In the recently concluded Business Blogging Summit, Jason Calacanis raised the issue of paid bloggers.

Then we have people who come along – like Payperpost. Now we get into the evil part of me. I care when somebody comes into this beautiful place where trust and authenticity matters. And then these people come in and they get into trickery. If you go selling your posts and not disclosing it, that’s not innovative, thats lying.

“Tim Draper, you put $3 million into a company doing covert marketing. What were you doing? What were you thinking, Tim Draper?

Many people have posted their reactions about this, but here’s one that I like most.

Thanks to our major sponsor lakeside technologies, we again have a nice SEO gathering with good food and drinks.

Migz was there, yuga and his new laptop, jayvee, rico and sasha was also there, of course marc, angelo, and a whole lot more.

There was the speech by Google’s eyes and ears here in the Philippines “Ms. Aileen Apolo”. Got a bar of chocholate and hopefully a google t-shirt soon and of course, the highlight of it is the new SEO contest.

I was surprised when I got home that somebody already got the .com/.net/.org domain. Wow that was fast.

The nice thing about this new contest is the inclusion of the top 3 major search engines, google, yahoo, and msn in the prices. This is going to be an interesting contest.
Lots of prizes.

There’s an ongoing discussion about dotPH in the seo-philippine egroup and also at yuga’s blog

Ahmed and noemi made a comment about factoring the salary in determining the price. I think this is a great suggestion. People from other countries have bigger salaries which can afford a higher cost of domain registration.

Even ccTLD for Tokelau which is .TK is being given out free.

If dotPH can have a local rate such as $10 for pinoys registering here in the Philippines and maintain the $35 for international registrants like companies who just want to protect their brands, then that would be a good solution.

My View

If dotPH loses control of .ph domain administration to the Philippine Gov’t, they won’t be able to control the pricing and they can lose millions of (potential revenue) if the gov’t lowers the price of registration.

dotPH – lose
people – win

If dotPH retains control of .ph domain, they protect their financial interest.

dotPH – win
people – lose

I also like what Markku said. dotPH does not own the .ph domain unlike microsoft of “owns” a product called windows. dotPH are ‘administrators’ of the domain and at the same time ‘registrars’.

In my opinion the country should be able to choose who will administer ccTLD’s. That’s why it is called country code top level domains. Unfortunately, that is not how it goes. However, the government’s wishes do have some bearing on the replacement of ccTLD administrators. Keep reading until you reach item #19 below.

In this ICANN document item 16 states…

16. In addition to so-called “generic” TLDs such as “.com,” “.net,” and “.gov,” there are also numerous “country code” TLDs, which are commonly referred to as ccTLDs. Examples of ccTLDs are “.us” for the United States, “.uk” for the United Kingdom, and “.bz” for Belize. These ccTLDs are generally used for Internet addresses that are specific to a country based on two-letter codes that appear on a list prepared by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Country code TLDs are administered by appointed ccTLD managers, who act as trustees performing a service on behalf of the Internet community, both globally and in the country or territory designated by the country code.

So ccTLDs are appointed by ICANN and they administer the domain on behalf of the internet community. Which means, they can be replaced.

Let’s check out item 18

18. Each ccTLD has a technical contact and an administrative contact (in a few cases they are the same person). Pursuant to ICP-1 and other aspects of existing policies and procedures, ICANN can and does make recommendations to the Department of Commerce in regard to replacement of those contacts. As noted above, the IANA Contract provides that ICANN is not authorized to redelegate top-level domains. ICP-1 further states: “TLD Manager responsibility. TLD managers are trustees for the delegated domain, and have a duty to serve the community. The designated manager is the trustee of the TLD for both the nation, in the case of ccTLDs, and the global Internet community. Concerns about ‘rights’ and ‘ownership’ of domains are inappropriate. It is appropriate, however, to be concerned about ‘responsibilities’ and ’service’ to the community.”

So ‘rights’ and ‘ownerships’ of domains are innapropriate. The ccTLD Administrator does not “own” .ph

So how can ccTLD administrator/managers be replaced? Check item 19.

19. ICANN’s recommendations regarding the possible replacement of the managers of a ccTLD are based on a number of factors that are designed to ensure the sound operation of the Internet. Although one of those factors is the wishes of the government of the country involved, no foreign government “owns” its ccTLD or can order ICANN or the Department of Commerce to take any actions with respect to a ccTLD. Indeed, under current policy ccTLDs are not “owned” in any sense; they are made available to benefit the entire Internet community.

With this we know that it is possible to replace the managers of ccTLD but unfortunately, no government can order ICANN to take any actions. Which is why I think the Philippine gov’t has a hard time getting control of .ph

Apart from that it says “..a number of factors that are designed to ensure the sound operation of the internet“. Operation wise, dotPH is doing a good job of handling .ph domains.

It may be hard for ICANN do justify redeligation based solely on price issue.

