Aaarrrgg… Online forms that look like paper.

Online forms, aligning field names, input text boxes, adjusting the widths of each one, use tables. Not hard but to finish a single form with a bunch of fields uses so much time, especially if it looks like the form they fill up on paper. Appearance is just the first part, processing the form is the second part, so many variable names, and if error checking is required, it takes more time. I think I will make ready made codes in the future for commonly used things like date select boxes, country select box, state select box, age computation from birthday entries, etc. To make work faster in the future.

Still a lot more fields but I am half way through and when this is done, the whole client site is done, and I can now bill them. This should be done before the office starts in Manila, Philippines, +8GMT.

Playing around with WordPress

I wanted to abandon Blogger and try running my own blogging software but did not want to yet because of all the postings I have. Well I found an import function of WordPress and tried it out. It worked but I’m not making it my official blog yet, I will still check everything out if the importation was done properly.

Check it out, I did the import just before I wrote this entry.

http://www.benjarriola.com/blog2/

Updates

1. A lot of people have been having trouble running an AMD Athlon 64 processor on Microsoft® Windows XP™ SP2. I had the sample trouble. I found a lot of forums talking about it. Some forums you know they know what they are talking about, some other forums as full of guesses. Guessing the problem and guessing the solution. And a funny common guess is a Virus or Spyware and the the forum writers recommend installing the AVG, Ad-Aware, Spybot and SpywareBlaster. Funny, a lot of people initially think their problem is a Virus or Spyware problem. I got mine to work after disabling the IPVMon driver in safe mode. Computer is now working but since I did a fresh install again, i have no softwares on it and still has to do some installing to get it working.

2. USB ports working, but not for data drives. Probably some problem with my USB controller drivers. And I also read an article that AMD processors have problems with USB Flash disk due to some timing issue. Something I still have to research on. Right now, since my laptop is networked to the desktop, I have to plug in data drives in the laptop, share it an access it from there on the network.

3. Mama has an interview at the US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. I’ll be driving her there even if I do not know how to get there. But Google maps is really cool. Compared to Mapquest and Yahoo because of their satellite photo maps. At least I know what kind of land marks I might be passing by and I am also taking note of the plain land areas and heavy residential house areas.

3. After installing all softwares, first thing to do is nothing but the Graveyard Chef. I need to finish that site real quickly.

4. In the Philippine Graphic Designing community, everyone is talking about Bayoâ„¢, the grament manufacturer in the Philippines for ripping off the designs or a small time Japanese artist placing her artwork on the web. Copyrights belong to the artist and the website really says that you are not allowed to use any of the graphics in anyway without permission. I have read that the artist was trying to contact the Japanese Embassy in the Philippines and the Philippine Embassy in Japan.

5. DoS flaw in DNS protocol? What? Does this mean all of us web hosting companies are doomed? Got to talk to Mike Lopez about this as we exchange notes on server administration. He’s more of a Linux master than I am.

6. I want to start with the Gracie Brazillian Jiujutsu after I tried the trail class, but I have no money right now. 🙁 So many bills to pay. I’ll go back to Taekwondo then since I can practice there for free since I worked on their website.

7. Tiring life going in circles, work at work, work at home, if there is free time, it is either BMX, Gym, Taekwondo, and soon Jiujutsu too. Wifey is far away back home. 🙁 Family is far away. My Wifey is feeling the same way. 🙁

8. New clients, recently paid, was monicakelly.com, batangsayantist.com. Others are still proposals. So far I am having no month with no sales with December last year which is good.

December: kabalikatnec.com, drukelly.com
January: martalexterminators.com
February: robustness.org, rsi-insure.com
March: plumstudio.net, gskelly.com, aspect-studio.com, graveyardchef.com
April: dodeci.com, metropolitanart.net, shalinaonline.net
May: monicakelly.net, mookchoi.com, alibiproductions.com, sunvideoproductions.com, batangsayantist.com, pinoyfoodsmacau.com, i-nk.net

You might think I am rich already, nope. Hosting is not really that expensive. What has big money is designing and development, but this consumes so much time. Hosting and Domain Registration does not eat much of my time and is a recurring payment, even if it is small, it is recurring.

No DSL Yet. Computers not setup yet. Some stuff still a mess.

