Should You Friend Your Parents on Facebook

According to the article of the same title, “a recent study showed that 72 percent of parents monitor their kids online; 95 percent of parents in the survey already had accounts on Facebook, a number even higher than their kids (90 percent). As Facebook continues to infect the Internet like the plague, you may be faced with a tough decision: should you accept your parent’s Facebook friend request?”

For me, the answer was clear. When my mom sent me a friend request months ago, I clicked ignore (I didn’t want to be her friend, but at the same time I didn’t have the heart to reject her :s ). This worked well for me since at that time, I rarely used facebook. But as my familiarity with the site grew and I used it more and more, the moment came when my mom finally asked me why I wasn’t accepting her friend request. I told her, “Ma, private space ko yun. Hayaan niyo na po ako.” I was already on the mobile tracker (which my mom forced me to accept), I wasn’t about to give up another ounce of my privacy! The turning point came last Sunday, while my mom and I were having coffee with my brother-in-law. He complimented the batch pictures which were uploaded at the site and reflected on my wall. My mom was so excited that she asked him for the site. When he said facebook, her face fell and she meekly said “ah, ok...” Then the answer wasn’t so clear. I felt so bad that I made my mom feel excluded, I ended up accepting her request that night.

Maybe before making the decision whether to “befriend” your parents or not in facebook, you should consider this: maybe they’re monitoring your profile not because they want to snoop but because they want to know you, the way you are in your natural habitat. And when you’ve been a good girl (like me J), then I’m sure the answer would be yes.

Katrina Sy, 5^th Blog Entry

Motion for Reconsideration

Last night: I hurriedly went home from dinner with friends because I haven't finished the Motion for Reconsideration of one of my OLA cases. Of course, I had a heavy heart leaving my friends, but I had to or else bye bye 4 units of OLA for me. That is exaggerated, of course. :)

Now: I have been in my room for 14 hours now, 12 hours of which is spent trying to figure out what to put in my MR.

These are some of the instances where I wish I could just press rewind to my undergrad years, where no MRs have to be filed or bar exams to worry about. I just have to point, shoot and edit. It seems so simple now.

So while waiting for my supervising lawyer's comment to my MR, I went through my old CDs, and guess what I found, an animation project that me and my thesis partner, Prech Tayag created. While watching it, I wondered will I ever be a film maker again? I would like to think that I never stopped being one.:) I just tried out a new career. But maybe, in time, I can go back to taking pictures or shooting films and editing it all night. Maybe. After my bar.

__________________________________

Entry # 5

Pia Augustha G. Agatep

• song used: Dragostea din tei by O-zone

  written and produced by: Dan Balan

Survey for Next COMELEC Chair Goes Online

NAMFREL, a national poll watchdog, launched the online survey for the next COMELEC Chair and two Commissioners who will retire early next year. The officials to be succeeded are COMELEC Chair Jose Melo and Commissioners Gregorio Larrazabal and Nicodemo Ferrer.

It is said that the survey aims to get the people's “feel” on who would they like to see seated in the COMELEC. The survey may be found at http://www.namfrel.com.ph/inamfrel/survey.htm.

Any government survey or application giving the public easier access to government offices is always a relief for Filipinos. As a government employee who worked for the government for the last 7 years, I have observed that the monopoly of bureaucratic information is always held in the advantage of the government. Policies are usually made insufficient of proper public representation. It has always been an issue to link the people to their government.

I just don’t know how this survey would matter to the actual selection of officials in COMELEC. Nonetheless, it is still a good way to make our voices be directly heard, as we speak up.

All I Want For Xmas is Kno!

Touted as the ultimate student gadget, the Kno reader (short for Knowledge, of course!) is ready to ship, just in time for Christmas. Founded by Dr. Babur Habib and Osman Rashid, their Manifesto explains what makes their product, limited to textbooks and school related applications, different:

Kno is a digital textbook - and we use the term loosely - that is about to change the way knowledge is transmitted and the way students learn. We started Kno from a tabula rasa - a blank slate - to create a new slate. First we did our homework about the way students do their homework. We studied the way they study. And we probed them about the best way to re-imagine the analog studying and reading experience in the digital world. And the result… well, from the moment you take Kno in your hands, you know you’re looking at something totally different.

