Good samaritan: usiseros strike back

Two nights ago, I got to play the part of a good Samaritan.

I was waiting for a ride home when I suddenly noticed a buri hat (similar to a cowboy's had) fly off a speeding jeepney. The unfortunate owner must have asked to driver to stop in the middle of the street but was not heard or the hat was too precious to him that he jumped off the rear exit of the vehicle without waiting for it to stop.

A body in motion stays in motion, is a law in physics. So when the guy made contact with the pavement, his feet are not the only one that made contact with it but his legs, hips, back, shoulders and probably his head also did. The poor man tumbled on the asphalted road and laid inert. Since I was already in the scene, I moved in to help.

Luckily, an MMDA (Metro Manila Development Authority) enforcer on his way home stopped to assist. I waved the traffic away from the injured man while other came to help. And of at least ten people there, only four of us were really helpful, the rest, there to discuss what had happened.

The homebound enforcer and I tried to assist the victim and checked if he is okay. He did not speak but he was aware of his situation. Another enforcer came along and called the jeepney driver back to bring the guy to a nearby hospital while another man took over the traffic management. All the rest, talking and watching.

In fairness, they may not know what to do at that time but are willing to help. At the least, they created a cordon around the victim that guided traffic out of the way.

Alas, the uzis struck again. Cars and jeeps and buses and motorcycles slowed their pace. It must be to avoid bumping at each other but also to have a look at what's happening. Most may have felt pity at the man and some may have come up with their own versions of what happened and drove off.

About 15 minutes after he fell, the man was loaded on to the jeep he fell from and was rushed to the hospital. Three guys accompanied him including the second enforcer while the rest went our separate ways.

Low cost computing

My uncle once offered to by me a laptop. It is a Pentium IV gateway laptop that will cost him $600. He told me that he will donate $100 for my cause and just ask me to pay him $500. Based on the exchange rate at that time, it will cost me about 35,000 pesos to pay him back. And I do not have that kind of money at that time.

In the last 10 years, the best pre-Pentium personal computers cost as much as thirty thousand pesos (P30,000) and this is too much for middle class families like ours. Right now, those pre-Pentium PCs are considered obsolete. You can't even buy one for just P500. Some one would probably give it to you with all their heart.

When I bought my AMD Athlon 1800 powered PC, it cost me P17,000. Five years later, a PC with the same processor speed costs only P9,000-P10,000.

A lot of low cost computer stores have been coming out. They sell complete PCs (with monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers) for as low as P3,000.

We would probably think that this is some kind of a gimmick. These PCs must be second hand from other countries. And most indeed are. Some products still have stickers from Japan or Taiwan. But the stores can give you a warranty from 3 months to a year for each product. The one year warranty is the same thing offered by vendors of first hand, first rate, high quality desktops.

Unless you want to show off to your neighbors your cool new branded PC, you can settle for the low cost alternatives they offer.

With a certain degree of discipline even families from the slums can purchase a P-III 500 MHz desktop for this kids. Hell, they can buy a television and cases of beer, why could they not afford a PC?

If only those low income families discipline themselves, we can claim to the world that in the Philippines, we have one PC per family. :)

And we will become the country with the most computer literate people.

Laptop Maintenance and Repair

Why is it that manufacturers of electronic equipment want clients to keep on purchasing new parts rather than go out of their way and remedy malfunctions through repair? I read from a website (I forgot the site address) that Elitegroup Computer Systems of Taiwan designed their laptops with so many hidden screws that it will discourage an owner from doing repairs himself. This is another vote for the one China policy. I was so pissed off that I told myself not to buy another Taiwan made product in the future.

About four months ago, my laptop croaked on me. Well, it actually beeped on me. I turned it on and it made three long beeps with no screen. This prompted me to visit the authorized repair center to have it checked even though it is four months beyond is warranty.

Three beeps from the BIOS of my ECS laptop means base memory error.

Before taking the laptop to the authorize technicians, I consulted our office technicians first. I was advised to try to remove the memory module, use a soft eraser to clean the gold contact, re-seat the module firmly and try it again. The beeping is still there.

Unfortunately, when I brought the laptop to the authorized service center, I was told the problem with the beeping sound can only be remedied by purchasing a new mainboard since the problem was not the memory module but the DIMM receptacle. A new mainboard or shipping the laptop to Taiwan for repairs will cost me half the price of the laptop.

Disappointed, I went home. There, I tried to open the laptop by myself. I did not have a digital camera at that time so I was not able to document it for you. Alas, I cannot solve the problem.

I turned to our office technicians for help and they obliged me. Sadly, they too cannot repair the mainboard.

A few days ago, I chanced upon an advertisement of a repair center. The ad says that they can repair mainboard problems that the machine's own authorized repair center cannot. They say that since the manufacturers of the laptop is a business establishment, they prefer the clients to buy at a larger sum rather than providing affordable repair solutions.

So I tried this one. I will find out soon enough if their batting average on repairs is good. :)

Linux how to: Linux for everyday use

Lately, most Internet borne viruses had been very creative. One time, I was trying to copy a file from my flash drive to the office laptop when I saw a folder named "myKenneth." I thought, wow, somebody calls me hers (or his--shiver) and at the same time open the folder. It is empty.