-Move out of Del Dios, Escondido last Saturday going to Rancho Penasquitos, San Diego. Unloaded all stuff, stuff was a mess. After everyday sorting, arranging, fixing… things are starting to be in order.

-My two desktops are not yet working because I haven’t put everything together yet. Doing work on my laptop, not that convenient, I can deal with it being less ergonomic, but I am not used to the contrast and brightness of my laptop, and no matter how I adjust it, it does not look like how it is on my desktop. If you are working with fine lines, they seem to disappear in the laptop if they are too fine and when you adjust image brightness and contrast, hue and saturation to make it look good in the laptop, it will appear dark on the desktop. I make websites and these should be pleasing the majority of people online whom most are using desktop, I need to get my desktop’s up and running soon. Got a few additional things for MarkProf and I need major development done on The Graveyard Chef

-The shower is fixed but can’t be used for two days. So I’ll be taking a bath in Ma and Pa’s bathroom for the next two days. The phones are not setup well; we had our phones transferred too and Ma and Pa’s was connected on the 14th. Mine supposed to be on the 16th. But mysteriously, mine is connected already, and Ma and Pa’s is not yet connected. I checked all the sockets and all other wires available to get a dial tone, none of them gave a dial tone. Which means the wire in the house is not connected well to the connection box outside. I called up SBC to verify if it is connected and they said it is. So I asked the apartment manager where the main phone terminal box is, and she pointed it to me. I checked it out and it was all spaghetti. Wires everywhere, no labeling what so ever, just a few numbers written with a pentel pen, others with a pencil, and it is not clear which one it was pointing too. I thought of getting my phone and some wires outside and start calling the number on my cellphone to figure out the right connection. But that is a trial and error thing, and every time I get an error, I may be disturbing another co-resident at the apartment. There are more than 20 units here and I don’t want to risk making 20 wrong numbers before I get the right wires. So I called up SBC to have a rewiring done for me.

-My DSL comes after 10 days, I have no Internet connection at home, so I opened up a free 1175 hour, 50 day AOL dial-up Internet connection CD so at least I can use something in the meantime.

-After being a sponsor for iBlog, the Philippines’ 1st Blogging Summit, I have been having few signups, few but better than none at all. For those who haven’t seen my promo, check it out here: http://iblog.ydswebsolution.com. Imagine this, P888 per year, a free domain name, 75 MB disk space, 2000 MB traffic, unlimited emails, tons of ready-made, easy to install software. Yes, only P888 per year. Check it out.

-More people checking out Teresa Heights. Thanks for the good feedback.

-A blog visitor named Carmela posted a comment, since he was searching for Joel Arcellana, a long time childhood, neighborhood friend whom we treated as cousins. She posted a comment since she was Joe’s college classmate. I called up Joel first to make sure I got the right number, left a voice mail and he called back later in the evening. It was funny since we never talked to each other ever since he left the Philippines which was… early 90’s I think. I said he sounds different and he said I sound different. Gave a few updates of each other and went back to work. He said he hasn’t called Benny ever since he came here. Well everyone is busy here. And Benny, if ever you get to read this… belated happy birthday, which was last May 11, along with Archie Reyes from Teresa, same day. Which reminds me that Laureano “Jhun” Umagtang’s birthday, a highschool classmate, is today!

-Bills, bills, bills, I got a lot. And I also have to monitor the people I bill, check if they paid already. Good thing Amor is there to help me follow up.

-Nice thing about being here at Rancho Penasquitos, I’m near Master Won Kee Min again at Champion Taekwondo Academy. Aside from that, there is a Brazilian Jiujutsu by some student of the Gracie’s. I can’t wait to get into the Gracie system and try it out. All I know is random concepts in my head on how the Gracie system is but has never experience the actual training.

-Now time to check my wifey’s blog, along with my daughters… Jamie and Ate Dawn. Got to check them out and see how they are all doing.

-Benj Arriola Blogging out…

Hi5, Xanga, Ringo, Friendster Blogs, SMS.ac, etc.

I’ve been getting several invitations from everywhere, from everyone.

For blogs, I’m pretty happy with blogger.com. I just did a xanga and frienster blog to forward them to my blogger blog.

I haven’t tried Hi5, so many people inviting. I might give it a try.

