TECHMARKET

2011@ ETON DIGTAL ZONEEDSA cor ORTIGAS AVE., QUEZON CIT Y

Everyone is invited to TECHMARKET 2011 (extended up to January 15, 2012) at the ETON DIGITAL ZONE E-LIFE (Building 1), EDSA corner Ortigas Ave, Q.C.

Techmarket highlights daily trading and weekly TipidPC community activities such as, group-buys, sub-group events, gaming/LAN party, product demonstration, raffle, distro inventory sale, testing center, repair services, mini and grand EB, exhibits, free seminars, and more. Simply put, think of Techmarket 2011 as the offline equivalent of our site.

For sellers, few stalls left up for grabs! Call us for reservations at 4898115 / 8477819 / 0917-8474372 or email us at techmarket2011@tipidpc.com.

Participating StoresPCNetmiles | Open Pinoy | DynaQuest | Nerdherd | Cooltech PC | Gamersdotcom Hot Gadgets | Tomli | Softbox Solutions | True Rated PC | Max Computer Center | EasyPCXCS Computers | PC Generation | WOWGadgets | Ayos Computer

TechMarket2011 is brought to you by TipidPC.com Inc. and Eton Properties Philippines Inc. | Free Wi-Fi by PLDT DSL

Intel AMD MSI Aerocool Silver Stone Antec Steel Series HEC Asrock Lite-on HannsG SennheiserPalit PS3 Thermaltake EVGA Razer Chimei Western Digital NZXT Coolermaster Rocat Bitspowerekwb Sapphire Corsair Larkooler GSkill Samsung Nintendo DS Deep Cool FSP Logitech OCZ

A4Tech x-Mini Noctua AOC XSPC Xtreamer Huawei Wii Astone QNAP Transcend Seagate ZTE Gigabyte Asus Inno3D Tenda Kingston HP Sandisk Tuniq Drobo Edimax BitDefender

...more brands to choose from

ContentsMessage from the Tipidpc core Team

9 A Word from The Demigods of TipidPC

the Cover 10

Feature12 A Newbies Guide in Buying and Assembling a PC 16 Celebrating MSI’s 25 Years of PC Innovation 20 The Man behind PCNetmiles 34 TipidPC Montage Training Photos36 Basic PC Troubleshooting 38 Photography 40 Structured Network Cabling

Hardware Review42 Aimon PS 43 Olympus PEN E-PL2 46 AMD Fusion E350 – The Affordable HTPC Platform

exclusive50 Online Transactions and the Law on Sales 54 The (Download) Times They Are A-Changin’

spotlight56 What you do not know about DJ Mo 64 Modz of Tantric 67 RBA - Rig Builders Alliance 70 Rig Noobies: I’m a noob and proud of it!

Do It YoURseLF72 Android Powered DIY Home Control System 76 PC8 Cardboard Edition

Game Central79 Call of Duty: Black Ops 81 CRYSIS 2 84 Portal 2 86 Fight Night Champion 89 Rockin’ Out with Rockband 3 iPad Game Reviews 90 Angry Birds 91 NFL 2011 HD 91 Fishing Kings

Community Guide92 Effective Communication 101 94 Health & Technology: Top 4 Hassles while surfing the Internet 95 Practicing Safe Internet Habits 96 TipidPC Community Survey

tech Guide98 How did my PC get Infected with Malware? 104 Diskless Workstations: A Promising Technology for Filipinos

Contents

EDITORIAL

cONTENTcONTRIBUTORS

Prince riveraPePPer Manuelalvin telan

Franco DeocarisJoey ablaza rain roDriguezPaul tanPrince rivera

grace MartineztrisH Magno

eDWarD Del Puso

cHristian ManingDingEditor-in-Chief

Prince riveraExecutive Editor

Joey ablazaAssociate Managing Editor / Copywriter

roD bierDIY Section Editor

JayDee DoMingorJay gregorioProgramming / Software Section Editor

Jonas MartinezGames Editorcarlo Dinglasan, rod bier, Joey ablaza, nylmar garcia, andrew Del castillo, ariz cabias,Jason Migriño, Paul Henri santiago, Hermann calero, renier Delos santos, Paul tan, xteamobsidianx, emmanuel yumul, Jonas Martinez, Kevin Paolo evangelista, Michael angelo gonzales, erwin Kim, gabriel Quidilla, raymond Daquioag, Fai ernisle chan, rymarc gutierrez, sam Hong, stephen lee, brian rodriguez, ryane vergel Miciano, rainier cabotaje, sammy Kay Pua, ryan alano, rommel enriquez, ernest Panis Jr.

cREATIVE& DESIGN

pHOTOGRApHY

pUBLISHER tipidPc.com, inc.

alexander House bldg. rm 502#132 amorsolo streetlegaspi villageMakati city

tel. nos.: (632) 489-8115telefax: (632) 847-7819

WEBSITEwww.tipidpc.com

PRINT ADS magazine@tipidpc.com

WEB ADS marketing@tipidpc.com

PuBLISHER alex.amadeo@tipidpc.com

ARTICLEarticle@tipidpc.com

BuSINESS DEVELOPMENTalex amadeo

TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTJesus Domingorjay gregoriotelle gregorio

LEGAL STRATEGISTJason Migriño

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIONrosel amadeochristian Maningding

MARKETINGHermann thomas calerozes Martinez

all rights reserved by tipidPc.com, inc. tipidPc designs and layouts are copyright and registered Trademarks of TipidPC.com, Inc. Articles, opinions and views submitted by the authors and contributors do not reflect those of the editors and publisher. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from the Publisher is strictly prohibited.

tipidPc Magazine is published quarterly and can also be downloaded at http://www.tipidpc.com

cOpYRIGHT

EDITORIAL &REASERcH

SUppORT

GEEKsExyIS THE NEW

CHRISTIAN MANINGDINGaka xhristian

Director for Finance, TipidPC.com Inc.Chuck Norris Trained

24” DiameterPhyton Size

Biceps

ChiseledGranite Hard

Pecs

8 PackWashboard

Abs

A word from the Demigods of tipidPC From mere gamers to a formidable institution

TipidPc has its roots starting way back in 2001. Many of you 80,000 strong and dedicated

members are already probably aware that tipidPc was conceptualized during one of the usual overnight get together sprees, alternately spent playing multi-player Playstation at the house of a very patient mother of a core member’s living room.

Majority of the founders were then part of PinoyPc and were therefore Pc enthusiasts. Having been hooked in upgrading Pc parts once a new product was introduced into the market, which during those days occurs at least every 6 months, they whimsically thought of why not create a venue to dispose their old parts and perhaps help other Pc fanatics in the process by interacting with one another on how to trade in each own unwanted Pc peripher-als and even get at least a few bucks from doing so. so we created a very simple site to cater to the needs of all Pc enthusiasts to gather together and find out the best option on how to dispose their second hand Pc parts. the site was really so simple that it looked like it was created using a plain Ms Word or excel software application.

but just like everything else in our natural lives, “change” is bound to happen. as the old adage goes, “the only thing constant is change”. From Dos to Windows, from crt to leD screens, from analog mobile phones to Digital smartphones, from cable to wireless, from Kuya Pepe Pimentel to Willie revillame, among

many others. We are all subject to time and change, and tPc is no exception. tPc began from a simple idea about a buy and sell site that blossomed to a large community of it enthusiasts, unbounded by race, religion or creed. and with the world wide web, space is no issue. Wherever you are, tPc is there to help.

along with these changes, the perception of people using Pc’s has changed as well. back then, it was viewed that the only people who use Pc’s are those who are in the it industry. a person who sees the world in binary, people whose fa-vorite type of sport was Pong. i can’t even remember people back then who wanted to start their career in a “computer-related” job.

Fast forward to the future, you would hardly know anyone these days who doesn’t know how to oper-ate a computer; almost all jobs now involve operating a computer one way or another. No office will func-tion without the use of computers. so, if you ran out of reasons to take

a leave of absence, go pray for a loss of electricity and if ever that was an-swered, remain still for awhile and listen to the sound of people blurting out, “oh, shoot, i wasn’t able to save my file, “Naku nawala si boss, ka chat ko pa naman.” and the best line that would appear as music to your ears, “ok people, you may resume first thing tomorrow morning.” Knowing how to operate a computer is now a necessity rather than being a luxury.

nowadays, a person’s path to being “cool” now involves dealing with something technology related. thousands of famous people use Facebook or Twitter to keep in touch with their hordes of fans. stars are now being discovered via youtube with the likes of arnel Pineda, Justin bieber and charice, just to name a few. We even measure ones’ popu-larity with the number of friends they have in their social networking sites.

to a certain degree we could say that we have lost our old identity of being mutually exclusive from the rest of the clusters. We have some-how deleted the exclusivity of being sole Pc enthusiasts. We have wan-dered off into a different sought after higher class. it’s not nerdy anymore to know something about computers; it’s even a plus right now in elevat-ing your cool status in society. tech-related gizmos, such as your ipads, netbooks, androids and smart-phones, are now basic components before one can be considered “hot”.

We are not outcasts anymore; we have definitely made our own mark in society. We have baked our cake and ate it too but we haven’t forgot-ten our roots, which is to share large slices of our own piece of the pie with everything in it.

trendy. Hip. cool but still l337. Geek is definitely the new sexy.

Knowing how to operate a

computer is now a necessity rather than being a luxury. In fact, a person’s path to being “cool” now involves dealing with something technology related.

MESSAGE from the Tipidpc core Team

10

Benjamin Medina Jr. aka camshow

Carlo Dinglasan aka fakuryu

Gil Gerard Navarro aka gzhil

Chris Tacang aka Tacs

Chester John Gonzalez aka chezzowicked

Rod Bier aka cham_e_lyon

Daniel Nopueto aka frontosa06

Jhon Ryan Bondoc aka ryeken21

Renier Delos Santos aka autoprimephilippines

Ronaldo Bejarin aka bartman1973

Fernando Reyes IV aka pando

Mike Samsin aka tantric

Nylmar Garcia aka nrg500

Experts in their own field, these are some of the people who have tirelessly supported the TipidPC community. Our hats off to these Hardware Junkies and to all who had unselfishly shared their knowledge to the advancement of the IT Industry.