So what can we do? Here’s a step by step redeligation document by ICANN.

Step by step redeligation document can be found here.

There should be an attachment to the redeligation request and this is what I think is the key to a successful redeligation

Documentation describing the basis for the redelegation, and why it is consistent with the interests of the local Internet community. This should include demonstration of local support, as well as a summary of the intended operation of the domain name.
and this

Documentation establishing that the organization to which the redelegation is sought has the appropriate technical and other skills to operate a TLD registry.

So there it is. If those 2 are met, I think there is a good chance of redeligation. Otherwise, we might have to live with the current situation.

Some of these ipod accessories are really insane.

1. PodDress

This is an embroidered case that you iron on to your clothes. After that, you can not insert your nano into the pocket and walk, dance and do whatever you like.

2. iBreath

An alcohol breathalizer and FM transmitter in one.

3. Ipod Bra

An Ipod Bra?

Hey, there’s many more here at PCmag.

We’re trying to run an HP4355 all in one fax,scan,copy,print printer in linux (Fedora Core 5). As you know, one of the biggest challenges with using linux is searching for drivers.

I’ve found a great application in sourceforge that supports many HP printers in linux. Its called HP Linux Imaging and Printing (http://hplip.sourceforge.net).

Configuring HP for linux was easy using hplip. You might need to connect your printer to the internet as there is a point where it will download (via yum) development packages from the internet.

You can then use CUPS to add the device and manage the printing. CUPS has a web management interface at (http://localhost:631).

I was playing around with linux today and thought about running an application in a linux box while displaying the window in WinXP. Yeah doing a ssh from WinXP will work for command line and non-Xwindows applications, but how about if its an Xwindows application? After a few minutes on the internet, I found a good solution. It’s called Cygwin.

Cygwin is a set of powerful tools to assist developers in migrating applications from UNIX®/Linux to the Microsoft® Windows®; platform. Cygwin/X is the port of X Window System to Cygwin.
I downloaded cygwinx and followed the cygwin/X installation guide . An important note to remember is this…

You may also want to ensure that the inetutils and openssh packages are selected if you wish to use telnet and ssh to connect to remote machines.

So after installation, I fired up cygwin and I was given a shell prompt. Here’s what I did next.

1. I started Xwindows (I used the command ‘startx‘), and another window opened up.

2. I typed ssh -Y -l user remote-ip to login as user in the remote machine where the Xwindows application resides

3. Once I was able to login, I just run the application in the linux shell. You can try running xterm, or xclock and the application will be shown on your Windows Box.

The nice thing about running an application in the linux box is that you don’t use your WinXP’s resources. Since the application is running in the linux box, it utilized the linux box’s resources (ie memory, diskspace).

It also allows you to have the freedom to use one machine and manage things remotely.

So paypal is finally in the Philippines huh? But before you jump for joy, there’s just one thing you can do with it and that is

• a. SEND MONEY.

You cannot

• a. Receive money
• b. Load up the account thru credit card
• c. Withdraw funds

So it’s now just a one way street. Money just goes out and not coming in. This only allows you to buy items on internet stores that use paypal as their credit card processor.

Is it just the Philippines or are some of other countries also in the same boat?

[also blogged by yuga, racoma, migz ]

Yup, that’s right. The search engine giant Google has just bought YouTube for $1.6 billion in stocks. This was said to be google’s most expensive acquisition and yet youtube is still unprofitable.

This acquisition puts Google on top of the online video world.

You tube is founded by a 29 year old Chad Hurley (CEO) and 27 year old Steve Chen. Geez! These two are going to be multi-millionaires. Just proves that in the internet world, anybody with a good idea and good implementation strategy can also be multi millionaires.

Yuga has 3 points why he thinks Google bought YouTube. Apart from that, here’s what I believe google is going to do.

Google might be interested in adding 5,10,15 second ad clips in front of every video. Google already has google video adsense.  They have the technology to deliver those ads, servers and bandwidth. In doing this, they would initiate a new milestone in video ad distribution.

[via msn, yuga ]

One of the best cakes I’ve tasted is the new Chocolate Marjolaine from Red Ribbon. Some say its Choco Marjolane but whatever the spelling is, it is highly recommended.
Its not too sweet, its very very tasty, and you simply wanted to have another slice. I’m not the usual person who craves for cakes but this one is really exceptional.

Try it if you have the time.

Update: 26Nov

My son’s yaya is on day-off today and it’s just me and my son (check out his pic here). Both of us love Chocolate Marjolaine. This afternoon, we had a cute bonding time. We went to the nearest Red Ribbon, the one in C5, and bought our favorite cake…the luscious Chocolate Marjolaine.

We bought a whole box. At PHP480, its not cheap but it sure is worth it!

Was down for a few days due to typhoon Milenyo. Here are some of the Typhoon Milenyo Photos I took here in our village.