Mar
10
2008
It is often viewed by Filipinos that the only way to get your head above water in the Philippines was get out of the country and go to the US or other countries that offer more opportunity. This is due to the poor economy and lack of jobs in the Philippines. That may be true in most cases but Henry Sy is an exception. Henry did the complete opposite, he left China to go to the Philippines to make his fortune at the age of 12. And make a fortune he did, Henry Sy is a billionaire with a net worth of 1.7 billion as reported by Forbes.com, although other sources say he is worth much more than that.
Henry started his entrepreneurship in the 1950s by selling cheap American shoes at his small store in Manila. He later branched out to department stores and later onto Supermarkets. His claim to fame was when he opened the first Supermall in Manila in 1985. Today, what started off as a tiny grocery store has grown into an empire of over 17 Malls across the Philippines and continues to grow.
With all the success this man has accomplished throughout his life, you would expect him to be uptight and reserved, but he is the complete opposite. According to TIMEasia he still goes to grocery stores and shops for food for his family. And if that isn’t enough, he even cooks what he buys and serves his family lunch, this man is truly a family man. In fact, although his business ventures have grown into such big corporations they are still run by his family and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Henry Sy was born on Christmas day which is very fitting for a man that has accomplished so much success in his life. He is now 83 years old and and is truly a filipino success story. He is a great example of being a leader and not being a follower.
Mar
10
2008
Another Sunday, another family day. Today we just stayed home and spent time together. June and Jojo got started with their vegetable/flower garden (see photo of Jojo). She had a ton of fun planting the seeds and the overall activity. She can’t wait for the plants to start blooming, I think it’s gonna take a couple of weeks before we can actually some stuff sprouting out. But I believe when it finally does she’s gonna be in heaven heh..
After finishing with that activity, we just stayed home and watched TV, cooked some grubb and just relaxed. Then later on in the afternoon I took a nap while they went to buy some plant tables to put in the back for their new garden. We didn’t get to start on painting the bathroom so I guess that’s gonna be our activity next weekend.
Overall it was a good weekend and now its back to the grind.
Mar
09
2008
Are the 2008 Los Angeles Lakers the team to beat in the NBA? The answer to that question is NO. That answer might come off as a surprise to many people considering I’m a die hard Laker fan. Don’t get me wrong I want them to win the championship this year, next year and every year thereafter but the truth is they do not have the experience right now. The only Laker players on the current roster that have the playoff experience past the first round are Kobe, Fisher and Luke. The rest of the team do not have the experience needed. With that said, everyone always sleeps on the Spurs until they realize that they are still playing in June. So my take is this, the Spurs are the NBA Champions and until they are knocked out of the playoffs THEY are the team to beat. They have the experience and they always seem to turn it on at this time of the season and of course the playoffs. I hate to admit this as watching the Spurs play is like watching paint dry but that’s beside the point because they do what it takes to win.
OK so we’ve settled that San Antonio is the team to beat and that’s great and dandy. But… and this is going to be a big BUT.. LA has the TALENT along with Mr. 24. The Lakers might not be the team to beat, but they are contenders in a big way. Its true that most of the roster do not have playoff experience but speaking as a loyal fan whose followed the team from day one this season I believe that the lack of experience will be outweighed with the talent, drive and determination of the team. Sure San Antonio is the team to beat but LA will be the team to beat team.
Mar
09
2008
Last.FM has been around for awhile and is considered the main player in the evolution of the online music social revolution. I am a late bloomer as far as being a user as I only registered back in December of 2007. But I’ve been a loyal user since my discovery. Last.FM has a ton of features and once you have registered you will be greeted with a myriad of choices on what to do to get started with the revolution. The main feature that draws me to the site is “Scrobbling”. Basically Scrobbling is Last.FM’s way of logging the music you play within your Media Player (iTUNES, WinAmp, Media Player etc..) and create charts based on what you’ve listened to. But as I just mentioned they have alot of things going on for the site.
The following are some of the features I use and have found valuable are:
- Last.FM client - This is an external program that will run in the background and will scrobble the songs you play. The client also has a plug-in that will scrobble items you play on your iPOD. This is the feature that I really benefit from, since I listen to most of my songs away from the PC.
- Charts - After scrobbling your music, last.FM creates charts that you can modify and browse through. I find this feature interesting, I can go back a certain week/month and see which artists, songs I listened to during that time period.
- Neighbors - Last.FM will generate 50 neighbors (other users) each week for you based on the musical taste that you have scrobbled.
- Friends - This is after all a social network. Making music buddies is a breeze, you can request a friend request to a random user, neighbor or anybody that you find interesting. You may also get friend requests from people.
- Widgets - An awesome feature that Last.FM offers, you can have your recently listened tracks show up on your facebook, myspace, blog etc…
- Journal - You can also create a musical journal from within the website.
- Groups - You can join or create your own.
There are a ton of other things that the website offers and all this is free and and really addicting. I’m still in the process of fully discovering the site. So far in 4 months of listening, I have listened to a total of 4882 tracks, my top Artist is Jack Johnson who I’ve listened to 349 times.
If you haven’t started yet, I’d say go ahead and start scrobbling. It’s fun and pretty much addicting.
Mar
09
2008
When working on the PC, people tend overuse the desktop as the destination in which they save most of their items to, or at least I do. As a result the desktop ends up with a bunch of items that you do not actually need. This tutorial will help you keep ONLY the items you want to keep on the desktop.
- Go to your desktop
- Right click and select “Properties“
- From the Display Properties screen select the “Desktop” tab.