THE

cOVER

so you’re yearning to build your own computer? i had that urge too, the first time I bought and assem-bled my own rig. it wasn’t the fastest then; just a 700 MHz aMD Duron with 256mb of generic raM and a 16mb gPu if i remember correctly. it took me hours to assemble every-thing by myself properly. but i was tinkering with my older Pentium 100 unit even before then. now i’m a happy owner of a semi-powerful, all around Pc and the average time i can assemble one from scratch is around 20 minutes tops.

I hope that after reading this, I would have helped you in shopping and assembling a balanced rig.

so where do we begin? What are the steps? the best piece of advice that i can probably give you now are to:

• Consider your budget• Itemize what you needalways consider your budget

since building your own is not cheap! establishing the range of your budget will help you itemize and prioritize the important parts to purchase first and knowing what it is for will help you choose the right component for the job.

let’s say that you only have a

budget of PHP 20,000 and you want an intel i7 cPu built for home use, mainly for browsing on Facebook. at the current pricing and with that budget, it’s not possible to setp-up an i7 and quite honestly, a total waste for such a powerful cPu for a simple task.

When purchasing a Pc, it’s al-ways best to know what it is for since this can save you a lot of money, time, and even headache in the long run.

A home/office PC doesn’t need to be necessarily powerful. even the current entry-level cPus in the mar-ket are powerful enough for such meager jobs. therefore, a good dual core cPu like an aMD athlon ii X2 is more up to the task; even a single core aMD sempron 140 can do the job without much sweat.

a gaming Pc is where things get tricky. you must determine how much power and performance you want and how well deep your wallet is since you’ll pretty much be digging hard if you want the best components. this guide can help you pick out the right parts for later assembly.

this is my ranking in terms of relevance and priority when pur-

chasing a computer:The PSU. the heart of the

system. Psu is the most important part of the build, ironically it is the most underrated and ignored not only does it provide clean electricity which is the lifeline of the system, but also protects your components from various issues such as over-voltage, dirty electricity and electri-cal fluctuations. So if you value your hard earned money, never settle for a generic Psu. When buying one, it is best to consider some headroom or allowance for future upgrades but say, 150w more. you can search for a good Psu calculator via google (ex: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp) and pick the components that you need to buy. if it recommends a Psu with 350w, go buy a 500w Psu.

The CPU. First time buyers tend to be blinded by the cPu’s role for power and speed and end up sac-rificing other components that has equal role for the task. this would be the best time to ask yourself what your Pc will be used for. For a home/office build, a good dual core will do. and for gaming; a triple core cPu seems to be the sweet spot and a great starting point. but in my opinion, the safest bet would be a good quad core cPu.

The motherboard What are the things to consider? solid capacitors are still the in thing now, yet old rigs with the ordinary electrolytic caps can last a long time as well. Mine lasted for 6 years before tapping out. if you are thinking of overclock-ing then you should look for solid capacitors; an 8 pin main board power connector to ensure that your cPu will have enough juice to run a stable oc and; the MosFet having heatsinks. However, if you are look-ing for just a good motherboard that has a full solid capacitor layout and

FEATURE

by Carlo Dinglasan aka fakuryu

toP stories,sPecial articles,& MaJor events

12

A good amount of RAM is always

welcome and to be honest, a 2 GB sticks’ worth is plenty even for gaming and multi-tasking using a 64bit OS.

A newbies Guide in Buying and Assembling a PC

good ample space (from the cPu to the raM slot and from the gPu to the sata slot), each component will do regardless of the brand.

The monitor not only will this be a little difficult to sell later on if you want to upgrade but, this will also dictate what gPu to buy in the future. a full HD moni-tor (1920x1080) with a gPu like an Nvidia 9400GT will be fine for browsing and movie viewing but it will have a hard time with games particularly in today’s gaming en-vironment. Purchasing a gPu like an ati HD6950 will play everything on a monitor of 1366x768 resolutions but will never reach its full gaming potential.

The HDD (Hard Disk Drive) With regards to current HDD pricing, a 500 gb HDD costs only a few hundred pesos more than a 320 gb HDD. a lot of people tend to buy a lower capacity HDD to save money and fails to see the value of shelling out a few hundred pesos more could actually give them an additional free space of 180 gb.

so now that you have these com-ponents, what’s next?

RAM (Random Access Memory) a good amount of raM or is always welcome. However, a 2 gb sticks’ worth is plenty even for gaming and multi-tasking using a 64bit os. i have 4 gb raM but i rarely exceed 2 gb of usage. if you have tons of multi-tasking, 4 gb is a safe buy; 8 GB or more definitely rocks if you’ll be a power user which means run-ning virtual machines at the same time while rendering an HD video; have 20 browser tabs open; doing Ms excel calculations and; scanning for viruses. Do consider what the rig is for since some applications like Adobe After Effects CS5 are RAM hungry and 8 gb or more is needed.

ODD (Optical Disc Drive) the

CD/DVD ROM is mostly used for installing programs or burning cDs.

You are almost finished, just a few more and we’ll go start assem-bling but first, these two are prob-ably the top culprits when it comes to eating into the budget for more important components:

The GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) so you want to play all the lat-est games at the highest setting and you purchased a suhweet gPu in the form of an nvidia gtX560ti yet you opted for a cheap Psu and a 19” monitor with a 1366x768 resolution. this is just so wrong as the gtX560ti will never reach its glorious gam-ing potential on a standard resolu-tion monitor. since most cPus or motherboards have internal graphics processor, it is best to wait and save enough money for the gPu and buy a full HD monitor and a Psu that will support your gPu.

The Casing the house of your rig. it’s not bad to want and own a handsome atX casing but do shop around first. Currently, ATX cases from nzXt, aerocool and inWin started appearing in the market which gave us tons of alternatives from the usual and often times more expensive brands with features that could only be found with their high-tier offerings such as cable manage-ment and good fan placements.

Peripherals can also eat into your budget without you knowing it. the mouse, keyboard, audio system, the heatsink and fan. some sellers bundle the mouse, Kb and speakers. if its not included in the package, you can buy all three for less than PHP500.

these four can always be bought or upgraded much later.

Having a good heatsink and fan is always a safe bet especially in

TIP: Before touching any electronic component, it is best that we remove our body’s static charge by using an antistatic wrist strap. Alternatively, you can just un-ground yourself by touching something metallic for a few seconds and for this example, the ATX case itself. By the way, it’s always a good idea to assemble your rig in non-carpeted areas.

13

14 FEATURE

can now mount the power supply unit, the processor with the heatsink and fan, the raM module, the hard disk drive and the optical disk drive.

Tip: Where is my TIM (Thermal Interface Material)? The TIM is used to fill the microscopic gaps between the pro-cessor and the heatsink which improves cooling efficiency. Many newbies often ask if TIM was applied to their CPU since stock HSF already have pre-applied TIM. Always, make sure that TIM is ap-plied before mounting it on your CPU.

Once we finished placing all components as well as connecting the proper wires, it’s now time to see if our system will boot and post to

bios.Before finishing up, there are

things we can still do like the cable management. since the atX case used in this build have such cable management features, cabling will be a breeze. of course it does not necessarily mean that there will no longer be any room for improve-ment.

Tip: Managing your cables inside your rig can help you improve airflow and reduce internal temperatures. It makes your PC look neater and cleaner. If your ATX case does not have any holes for cable management, imagination and some zip ties go a long way.

To finish things off, all you have to do now is install your operating system, and you can start using your rig. enjoy!

Parts used for the build:aMD athlon ii X2 245 2.9ghz

cPu, Msi 880gm-e43 motherboard;

a tropical country like ours. none-theless the stock HsF is always adequate. if you do need to buy one, please consider the tDP (thermal design power) of the cPu and the heatsink and fan since a 65w tDP cPu can be cooled by an inexpen-sive 95w tDP cooler which is almost as good as an expensive HsF for a 125w tDP cPu.

Finally, now that you have your complete rig, we can start assem-bling!

First, preparatory work needs to be done. you can do so by taking the items out of the box and placing them somewhere near and secure for easy reach.

be careful when assembling your rig as some components or parts like the motherboard back plate are razor sharp.

before mounting your mother-board (“mobo”), it is best that we put a washer on the mounts to ensure

that we avoid grounding the mobo to the case itself.

Tip: Using a washer maybe con-troversial but I learned this by watching technicians in Gilmore long before there was an IT center. There’s no harm in doing so plus it adds security and peace of mind that you aren’t screwing this up. If there are no washers, masking tape is the perfect alternative.

After mounting the mobo, we

TIM, there it is. Sir Nerdherd, hand model.

BIOS, yey!

Zip ties = WIN

2gb DDr3 1333 Kingston raM; 500gb seagate barracuda HDD; lite-on DvDrW; antec vP450 Psu; Palit gt240 gPu and; nzXt gamma case. The finished product can now

be considered as a fine example of a good all-around Pc.

Just a few reminders before we wrap things up:

• Consider what purpose your Pc will be used for since this can help you itemize the components that you need to buy.

15FEATURE

• Ask around, visit forum sites and read reviews. google is your friend.

• Location, location, loca-tion! it’s always important, when shopping around for the best deals to also keep in mind the distance in location of the shop and its con-venience to your home especially if the price differ-ence is very mini-mal. this can also help you save a lot of money, time

and headache if your item needs to be replaced or when claim-ing warranty. the French has

a saying, “bon marche est onereux” which literally translates to “cheap is costly”.

• Do not throw away the boxes for items that can be replaced if still un-der a warranty, namely the gPu box, the raM carton and the Psu box.

• Maintenance is the key to pro-

Consider what purpose your PC

will be used for since this can help you itemize the compo-nents that you need to buy.

longing your new computer. Dust-ing once in a while is a good start in maintaining your Pc.

so that’s it! i do hope you en-joyed reading my guide and may it help you with your purchase and assembly.

Dedicated to the helpers and seekers of the “Unified Help Me Build My Rig” thread.

pines Facebook page with the status message and present it to the regis-tration booth to claim their prize!

