Ostensibly in retaliation to Western media’s coverage of anti-Chinese demonstrations in Europe, the Sports Network website was hacked last Sunday. The site was defaced with the image that you see here (captured by ChristineLu.com). Repeated attacks, most probably serious denial-of-service assaults, have caused the site to be taken down. After a few days, the site was still inaccessible.

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I don’t know how many of you know this, but Google has always had an unofficial corporate motto: Don’t be evil. It was pronounced in 2001 by Paul Buchheit, creator of Google’s Gmail (but who has now left to found his own Internet venture). At that time, Google was still this idealistic group of young engineers and entrepreneurs who dreamed of changing the world. In other words, they were not such a major player yet.

Today, the world’s #1 search engine (among other things) is a multibillion-dollar company with well over 16,000 employees. It has become the single biggest item on everyone’s mind when using the Internet. In other words, Google is now constantly under close scrutiny by critics and regular users alike.

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This 20 & 21 May 2008, a significant event geared towards the Filipino technopreneur is going to happen in Makati City — how I wish it were here in Davao instead! Janette Toral’s DigitalFilipino.com Club, collaborating with Fiera de Manila Inc, is spearheading the conduct of the much-anticipated Social Networking and eBusiness Conference Philipines 2008.

Heavily involved in community-building myself (e.g., MindanaoBloggers.com and the erstwhile IT Society of Davao), I believe I would benefit greatly from the meaty presentations and vigorous discussions that will certainly take place during the Conference.

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What’s on the horizon for Davao’s IT industry? We’re seeing more software development companies being put up (by locals and by immigrants), and we’re seeing newfangled products and services being offered locally.

This post is only about a couple of teasers. The real deal will follow as soon as I have more details to blog about.

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Probably the hottest news abuzz this year is the looming merger — some say hostile takeover — between Microsoft and Yahoo. Earlier, it was about the resistance on the part of Yahoo to capitulate to the software giant. Lately, the focus has shifted to Redmond and the perceived motive behind their bid to acquire the second largest search engine.

Very recently, two analysts from Gartner, a research services firm, asserted that Microsoft is now on shaky ground due to the state of Windows Vista, which they described as “collapsing”. The analysts, Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald, practically assessed the latest version of the Windows OS as a failure due to disappointingly low market acceptance. According to a rival firm, Forrester Research, by the end of 2007, only a little more than 6% of enterprise-level PC users had migrated to Vista.

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The last TechnoKapihan, which happened on April 2nd, was not a very successful event, in my opinion. Not a failure, mind you, but disappointing. For one, there were less than a dozen who attended; although, there was a hopeful sign: we had three or four first-timers. The old guard were there, but sans a couple of mainstays due to business trips.

However, it’s not only the number of participants that’s in consideration here. The Davao TechnoKapihan is ideally an industry-wide coming together for discussion, planning, catching up on the latest… all for the purpose of somehow getting the Davao IT industry moving forward. But the event has never gotten everybody together at all.

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Just now I got a text message from Bob Martin, who’s wondering why he can’t access Google’s search pages. Then, he said he can’t access his Google AdSense account pages as well. What happens, according to Bob, is he gets redirected to a landing page whenever he tries to access www.google.com. Take a look at this screen capture of Bob’s browser.

He’s connected to the Internet via PLDT myDSL. Why is PLDT seemingly blocking Google? In fact, it’s not just Google but AltaVista, Yahoo! and MSN as well. And on that landing page is PLDT’s own search engine, with advertisements.

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I FIRST MET Janette Toral when the city’s IT industry was still young, back in 1998, and I was only beginning to foray into this new arena. Ever since then, Janette has played a part — albeit silently — in the furtherance of Davao IT. Her constant encouragement and support are invaluable even to this day.

In the national scene, her moniker, “Mother of E-commerce”, is very apt. It is for her advocacy of, and direct participation in, the E-Commerce Act. This landmark legislation subsequently became Asia’s first E-Commerce Law (RA No.8792), enacted in June 2000. She is best known, however, for the DigitalFilipino.com Club, which she founded on Christmas Day of 2003. This proactive Internet community is populated by professionals, corporations, entrepreneurs, students and researchers. In Davao City, there are a handful of members; hopefully, our numbers will increase soon.

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The last TechnoKapihan, which happened on April 2nd, was not a very successful event, in my opinion. Not a failure, mind you, but disappointing. For one, there were less than a dozen who attended — although, there was a hopeful sign: we had three or four first-timers. The old guard were there, but sans a couple of mainstays due to business trips.

However, it’s not only the number of participants that’s in consideration here. The Davao TechnoKapihan is ideally an industry-wide coming together for discussion, planning, catching up on the latest… all for the purpose of somehow getting the Davao IT industry moving forward. But the event has never gotten everybody together at all. •••Read on»

I don’t stay in the office — in my work, I find myself in clients’ own offices, or in one of Davao’s many WIFI-enabled coffee shops. But, even in this age of high cellular phone coverage, I found that I still needed an "office" phone. So I got myself a Bayantel Wireless, which is practically a landline but is in fact a mobile phone. Now I can be contacted either by cellphone or via my portable landline.

Thing is, it’s been about 4 months now that I’ve had this line, and I’m getting very frustrated with it. In the beginning, I tried to be understanding: then, it was a fairly new product by Bayantel, which is probably the most minor player in the country’s telecommunications industry. But it’s been too long that I’ve been trying to be patient! •••Read on»