XOPJbQhPBwY

Hi I’m John Raul and I’m a geek from the Philippines.
People say life is tougher here and they were right.

Back in my childhood, I experienced selling fruits in the streets
and even massaged people’s feet to convince them to buy.

My parents told me if you want something you gotta work using your mind and heart. And so I did, I focused hard on my education until it brought me somewhere.

Last year I acquired my first room and my first bed after sleeping on the floor since 21 years of my life.

Thanks to my HP Compaq laptop, I was able to work at home,
express my thoughts through my blog, and innovate with my computer skills through coding, web designing, videos, and writing. I even formed a tech news video podcast featuring all of my online friends. I’d like to meet them and see the world someday and my hard work and computer would enable me just that.

I gotta be consistent in doing my best. I’m sure I’ll get there.

For now, I gotta enjoy my life here with the ducks, birds, roosters, the trees, and of course, my computer.

I’m John Raul, your friendly geek from the beautiful islands of the Philippines.

Please vote for me by leaving comments, rating 5-star and favoriting the my video in YouTube. Thanks a lot!

Here’s the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOPJbQhPBwY

Note: Sometimes I don’t hear his questions well on my cheap headphone so I end up giving him a wrong answer. It felt like I am dumb because I didn’t follow some of his questions.

Brad is a technology enthusiast like me and a blogger. He broadcasts himself on his Justin dot TV’s channel, he does videos, and he works on his WordPress blog which is currently having a PageRank of 4.  So, I found it easy to get along with him since we have same simple, cool geeky minds (I’m sure Brad would say “Not really.”). Also, I like his English accent! Be sure to check out his blog on WordPress.  

If you are reading this and you want to chat with me as well, go on and add me in your instant messengers. Trust me, I love meeting people from different places and with that, I let myself easy to be reached online.

Yahoo Messenger: anmjoven
Windows Live: anmjoven yahoo dot com
Skype: john.raul.joven.ii

See you there!

One thing about blogging is that is it very time-consuming but very satisfying when your published articles are able to make good traffic to your sites and clicks on your affiliate advertisements. Blogging is very addicting indeed. The bonus is that you also get to know with new people from anywhere in the world and befriend them simply because of a popular blog post you submitted on Digg or get stumbled in Stumbled Upon by other users.

Today, to celebrate the Fool’s Day, I’m going to show you the first craziest video I ever did in my whole life that was uploaded in YouTube. I did not make it for nothing, it is for this blog and for other bloggers. The video actually tells bloggers to take a while and get a break from writing or doing tasks related to blogging. And if you want to know what bloggers should do during breaks — well, just do the locomotion!

If you are a blogger and you want to join the “locomotion” phenomena, then just download that song, get your webcam to record a video, and use that dance step. Send it to me after and I’ll weave all our videos to become a global blogger locomotion.

Chris Morris, a tech geek from Melbourne, Australia, broadcast the video below twice during his live webcast show event that took place last March 22, 2008. He is also planning to include it to his podcast. (Thanks, Chris )

So watch, have fun and don’t forget to leave your comments! Thank you!

By the way, the soundtrack is edited and was taken from the official theme of one of my favorite superheroes, Superman.

If you have a blog and you want to have an introduction like this, contact me and we can negotiate about it.

As we all know, Yahoo Messenger (YM) is one of the most popular messengers in the world (other important messengers include MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger, Skype, Google Talk, etc).

Many YM users who own Vista have been waiting for quite some time. Lots of people dropped their emails through email subscription page provided by Yahoo to acquire the news as soon as it becomes available. I was one of them and I expected a lot.

By first impression, the Yahoo! Messenger for Vista preview version release looks good. Installation is smooth and easy – as usual. When I run the new messenger for the first time, it looks very modern and “Vista.” Yes, it exactly boasts a fresh-looking transparent interface, taking advantage of Windows Vista’s graphics subsystem, the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). YM for Vista lets you customize the window theme and list appearance as you desire. It looks pretty much like a widget, which is great. Soon, programs meant for Vista will follow this interface trend.