The first 50 contestants to reg-ister qualified for the MSI premium item giveaways. Freebies included Msi Moa shirts, silicone Watch bracelet and usb thumbdrives.

Msi’s latest products such as laptops, netbooks, gaming Pc’s, lat-est Pc case and high-end peripherals were on display.

the Msi 25th anniversary

celebrations is not just about over-clocking, it’s for everyone who are into computing and technology. aside from the Master overclocking arena, a rig display contest was held showcasing the master builders of tPc community. almost half for the entries came from the rig noobies with the rest coming from the vari-ous modders.

Prizes and bragging rights were at stake. and as Msi’s big day throt-tled on, everyone drooled to see the

16 FEATURE

TipidPc.com joined Msi Philip-pines on Msi’s 25th year an-niversary bash last May 20, 21 &

22 at the Fourth Floor of sM annex cyberzone. the event was hosted by gino of 93.1 and cosplay personal-ity Alodia Gosiengfiao. Hundreds of Alodia Gosiengfiao fans flocked just to get a chance to see her.

the event hightlights the Master overclocking arena (Pabilisan!), rig Display contest (Pagandahan!), Face-Off with the Fanatics (Pagalingan!), with lots of mini-games, product exhibits.

For 3 consecutive days Msi has been handing out Msi merchandise to early birds. Winners simply took a printed screenshot of Msi Philip-

Celebrating MsI’s 25 Years of PC Innovation

by Rod Bier aka cham_e_lyon

17FEATURE

best among the best rigs, got wowed by the gaming techniques of sen (sc2), KyocHi (call of Duty, and strenX (Quake live) and had fun cheering for their fav overclocker.

the winner for the rig Display was anthony arceo’s with his b&W entry while the People’s choice award went to Mhigz Medina for his asus vento setup.

The pre-qualifiers for Master overclocking arena Philippines 2011 are gzhil, bartman1973, paulc,

Maxxx, djsub, tacs, 0erick0, kairi_zer0blade, sid_brian_03 and hamzie.

Master paulc bagged the first place, close second was master gzhil and master 0erick0 placed third.

All of the top 10 finalists were given an antec Kuhler H20 620 Wa-ter cooling system and an exclusive Msi Moa 2011 edition jacket. the 3rd Placer got an Msi P67a-gD65 (b3) while the 2nd Placer received Msi n560gtX-ti Hawk. the grand champion was awarded with an

Msi P67a-gD65 (b3) and an Msi n560gtX-ti Hawk

the top 2 winners represented team Philippines in the recently concluded asian Finals of the Master overclocking arena and placed 10th on the overall ranking.

18 FEATURE

WIN AN AMD GAMING RIG PROMO1st prize 1 Unit Gaming Rig2nd prize 1 Unit AOC 32” LCD TV3rd prize 1 Unit Logitech Z-5500 Speakers4th prize 1 Unit Xtreamer Media Player5th prize 1 Unit Glass Table with Executive Chair

Alabang Branch

Address: 94 National Road, Brgy. Putatan, Muntinlupa City403-2586 / 0917-8866453 YM: pcnetmiles_alabang@yahoo.com

Eton Cyberpod Branch

Address: Eton Cyberpod E-Life Building 1, EDSA Ortigas Ave. Q.C.409-3753 / 586-1923 09175092227YM: pcnetmiles@yahoo.com

Legarda Branch

Address: 2113 Legarda St.Quiapo, Manila736-0368 / 734-9722 / 788-5280YM: pcnetmiles@yahoo.com

W E D E L I V E R !

Terms and Conditions:

This promo is exclusive only for TipidPC members. Every TPC customer who buys from any PCNetmiles branches (Eton Digital Zone, Legarda, and Alabang) valued at PHP1,000.00 or more will be qualified to par-ticipate in the PCNetmiles’ Win a Gaming Rig Promo. Every PHP1,000.00 worth of purchase is entitled to one (1) raffle coupon.

The winner will be drawn by a representative of Tip-idPC.com Inc and DTI Personnel at Eton Digital Zone on October 30, 2011.

Winners will be notified within seven (7) days after the draw date. Winners will be required to confirm accep-tance of their prizes within 60 days upon being noti-fied. In the event that winners cannot be reached on contact details they have provided or fails to confirm acceptance of their corresponding prize, PCNet-miles reserves the right to award the prize to another entrant, drawn in accordance with same terms and conditions.

DTI-NCR Permit no, 6069 series of 2011

HURRY!Buy at any PCNetmilesStores and Win Prizes.

20

the Man Behind PCnetmiles

by Joey Ablaza aka middlehurt

It was a weekday when a former fellow air soft buff and co-pioneer of ax magazine called me up and

asked me to join him put up a new magazine. being a person who rarely lets an opportunity go by, i imme-diately obliged. My first assignment was an interview job. being in the public relations industry for quite some time and having interviewed just about any kind of person you can think of coming from all walks of life, i said “sure, just tell me where and when.” i was told the interview would take place in eton mall along ortigas cor. eDsa at around 4pm. With a tape recorder in hand and an nviDia promotional ball pen, i set off for the meeting place without asking who i’m supposed to be inter-viewing. Wrong move! Well at least that’s how i felt upon arriving at the place and having a glimpse of famil-iar faces. Faces you would consider belonging to college fraternity grand masters out to initiate your ass- in this case, mine. After a brief ex-change of “musta na pare kos”, and upon seeing one of ‘em thugs wear-ing a rig builders alliance t-shirt, i knew these guys are some sort of geek warriors. and true enough, they were. and on top of the it food chain, to boot! behold the gandalf the geeks of tipidPc. Which in-cludes the target of my grilling, Jorel caluag aka PcnetMiles. owner of the most sought after wholesaler, retailer, and creative trader, (heart-breaker) computer shop in the elite circle of techies here and abroad.

Nothing Wicked about the dude with a Shrewd Façade

To be honest, when I first saw this dude, i kinda had a vivid HD imaginative scenario of excusing myself, for reasons of traumatic in origin, then carefully making a very quiet about face. thinking aloud, “Hey, this homie’s gonna kick my ass, sooner or later.”

but i was stuck. the gangsta homeboys already saw me. Photog-raphers were already on standby for the usual photo ops and the table was replete with snacks galore which i couldn’t seem to even barely touch. it was just like one of those awkward moments when you find yourself left standing all alone while your friend talks to a friend you

Things you always wanted to know but were afraid, I mean very afraid to ask about Jorel Caluag: Owner of PCNETMILES, one of the highly regarded and frequented computer shops in the country and around the world.

I learned at a young age

about what it takes to be a successful businessman. My father taught me all about this and I consider him my greatest influence.

FEATURE

don’t even know. in any case, like it or not you’re gonna have to find out who this canny looking dude is. so here goes:

From meat dealer to a net cafe partner, a vegas high roller to a simple happily married tipidPc member and computer shop owner, log on as we explore what goes on in the mind of this astute yet surpris-ingly unassuming entrepreneur.

TIPIDPC: Tell me a little bit about your younger days. Oops, it’s not that you’re like really old, pare. I mean where’d you go to school, your family, how you got where you are now, stuff like that. Jorel Caluag: bro, hindi na a little bit yang question mo naman eh. Hahaha! Well anyway, i took up computer science at centro esco-lar university. our family was into the meat dealership business and that’s how i learned at a young age about what it takes to be a success-ful businessman. My father taught me all about this and i consider him

22

I always prioritize TPC members

because if not for them, I wouldn’t have had the connection or market which made PCNETMILES what it is today. Not to mention the instant camaraderie that it gives...

FEATURE

my greatest influence. In fact if you ask me anything about meat, from the purchasing and the slaughtering even my experiences with our truck-loads of cows and pigs being robbed, i’d be glad to tell you.

TPC: Uhm, thanks but no thanks. I’m a vegetarian and besides I think we’d rather stick to techie stuff than your butcher days. (laughter) I mean meat dealing days. (Gulp). I’m sure you now have a family of your own.Jorel: oh yes, i wouldn’t be where i am now without my supportive and lovely wife Michelle and my 3 kids namely; nicole who’s the eldest at 12yrs old, followed by JM who’s 8 and our youngest at 4 named Kyle. they are my pride and joy…aside from my rig, of course.

TPC: Speaking of rigs, having a com-puter shop should no doubt make you the owner of the coolest rig this side of East Asia. Tell us about it.Jorel: Well hindi naman ganun ka tindi ang setup ko. enumerate ko na lang para madali.

1) 3 24inch chi Mei multi-dis-play HD leD monitors

2) 1 42inch aoc full HD tv leD3) 4 intel core i7-2600K cPu4) an asus P8z68-v Pro mother

board5) 2 ATI 6990 Crossfire Graphics

card6) nzXt Phantom reD super

tower 7) g.skill 16gb DDr3 1600

memory card8) 3 Western Digital 2 terabytes

caviar black series Hard drives9) silverstone st1500 strider

1500 watts Power Supply (Modular cabling system)

10) logitech z5500

TPC: So, hindi pala ganun katindi. Ganun kaastig lang pala. Wow, it’ll

probably take me a lifetime’s sav-ings to own that kind of setup.Jorel: actually ang total price nyan is around 100plus thousand. it sounds super expensive but it’s not impossible to own this kind of rig at PCNETMILES. Because we offer, a 24 month-installment plan at 6000 a month, with absolutely 0% inter-est. so if you’re earning even 20k a month, kayang kaya. My deals are

always negotiable. basta fair for both; basta happy lahat, ok na.

TPC: Wow, sige sign me up. I want one…pronto. (laughter).Jorel: no, seriously, i always pri-oritize tPc members because if not for them, i wouldn’t have had the connection or market which made PcnetMiles what it is today. not to mention the instant camarade-

23FEATURE

24

rie that it gives and the friendship because most of my best friends are tPc members. besides, it’s easier to deal with people if you’re on the same page. i mean we all know what we’re talking about i.e. upgrade com-patibilities, rig building queries, the latest bang for buck gadgets, etc.

TPC: Since when did you become a TPC member?Jorel: i registered in 2005 using the handle Jorel123. During that time kasi, i had an internet café and was looking for a replacement capaci-tor to repair my mobos. but since i did not find anybody selling one, I decided to look for the source and thought of marketing it for myself. indeed, when i found the source and posted them as items at tPc, grabe! ang daming bumili agad.

