quickness to place his left foot outside Pacquiao’s right foot. It will prevent Pacquiao from pivoting to avoid JMM’s straight and at the same time, allow JMM to pivot out to avoid Pacquiao’s incoming left straight. Got this from this pre-fight analysis here.

There are two things we can deduct here. Maybe Pacman/Roach caught on to that and as preparation, Pacquiao will have to widen his lead step to prevent Marquez from gaining that outer side and this forced Marquez to inadvertently step on Pacquiao’s foot a lot of times. Or maybe it’s a new strategy Marquez got from his trainer? Since stepping on the outer side of Pacquiao’s foot might slow him down but stepping on his foot will make sure that Pacman won’t be going anywhere.

The question remains though, why didn’t Pacquiao or Roach brought it to the referee’s attention? I don’t believe that stepping on a foot that number of times is acceptable.

Oh and if you’re wondering what the yellow liquid Marquez was guzzling during the fight, it’s an electrolyte replacement which is now approved in boxing fights in Nevada (with proper inspection of course). This means boxers can also drink Gatorade now just like basketball and football players. Endorsement deal for Pacquiao coming up? (Source)

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So how does having a 4-day work week sound to you guys? 11 hours in the office a day, four days a week?

The government is again considering implementing a 4-day workweek for all government and private companies in the country, hoping to allow people to save at least 20% on their weekly budget. This proposition already surfaced back in 2008 during the Arroyo administration but it didn’t really push through.

For those who are currently on a 5-day work week, how does this move sound to you?

It’s true that you can save some money because you only have to eat out four times a week and also save on gas or transportation cost because of it but would you really stay at home? Or will you be going to the malls instead on that extra day? Well you can also use this extra day to work on your side jobs, or pursue additional training or just spend extra time with your family so that’s a benefit.

I myself would like to have a three-day weekend but I think this will force me to go on vacation trips more often. Hehehe. My shift is from 4PM to 1AM and I don’t mind going in at 2PM for an 11-hour shift.

But staying at the office for 11 hours?? I already experienced working for 10 hours in two days and it’s really, really draining. Imagine doing that week in and week out. The extra day you will get, you will spend it recuperating from the stress.

I don’t think four-day work week will apply to most companies especially in the IT sector with overseas clients. Besides, you will still probably be on-call on that extra day you’re supposed to be off. And it will be a nightmare for project managers to schedule the week so that time can be maximized in just four days. Then what happens if there’s a holiday which Philippines has a lot of? Automatic 3-day work-week. Woohoo!

It’s interesting to think about and possibly be worth a try but in the long run most private companies won’t agree to it.

What do you think?

[GMA News]

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Most scams today saying that you won something are either via SMS or E-mail. Guess what turned up in our mailbox?

It’s a Citibank letter stating that my wife won Php25,000 worth of gift certificate from Digital Walker for Citibank’s 1000 Gadgets to Win Promo. Normally, this would look legit since the amount is not that immensely big and it’s not cash. Tia was excited but I was skeptic since we didn’t do anything except use her card.

First thing I did was check online if there’s indeed a Citibank promo of that name. There is actually and the P25k Digital Walker GC is one of the prizes. Not only that, the promo is still ongoing and there was a raffle draw two days before the letter was sent. But why does my gut feel say it’s still a sham?

It’s because of the letter itself. Anybody can write one knowing the promo mechanics from the net.

First, let’s look at the envelope.

On the left is the envelope our letter came with and on the right is the usual envelope from Citibank. Although the print on the left is colored, it’s using the wrong shade of blue and it was slightly bleeding, like it was hastily printed from a colored printer with those unlimited ink. And the rest of the envelope is bare, missing the return to sender details.

Then there’s the letter itself.

I immediately pointed out to my wife that it’s missing the blue Citibank header. Then there’s also the greeting covering both Mr and Ms even though they already know the name of the sendee. And Citibank always use Dear Cardholder. The paper also felt like your ordinary bond paper unlike the typical hard paper Citibank bills come with.

On the body of the letter is the name of the person we need to contact, her phone number and her e-mail address. I Googled the name by the way and it was of a valid Citibank employee. I tried calling the number for three days already but I always get redirected to a voicemail without knowing if it’s from a Citibank office.

I was also unsure if @citi.com is a legit domain so I did a WHOIS and found that it was registered to Citibank Corp so no problem there. Although anybody can easily spoof an e-mail, it is extremely difficult to hijack the mailbox on a domain name you don’t have access to. So I sent an e-mail hoping for a reply.

Finally we see the signature of the letter which is the same Cristina Tan as that of the billing letter. However, it looked like it was only scanned and pasted on the document before printing it. Would’ve looked more legit if it was hand-signed.

So what do you think? Is this letter fake or not? Did we actually win? I’m still waiting for a reply from my e-mail so we’ll find out soon.

UPDATE: Well, Citibank replied and told us to go to their building in Eastwood to claim our prize. So we did.

I’ve never seen a single gift voucher with that big of an amount. Hahaha. Thank you God for the unexpected blessing. Matindi at maagang Christmas shopping ‘to.

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Everybody’s familiar with the SD card. If you have a digital camera then most likely you’ve encountered what an SD card looks like. But do you know what’s the difference between SD, SDHC and SDXC cards?

I have to admit that I had to google it up when I got curious and the answer is pretty simple. Capacity. SD was the first of its kind before GBs of data can be stored in its compact size. SDHC means high-capacity while SDXC is extended capacity. But at what capacity would you classify if it’s SD, SDHC and SDXC?