Performance-wise, I found the preview release version too slow for my messaging needs. Although I know that it’s pre-beta, considering the time Yahoo spent for the development of this application, it seems that my expectations were so high (well, I am not alone with this). Of course, the program’s chat functionality is working well and I just love the enhanced emoticons. Chat windows are contained in a single tabbed window for easier management as well. However, some useful features are missing yet (perhaps on this release). I would like to have the Archive functionality of previous versions to see easily the chat history, and the chat rooms and webcam (they are gone). The messenger window is also space-consuming by default (good thing you can resize it). Yahoo people need to tweak this out and make it fast. It’s great, however, that they provided with the installation a useful YM sidebar widget – two thumbs up for this!

Overall, the release of preview version of Yahoo! Messenger is a relief. At least this calms people losing patience for waiting the messenger meant for Vista. Yahoo deserves their time, so I guess I’ll wait until they complete it. I just hope that it would be better that time and will exceed my expectations. I just can’t wait to use it every day. For the moment, I switched back to YM version 9 beta version – perhaps until Yahoo announces the release of the next stable, functionally-complete YM for Vista.

Download Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista (preview release).

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Alone for awhile
I’ve been searching through the dark
For traces of the love you left
Inside my wounded heart
To weave, by picking up the pieces that remained
Melodies of life, love’s lost refrain

Our paths they did cross
Though I cannot say just why
We met, we left, we held of fast
And then we said goodbye
And who’ll hear the echoes of stories never told
Let them ring out loud
Till they unfold

In my dearest memories
I see you reaching out to me
Though you’re gone
I still believe that you can call out my name

A voice from the past, joining yours and mine.
Adding up the layers of harmony.
And so it goes, on and on.
Melodies of life.
To the sky beyond the flying birds – forever and beyond.

So far and away, see the bird as it flies by,
Gliding through the shadows of the clouds up in the sky,
I’ve laid my memories and dreams upon those wings.
Leave them now and see what tomorrow brings.

In your dearest memories, do you remember loving me?
Was it fate that brought us close and now leaves me behind?

A voice from the past, joining yours and mine.
Adding up the layers of harmony.
And so it goes, on and on.
Melodies of life.
To the sky beyond the flying birds – forever and beyond.

If I should leave this lonely world behind.
Your voice will still remember our melody.
Now I know we’ll carry on.
Melodies of life.
Come circle round and grow deep in our hearts,
as long as we remember

The night is dark, the stars are falling
I’m here in the darkness, thinking of you
My dreams are great but the heart is dying
You seem not to understand
I did all those things for you

I don’t understand
This is not the plan at all
Why did I fall?
Do you understand?
You can barely remember
You can barely recall the things we shared

Now I see you here — it’s uncertain
We both know there’s an end of this
I hope I’ll be missed
It’s so painful in this loving
You know what I really feel
But I am ignored and killed

I don’t understand
This is not the plan at all
Why did I fall?
Do you understand?
You can barely remember
You can barely recall the things we shared

But even though I’m hurt this time
But even though my heart was completely ignored
But even though I’m waiting for nothing
I want you to know that still I love you so

I don’t understand
This is not the plan at all
Why did I fall?
Do you understand?
You can barely remember
You can barely recall the things

You can barely remember
You can barely recall the things we shared

Since you came, my life was changed
You became my inspiration and my dream
Since you came, my heart was changed
The windows that I closed before had opened

Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?
Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?

Every moment I spent with you
I captured all the frames in my mind
Every smile that you gave to me
Had pushed me up again when I’m broken

Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?
Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?

Now we’re standing in the edge of time
An important fork of life that we have to decide
Now you tell me if you want to stay
But whatever your decision is my heart won’t go away

Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?
Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?

I want to hold your hand before you go
I want to tell you before I lost it all
You know how much I cared for you
You can always go back to me because I loved you

Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?
Why come, why go?
If you are here today, why you gone tomorrow?