TPC: So from buyer you became a seller?Jorel: yes. that’s where the idea of opening a computer shop came in. since i knew i had a market already. so in 2008, i opened a shop in le-garda. The hottest item then was the mouse…yung trackball pa lang ha. then in 2009, the alabang branch was opened and now here in eton Digital zone.

TPC: What’s your hottest item now since the ball type mouse days?Jorel: i would say the Palit nviDia gtX580 graphics card.

TPC: From a mere 50 peso mouse to a whopping 20,000 peso worth of item. Wow, did you even imagine back then that you’ll achieve this kind of success?Jorel: not in my wildest dreams. i even recall being a big spender and a wild happy go lucky guy who had nothing else to do but go interstate, joy-riding from la to las vegas. i

even stayed at top hotels like MgM, Mandalay bay, just to name a few. i never dreamed i would someday be in the it industry even when i was taking up compsci at ceu. besides, being a butcher like you called it, i was already well off.

TPC: What happened? I mean what made you decide enough is enough?Jorel: For one thing, i guess we all mellowed down, become mature and responsible. these traits were strengthened when i met my boss and lifetime partner.

TPC: You mean a friend from TPC?Jorel: Hell no. i meant my wife Michelle. When i married her and made me the father of 3 adorable children, my views on life became clearer. i learned the value of self-discipline.

TPC: What do you like most about TPC?Jorel: aside from the business it provides in terms of a readily avail-able target market, it gave me a sense of belonging to very professional but fun loving friends.

“Product from low end to high-end. name it, we have it. if wala we can order it.”

TPC: Who are your closest friends in TPC?Jorel: that would be Pepper Manuel, aka lennox , alex amadeo aka reb, Jason Migrino aka goimon and christian Maningding aka xhristian.

TPC: Do you also have clients abroad?Jorel: oh yes, in fact someone from Papua new guinea is calling now. (excuse me lang, bro)

*After a few minutes, Jorel hangs up his cellphone

TPC: Who was that, if you don’t mind sharing?Jorel: not at all. He’s handle is zephyr090 and he’s from Papua new guinea. He was ordering a bunch of stuff. In fact I get even orders from the states. and they all transact through tipidpc.com.

TPC: Really?Jorel: With over 80,000 active mem-bers; 25 million views a month; 6 million items posted; 13.8 million successful negotiations made; would you be surprised if i even get clients, say from, bermuda?

“Meron tayo Delivery service hassle free straight from their door step , napak-adaling umorder, napakabait at magaga-lang ang mga staff, dito sa pcnetmiles we will serve you with a smile…”

TPC: I think more than 80,000 active members and still growing would even be inspired to become success-ful entrepreneurs just like you.Jorel: Wow, that’s one of the things that I find priceless; friends and be-ing able to inspire.

TPC: Well that’s about it. Thank you for your time, butcher. (laughter)Jorel: ah ganun?

TPC: Joke lang, sir.Jorel: eto hindi joke. (looks toward the entrance) that is Jason aka goimon. Kaya hindi ka makakaalis. Kasi inuman na.

TPC: (Thinking aloud; Patay kang bata ka)…Call!

PARTING SHOT:Maraming salamat sa mga kapatid ko sa TPC na walang sawang bumibili at sumusoporta at naniniwala sa aming serbisyo, Nang dahil sa inyo nandito kami ngayon :) naway mapagsilbihan pa namin kayo ng higit na maganda at maayos sa mga darating pang taon.

FEATURE

show meyour rig

<?php

function how_awesome_is($your_rig) {

$chuck = for_great_justice(); $epeen = T_FAIL;

if ($chuck->likes($your_rig) == true) { return T_IMMORTALIZED; } else { $chuck->roundhouse_kick($your_rig); $chuck->pushups(); } return $epeen;}

?>

27FEATURE

Brian Rodriguez aka Buko

buko has been a tipidPc member since october of 2010. He is

currently working at a call center as a CSR. He finds PC building very interesting. His first build was just simple stock set-up which led him to decide to have the side panel modi-fied. Having no idea on how to do it, he asked the experts in the commu-nity for help. Among his influences was renzDg of uMP and the guys over the Deepcool user thread, like kernel_panic, kirastrike, gecko21 and gav. He is currently part of team Deepcool Pilinas.

Computer SpeCS:processor: aMD Phenom ii X4 840

3.2ghzmotherboard: asus M4a78lt-M-lememory: 2x2 g.skill ripjaw X 1600Videocard: Msi gtX 560 twin

frozer ii

HDD: Western Digital 320gb cavier blue

Cooler: antec Khuler H20 620.pSu: Hec cougar rs 550Waccessories: Deepcool Fan, rock-

man fan controller, nzXt 140mm fan and digital thermal sensor

exterior moDiFiCatioNS:customized window design for

top and side panel using a smoke

Ryane Vergel Miciano aka p3chak

Group Affiliation: Rig Builders Alliance

black acrylic with a customized ther-mal sensor slot. Plastic cover on the front bezel was removed to improve ventilation. stock 140mm fan was replaced with nzXt 140mm fan. added blue led lights cable sleeved supplied by cham_e_lyon.

a tPc member since 2009, p3chak is a 4th year student taking up bs computer engineering. although being a senior comeng he confessed to having no any idea on how to assemble a rig. His stint at tipidPc finally made him decide to build one.

Computer SpeCS:processor: aMD Phenom ii X3 720

be (unlocked X4)motherboard: biostar ta790gx a3+memory: corsair vengeance 1x4gb

16mhzVideocard: inno3D gtX 460 referenceHDD: Western Digital 640gb green

editionpSu: Hec cougar 550wCasing: coolermaster usP 100HSF: tuniq tower 120 extremeothers: Deepcool rockman

controller

28 FEATURE

Rainier Cabotaje aka rigelGroup Affiliation: Rig Builders Alliance (RBA)

this is is not your ordinary tower Pc. the Moth-erboard is positioned horizontally with custom lcs. complete with nesteq Fan controller to control all 13 fans plus 1 fan directly connected to the motherboard. each fan is grouped into zone so you can choose either performance or a moment of zen.

rigel is currently based in singapore and has been a member of tPc since 2004. building a Pc has been his hobby and he’s the type of person who wants something unique with functionality. He hates posers and know-it-all peoples.

Computer SpeCS:Project b-orionis

mother Board: gigabyte 890FXa-uD5processor: aMD Phenom X4 (Deneb) @ 4.0ghz @ 1.5v

cooled by Watercool Heatkiller rev. 3 Water blockmemory: 4gb g.skill ripjaw @ 7-7-7-20Video Card: Powercolor 6970 @ Crossfire cooled by Wa-

tercool Heatkiller gPu-X3

Carlo Dinglasan aka fakuryuGroup Affiliation: Rig Builders Alliance

fakuryu has been a tPc member since 2004. a Qas for a bPo company and is considered a guru in rig building. He has been building rigs more than half his life.

He always believe that budget rigs does not mean low-end.

Computer SpeCS:mother Board: asus

M4a88tD-Mprocessor: athlon ii X3

440 3ghz under-volted to 1.3v

memory: 4gb 2x2 DDr3 1600 gskill eco cl7

Video Card: 1gb gts 450 evga FPbHard Drive: 500gb WDC Blue/ 500gb Seagate Barracuda

7200.12power Supply: antec vP550pCase: aerocool Qs-202HSF: Deep cool beta200st

aux fans: 2x Deep cool ice blade fans 60cfmaction Figure: Graham Aker/ Mr. BushidoModifications Done: none

Hard Drive: 500gb WD caviar bluepower Supply: corsair HX850WCase: Mountain Mods u2-uFomonitor: 37” samsung leD series 5

29FEATURE

ernest Panis Jr. aka merthanon

merthanon never could have expected that one day he would be able to build a computer as what he has right now.

He applied for work in south Korea and was among a few who passed and landed a job in the capital city seoul and the gangwon-Do province. it was there in 2007 where he learned more on the hobby and soon realized a long-time dream coming true. He bought his first beloved coolermaster cosmos s case in the biggest electronic mall in the world at yong-san, south Korea. this was the start of what is now his geno-van Project.

After 2 years, he decided to head back home and stay for good. He never knew about tipidPc until February of 2009 and recalled how he envied the people at ncr for having several Pc enthusiasts groups. together with some friends in baguio city, armed with inspiration from tPc, we formed our own brother-hood of enthusiasts - the baguio Modders, incorporated, which was established during the Panagbenga Festival in cooperation with the eca australian i.t. exhibit at the baguio convention center last February 2010.

He is proud of this achievement and continues to support fellow enthusiasts in baguio city as well as in other parts of the country. a proud tPc’er indeed.

Computer SpeCS:coolermaster cosmos s – genovan Projectairbrushed Final Fantasy themerog – asus Maximus extremeintel core2 extreme Processor QX9770 - 3.2ghz6gb corsair XMs3 with geilevo cyclone evga gtX280 with Danger Den Waterblockcoolermaster real Power 1000wthermaltake bigwater 780eSwiftechWaterblock2 single rad and 1 triple rad loop

30 FEATURE

sammy Kay Pua aka sammy_pua15

a 5th year college student from PuP-sta. rosa taking up electronics and communication en-

gineering, sammy_pua15 has a keen interest in Pc troubleshooting since as he puts it, one of his source of income. signing up at tipidPc.com exposed me to the world of mod-ding. Now I do electronics modifica-tions and have a lot of fun making circuits, particularly in making rig lighting which makes it more pleas-ant to eyes.

i am a member of rig builders alliance and student rig owner, groups of Pc enthusiast that loves to share their knowledge to other enthusiasts.

Computer SpeCS:processor: aMD athlon X2 5000

unlocked to quadmotherboard: Msi 785gtm-e45

memory: 4 gb team elite ddr2 Pc800 dual channel

HDD: 2 x 320 gb seagate satapSu: Hec cougar 550wCase: Modified Coolermaster 690HSF: Deepcool iceblade ProModification Done: interior and

exterior Powder coat; customized side Panel Window; Psu and oDD cover; led change, Programmable Blinker, Reset and Power Button Led change; Front Panel laser cut auto bots logo

Show us what you got!

