It got me thinking: would the total cost of ownership of the Toyota Prius (The only hybrid car in the Philippines) be significantly cheaper than buying a compact sedan or hatchback?

So I did a little bit of research and my findings were surprising!

First, I looked for a resource where I can find and compare the fuel economy of different cars and came upon www.FuelEconomy.gov. It was a website maintained by the US Department of Energy, the Office of Transportation & Air Quality, and the US Environmental Protection Agency, so I guessed that was credible enough.

The figures were all in miles and gallons and dollars and so forth, so I took the data and converted it into kilometers and liters and Philippine Pesos so that it would be more readily understandable.

At first glance, the Prius saves a ton of money in annual fuel costs!

Based on www.fueleconomy.gov Comparison Data
*P55 per liter
**24,000 km per year
Honda Prices as of Jan 10, 2012
Toyota Prices as of writing (Feb. 1, 2012)

However, actually buying a Prius was a completely different story. Costing around 3x a compact car liek the Yaris, the Prius is quite expensive. About half of the cost of a Prius goes to import duties, excise taxes, and value-added tax (VAT).

All things being equal, if you were thinking of savings by fuel economy, you’re better off with the Toyota Yaris with its low price tag and low fuel consumption. Even if the price of the Prius was halved, it would take 10 years to make it a cheaper option, and you’d only save P30,000 compared to the Yaris! (See table below)

However, if you want something the size of a Prius, getting a Honda Civic, despite being more expensive (naturally) than a compact car is still much, much cheaper than the total cost of owning a Prius, and only slightly more expensive than getting a Yaris.

In conclusion, it is not advisable to get a Toyota Prius from a financial perspective. It’s too expensive to buy, and the fuel savings doesn’t compensate for it. However, if you’re looking to be different (I wouldn’t say popular; the form factor of the Prius doesn’t exactly draw in the ladies) or being green helps you sleep better at night, then the Prius might be the only option in the market today.

UPDATE: A week ago, The Inquirer reported that the newer, funkier, more compact Prius is also cheaper! At P1.475M, it still won’t beat the Yaris or even the Civic in total cost of ownership, but NOW you’d be popular with its funky new look! (via Apany)

…Local retailer Puregold is deploying a Linux-based point-of-sale or POS system, as it looks to cutting down costs on security while expanding its network of stores…Puregold has ordered more than 2,000 licenses of TPLinux software, according to Paderborn, Germany-based Wincor Nixdorf, which sells niche solutions for banks and retail firms…

…“We wanted to cut the cost of buying anti-virus licenses and save on the cost of the license of (Microsoft) Windows per POS,” said Ruel Magat, Puregold’s IT Manager…

Read the rest of the article: http://technology.inquirer.net/infotech/infotech/view/20090416-199780/RP-retailer-goes-for-Linux-based-system

If you found this information useful, buy me a coffee.

Editing Project Victory with Blender

After 9 months in the making, Project Victory is finally completed! It tooks us 6 months to shoot, spread over 2 countries in 6 different locations, and 3 months of post-processing the images building the three collages and getting everyone’s approval, editing and re-editing the video, implementing new ideas, and having fun all the way.

You can watch the video over at the Project Victory website.

Project Victory was a photo project that my batchmates did over the last couple of months, and we recorded most of everything that happened along the way. It was created with a mix of open-source and closed-source software in Ubuntu, using BibblePro for RAW conversion, GIMP for some graphics and editing, and Blender for the 3D scenes and the video sequence editing. Read more at the Project Victory website.

Just look for the Airborne Access Wifi Zone logo

I can now surf the net through any of the Wi-Fi hotspots of the largest Wi-Fi network in the Philippines! Smart Gold recently paired up with Airborne Access to provide you with unlimited WiFi access at all Airborne Access hotspots across the nation. Within the Metro, when I’m having fun in Subic, or even when I’m relaxing up north in Baguio, there’s an Airborne Access hotspot within reach.

For only P99 (roughly $2 or Y200) per month, you can now register for this service through your Smart Gold subscription. All you have to do is to type in “REG” and send it to 9434.

This service is similar to the tie-up that TripleGate and the Yodobashi chain of superstores in Japan since last year, where you pay Y380/mo (roughly $3 or Php165) which gives you free Wi-Fi access to more than 6000 hotspots, which includes most McDonald’s stores, the Tokaido Shinkansen on the N700 (bullet train), major train stations, and major airports.

Yes, I did sign up for this service. And it was such a good thing to pass by my time chatting and surfing the net while I was waiting for my plane in Narita airport or the time that I was coordinating a deal while I was waiting for a friend at McDonald’s (that friend wound up at another nearby McDonald’s so it was quite a long wait. Seems like they have them in every corner in metropolitan Japan).

