PIM Software

Way back 1996, when I started shifting to my IT career… I used no software for Personal Information Management. For email, I used Qualcomm’s Eudoraâ„¢ but this was for email alone. And the old pen and small notebook did the rest for my everyday planning. After sometime, I started using Microsoft Outlook®, since it integrates email, contacts, notes, task and the calendar very well.

Being concerned with company expenditures, I was at first against the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) since I viewed it as another company expense and the pen and paper, whiteboard and corkboard in the office works fine. But as my former partner Terence Teves was persistent in getting PDAs, I was convinced to give it a shot.

So I started with a Palm m100. And I was happy it would synchronize well with Microsoft Outlook®.

After using Palm® m100, I have used a Palm® xeIII, Palm® Zire™ 71 and now I am using a Palm® Treo™ 600. During those times, I have been jumping from Microsoft Outlook® to Palm® Desktop for my calendar, task and notes. I liked the power Microsoft Outlook® offers but seems to have trouble when it gets really filled up. And it was the email that fills up Microsoft Outlook® so much. And I have used the scanpst tool to fix the outlook.pst file many times in the past and there were times I had unrecoverable data. So those were the reasons I would go back to Palm® Desktop and use something else for my emails.

Since the late 1990’s, I would jump back and forth from Microsoft Outlook® to Qualcomm Eudoraâ„¢ and since last year, I was a Mozilla Thunderbird user. For the past year I was happy with Palm® Desktop and Mozilla Thunderbird combination totally departing Microsoft Outlook®, but recently my Mozilla Thunderbird has been very slow. After opening it up, it takes some time before I can display the email messages and it always gives this dialog box that it is still processing the folders. I guess this happens once it gets filled up too.

The new Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2003 looks very attractive and promising as I have seen the new interface on someone else’s computer, but buying Outlook is just another problem to face too. And in the past, I always had the same problem with Microsoft Outlook® that when the outlook.pst file gets so big, that is when problems come out. But then again, I think it happens to all email softwares when they get so filled up.

I guess the best solution is simply go through your emails, and do not archive them all. Delete all those sales emails from all these subscriptions, delete the mailing list emails that are already out-of-topic, and look for some nice way to archive the emails. I wish there was an easy one-click way to export all the emails in a nice way to different database formats for better archiving.

Snail Mails

After being away for nearly month… and filtering out all the brochure type of junk in the mailbox, I got:

  • 8 Credit Card Pre-Approved Applications. All Credit Card Pre-Approved Applications went to the trash except for one since the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is lower than everyone else. I will start moving some of my bills on an auto-payment scheme from my other credit cards to other cards with lower APR and no annual fees.
  • 2 Pre-Approved Car Loan Letters. Both letters went to the trash. I do not need a new car. As long as my current 2nd-hand hand car still runs.
  • 10 Bills to pay from current bank credit cards, department store credit cards, phone, cellphone, chiropractor bills. All bills due before my payday were paid. Those bills due after payday will be paid after payday.

Domain Selling Tactics

Many people buy domain names and many know about Verisign/Network Solutions and also Register.com who sell domains at $35/year who were the pioneers of domain registrations. You can get lesser prices if you register for more number of years. Network Solutions actually powers the technical backend of the .com and .net domain name extension. Many cheaper and still reputable companies like DirectNIC sells domains at $15/year. To destroy the competition in the early years of 2000, 000Domains.com was a bit popular before since it was one of the first companies to offer domains lower than $15/year. Today there are tons of companies, some are just hard to find while others are easier. Included in the many companies is my own company that sells domains at $8.88/year, OmniDomain.net

And of course, I buy domains from myself, haha and what many people do not know, (but many people also know) is that the owner information of domain names can be viewed in a whois search. All domain registration companies should have it. My own whois search is here: www.omnidomain.net/whois and just type in the domain name and type in the code in the box below it, and you can check out the domain information.

Although there are a lot of spammers that use whois databases to update their spam list, many people do not use there personal email addresses for whois information. Some people use the whois information to send the domain owner some proposal to move over to their domain registration.

Which brings me to this company’s different style of selling. I occassionally get snail mail from this company called Domain Registry of America. Yes, not email, it is snail mailed and maybe they believe if they spam, it will just end up in the trash folder or spam filter deleted.

They are actually telling you when your domain will expire (which they just simply checked the whois information) and is telling you to move over to them. For $40 for 2 years, or $25/year. Obviously, they are targetting the NSI (Network Solutions, Inc.) customer. They are proposing to the wrong person. I buy domains from OmniDomain.net for $8.88/year. Actually I get them even at a cheaper price since I own OmniDomain.net hehehe.

In the Philippines From December 3 to December 31, 2005

I was really scheduled to be in the Philippines from December 3 to 27, 2005, but with my health condition, and a lot of things not completely done aside from shortening the time to be with my family, were all of the reasons extending it a little bit longer to December 31, 2005.

Good thing I was able to talk to Pam Lund, one of our bosses at work who was online and was kind to have a few more days extended during my vacation. Thanks Pam.

After talking to her, I called up Philippine Airlines right away and tried to get flights on January 1 to 3, but all were fully booked and the next schedules were on January 11 and would still be on waiting list. So I opted to get the latest December flight and listed as waiting list for December 31, 2005 at 10:00pm.

I kept calling everyday if I was still on waiting list and everyday I still got the same answer, we were on waiting list, and in the morning of December 27, Marcia woke up earlier and I when I woke up… she was already dialing the Philippine Airlines office. It was hard getting through the phone lines as I continued to fix my things preparing to leave that day, and it was nearly noon when I was able to talk to a Philippine Airlines representative and my December 31 flight was already booked.

It is 2006 already, and one thing I will do is shorten my blog posts. Long posting are sometimes too long to read in one sitting. Although a lot happened when I got back to the Philippines, several stories to tell, I will just break down big stories into smaller chunks making them easier to read in a short span of time.

Happy New Year to everyone!

After working the whole 2005 and was happy to meet my family whom I missed so much… and was with them for nearly a whole month, and just wanted to see them and get away from work for a few hours (few hours, because I was also working during vacation), for some reason… I seem to miss work too. I guess I am crazy.