Does your rig have all the right stuff?

send us a description and high res photo of you and your rig in jpeg format at articles@tipidpc.com

31FEATURE

Ryan Alano aka coolioGroup Affiliation: Rig Builders Alliance

coolio has been an oFW at Doha-Qatar since 2006. a tPc Mem-ber since July 2007, he so love to join lan parties and stay-overs which made him decide to build a new gaming computer.

small, light and fast enough for gaming that he can take whenever and wherever he wants it.

Computer SpeCS:processor: Phenom ii 945 3.0ghzmotherboard: J&W Minix785sp memory: 2x2gb Mushkins sodimm

800mhzVideo Card: XFX gts250 core edi-

tion with accelero s1 coolerHard Disk: g-skill Falcon FM-25-

s2s-60gbCooler: coolit systems eco a.l.c. power Supply: FsP 300wCase: silverstone sg06

32 FEATURE

Rommel enriquez aka bongholio

bongholio was born in bocaue, bulacan but grew up in laguna and zam-boanga city. He studied in uP los baños and aMa biñan and holds a degree in computer science.

He is working as a Middleware administrator and is currently based in singapore. some of the companies he has worked for were Telus, Exist Software Labs, and Hewlett-Packard in the Philippines, and citibank and savvis in singa-pore. He is now working for sita which specializes in air transport communications and it solutions.

He spends most of his free time benchmarking, tinkering with his rig, playing games, online shopping and trying to convince his wife that his latest purchase will be the “last one”.

the rig was conceptualize over number of bottle of beers with fellow tPcers Paulc and Maxxx. back then, both of them each has an X5680 to let go and agreed to sell it at a reasonable price. that sparked the build phase of the rig and bongho-lio wasted no time in buying the Xeons and proceeded in ordering the rest of the components, mainly the evga sr-2 board and the 3 pieces of evga gtX580 blackops edition.

Rig Name: Little Devil’s SR-2 Computer SpeCS:Cpu|mobo: EVGA Classified SR-2 +

2x intel Xeon X5680memory: 12gb corsair Dominator

gt 2000MHz cl7 2gx3 kitCase: LittleDevil’s PC-V8gpu: 3x evga gtX580 black opsStorage: 2xocz vertex 2 120g

raid0, 2xWD caviar black 1tb raid0, thecus n2200 nas plus 2x samsung F3 1tb raid0

Watercooling components: 2x eK HF nickel plus Koolance sr-2 Full cover block; black ice® sr1 480, 4x Xigmatek 120mm led Fans, aerocool strike X Fan controller; PPc uber 655 plus eK 150 advance res; 3x eK-Fc580 gtX - acetal+nickel with eK backplate; black ice® sr1 360, 3x scythe gentle typhoon 1850rpm, McP355, XsPc res Top; Bitspower matte black com-pression fittings, Tygon Clear tubings

monitor: Dell u3011 30”, samsung series 7 40” 3D leD tv

pSu: silverstone strider 1500W modular Psu

optical Drive: lg cH08ls10 8x blu-ray combo

audio: X-Fi titanium Fatality Pro, logitech z5500, razer Mako

input Devices: logitech g19 Kb and RAT7/G9/SteelSeries Cataclysm Mouse

gaming peripherals: Playseat al-cantara black, logitech g27

34 FEATURE

tRAInInG PHotos networking 101

Instructor Edgar Cezar aka Isys discussing the basics of networking.

The trainees getting their hands on network cables.

Waiting for the fruits of their labor.

35FEATURE

“Sir, maayos ba buhok ko?”

“Yan ba yung bagong Sasha Grey?”

“Sir, times up na po... madami pang nakaabang”

36 FEATURE

tRAInInG PHotos PC troubleshooting

Let the training begin.

Trainees figuring out the PC parts.

37FEATURE

Hands on for everyone.

“It’s alive! It’s alive!”

38 FEATURE

tRAInInG PHotos Photography

Instructor Raymond Daquioag aka aresdi explaining the do’s and don’ts on photography.

Jaime Elizaga aka chaos wowing the audience with his knowledge.

39FEATURE

Instructor Fredrik Dilodilo aka fdilodilo shows the students the correct way to splice fiber optic cables.

tRAInInG PHotos Fiber optics

40 FEATURE

tRAInInG PHotos structured network Cabling

Edgar Cezar showing how to properly crimp an RJ45 cable.

Trainees trying it out themselves.

41FEATURE

Time for a pop quiz.

“Di ba ako makukuryente nito?”

42

HARDwARE REVIEw

INTRODUCTIONi’ve been a Pc gamer since my youth and I play a lot of first-person shoot-ing games which makes heavy usage of a mouse and keyboard. Just last year, i bought a sony Ps3. there are lots of great games exclusively for this gaming console and i don’t want to miss any of them. However, playing shooting games on the Ps3 is torture for me. aiming with analog sticks is difficult. I can finish the games but i tend to die a lot and i waste too much ammo. Frustrated, i decided to search the web and found this product called aimon Ps. it is a wire-less mouse for Ps3 and Pc shooting games which allows you to aim more accurately. now, without further ado, let’s get on with the review.

PACkAGING AND SETTING UP

the aimon Ps comes with one gaming mouse, a wand, a usb wireless receiver, and an instruction

manual. the build of the mouse feels

great and is of superior quality. the left mouse button is the R1 button and right mouse button is the R2 button. At the left side of the mouse, there are four buttons – Square, Tri-angle, circle and X. there is also the F button which is used for calibrat-ing the mouse. The Start button is located near the mouse wheel. to use the mouse, insert one aa 1.5-volt battery.

the wand contains an analog stick which is equivalent to the WasD on a keyboard. it also con-tains D-pad buttons, Select button, PS button, and the L1 and L2 but-tons. as with the mouse, the wand needs one AA 1.5-volt battery.

Power on the Ps3 and connect the usb wireless receiver on one of the usb ports of the Ps3. Press the button on the wireless receiver then press the power button on the wand and power button on the mouse. at XMb, the wand and mouse will function normally like a Dual shock 3 controller.

it’s important to note that right out of the box, aimon Ps was not detected by my Ps3. i had to plug it into my PC and update the firmware. update instructions can be found at the tuact homepage (www.tuact.com).

GAMING ExPERIENCEi tried the aimon Ps in coD

black ops, crysis 2, Dead space 2,

as well as Killzone 2. i used the standard firmware v2.02. The mouse lagged and the pointer movement was slow. What i did was to tweak the in-game cursor sensitivity to maximum then i calibrated the mouse. there are two ways to cali-brate:

1. Mouse speed: to adjust the mouse cursor speed, hold the F but-ton and click the left mouse button (decrease speed) or click the right mouse button (increase speed). After doing this, the mouse cursor move-ment will still lag. according to the tuact homepage, you need to adjust the dead zone.

2. Mouse dead zone: the dead zone increases the mouse cursor movement but micro-movements of the cursor will not be detected, thus resulting in a lag of cursor movements. Decreasing the dead zone increases the responsiveness for micro-movements of the cursor. smoother mouse cursor movements will occur at the expense of slightly reduced mouse cursor speed.

Each game requires differ-ent calibration for the mouse and even with proper calibration; i still detected minor lags when doing micro-movements of the cursor. For optimum performance, you will need to use game-specific firmware. However, doing this can be time consuming because you need to change the firmware every time you play and the thing is, not all games have a game-specific firmware.

Aimon Ps

by Nylmar Garcia aka nrg500

Hardware Genre: Gaming MousePlatform: PlayStation 3 / PCManufacturer: TuactHomepage: www.tuact.comPrice: PHP 3450

43

Overall, I was satisfied with us-ing only the latest standard firmware for the mouse. I can now aim better in shooting games. i’m not going to lie to you. there are minor lags when doing very small mouse move-ments but it’s passable for me.

if you can live with the minor issues that i’ve mentioned, then this is the gaming device that will give you a Pc-like gaming experience on a sony Ps3.

i’ve also tried the mouse for Pc games and it worked great. all you have to do is download/install the driver and plug the usb wireless receiver onto the usb port of your Pc and the mouse will function as a normal gaming mouse. the DPi setting can be adjusted on the fly by pressing and holding the F button then scroll the mouse wheel accord-ingly. the mouse supports up to 1600 DPi.

SUMMARYPros

• provides a PC-like gaming experi-ence on the Ps3

• improved accuracy• build quality is good• needs only two AA batteries• wireless• supports six axis controls

cons• instruction manual included in the

box is useless• micro-movements of the mouse

pointer are not that smooth in Ps3 games

• needs a game-specific firmware for every game if you want optimum performance

• needs to connect to a PC for firm-ware updates

• firmware updates cannot be in-stalled if your Pc is not connected to the internet

• no PC driver included in the box

INTRODUCTIONthe compact system camera (csc) class has been around for quite some time now. Panasonic and olympus, the founders of the very suc-cessful Four-thirds system, released their first mirror less interchangeable lens camera on october 2008 in the form of the Panasonic g1. three years into the mix, other ma-jor camera brands like sony, samsung, and most recently, Pentax also announced their very own csc.

so what is a micro Four-thirds system? Well, it basi-cally utilizes the same Four-thirds sensor (2x FovcF) while omitting the mirror box and pentaprism (which is the opti-cal viewfinder we use in standard DSLRs) to be able to lessen the flange focal distance. the M43s use a con-trast detect auto focus system where the sensor constantly scans the im-age field via the attached lens (often used in video cameras and cameras without a reflex mirror) as opposed to the standard Dslr phase detect which is achieved by dividing the incoming light into pairs of images and comparing them.

the illustration shows how

“small” the M43 sensor is compared to the aPs-c sensors of a standard Dslr as well as how “big” m43 sen-

sor is compared to most digital fixed lens cameras’ sensor *35mm being the “full frame” image sensor (i.e. 1Ds, 5D, D700, D3, a900, etc.)

a lot has changed in the three years since the launch of the m43 system, as more competitors have shown up and three (3) PENs after (4 from Japan) olympus introduces an addition to their line, the Pen e-pl2. as the successor to their very famous e-pl1, the Pen e-p12 has a lot more to offer than the previous models and if i might add, it is as

olympus Pen e-PL2 Reviewby Andrew Del Castillo aka palmoutsounds

44

handsome a camera as the e-p1/2. In all honesty, the camera resembles the e-p1/2 more with their round buttons as compared to the square ones on the e-pl1, a control dial, and looks like what a camera should as com-pared to the unattractive e-pl1.

kEY FEATURES• 12 megapixel Four-Thirds sized

sensor• In-body image stabilization• ‘Live Guide II’ interface works in

still and movie capture modes• 3” LCD screen (460,000 dots)• Built-in flash• Eye-detection AF• Direct record movie button• 720p 30fps HD video (AVI Mo-

tion JPeg format)the e-pl2 sits in the middle of

the pack, on top of its predecessor the e-pl1 and, beneath the e-p2. be-ing in the middle, the e-pl2 combines most of the features if not all from the e-pl1as well as some of the fea-tures that the e-p2 has.