And I sure missed that Wi-Fi service when I came back to the Philippines. So imagine my joy that Smart Telecomms actually did something smart for a change by offering this service at this price! Am I recomminding this service? You betcha.

Once again, just type “REG” and send to 9434. To learn more about this service, visit the Airbone Access website. For non-Smart Gold subscribers, you can still avail of their service by registering and buying prepaid cards.

If you found this information useful, buy me a coffee.

K's First Airsoft Game at Maxsports Adventure Park

Just a few hours ago, I was diving in the dirt, inhaling dust, and (trying to) pump all my opponents full of adrenaline-pumped lead…er…airsoft pellets actually.

(The rest of these pics at my Flickr)

I was telling my friend K about my interest in joining these airsoft games a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, his cousin Alvin of Team Lock & Load was really into it. So K and I tagged along to get some pointers from Alvin, and to try it for ourselves.

We played in the relatively new Maxsports Adventure Park, one of the many gamesites where you can bring your registered gun (yes, airsoft guns need registration) and shoot people with it, within the bounadries of the game of course. Maxsports offers several playing fields, including one for MilSims (short for Military Simulations) complete with man-made trenches, a warehouse for CQBs (Close Quarter Battles), and the speedball (basically the same as paintball’s speedball games) field where we played in. Gameplay is fast and furious, where games end in 10-20 minutes each, allowing everyone to play more.

Tokyo Marui M92FS Beretta

I brought with me my Tokyo Marui M92FS gas blowback pistol which I smuggled straight from Japan in my check-in baggage. While it was perfectly legal to put airsoft guns in your check-in baggage in Japan, as long as they are still in their packaging, Philippine customs would confiscate or even apprehend you if they caught you transporting a gun (you need to have some permits to import guns). There was also a problem on how to register my airsoft, which required presenting the original receipt of purchase to the PNP-FED (Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Division). Thankfully, there were palms that could be greased.;)

Anyway, my pistol would have been useless as I would have been at the receiving end of my opponents, all carrying fully automatic rifles. It was a good thing Alvin not only brought a vest, mask, and gloves, he also had a spare rifle for K & I to use.

We are so definitely gonna play again!

To see more pictures, check out my Flickr

Earlier, the E-Jeepneys were rolled out onto the streets of Makati, Baguio, and Bacolod, but was prevented from serving as mass transit vehicles by red tape in the Department of Transport and Communication (DOTC) as the guidelines and regulations came only last April 2008. And after that, it was only now that the Land Transportation Office has approved the guidelines, rules, and regulations on registering and issuing license plates for these e-jeeps, and hopefully we too may soon be able to eco-commute via these e-Jeepneys.

Here is the article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer last March 10:

E-Jeeps Now Available Commercially, Set To Invade Metro Streets by Marlon Ramos

The electric-powered passenger jeeps are now available for commercial use.

The Land Transportation Office (LTO) has finally agreed to issue plate numbers to the e-jeepneys which can now be sold to interested public transport cooperatives and jeepney operators, Yvonne Palomar-Castro, the project director of Green Renewable Independent Power Producer Inc. (GRIPP), said yesterday.

She added that the development and production of the vehicles were primarily funded by GRIPP and the Dutch group Stitching Doen as part of their “Climate-Friendly Cities” project.

The LTO decided to allow the e-jeeps to operate commercially after GRIPP and Stitching Doen were able to assemble the vehicles locally with the help of Philippine Utility Vehicles, Inc. (PhUV), a local group of car parts manufacturers.

“With the issuance of the LTO license plaes, we assure the road-worthiness and safety of e-jeeps for commercial use, ” Castro said at a press briefing on the project in Taguig City.

“All of us would surely benefit from this project as it would answer our need for mass transport which uses a clean and renewable source of energy,” she added.

Powered by an electric motor with 12 six-volt lead acid batteries, an e-jeep can carry 14 passengers and run 40 to 60 kilometers per hour.

Priced at P625,000, the electric-powered jeepneys are cheaper than diesel-fed ones which now cost at least P700,000, according to Ferdinand Raquelsantos, PhUV president.

(Approx. P50 = $1 as of this writing. P625,000 = $12,500; P700,000 = $14,000)

GRIPP Official Website

So today, I’ll be telling you not only the top 5 things I miss in Windows, but also the top 5 things I miss in GNU/Linux.

DISCLAIMER: Many of you will disagree. Some of you will give suggestions. These are my own experiences, based on what I use my computers for. You’re daily activity and workflow will differ from mine.

