For someone living in a tropical country like me in the Philippines, it seems weird for North Americans or European people to understand that I’ve never been to a beach for over five years. Now, if that surprised them, my local friends are more shocked when they learned that I’ve never been to the Island Garden City of Samal for the 21 years of my life. It’s a popular place in our region for locals and tourists where dozens of beach resorts of varying class and styles are waiting to be explored and celebrated.

On January 4th 2009, I was so lucky that my old high school classmates decided to set the venue of our reunion in Costa Marina Beach Resort. It gave me a chance to discover that there is indeed a paradise nearby my city. This post contains pictures that reveal the morning part of our reunion.

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Like what we do annually every December 25th, this year the Christmas Eve reunion I had with my family and relatives in Ma-a, Davao City, was a bit good because on 25th we went to a local tourist spot called Davao Crocodile Park. The park is not really a new place in the city and I’ve seen it featured many times on local television. However, I must confess that it was my first time to enter that park and seeing the place in person is very wonderful. It was my first time to witness as well some tropical animals that I couldn’t find in my backyard. You can say how exciting the tour was by reading this post and watching the pictures.

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I just wrote about mobile broadband in the past few days and now it’s here again. My Internet Service Provider (ISP) Smart Telecoms with their “high speed wireless broadband package” popularly known as SmartBro — is getting the hell out of me. Their wireless Internet service in our area has been so unstable and frequently cuts off in good timing when you really need to be connected to the Internet to do work, talk to your boss or call friends on Skype. If you are planning to become a web developer freelancer or wanting to be an Internet savvy like me who’s based here in the Philippines (for now), I could easily say with pride that SmartBro Wireless Broadband is definitely not a good package for you! Well, unless of course you don’t have any other choice like me.

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On May 6th, it will be my ninth month working as home-based web developer, web designer, technical support engineer, and system administrator for people from North America and Europe. I was surprised that I was able to last this long without losing much my enthusiasm on my field of work. Perhaps I already loved the people whom I interacted with everyday and they are now significant part of my life, despite the fact that I don’t see their faces often and we are divided by great distance. The Philippines is like 12 hours ahead from America’s Eastern Standard Time (EST) – meaning to say, I am nearly in the opposite side of the earth from the people I worked for.

Today, I reevaluated my workplace to see if things have changed in the course of nine months. I’ve been like a couch potato sitting in my chair all day long and working all the time – yet I was very productive – so no regrets at all. Work alone was not a problem at all since my skills tend to suffice the needs of my employer and I was quite fast adapting the business-work environment they embraced to me.

Last January, I showed my workplace in one of my blog posts. It was revealed there my real office situation at that time. Now, I want to show where I work now. There is not much difference but at least few things improved. I got a new chair, LCD monitor and new sound system – things that helped sustain my energy and zeal throughout the day of work.
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To the people of first-world nations, this isn’t new. But to many Filipinos and Indonesians who’ve been longing to actively participate in the booming Web market, this news matters: PayPal finally unlocks local bank withdrawal feature to Philippines and Indonesia members!

The Web’s most popular e-commerce and money transfer business, PayPal, just expanded their services to the Philippines and Indonesia. October 5 last year, PayPal rolled a mass mail announcing to their members residing in such countries about their initial withdrawal and receiving features. They announced that fund transfers are now available using debit or credit cards.

Though it was good news, and some Internet savvy people were jumping, it was still infant and very limited. This is true because the number of credit card and debit card holders in the area is smaller compared to the number of people who actually have bank accounts. Nevertheless, PayPal did a good introduction – much better than nothing.

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