Why have Birthday Alarm and Ringo if I have Plaxo? I like Plaxo since I can synchronize with with MS Outlook, and Outlook with my PDA and Cellphone. But I just gave up on my MS Outlook, it will always have problems when data becomes bigger. Since I use Thunderbird for emails and PalmDesktop for my PDA, Plaxo is not much of a use right now. I gave Ringo a shot and SMS.ac, although for SMS, I still use Chikka.com.

What’s the next thing that is going to come out that everyone invites everyone?

Back to Work

After a 3 week vacation and still working on a few projects that need some urgency, it is back to work again.

After spending 3 weeks in the Philippines, I was able to do a lot, but 3 weeks was still not enough.

At least I was able to finish some legal matters for Jamie and go with Marcia and Ate Dawn to work on their passports. Went to Bicol to attend Ate Dawn’s Graduation and go to the beaches and hot spring with the kids.

Still had time to attend an IT conference in Shangrila Manila. Basically all they talked about was mobility, and the Philippine Government’s initiative in empowering the IT SMEs. Best talk for me was by Dondi Mapa, Philippine Commissioner on ICT where he laid out the plan for ICT SMEs by the Philippine Government.

Was able to visit AME Philippines’ office and get the materials needed for the site. And met with PayPlus for the Bancnet payment gateway. I was not able to meet Nicole though to talk further about her website. Dodeci.com requested another add-on domain. Heritage Hotel has problems with spammers.

Within the 3 weeks, I had nearly zero money. Now I need to work again and catch up with debt. Well I had no regrets, a vacation is still good and the happiest part of it is seeing my family.

A lot has happened after the vacation, but I’d like to shy away from talking about negative stuff and just look at things in a positive way. And try my best to be more productive in every way I can. Life is short, it is best to spend it in a happy way.

New Clients

Just closed a new hosting deal. Now my priority is to get Martal Exterminators done, start on Home Simon, and work on Graveyard Chef. After desinging graveyard chef, I will train Amor on building sites in full CSS, tableless sites.

Now back to work…

Work… Work… Work…

Doing an SEO only site, but decided to give it just a little design treatment to make the SEO work more.

Martal Exterminators, Inc. Current Site

Martal Exterminators, Inc. for SEO in Development

Designing was not part of the contract, but just decided to arrange things on his page.

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Design with no content. Still need content from Master Min…

Current incomplete San Diego Taekwondo Association Website

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Proposed design

The Graveyard Chef Study Layout

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No design yet, but logo was approved.

Final Approved Home Simon Logo

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Done a long time ago, but still no content from the client.

Association of Marketing Educators Development Site

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Did small text updates.

MarkProf Foundation Website

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Not yet done with my company’s new website.

Current YDS Web Solution Website

YDS Web Solution Website in Development

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It is already March 20, past due already for my monthly hosting clients. Got to see status of collection.

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Sorry Topher, I can’t work on any of this at the moment. I guess you will have to rely on Xenia and whoever you can get to help with CDBN.

CDBN Site by Xenia

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Hosting does not consume much time and so far all my new hosting clients since December are:

drukelly.com
gskelly.com
kabalikatnec.com
inreverentfear.com
martalexterminators.com
meredithvictor.com
plumstudio.net
reinhardt.ws
robustness.org
rsi-insure.com

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I don’t feel like finishing this blog post. I feel sleepy.

Scientist?

I decided to check out Mt. St. Helen’s current activity and found up-to-date information on the US Geological Survey website. Well this is an active volcano, unlike Pinatubo which was dormant, when it erupted, it was a big one since being dormant, there was a lot of pressure build up inside before it blew up.

Intrigued by the people that maintain the site I went to the homepage and saw the satellite photography. And I then started to look at a lot more stuff that calls my interest.

Then I thought how cool it would be to work at USGS. And I checked out the job openings, and saw I can enter in a lot of them. There were a lot of openings for Chemist, Physical Scientist, and IT. And there were a lot of jobs for each category, if I don’t qualify in one, there are a lot more. Salary sounds good too.

I can if I wanted to, but I decided not to at the moment. You never know how much it will eat of my time in the future. For every movement the earth makes, that is something significant to USGS and I might be required to be there all the time when something happens. That may sacrifice time with my family in the future. Although I believe I’ll love the job, I still love my family a lot more. I know there are a lot more opportunities out there that I can maximize my time with my family.