The National Novel Writing Month Challenge: 20K words and counting

The month is past its halfway mark. The NaNoWriMo schedule should have the novel at 25,000 words by now. I have 20,500+ words on my novel.

I am happy with my progress, and just to make sure that I do finish on time, I have increased my daily word count quota to 3000 words. The stats say I need to do 2,200+ words a day to finish. That should give me some allowance.

I used a method which would allow me to write at my own pace, and supposedly would not hinder me with what thinking about what happens next. I started to write the novel without thinking about the story. I wrote parts of it, a little at the end, and then a snipped at the middle. Until I got a hang of the story, and found an arc I can follow. The non-linear way I used also allowed me to insert other material instead of editing the existing text. Additionally, I can put in more words in between what I had already written.

I post the daily word count on FB, in order to keep me motivated. I am heartened by the show of support I am getting.

For a while there, I thought I ran out of ideas on what to write. I wasn't writing yet, but early last night, I thought that there was nothing to write, and that the arc itself would not be able to supply me with more ideas. After I had started the next chapter, I got the feeling that there would be more fillers, or that the scenes would write themselves to fit the cavities, as it were.

I'm doing good. I started one week late, and now on track to finish about 5 days before the deadline.

I'll start public posting of some materials soon. I hope to have some innocuous and vague chapters written which I can post without giving away the story.

An offshoot of this challenge is that I now have a good feel of writing 3,000 words a day of narrative.

testing all over again

testing all over again

Arts in the City Presents Camille Lopez-Molina with Mary Anne Espina

Arts in the City season gala opens with a recital by the Philippines own prima donna soprano, Camille Lopez-Molina. She will be assisted by Mary Anne Espina on the piano.

Arts in the City Concert and Recital Series is a venue for the country's seasoned classical performers. The series is produced by Mr. Antonio Cojuangco's Arts in the City in cooperation with Maskara Productions.

Venue will be at the Bonifacio Arts Center, FVR Park 26th St., Bonifacio Arts Center, Taguig,
Metro Manila, Philippines.

Ongoing: 1ST NATIONAL ORCHESTRA FESTIVAL 2010

Ongoing until September 25, is the 1st National Orchestra Festival. A gathering of some of the best Philippine Orchestras in an exciting festival of performances. The participants include FILharmoniKA, the Manila Symphony Orchestra, Angono Chamber Orchestra, UP Orchestra, the UST Symphony Orchestra, the PREDIS Chamber Orchestra and Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.

Venue is the Cultural Center of the Philippines Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (CCP Main Theater) at 8 o'clock in the evening, from September 21 to 25.

For more information, please call the CCP Box Office at (63 2) 832-1125 local 1409 and direct line at (63 2) 832-3704.

Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra

PREDIS Chamber Orchestra

Manila Symphony Orchestra

UST Symphony Orchestra

FILharmoniKA

Angono Chamber Orchestra

UP Orchestra

New Pentax K-5 for advanced amateurs and prosumers

Pentax has just released the K-5 which is set to replace the K-7 for the advanced amateur/prosumer segment of the DSLR market.

Among its feature set, several stand out, including:
-- 25fps 1080p HD video with and HDMI port for viewing on HDTVs;
-- improved high dynamic range (HDR) capture, along with an improved image alignment for handheld shots. You would normally use a tripod to get the multiple EV spread shots to get the baseline photos for blending to an HDR photo.
-- a stainless steel chasis with a magnesium alloy cover, along with a full weather sealing and coldproof. This would make the camera more rugged than most other models around. It would be great to bring along for any weather condition.
-- extended low-noise low-light capability, which can be pushed to an ISO sensitivity of 51,200.
-- a burst mode of up to 7 frames per second.

Considering its feature set, the K-5 is a step ahead of the Canon 550D and the Nikon D90, which are now their respective manufacturers are calling their entry level models. The price is also a step up at an MSRP of $1,599 (body only).