THINGS I MISS IN WINDOWS

1. See Your IP Address Quickly Without Opening A Terminal

See Your Connection Details With The Support Tab

In Windows XP, you double-click the LAN icon in the system tray (you have to set the “Display Icon in System Tray When Connected” in the connection properties, but you only have to do this once) and the local area connection dialog pops-up. If you go to the Support tab, you can find your connection’s information including IP address and subnet there.

2. Middle-click scroll

Yes, the middle-mouse button doesn’t scroll your browser or application in Ubuntu. I’ll tell you why later. While it is possible to set this in Linux,  (heck, practically ANYTHING can be set somehow), there is no fancy GUI way to do it so it’s definitely not for the lesser-experienced. The middle-mouse button is useful for those lazy days when you’re surfing the web and  just don’t want to scroll that mouse wheel.

3. Adobe/Macromedia Flash Yes, I know you can go to YouTube, Miniclip, and everything plays fine. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the Windows-only application that lets you make those Flash applications. Flash 8 and Flash MX both have Platinum ratings for Wine, meaning that they do work almost flawlessly in Linux under Wine.  But personally, and this is a really subjective thing, I would prefer a native port or an equivalent. For most applications, I’ve gotten by with a Linux equivalent, and most perform even better than their Windows counterparts. But it seems strange to me that there is no worthy equivalent for Flash. Heck, I don’t even need the CS3 features, just basic animation and even ActionScript 1.0 would do, but alas the closest thing we have is the long-dead F4L project.

4. Drivers for Weird Devices I really want a device driver for my 1-Seg TV tuner (ahem, driver writers, please get in touch with me). Don’t know what 1-Seg is? Thought so. Linux has no problem handling video cards, sound cards, webcams, and in recent months even wireless support has improved greatly. But there will always be that uncommon device that only a minority would have and that only has Windows drivers. And in my case, it was made by a Taiwanese vendor whose email link at their website isn’t even working!

THINGS I MISS IN LINUX

1. Compiz Fusion

Compiz Fusion with Desktop Cube and 3D Windows Plugins

Oftentimes I find myself moving my mouse to the upper-right corner of my screen because I want to see all the windows I have open. It always ends up in disappointment because sadly, not even Aero can provide such feature. In fact, Vista’s Aero doesn’t really provide anything useful, or new for that matter, to the table as it was meant to just prettify your desktop, and at a higher performance cost. For a list of Compiz features, take a look at its Wikipedia page. And then take a look at the Windows Aero page.

2. Built-in FTP program that doesn’t suck Say it with me, “MS Windows’ FTP program sucks!” Didn’t know that Windows has a built-in FTP program? Well, it’s more like a built-in plugin for Windows Explorer that’s stuck in the tar pits of the stone age. You just type in ftp://yourFtpSite.com in the address bar. I can’t stress enough that it sucks. A few examples:

• In FTP sites where log-in is required, you are plopped onto some sort of limbo directory and you have to Right-click and select Login As… to actually log-in.
• When you Right-click > Properties a file, all you’ll get is the size and permissions. No EXIF data for images, no codec info for music, basically nothing useful.
• Try dragging and dropping, copy-pasting between directories, or any of that stuff you’d come to expect from a modern OS, and you’ll be disappointed because it won’t work in Windows.
• Want to edit files directly from your FTP? Again, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

So fire up your Nautilus and log on to your FTP, because in Linux you can proudly say “Yes! We Can!” to all of these.

3. A Codec Manager

Automatic Codec Searching That Actually Works

When you play a DivX video in Windows Media Player and you haven’t installed the codec yet, WMP will offer to search for a codec for you…and it will fail you every single time! Back in the day, the best way to be able to play all those videos and mp3s was to download the Gordian Knot Codec pack or some other codec pack.

There is no more need to manually download and install codecs one by one for DivX, XVid, Ogg Vorbis and Theora, MP3s. In the modern age, you use Ubuntu, double-click on your media file, and if you don’t have the codec, Ubuntu will tell you and offer to install it for you.

4. Driver Support

I’ve been asked by quite a few Windows-using friends, “how did you find drivers for your hardware?” My answer is, “I don’t have to”. I’ve said this a couple of times in previous posts. I no longer need driver CDs. For all of you out there, go check out your drawers, computer tables, etc. Are your driver CDs still eating up precious space? If you think so, go ahead and throw them away because the only CD you’ll be needing from now on is your Ubuntu CD (maybe your Warcraft CD, too).

While Windows does have a few drivers built-in, in most cases your PC or PC parts came with a couple of driver discs for a good reason. And hardware experts will almost always recommend that you use the manufacturers’ own proprietary drivers instead of the ones made by Microsoft. Go figure.

