racoma.netI love to write. I write to live. I live to love.

photo credit: Mel B. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggests that young people have grown bored with blogging. Meanwhile, the use of social networking applications (except Twitter) has been on the rise. Is this yet another indication of a fickle population with a very short attention span? While blogging [...]

With the passing away of former Philippine President Cory Aquino, millions of people have been tuning in to televised reports, live coverages and even online streaming video. Some have probably been catching up on updates via blogs and microblogging services like Twitter, and a few thousands have put in their thoughts on chatboards, forums and [...]

I was born in tough times. I was barely in preschool when Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. I had only stepped into elementary school at the heat of the 1986 People Power Revolution in EDSA and the subsequent installment of Ninoy’s widow, Cory, as president. And so Cory Aquino was the first president I ever knew. [...]

Last night was supposed to be just like any old lazy Sunday evening. We just had dinner, had cleaned up, and were lounging about the house when the power died. Apparently, a transformer in our block blew up and a few houses lost electricity. It wasn’t a very warm night, but the humidity was hard [...]

I used to frequent the Mocha Blends cafe along Matalino Road in Quezon City. It’s just three minutes’ drive from my house, traffic permitting. And it used to offer free WiFi. In fact, one of the media interviews I had a couple of years ago was held there. Just this evening, I had to rush [...]

A couple days back, I bought the kids a copy of Plants vs Zombies, upon the urging of their uncle. I’ve heard about the game and how addicting it could be. And the kids have started having a fascination with zombies, as they’ve recently discovered the late Michael Jackson and his Thriller buddies. The damage? [...]

Every weekday, my wife and I watch the evening news while having dinner. If you’re familiar with how the six o’ clock news usually goes, it’s often full of sex, violence, and sensationalized accounts of otherwise mundane news. This is especially true if you’re watching mass-oriented television networks. In my city, for instance, it’s either [...]

My first netbook was an Asus Eee PC 701. And as with most netbooks that vintage, it came preloaded with Linux, particularly Xandros. While it wasn’t the best Linux distribution, it worked out of the box with the Eee PC. It was good enough for me, that is until I wanted more functionality out of [...]

In 2005, MIT Media Labs’ Nick Negroponte touted the idea of a cheap, sturdy portable computer meant for educational use, and the OLPC project was born amid much buzz. One Laptop Per Child–a very interesting concept! They wanted to produce a small laptop that had long battery life, an easy to understand user interface, and [...]

In this day and age of lightning-fast email communication and instant messaging, you would expect companies to be able to provide fast customer service, too. Take for instance your telephone company, or your electricity distributor, or your cable TV company. Most of these utilities usually have a 24-hour helpdesk. This means I can call them [...]