Most cameras which have been released in the past year have been focusing on better video capabilities, bigger and more innovations for the viewfinder LCD display, and a more affordable price point. At this price point, there are enough features to entice amateurs to upgrade from their older model entry-level camera and move a step up. The changes made on the body answer makes sure that this is a rugged model, and time would tell whether it lives up to its promise of durability.

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

odd moment in time when suddenly I feel everything has changed and that the change is real and permanen.

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

To all UPIS '80 Batchmates, come and attend the Meeting on Friday March 26. Malapit na po ang Reunion!

Anti-Virus for Windows

One of the reasons I went for Linux was the sheer stupidity of using a virus laden operating system like Windows. Any ad for an anti-virus program will tell you that 30,000 new viruses are created every day. These include mutations, revisions, escalations, evolutions and the odd totally new revolutionary virus flavor.

The funny part about viruses is that there is no single anti-virus program which can protect against all the viruses out there. Even the best anti-virus programs can only detect 95% to 98% of all viruses. And to think that it takes a while (a day or two or a week or two) before the virus signature is included in the program's database or virus definitions. Until that time, the PC is vulnerable.

But that's just the paranoid me talking.

So with (at least) 2 anti-virus programs running, as well as (at least) 2 anti-spyware programs also running in the background, I have to ask, is it all worth it? For a while there, I thought it was. Yup, I thought having all these programs running in the background keeping the PC safe (rather, keeping Windows safe) gave me some peace of mind.

But at what price?

You start up the machine, and it takes forever. The anti-virus and anti-spyware programs have to check for updates, and do a preliminary scan of memory and boot sector, and important programs. And only then can you really start to run your Windows programs. Or at least try to make them run, for the most part the programs crawl because of all the programs running the background, accessing the internet stream, accessing the hard disk, accessing the data being read by the hard disk, and generally keeping the system resources too busy to run the programs you need to run in order for you to work.

Another funny thing which happens is when you have one anti-virus program running (lurking) in the background, while you have another anti-virus program in the foreground scanning the hard disk. This gets worse when a virus is found. Each of them will block another, because the other one is accessing an infected file. The programs will ask for user intervention to allow the other program to access a file (for deletion).

Going Linux, I thought I had evaded and left all this crazy virus business behind. It turns out that even if linux does not have native viruses, Windows viruses still exist in the system. Simply put, if a file is infected, and I copied it into Linux, it might not infect my PC, but it would still be there. So if I run a Windows program (through WINE) it might still infect other Windows programs and files in my PC. It's also possible to infect flash drives (improbable, but possible). More probably, the virus on the Linux machine would not infect the Linux OS, but it can infect Windows PCs on the local area network.

Bottom line, since I have a netbook on the LAN, then it is vulnerable not just from the internet or shared files, but also from Linux PCs. The Linux PC wouldn't feel anything, but the Windows PC would be hurt bad.

Sometimes Windows Still Surprises Me

Bought a replacement CPU the other week and had a chat with the sales person. Got a case with power supply, no keyboard, no mouse, a mother board with a processor. I told the sales person I was assembling with some spare parts. I have spare SATA hard disks, memory and a (256MB) PCI-E video card. He asked me what the memory speed was, and I said 400, at which point he mentioned that it might not work with the newer board and processor. Okay, got that. I added memory to the bunch.

And then he asked what OS I used. I asked why, how would that affect my purchase. He mentioned that 32-bit Windows uses only up to 3GB (or thereabouts) and a 4GB memory would be hobbled. He suggested that I install 64-bit Windows instead, since the processor was 64-bit anyway.

It got me thinking about it a bit. Getting home, I backed up my files and proceeded to install and re-format one hard disk for Ubuntu Linux 9.10. I had used 9.04 till then, and was very much satisfied with how fast the PC boots up. I didn't install the 64-bit version, but still Linux was able to detect and make use of all 4GB memory. (On linux, the command on the terminal is "free -m" which shows memory usage.)

Oh well. Maybe I'll be installing Ubuntu 9.10 (64-bit) another time. But for now, I'm happy with what I got.

"The Cove" wins Oscar's Best Documentary! Yay!