Back then, and even today, device manufacturers wrote their drivers exclusively for Windows. And the Linux people had to resort to their own skillz to reverse-engineer or communicate with the hardware vendor and write their own device drivers in open-source fashion. In my opinion, I think it was precisely because of this that Linux driver support is so good: Linux users with their hardware + Linux device driver writers far outnumber the employees at Microsoft. And they don’t do it for money, they do it to make their hardware work well.

5. Middle-click paste

Yes, I know I said I missed middle-click scrolling in Windows, but considering that I still had my trusty mouse-wheel, middle-click pasting turns you from one lazy middle-clicking-net-surfing couch potato to a highly-productive middle-click-pasting l33t hax0r!

What is middle-click pasting anyway? Well, normally you would:

1. Select text
2. right-click
3. Click copy
4. Right-click on destination
5. Click paste

With middle-click pasting it’s reduced to

1. Select text
2. Middle-click on destination

That’s 3 whole steps removed, increasing your speed by 60%! Even middle-click scrolling can’t beat that.

6. Easy music preview with mouseover

Do you have lots of music files, say voice recordings or even previewing the quality of an MP3 you just downloaded, and you need to preview them? Forget opening each one of them in Media Player. Just roll your mouse over it and it’ll play! Assuming you’ve installed the right codec of course, but that isn’t really a problem because Ubuntu has it’s own codec manager!

7. Always On Top-ify ANY program

Sure, Yahoo! Messenger, Winamp, and a handful of programs have the “Always On Top” feature, but if you’re typing a document or creating a 3D model or whatever and you need to constantly look at a reference, being able to “Always On Top-ify” that Notepad sure would save you from the dizzy of alt+tabbing. Well, if you’re using GNOME (the default window manager of Ubuntu), you can now say with me, “Yes, we can!”.

Just right click on the program on the taskbar or its title bar and choose “Always On Top” and you can work while keeping that chat window with your honey or never missing a beat while that Totem Video Player is playing the latest CSI DVD you just got.

Ok, I really intended to do a 5-on-5, but try as I might, I could only think of 4 things for Windows and I really had to stretch it. On the other hand, it was quite easy for me to think of stuff for Ubuntu. I hope you guys find this info useful. If there are any Mac users out there, I’d love to hear your side of the story. Hit the comments for your ideas and suggestions.

Stay away! You're wallet would be safer with a thief!

“7,750?” I asked. “7,795 po”, the saleswoman corrected me, the tone of her voice proud, as if they were selling the deal of the century. Indeed, Datablitz’s price is one of the lowest, compared to around 9,500 pesos in the toy shops of the large malls like SM Toy Kingdom, Toys R Us, and that toy store in Landmark Trinoma. If only people knew that they were actually selling the WiiFit more than 200% of its real price. At Yodobashi in Japan, the Wii Fit sells for 8,360 yen or about 4,180 pesos. And it would have been even lower if it wasn’t for the bad foreign exchange right now, and since Yodobashi is like a huge chain of super stores, you could find an even better deal if you bought from other smaller stores. An imported Japanese DSi would set you back 17,800 pesos here. It’s SRP? 18,800 yen (9,400 pesos). A Wii console costs 22,000 pesos. It sells for 25,000 yen anywhere in Japan. And good luck looking for a Y30,000 Xbox 360 Premium. You’d be lucky to get it here for 20,000 pesos (Y40,000). Apparently, I’m not the only one being miffed by this whole situation; this situation has been going on since the PSX and is not likely to abate any time soon.

Sadly the state of gaming here in the Philippines isn’t limited to overpricing. Piracy is so rampant that the ones who would dare buy *gasp!* original games/software are considered weird! Not rich. weird. Rich peope here still buy pirated games. And establishments “for the masses” like SM don’t help the situation at all with their overpricing. I don’t quite understand it. Some say that this is a third-world country, and people simply can’t afford buying original. Yet, these same people can afford DVD players, PSPs, DSs and Playstation consoles?

Their response? “Well, it’s because we save our money to buy that PSP. But that’s it, we can’t afford to shell out for an original game every month”. Read that again, I urge you, and tell me there’s nothing wrong here. It’s not that people can’t afford it. It isn’t frugality or a sense of economy. Rather, it’s because people here are too cheap, piracy has become the norm, and you can practically hack your PSP at the nearest convenience store.