According to the company, a single device can hold an astonishing 10 semester’s worth of textbooks, notes, applications, research content, homework, web links and other school related material. This will save students from dragging around heavy, unwieldy textbooks and their netbooks all day. While some worry that reading from Kno may not be comfortable, accessories such as screen clips, sleeves and portfolio cases are also available that prop the Kno upright in multiple reading positions.

While the single screen ($599) and the dual screen ($899) may seem a bit too expensive for their niche market, i.e. the average American student, considering that an I-Pad costs about a hundred dollars less, Kno's CEO, Rashid, claims that "it pays for itself" since the digital textbooks either bought or rented through the Kno bookstore cost between 30 -50% less than physical textbooks. And unlike traditional textbooks where students refrain from annotating their pages with notes from class because the books' resale value will be affected, no such problem exists with the Kno, again the Manifesto –

After Kno, they are free to write all over the textbook. They can capture their professors’ wisdom and their own ideas right on the page, in their own handwriting, the way note-taking is done naturally. It’s a brilliant innovation that unifies content and commentary to make studying and the transfer of knowledge simply better.

Now, I wonder when they'll start shipping to the Philippines?

Prepaid Everything

When Smart Communications first launched SmartLoad in 2001[1], it changed the demographic of cellphone users in the Philippines. It made cellphone usage affordable. Before, prepaid cards for cellphone load sold at Php300 at the minimum. With e-load, cellphone users can buy as low as Php30, now even as low as Php5.

Manny Pangilinan, being chairman of both Smart Communications and the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT), the prepaid e-load concept was extended to landline phone, the service provided by PLDT.

It is not unknown that Pangilinan is now also the chair of Maynilad Water Services and hold shares in MERALCO. Prepaid water and electric services in the Philippines are not farfetched. In the near future, consumers can pay for their water and electricity with cellphone load, specifically SmartLoad.

I am excited for this possibility. Not only will water and electric services be affordable, consumers will now conserve water and electricity more in the same way that prepaid cellphone users tend to be stingier when it comes to letting other people use their cellphones as against postpaid users.

Also, it makes the future a little bit brighter. At least, I’m not that scared that my future salary will not be enough for my basic necessities. Even now that I am still a student and only receive allowance from my parents, I can now pay for my TV usage and watch a movie in HD, thanks to prepaid digital TV. With prepaid, the possibilities are endless.

Kate Lomoljo

Entry No. 5

---

[1] http://www.epasaload.com/

Boo!

Boo’s status as of this morning: “When I open my eyes, it will be Friday.”

I can just imagine how cute this little thing goes about in the mornings – a big yawn, a lazy stretch that would surely make one feel even sleepier than awake, and then slowly opening its little eyes to the morning sun. It is just hard how not to like this little guy. It’s like that puss-in-boots character played by Antonio Banderas in Shrek everytime it gives you “the look “.

Unlike Banderas’ character, however, this guy is no kitty. He is, as one can see in his personal information on facebook, “My name is Boo. I am a dog. People love me!”. Boo is a Pomeranian with a very fashionable fur-do, and yes, people love him big time. In fact, there are about, as of this time, more than half a million people who have expressed their love, or “like”, for him. That is, well, Facebook has about more than 500 million accounts, so do the math. :)



if you like it, click here (you can also put a ring on it) ;p

Surely, Time Magazine, underestimated Zuckerberg’s accomplishment of “connecting millions of PEOPLE and mapping the social relations among them.”


by Vann dela Cruz entry #5

Damn You Auto Correct!

If you need a few laughs just before heading out for class, or when your brain is tired from reading all those SCRAs, perhaps you can visit damnyouautocorrect.com.

For those who had the earlier versions of the iPhone, I’m sure you went through the WTF moments where the autocorrect feature automatically changes the words of your texts without you knowing it. Out of force of habit, we click send immediately after without re-reading the text, and this can lead to funny, and sometimes extremely embarrassing, outcomes. The worst part is that you cannot turn the Autocorrect feature off. So we were all forced to proof-read all our text messages, lest we had to go through another round of deep humiliation.

damnyouautocorrect.com is dedicated to all those WTF moments. For me, it’s a relief to know that the woes and annoyance against the Autocorrect feature is almost universal. I also quite find it ironic that a gadget, who like a slave is supposed to do as he is told, is now suddenly telling us what to do. It thinks that it knows better than us. And that can be very annoying. Luckily, the latter versions of the iPhone software has made it possible to turn the Autocorrect feature off.

Below are examples. Happy reading and Happy Holidays!

JERIC ALVIN F. CRUZ (5th blog entry)