FEATURES E-Pl1 E-Pl2 E-P2 control dial none one twoBuilt-in flash yes yes nonePenpal no yes no PP-1 bluetoothDirect record yes yes no movie buttonstereo Mic mono mono stereo vs Mono Micorientation no no yes sensorlcD 2.7’’ 3.0’’ 3.0’’lo-iso 100 200* 100Hi iso 3200 6400 6400Power bls-1 bls-5 bls-1 (can use bls-1)720p HD video yes yes yes*Olympus removed the setting ISO 10 (I think it

was a good choice, as it was not able to utilize the sensors’ full dynamic range capabilities)

COMFORT AND SAFETYthanks to the new

hand grip with faux leather which gives a more secure, non-slip grasp, the e-pl2 is re-ally great and comfortable to hold even for people like me who have large hands. the camera is light-weight so it’s perfect as a travelling companion compared to your stan-dard Dslr which becomes heavy and burdensome hanging on your neck the whole day while you wait for the opportunity to take that per-fect shot. compared to the boxy and rather unattractive e-pl1, it is much easier to use owing to the shape of the camera, HoWever, i really do get irritated with the “d-ring” for the neck strap. it gets in the way when i grab my Pen e-pl2 (which, by the way, i never experienced with my e-p1/2) and put my index finger to the shutter release button.

IN USEMuch like the e-pl1, the e-pl2 tar-

gets the beginners’ level rather than the e-p2 which targets the more seri-ous advanced users. i’ve used a lot of cameras; from film to digital, from compact point and shoots (P&s) to full frame canons and i’m know that noobs and pros alike will find that this camera will not disappoint and is one of the best cameras because it is light, easy to operate, and has good button placement. AF is quick, faster than high end P&s, quieter shutter sound than DSLRs which is great when taking that stolen shot.

PACkAGE the e-pl2 comes bundled with

new and improved kit lens, 14-42mm 3.5-5.6 Msc (movie and still capable). it has a faster aF which is a tad sharper and a lot smaller than the previous model of the kit lens.

HARDwARE REVIEw

the e-pl2 also comes with a 2 lens bundle with 14-42mm msc and a 40-150mm 4-5.6 msc lens. that’s 28-300mm in 35mm Fov, a lot of range and has almost everything you need except the uWa and super-tele range. Priced at only *PHP30000 for a single lens and *PHP35000 for dual lens, it’s definitely a great deal!

*Olympus Philippines Distributor price

45

PERFORMANCEnb: i won’t be writing about hi

iso capabilities as there will be too many images to show proper results and image sharpness as it varies from different lenses.

in my opinion, the camera’s per-formance is quite phenomenal. it’s just as good as an entry level Dslr but when it comes to the point and shoot compact body, the e-pl2 which is just a little smaller than Canon’s G12, has five times larger sensor, lighter, and thinner too!

JPEG QUAlITYthe camera’s JPegs come out

well with very appealing colors and great depth which isn’t surprising since olympus is known for their remarkable color rendition, and the e-pl2 is no exception. Paired with any of the two bundled lenses, it holds its ground against Panasonic’s gF2 and even entry level Dslrs. the e-pl2 uses the same sensor as the e-pl1 which produces a sharper imagery across the sensor compared to the “older” e-p1/2 sensor as the e-pl1/2 sensor uses weaker AA filter.

AUTO FOCUSMuch discussed and debated

upon in different website forums, one of the main drawbacks of mirror less interchangeable cameras is its AF specifically the Olympus m43s. Although the e-p1/2 and e-pl1 both have a rather below par (on Dslr terms) aF system, the e-pl2 man-ages to up its AF speed significantly. During tests, most reviewers com-mented that the aF speed went up 30%. on paper, that’s a huge increase and when in use with either of the two bundled kit lens, the aF speed is rather impressive. Having used the e-p1 and e-p2, this author has noted a considerable speed dif-ference from the former to the newer

e-pl2. aside from the bundled lens-es, the aF speed is virtually identical to the csc’s best aF speed.

SAMPlE SHOTS

CONClUSIONnowadays when it comes to

value for money and portability, i believe that cscs are the way to go. instead of investing a large amount of money for high end P&s and/or entry level DSLRs, the CSCs stand out. in terms of iQ, there is no doubt that cscs have a lot more to offer. Having said that, there are now more players in the csc market than ever before and the competi-tion is much tougher. olympus has delivered a great and very competi-tive camera at a great price point. Having an option to change lenses to obtain superior image quality, faster aF, and portable camera gear that can replace your P&s or even an entry level Dslr just makes it even more desirable.

the e-pl2 has given users

*images 1 and 3 shot with camera art filter

HARDwARE REVIEw

another great option being handy, light, and small, with the collaps-ible 14-42mm msc kit lens, it is very portable indeed. Mixed with a great iQ and good enough sensors to hold out and print JPeg quality images even at iso 1600, it is your next best friend. Will i recommend it over the previous PEN models? Definitely! Whether you’re budding photog-rapher or a veteran looking for a lighter load on your shoulder but do not want to compromise image quality, this then is definitely one of the best choices around. sure, there’s always a downside to everything, but the cons aren’t that bad. granted it doesn’t have a VF (viewfinder), olympus nonetheless has a vF-2 if you want to go in that direction although it might set you back an additional PHP10000 to PHP12000;

46 HARDwARE REVIEw

it does have limits as far as iQ is concerned, but as long as you’re okay with it then i don’t see anything wrong because it really is an excel-lent camera.

another advantage with the e-pl2 is that you can practically use any lens in the market owing to the short distance from the flange to the sensor via adapters (four-thirds lenses will autofocus using olym-pus’ mmf-2 adapter) albeit, manual focus only. i have used an array of legacy lenses on this baby and i love it paired with the vF-2. it is a perfect combination.

Pros• Great compact camera with an IQ

equivalent to an entry level Dslr• Light and small; you can practi-

cally wear it around your neck the whole day

• Superb IQ in base ISO and hi-ISO quality is on par with entry level Dslr

• Faster AF compared to older PEN models

• Art filters; fun color effects to im-ages which is very useful

• Small and quiet lenses that are bundled (14-42mm msc, 40-150mm msc)

• Built in flash (compared to e-p1/2, that only uses external flashes)

• Upgraded screen size and resolu-tion (3’’ 460k dots)

• Has a control wheel which is very useful to advanced users

cons• D-rings to mount the neck strap• Large and inefficient motion JPEG

format for capturing videos• No orientation sensor (you have to

flip your images manually when you take them in “portrait” orien-tation)

• Fiddly control wheel around the d-pad

• Menu isn’t user friendly (typical olympus… i’m used to it though)

AMD Fusion e350 – the Affordable HtPC Platformby Nylmar Garcia aka nrg500

INTRODUCTIONWhen it comes to building an inex-pensive but cost-effective PC, you might face difficult and confusing choices: go for the lowest budget possible or spend few more for a faster processor. add to that if you might also spend a few more for a faster graphics card. With zacate,

aMD is giving you enough cPu power and enough graphics perfor-mance for light tasks and games at a very affordable price.

For this review, we have four e-350 boards: asus e35M1-M Pro, asrock e350M1, gigabyte e350n-usb3, and Msi e350ia-e45. We weren’t able to acquire an intel atoM so we will just use an intel core i3 2100. of course, it will be downclocked to 1.6 gHz and Hyper threading disabled.

AMD E-350AMD A50MDDR3 1066

8GB max2

Yes

HDMI, VGA, DVIALC887-VD2

Realtek RTL8111E

1 (x4 mode)1251

4 (rear) / 8 (internal)2 (rear)

1

Micro-ATX (24.4 cm x 18.3 cm)

ASUS E35 M1-M PRO ASRock E350M1 Gigabyte E350N-USB3 MSI E350IA-E45AMD E-350AMD A50M

DDR3 1066 / 80016GB max

2Yes

HDMI, VGA, DVIRealtek ALC892

Realtek RTL8111E

1 (x4 mode)nonenone

41

6 (rear) / 4 (internal)none

1

Mini-ITX (17.0 cm x 17.0 cm)

AMD E-350AMD A50M

DDR3 1333(OC) / 10668GB max

2No

HDMI, VGA, DVIRealtek ALC892

Realtek RTL8111E

1 (x4 mode)nonenone

4none

4 (rear) / 4 (internal)2 (rear)

1

Mini-ITX (17.0 cm x 17.0 cm)

AMD E-350AMD A50M

DDR3 1333(OC) / 1066 / 8008GB max

2No

HDMI, VGA, DVIRealtek ALC887

Realtek RTL8111E

1 (x4 mode)nonenone

4none

6 (rear) / 4 (internal)2 (rear)

1

Mini-ITX (17.0 cm x 17.0 cm)

CPUChipsetMemory TypeMemory capacityDIMM slotsUEFI BIOS

DisplayOn-board AudiolAN

PCI-E x16 2.0PCI-E x1PCISATA 6.0 GB/se- SATAUSB 2.0USB 3.0P/S 2

Form Factor

47HARDwARE REVIEw

because zacate is a low-power chip, small file sizes were used for file compression and video encoding to shorten the benchmark duration. Performance in these applications was fairly constant across all the boards except for the asus board that is slightly faster than the others in video encoding.