My Tips To Stay Pirate-Free:

1. Buy online. Datablitz is good, but you’ll find great deals on forums like Pinoy-N, Pinoy XBox, or your favorite local gaming forum. You can buy new original games from P2,000 all the way down to P1,000 sometimes. Plus you get to meet new people.
2. Set aside money for 1 game a month. If you followed #1, you will only have to set aside P50-P100 each allowance/working day to do this.
3. Actually TRY TO FINISH all games that you buy. Try this, and it will make #2 even easier. When you buy pirated, you get tons of games, and maybe play for a good 10 minutes and that’s it. Not only did you bring the value of the game down by pirating it, you also bring it down by not playing it through.
4. Get your siblings to pitch in. If you’re like most families, you’ll have at least one. If they don’t like it, they don’t play. Simple as that.
5. Buy 2nd hand games. Come on, don’t be stupid. This isn’t a car or computer, this is a piece of software. Unless he sells you something that looks like it was scratched by a paper shredder, it’s still worth it (especially when you can get one near-mint condition for P500! Oh yeah!)

Hey, if you have any more tips that we all could use, hit the comments!;)

Note: BY-SA, BY-NC-SA, and BY-ND are among some of the combinations of Creative Commons (CC) licenses: BY – Attribution, SA – Share-alike, NC- Non-commercial use, and ND – No Derivatives. For more info on CC licenses, go to http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/.

I think there has to be a better solution, which is why I submitted an idea to Ubuntu Brainstorm, an Ubuntu website where you can send in your ideas or suggestions to help improve Ubuntu and the Linux community in general.

My idea is a simple one: what if you can add the Creative Commons license of a piece of music directly into its ID3 tag which was somehow machine readable? That way, you can easily distinguish or search for music by license in Rhythmbox or your favorite music player.

Probably, the most common CC combination is the BY-NC-SA, which allows you to share music to others and even adapt or incorporate them into your own work, as long as its non-commercial and you share it with the same license.

I think this feature would be of great importance to people who regularly need the use of music for commercial work, such as freelance audio/video producers and restaurant or coffee shop owners, as playing CDs they bought in a local record store might possibly consitute a copyright offense. They could easily do a quick search in Rhythmbox or their favorite player for CC music that doesn’t have NC in their license.

The Jamendo blog is great for discovering new CC music. And if you appreciate the free music that much, you can easily send a donation directly to the artist. This is a better business model than paying for a CD where only a small fraction actually reaches the artist.

Have an CC NC-licensed music you want to play in public? Licensing a CC work is still by far cheaper than paying Sony, BMI, or whatever big record company, period. For as low as 8 euros a month you can sign-up for a Jamendo Pro Radio to play music in your bar or coffee shop (And if you do, put in “punong_bisyonaryo” as your referral code as a way of saying thank you for sharing you this info).

Well, to get you started on free music, why not check out the Jamendo Blog for great, new music!

Happy FREE listening!

Enter the airport-friendly bags for the modern photographer. There were several brands that I was choosing from: Pelican 1514, Lowepro ProRoller Mini, ThinkTank Airport Security and a cheap Nikon rolling backpack that I found in one of the stores, among others. All of these choices offered two things I was looking for:

1. Easy to lug around; can’t get any easier than wheels
2. I can bring at as carry-on luggage
3. Price vs. quality and features

I was choosing between the cheapest of them all, the Nikon rolling case with backpack straps, or the more expensive ProRoller Mini. I ended up slightly more expensive but better bag than both of them. The Lowepro Rolling Computrekker AW has inline-skate wheels, backstraps for when you can’t roll it, a laptop pouch, CF card pockets, a rain cover, and lots of padded compartments. And it only cost me Y30K in Yodobashi.

Well, I just came back from a shoot in Kyoto, and had put the bag to the test. It rolled all the way from my house to the trains and on to the bus to Kyoto, all the way to each train platform I passed through. And when I was up in the slopes of Kurama and Fushimi Inari, I carried it backpack-mode.

On wheels, it rolled smooth as silk and saved me from future backpains. Though my shoulders ached till the next day, it was because it was a long trek through Kurama and Fushimi Inari. The contoured shoulder and back pads really helped as I am sure I’d have a much more tiring experience with my previous Lowepro Toploader 75. Then again, the Toploader wasn’t meant for travelling heavy at these kinds of distances.

Click on the image with the numbers to the left to see what got packed for my Kyoto trip.

Special thanks goes to RBM for persuading me to spring Y2,000 yen more for this rather than getting myself a ProRoller Mini. It’s a good bag in its own right, but it would have been a nightmare bringing it up the mountains!

In less than 2 months, I’ll be riding on a plane again. Feels good to know I won’t be sweating my pants off lugging overweight luggage this time around or having to wrap my lens and other gear around several layers of socks and towels.

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