- From the Display tab click on the “Customize Desktop” button.
- Then click on the “Clean Desktop Now” Button.
- This will take you to the Clean Desktop Wizard click “Next“
- Select the items you want to clean up. Unselect the items you want to keep.(Note: Items selected will not be deleted, they will be moved to the Unused Items shortcut which will be a folder on the desktop)
- After figuring out which items you want to move to the Unused Items shortcut click “Next“.
- Then click “Finish” to perform the action.
Mar
08
2008
Each weekend we label Saturday and Sunday as our family days. Our 4 year old is always looking forward to our family days. Usually we just veg out on the TV and watch a whole bunch of movies. Sometimes we just go to the park with the dog and just hang out. It doesn’t matter what we do as long as we spend it together.
Today was our family day and we had a ton of fun. We started the day off having lunch at Red Lobster in North Charleston. My wife had the lunch special which included shrimp, fish and clams. I had shrimp and clams along with rice pilaf. And Jojo had her usual Mac N Cheese. To drink, I had a Margarita the wifey had a fruity Pina Colada type drink and Jojo had her favorite strawberry smoothie.
After lunch we headed over to Best Buy and got a new Wii game, I forgot what it’s called since Jojo picked it out and its really a game for her age. I wanted to get an external HD but couldn’t decide on one. It takes me a long long time to decide on buying electronic goodies.. But I really need to get one soon because I’m all out of space. Then after that we spent a long time at Lowes.. We’re planning on painting one of our bathrooms and June and Jojo are planning on starting a vegetable garden in the back.
After Lowes we headed home just relaxed. Not sure if were gonna start painting tomorrow, but I know they are gonna start working on their garden.
Mar
08
2008
I’m sure all of you are aware that I am a big Laker fan and how much I’m enjoying this season so far. I know this might seem a little early, but in my opinion Kobe Bryant should be this year’s MVP no matter how the rest of the season plays out. I still can’t believe how he has not won this award yet. He’s been the greatest player in the league for the last few seasons and just keeps on improving. The guy is just a complete winner, he hates to lose and that’s the drive that motivates him to get better with each passing year.
This year alone, he has endured great adversity from the pre-season starting from the trade demands to the injury to Bynum and then having a dislocated Pinky. He’s played through all these things and still has his team sitting on top of the west. Watching him drop 52 points last Sunday against the Mavericks had me on my feet the final quarter and OT of the game. Then watching him take the Kings apart on Tuesday just makes me shake my head in amazement. There are a couple of other guys making great leaps this year but compared to what Kobe has done this year it should be a no contest. But then again, I’ve been lobbying for Mr. Bryant for awhile now and for some strange reason he doesn’t get this award. But I believe with as much waves the Lakers are making this year he will win the MVP this year. And hopefully the Lakers will follow suit by winning the title and I’ll be in heaven. Of course if the Lakers win it all this year, then Kobe will win the Finals MVP without a doubt.
Mar
08
2008
Adding your URL to Google will help getting your site recognized by Google and other search engines. However, adding your website into the Google’s Webmaster Tools will also speed up the time it takes for Googlebot to start crawling your site. It will also show you various different reports that will help you with tracking and promoting your website. It is a must for any webmaster.
To add your site to Google’s Webmaster Tools you will first need a Google account. If you don’t have a Google account as of yet follow these directions: (Note: Skip to Part 2 if you already have a Google account)
Part 1
- Go to: http://www.google.com
- Click on Sign-In
- Click on “create one for free” and complete the form
- After creating your Google account, log-in.
Part 2
- Log-In to your Google account if you haven’t already
- Click on “My Accounts” from the top right portion of the Google homepage
- Navigate through the options and look for “Webmaster Tools” then click on it
- From Google’s Webmaster Tool’s Dashboard type in your website’s address and click on “add site” see screenshot.
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After clicking on Add Site you will be taken to the Overview which will give you several options on how you can track Google’s tracking/indexing status for your recently added website.
- You can add as many websites to Webmaster Tools.
It may take awhile for your Google to start crawling and indexing your website. It can take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of month. The best thing to do is to start updating your website/blog as often as you can. Daily updates is recommended, but if you can’t do that at least once a week will do.
Another thing you might consider at this time is adding a sitemap into Google as it will help Googlebot crawl your pages more accurately.
Mar
08
2008
Warren Buffet just became the world’s richest man according to Forbes.com with a net worth of $62 Billion. Warren’s fortunes went up $10B last year. Number two on the list is Mexico’s Carlos Slim who is worth a measely $60B. And after 13 years, Bill Gates has finally come off the top spot and is currently ranked # 3 with a net worth of $58B.
I wonder what these guys must feel like, when waking up in the morning and saying wow I’m worth $62,000,000,000.00. I wake up in the morning trying to figure out how to pay a $947.00 mortgage and stress out. I’ve been contemplating on purchasing Buffet’s Biography and I’ve heard good reviews on the book, I think I might pick it up within the next week or two. I’ve read the prologue and it seems like a very interesting read to say the least. Maybe after readig the book, I’ll wake up each morning not having to worry about getting bills paid and start conquering the world. =/
(Image: Forbes.com)
Mar
07
2008
The LA Lakers defeat the LA Clippers and it was a blow out… I stopped watching after the 3rd quarter and started watching the Denver vs San Antonio game. Denver currently has a 15 point lead with 6 minutes left. If San Antonio loses, then the Lakers will be on top of the west all by themselves..