Although it shouldn’t really matter to most people, here’s how you classify each type of SD card based on capacity:

• SD – 1MB to 2GB
• SDHC – 4GB to 32GB
• SDXC – >32GB to 2TB

Bonus: What does Class on an SD card mean?

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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.

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We all know that in terms of military armaments, equipment, and technology, ours are very much outdated that if ever a war against China over Spratly Islands will happen, we don’t have a freakin’ chance on our own.

Let’s take a look at our newest and biggest battleship we bought from the US (BRP Gregorio del Pilar) against China’s latest purchase from the Russians (Shi Lang). Here’s a graphical scale comparison GMA News did to visualize the size difference between the two.

The 367-foot BRP Gregorio del Pilar was bought by our government for $13.18 million under the US Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program. It’s a decommissioned US Coast Guard Hamilton-class cutter and is currently our Philippine Navy’s biggest, fastest and most powerful vessel. It also has a six-barrel 20 mm Phalanx CIWS (Close In Weapons System) and can carry four helicopters.

On the other corner is China’s 1,000-foot Shi Lang which they bought from the Russians for $20 million. It is a Soviet-era aircraft carrier that can carry 36 Su-33 airplanes and sixteen helicopters, with a crew size of 3,000 to complement the full aircraft load. One of its armaments is a ten-barrel Gatling gun  CIWS (Close In Weapons System).

Scary? Well we don’t have to worry about Shi Lang if we’re to believe the Chinese who bought it meant to convert it into a floating entertainment and casino. Yeah right.

[GMA News]

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I recently encountered a wireless headphone (the TDK WR700) that uses Kleer technology so it got me curious. Kleer or Bluetooth, which one’s better for wireless audio listening?

Kleer and Bluetooth are two wireless audio streaming technology having similar properties available to consumers. They don’t need line of sight to operate and can function for as far as 10 meters from the source. Both technology also operate on the same 2.4GHz band used by your wireless LANs.

So what’s the difference?

Well the main difference is that packets streamed by Kleer is more efficient than Bluetooth.

If for example you need to stream an MP3 with 320kbp/s bitrate, Bluetooth needs 20 1MHz channels while Kleer only needs a single 3MHz channel. On a crowded area with wireless LANs and other Bluetooth devices, the high channel requirement needed by Bluetooth will make streaming inconsistent, to the point that some packets or even the connection might get lost. Now imagine streaming a CD-quality or lossless audio that has a 920kbp/s bitrate? Bluetooth just can’t give you the same quality as that of a wired headset when you listen to high-quality music.

Got that? Here’s to make things simple.

Bluetooth wireless headphone

Pros:

• Embedded to a lot of devices already eliminating the need of a separate transmitter
• Considerably cheaper
• Lots of headphones to choose from

Cons:

• Compresses audio thereby not able to stream CD-quality music, Apple’s FLAC or Windows Media lossless audio as is
• Prone to dropping on a crowded wireless environment
• High channel requirement will need more power

Kleer wireless headphone

Pros:

• Can stream lossless audio including CD music
• More power efficient than Bluetooth (up to 8x to 10x more hours)
• Doesn’t drop and doesn’t jam even with other wireless devices around
• Can support 4 Kleer headsets to one transmitter

Cons:

• Still new so a separate transmitter is often needed
• Headsets using Kleer are still scarce
• A bit expensive

Conclusion

Well it’s pretty clear that Kleer’s better (pardon the pun) for wireless audio streaming. Bluetooth will still have its use for other wireless functions but if you’re the type who wants to enjoy quality audio wirelessly, then you probably won’t mind the cost attached to a Kleer-based headphones. True audiophiles, Kleer is for you!

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Do you guys know Lytro? It’s been in the news on the interwebs for the past couple of days. It’s a camera company that will be creating light field cameras. Very revolutionary compared to your digital cameras that is basically the same as it was decades ago.

The highlight of this camera is that it allows you to take a picture, then focus afterwards. Yep, no matter how blurry your photo gets, you can still focus on different objects after. Check out the living picture below by clicking on any points to change focus.

Amazing huh? It’s like magic. That’s what Lytro basically does. You don’t have to worry with slow auto-focusing lens, no more half-pressing, just take the shot and change your focus after. For the camera pros, it’s just depth of field wizardry.

Now here are 5 reasons why I’m not so excited about Lytro.

1. I don’t like post-processing. It takes too much time and with a Lytro you may be doing a lot of it. Fixing each photo until you get the right focus. Yes it may be cool at first but eventually your friends will grow tired letting the photo load and play with it.

2. Bigger file size. I’m not so sure how big the file size would be but if it’s a living picture, it may be 3 to 4 times bigger than your ordinary picture file. Now what if you took a really big photo? And lots of it. It will limit your card’s capacity and it will take longer to upload/download.

3. Just depth of field magic. What this camera can really do is let everyone (even your grandma) get that blurred background/foreground effect on their photo easily all the time if they so wish. That’s good actually but it’s nothing to get excited about.

4. Still same camera principles. It may be fast and will eliminate shutter lag alright, but you would still be wanting to control the aperture, shutter speed and ISO to get the right exposure. Now if it can duplicate what your eyes are seeing automatically at every press of the shutter button then I’m sold.

5. Most probably short battery life. This camera will be doing a lot of software processing and with the way you or your friends would want to tweak photos on the fly will not contribute to its battery life.

Admittedly, I may be speaking too early. I haven’t seen a prototype yet nor do we know the estimated cost of a Lytro camera. however, based on what’s in the web and their site, at most it still belongs to the toy camera category.

But who knows? It will still have its uses though. I sure could use it on this out-of-focus photo here.

Check out the Lytro site to know more about it.

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