Multi-tasking For this test, we would be play-

ing in fullscreen an MKv 1080p video in the background while doing file compression and video encod-ing. While the video is playing in the background, we started encoding a 42-Mb WMv video to MP4 format. Right after the video encoding is started; we compressed a 30-Mb file archive using Best Compression method of Winrar.

 

 

Test System 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEST SYSTEM

SOFTWARES USEDHandbrake 0.9.5Winrar 4.0 64-bitcall of Duty 4: Modern WarfareMedia Player classicWindows 7 Professional 64-bit

TEST RESUlTSFile Compression

Video encoding

Intel AMDCore i3 2100 @ 1.6 GHz (HT off) E-350 1.6 GHz

Intel HD 200 Radeon HD 6310EMAXX IH61-iCafe (various boards)

EMAXX 4GBx1 DDR3 1333 EMAXX 4GBx1 DDR3 1333 @ 1066Western Digital Green Power 1TB Western Digital Green Power 1TB

Pioneer DVD drive Pioneer DVD driveSilverstone Strider ST50F 500watts

CPUGPUMainboardMemoryHard DriveOptical DrivePSU Silverstone Strider ST50F 500watts

the graphs show the time both for single task and multi task. While it may seem that the intel core i3 2100 did fine here, take a look at the next chart below

it is guaranteed that the time taken to complete the task would be longer on multi-tasking but we decided to measure the how much the performance dropped. it is a sur-prise that the intel core i3 2100 had a higher performance drop in file compression compared to the e-350. For video encoding, the performance drop was higher on the e-350. Due to limited time, we weren’t able to do further tests to identify what causes it. We will further investigate this matter in our review of AMD bulldozer. We will see if the same scenario will happen between bull-dozer and core i7 2600K.

also, we would like to note that while doing file compression and video encoding, the framerate of the 1080p video playback dropped to 14 fps on the e-350. We tried doing file compression only during 1080p video playback and the framerate was steady at 24 fps. We also tried video encoding only but the 1080 video playback remained steady at 24 fps. on the core i3 2100, there were no framerate drops even when there is file compression and video encoding.

gaming We used call of Duty 4: Modern

Warfare for the game benchmark. benchmark was done on the mission “crew expendable”. FraPs built-in timed benchmark was used to measure the minimum, average, and maximum framerates. benchmark duration is 60 seconds and it starts right after rappelling down from the helicopter.

all the boards have almost the same gaming performance and it is

48 HARDwARE REVIEw

gaming

evident here that AMD has the better igP solution.

you might wonder why we didn’t do tests for gaming using a discrete graphics card like geForce gtX 460. First, the zacate is not aimed for hardcore gaming, this is a low-power platform. installing a fast graphics card is likely to increase the power consumption by a very large amount. second, we don’t think there is a person in his right mind that will buy a mid-range graph-ics card and pair it with a relatively weak cPu. that would just result into an unbalanced gaming Pc.

power Drawall the power measurements

here represent the total system power and not the cPu only. For the asus board, we put an 80-mm fan above the cPu heatsink. the asus board doesn’t come with a fan and we find it too hot without a fan blowing air thru it. the 80-mm fan draws more or less 2 watts. Voltcraft 3500 energy logger was used for all the power measurements

idle power measurements were taken while the system is idle for more or less 5 minutes at the Win-dows 7 desktop. We can see here that the all of the e350 board draws al-most the same power except that the Msi board draws the least amount of power. For heavy applications like video encoding and file com-pression, Msi takes the win again and gigabyte draws slightly more power compared to the other boards. unfortunately, the asrock board died during the MKv 1080p video playback that is why we weren’t able to measure its power. again, the Msi board draws the least power dur-ing the MKv 1080p video playback. lastly, we measured the power draw during gaming. We can see the same power draw pattern as with the

other applications but the gigabyte board draws the most power in this test.

FINAl WORDSall of the four e-350 boards

showed solid performance in all of the tests. opening of windows during file compression and video encoding was smooth. Playback of 1080p videos was a great experience, too. Framerate was steady at 24 fps. though, it should be noted that play-back of MKv 1080p requires Media Player classic with the appropriate codecs installed. We tried other play-ers like vlc Player and goM Player but we had stuttering. For 720p vid-eos, you can use any player you like.

zacate is really a low-power platform – even with linpack, power draw peaked at 40 Watts for most boards. at idle, power draw was around 33 Watts for the 3 boards while the MSI board draws 27 Watts only. this is a perfect platform for HTPC’s, PC’s for 24/7 downloading, and entry-level Pc’s for light day-to-day tasks like document processing and web browsing.

now, which board is the best of the four? if you are looking for

power Draw

the cheapest, asrock e350M1 is the board for you. it can be had for as low as PHP 6250. it is slightly faster than the 3 boards in our multi-task-ing test and it is second to the Msi board in terms of power draw. the only downside of the asrock board is that it has no usb 3.0 port.

For PHP 6500, you can get the Msi e350ia-e45. it is the board that draws the least amount of power in all of the tests and you get support for DDr3 1333 and usb 3.0. Perfor-mance is not that far from the other 3 boards. the only downside is that the locking mechanism of the DiMM slot might be blocked or be hard to access if you will install a Pci-e graphics card. but we think most us-ers that will buy a zacate board are likely to use the igP.

The Gigabyte board also offers DDr3 1333 and usb 3.0 support but it is a bit more expensive compared to the Msi board. the asus board is the only one that has two Pci slots and one Pci-e x1 slot but it costs more or less PHP 7500.

49HARDwARE REVIEw

50

Internet trading or e-commerce is something relatively new in the Philippines. as young as it may

be, its growth is already at amazing speed that most people engage into it without realizing its legal implica-tions specifically the application of our civil laws in every transaction. to some extent, obligations are cre-ated in tPc, obligations enforceable with our courts.

since tipidPc.com house hun-dreds, if not thousands, of contracts of sale every day, we find it prudent

EXcLUSIVE

to discuss some salient points in our law on sales in connection to e-commerce law.

in a contract of sale, one of the contracting parties obligates himself to transfer the ownership and to deliver a determinate thing, and the other to pay therefore, a certain price in money or its equivalent (article 1458 new civil code)

in the tPc world, this is when the seller agrees to sell his item for “the last price,” in the negotiation. the “last price” which is usually

used in tPc is important since under the law, the price must be certain in money. When the last price offered by a prospective buyer is agreed to by the seller, the contract of sale is perfected. this “perfecting” of the ne-gotiation would give rise to a contract of sale. rights and obligations are now available to the parties, which are enforceable with our courts i.e., if a transaction perfected in tPc went array? and one party would refuse to comply with his duty, the other party can drag said person to court to

online transactions and the Law on sales

by Jason Migriño aka goimon

cHoice toPicsFor tiPiDPcconstituents

51

compel compliance.To simplify, the buyer can file a

case to ask the delivery of the item if, despite payment, the seller did not deliver the item. on the other hand, the seller can also file a collection suit if the buyer failed to pay.

to illustrate, the tPc negotiation board would be:

the last two entries, together

TPC), a written document is needed if the seller would later on refuse to sell said mouse. the buyer, who for some silly reason, would insist on buying the said mouse. the prob-lem is that even after the agreement between the two of them, the seller refuses. Maybe he found out that the mouse could be sold for 1001 pesos. sayang din yung piso.

How can the buyer get the seller

to sell him that mouse? remember, in this example, both parties are act-ing weird and it would be funny to mediate between the two of them.

the buyer’s ultimate remedy is to file for specific performance before the proper court of justice. However before the buyer can do this he needs some sort of written document. This is due the already mentioned “stat-ute of Frauds” to wit:

with the first post of the seller would evidence a perfected contract of sale.

article 1475 of the new civil code would state: the contract of sale is perfected at the moment there is a meeting of the minds with re-gards to the thing which is the object of the contract and with regards to price.

the object is the mouse being sold, the price, 450 pesos. When there is an agreement on both as-pects, then that is now your contract, enforceable in our courts.

on this scenario, where does tPc come in? under our civil laws, there is the concept of “statute of Frauds”. this means that before a contract could be enforceable in our courts, the same should be in some sort of document.

consider this scenario: in the ex-ample mentioned if the price of the mouse is 1000 pesos (let’s say it was once the mouse of the founder of

52 EXcLUSIVE

art. 1403. the following con-tracts are unenforceable, unless they are ratified:

xxx(2) those that do not comply with the statute of Frauds as set forth in this number. in the following cases an agree-ment hereafter made shall be unenforceable by action, un-less the same, or some note or memorandum, thereof, be in writing, and subscribed by the party charged, or by his agent; evidence, therefore, of the agreement cannot be re-ceived without the writing, or a secondary evidence of its contents:

xxx(d) an agreement for the sale of goods, chattels or things in action, at a price not less than five hundred pesos, unless the buyer accepts and receives part of such goods and chat-tels, or the evidences, or some of them, of such things in ac-tion or pay at the time some part of the purchase money; but when a sale is made by auction and entry is made by the auctioneer in his sales book, at the time of the sale, of the amount and kind of prop-erty sold, terms of sale, price, names of the purchasers and person on whose account the sale is made, it is a sufficient memorandum;

in the above quoted provision of the new civil code, sales in tip-idPc.com should be in some writing document if: the price is not less than 500 pesos and there is no par-tial compliance. What does partial

2a.M. no. 01-7-01-sc sec. 1 rule 33a.M. no. 01-7-01-sc sec. 2 rule 1

compliance mean? it simply means that the item or a part of the time is still not delivered to the buyer. if this happens, the remedy is different and a written document is no longer necessary to enforce the contract.

now back to our discussion on the statute of frauds. as far as tPc is concerned, this provision is important to those who already have a “closed deal” and the seller would back out at the last minute saying he wants a different buyer to get his item.

if the adamant buyer of that darn old mouse would still insist that he deserves that product he can go to court. However without any written document, such desire would be futile.