Little did I know that it was a virus and the laptop was doomed for reformatting.

In my Linux powered PC, I can see this file but it does not seem to have any effect on the OS. So, is Linux viable for daily use? Here is my analysis.

I do not have any experience with other Linux OS (Ubuntu, Debian, or Red Hat) but I am having a good time with my Debian-based Bayanihan Linux 4 developed by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of the Republic of the Philippines. And I can say, this OS is viable for daily use.

Security wise, this OS only allows GUI access to users. Administrators can also use it but only through another user's account only. This means no one can install anything unusual since they do not have any installation privileges. This means a rogue virus trying to install itself on the Linux powered PC cannot install itself. :)

For daily surfing, document writing, spreadsheet preparations, and presentation designing, Bayanihan Linux 4 is viable.

It features office applications like Writer, Calc, and Impress. Their Windows counterparts are Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, in this order. Other office applications are: KAddressBook (for addresses), Base (similar to MS Access), Scribus for desktop publishing, Draw for drawings, Math for mathematical needs, KMyMoney financial accounting software, and KOrganizer similar to MS Outlook.

The OS also has a multimedia player that can play basically anything from MP3s to AVIs to VCD movies. It, however, cannot play codecs for DVD players. Waaaaaahhh... :'(

This OS also has 14 graphics related applications, 8 multimedia applications (including the player mentioned above), games, educational applications, and more! It uses FireFox for internet access. FireFox support tabbing and allows users to open several sites in one window.

So, for all "simple" users, Linux is the best, free option you can get if you only need office, multimedia, and internet applications in your daily lives. It has a GUI for easy use. Most secure from alterations and, possibly, corruption of restricted files. And Vista looks almost like it.

And it works faster even with LimeWire in the background (my processor is AMD Athlon 1800+ that translates to Intel's Pentium 4 1.5 GHz)

Linux how to: LimeWire installation in Bayanihan Linux 4

I have just recently installed LimeWire 4.14 on my Bayanihan Linux 4 platform. I installed limewire so I can download a good torrent client since I could not find any workable torrent clients on the internet. Here are a few steps to follow in installing LimeWire on Linux.

Step 1. Download LimeWire

At the limewire home page, click on the "download" button at the top menu. Click the "basic" button as it allows you to download limewire for free. In the next page, be honest enough to click "I will not use limewire for copyright infringement." At the lower part of the next page, click the link to download "Other systems ()S/2, Solaris, Linux)" to begin downloading "LimeWireOther.zip".

Step 2. Extract LimeWire

Extract the zip file on to a folder where you wish to share LimeWire. It will create a folder named "LimeWire." Inside that folder is a shell script, "runLime.sh" to run lime wire.


Step 3. Set path

Edit the shell script using a text editor. In the first portion of the script type:

PATH=$PATH:/
export PATH

An example the path is " /home/user/java/jdk1.5.0_02/bin". Your java must be 1.5 or higher. LimeWire will use the bin files of java to function properly. Java 1.5 or higher comes with the Java Runtime Environment during installation. How to install this is another topic. You can download your java installer from here.

Step 3. Start LimeWire

To run limewire, open a terminal window and go to the folder /~/LimeWire then type:

$sh runLime.sh

And your limewire loads and you can begin downloading multimedia including torrents.

NOTE: Do not close the terminal or your limewire will close as well.

Customer service hotline

A popular client assistance operation of companies today is the customer assistance hotline. As the name implies, the line and the company phone ear piece is always hot due to constant flow of electricity for the former and constant contact with the ear for the latter.

Our broadband service provider has one. We can call them up if we encounter problems with our internet connection. Being a bundle of phone line and broadband DSL, we can also call them up if we have phone problems. But only during their regular working hours.

So, when you loose broadband or phone service during the night and it unfortunately happens during the time when you needed those service the most, tough luck. Their answering machine will tell you to call them up during their regular operating hours from 7:00am to 8:30pm Mondays through Fridays and up to 6:00pm only during weekends and holidays. To remedy this, well, sulk and hope that 7:00am comes earlier than usual.

Home cooking - pasta sauce with spanish style sardines

Here is the recipe for something I came up with.

Ingredients
1 small can Spanish style sardines
1/2 a can of sliced mushrooms
5 cloves garlic
1 bulb onion
2 tomatoes
2 tablespoons butter
500 grams pasta
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable or coconut oil
pepper

Sauce
1. Sautee minced garlic, and onion and tomato strips in butter. Add oil from Spanish style sardine can when tomato is well cooked.
2. Add pepper, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Add mushrooms.
3. Add sardines and grate cheese over mixture.
4. Simmer

Pasta
1. Bring water to a boil.
2. Add oil.
3. Add pasta and boil till white in center is gone while the pasta is still firm -- al dente as the French call it.
4. Put pasta in drainer and add 1 tablespoon of oil. Mix

Serve
Put pasta in plate, add the sauce, grate some cheese and voila! Pastarrific!