this is where transactions in tPc can come in. if the transaction was completed using the negotiation boards, copy of which can be used as basis for any suit. this is the advan-tage of dealing within the negotia-tion boards of tPc. the entries in the said negotiation board could be used as evidence. the negotiation board is considered as an electronic document, which is defined as: “refers to information of the rep-resentation of information, data, figures, symbols or other modes of written expression, described or however represented, by which a right is established or an obligation extinguished, or by which a fact may be proved and affirmed, which is re-ceived, recorded, transmitted, stored, processed, retrieved or produced electronically” (emphasis supplied)1

What is the implication that the negotiation board is considered an electronic document in relation to the sale of that very expensive mouse. (seriously, would a tPc member pay 1000 pesos for a mouse?)

the negotiation board of the said mouse is considered as a writ-ten document that can be used to comply with the statute of frauds requirement. in other words, pwede kana maghabla dahil mahal na ma-hal mo yung mouse.

the basis of this would be the rules of electronic evidence promul-gated by our own supreme court:

electronic documents as func-tional equivalent of paper-based documents. – Whenever a rule of evidence refers to the term of writ-ing, document, record, instrument, memorandum or any other form of writing, such term shall be deemed to include an electronic document as defined in these Rules 2.

this would mean that for all intents and purposes, an electronic document is as good as a written document. this would apply to all civil actions and proceedings, as well as quasi-judicial and adminis-trative cases3 . notice that the rules did not include criminal proceed-ings. but that’s another story.

not to buhatin ang sarili naming bangko, but negotiation completed in the board within tPc would pro-vide sufficient evidence to establish the fact of a completed transaction.

this is very important since most people who complain about a nega-tive feedback are those who trans-acted thru cellphones. Most people would simply call the owner of the item and transact thru the phone. as much as this would be convenient, the transaction would have zero documentary evidence. this is not a problem for smooth transactions. but once in a while, on rare occa-sions, transactions would not go as planned. And it’s better to have that electronic document just in case.

1 sec 5 (f) electronic commerce act

54 EXcLUSIVE

MAD MAx(IMUM)according to Wikipedia, bandwidth capping or fair usage policy or fair access policy or usage-based bill-ing, “limits the transfer of a speci-fied amount of data over a period of time.” that means, for example, a

subscriber is only allowed to download 250 gigabytes (gb) of data a month. if he goes beyond that, he will be charged for excess data ergo, isPs are intended to use bandwidth capping as a means to curb bandwidth hogs, or subscribers that consumes more bandwidth than other users.

there are “network-aware” devices available in the market that would allow isPs to apply band-width capping on their subscribers. these devices could also be used for bandwidth throttling, which limits the bandwidth that a device could consume. some isP vendors such as allot, anagran, bluecoat, Procera and sandvine among others might actually use these devices to monitor their subscribers and if needed, en-force bandwidth throttling through their fair usage policies. a good example of this would be a certain ISP limits peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic during peak hours and suspends the limit – or raises the bandwidth limit – during off-peak hours while monitoring its subscribers who are often grouped by area, and then by respective subscription plans for any “offenders” that might exceed their

download limit. once a subscriber exceeds his limit, his excess data is charged accordingly through the isP’s billing and accounting sys-tem, or he could be redirected to an online portal where he could pay in order to download more data.

still having a hard time un-derstanding? Here’s an analogy: imagine the various lanes of eDsa as being dedicated for particular applications such as P2P, stream-ing, gaming, etc. some of those lanes might move faster than others or have wider lanes depending on the ISPs’ fair usage policy and/ or service level agreements (slas) with customers. “network-aware” de-vices can create pipes that allow for particular applications to “go faster” while other, less-critical applications are forced to traverse smaller pipes, resulting in slower connections.

HARDER, BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER

After scrapping the provision, the ntc suggested that isP vendors provide their subscribers with a Committed Information Rate (CIR) or a minimum speed. Mr. tonyo cruz, president of consumer-rights group tXtPower.org on the other hand called for better Internet servic-es “With the broadband cap already set aside, the ntc should use all its powers to address the mounting demands of Filipino [internet] users, big and small, for better [Internet]

and to curb the abuses of the tel-coms,” he said.

the replies from isPs, however, were far from enthusiastic and agreeable. according to Philippine long Distance telephone company (PlDt), “specifying a minimum speed of connection is like provid-ing a dedicated/leased line for each subscriber” and that it would, “even-tually translate to more expensive service rates for the customers.”

Wi-tribe for its part, stated that, “to comply with such legal guarantee, service providers will necessarily have to limit the number of possible users on the assump-tion that said users will access the network all at the same time, on a 24/7 basis.” While ISP vendors can use “network-aware” devices to guarantee cirs to its subscribers, the tight spot lies in just how many customers the isP can handle before their network becomes too congested despite bandwidth throttling. Al-though “network-aware” devices can distribute bandwidth dynamically based on the number of users on a particular pipe, it will have a hard time doing so once the network has reached its limit.

according to buddecomm, a sydney-based independent telecoms research and consultancy company, the Philippines has 4.1 million fixed-line subscribers in 2009, just 4.4% of the population for that year. on the other hand, internet World stats

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) which is the Philip-pines’ telecom regulatory advisory group last January 2011 junked a memo-randum circular provision allowing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to imple-ment a bandwidth cap on its subscribers. The issue is far from over, however, with Globe Telecom’s recent implementation of a bandwidth cap; the debate on whether or not ISPs should push through with capping rages on; in and out of cyberspace.

the (Download) times they Are A-Changin’

Bandwidth Control and the Country’s Internet Woes

by Paul Henri S.D. Santiagoaka aboyslife

55EXcLUSIVE

pegs the number of internet users in 2010 at 29.7 million while bud-decomm’s estimate for the same year was 7.5 million. the numbers may vary, but one thing holds true; while the number of internet users continue to rise, most of these users go online through internet cafés and; only three for every hundred people have access to broadband services in early 2010. Furthermore, the Philippines’ internet service still lags behind its neighbors in terms of speed and reliability. therefore, isP vendors in turn, should try to keep up with the growing needs of subscribers for better, more reliable connections. buddecomm ranked the Philippines as having only 12% broadband penetration in House-holds which is a far cry from singa-pore (165%), south Korea (85%) and Hong Kong (81%).

SPEED lIMITWhen asked for their rationale

in implementing bandwidth caps, globe telecoms replied that it is “to ensure that all subscribers get an equally share and enjoyable broad-band experience.” Furthermore, it was meant “to protect those who might be affected by the few sub-scribers who use the service/promo for activities other than its intended use.” in addition, globe also stated that their fair usage policy affects subscribers who are using band-width-intensive applications, e.g., P2P, heavy video/ media streaming, music and video downloads as well as other heavy downloads like file transfer protocol (FtP) sessions. they also advised that “there will be an equally enjoyable broadband service if subscribers will avoid do-ing activities such as sharing soft-ware and downloading files in large format like videos and movies which contribute a high bandwidth use.”

capping is applied to subscrib-ers who have reached the allowable usage volume. For Wimax users with 512 kbps subscription, the aver-age download ranges from 16 gb to 20 gb while Wimax subscribers with 1 Mbps are allowed download ranges from 21 gb to 25 gb and su-per Surf/ Power Surf Prepaid promo is given 800 Mb.

FAST AND FURIOUSin countries like the uK, china

and thailand, isP vendors have started offering tiered Internet ser-vices using various “network-aware” devices. examples of services would include internet subscriptions depending on the applications a sub-scriber uses the most such as basic Web browsing, P2P/ heavy down-loading, streaming music and vid-eos. aside from bandwidth capping, some ISPs might also offer time-based subscriptions and increased bandwidth over a period of time. if a subscriber cannot choose from the default service plans, he may sug-gest a template he likes to the isP. Furthermore, those same devices could be used to send out reports to

subscribers of bandwidth usage for transparency. the aforementioned devices are supposed to guarantee slas and Quality of service (Qos) to customers, and to ensure that they get the bandwidth they are paying for. the use of such devices though has lead to the issue of network neu-trality, but that’s another story.

this practice should be the sub-ject of discussions since it’s not far-fetched to assume it will happen in the Philippines since some vendors might actually be using “network-aware” devices and could, if given the appropriate tweaks, become an alternative to capped subscription plans but then again, some subscrib-ers, if not most, would probably welcome being capped on a monthly basis if it means having a consistent minimum speed.

DOWN(lOAD) AND OUTconsumers should, as a col-

lective, demand for better services and more transparent bandwidth reports and continue to attend public hearings alongside isPs to set forth policies that are acceptable for both parties. the ntc can subject the isP vendors to a review of their network infrastructure which will determine the extent of their capabil-ity to provide satisfactory service. ISPs, meanwhile, should kick off any necessary overhauls and upgrades in their networks.

While internet services in the country is mediocre at best, recent developments surrounding band-width capping as well as the ongo-ing discussions being held on and off the Web should fuel healthy debates and varying, if not conflict-ing viewpoints. these, in turn, could help spark improvements in the way isP vendors provide access to subscribers, and how the latter, in turn, use it.

The NTC can subject the ISP

vendors to a review of their network infra-structure which will determine the extent of their capability to provide satisfactory service.

56

TIPIDPC: So, how did you become a DJ?DJ mo: Hmm, if i remember right, i was somewhere in a restaurant in greenhills blabbering away as usual with some friends about girls, who’s hot and not, the latest gadgets, our careers, top new music artists and stuff. We were at a table next to, who i recognized as a bunch of DJs and i suppose they somehow overheard my desire to be a DJ. i guess they liked the way my blabbering reso-nated across the area. so they came up to me and said, “Hi, we hap-pen to be looking for a new/young DJ. (i was just 16 years old during that time.) i was kinda taken aback at that time especially when they invited me to drop by their radio station for an audition. i thought to myself, “wow being a student dreaming of becoming a future senator, this should be a sign of important things to come”. but then I figured, the media could actually be a stepping stone in realizing my dream of entering politics. so i said, “sure why not?” i knew it’s a long shot from having a seat in the senate because i was just a normal kid… a nobody. and i was simply gonna be a DJ in a pop radio station. but hey, why not? i’ll take any chance i get. i might as well give it a shot and then from there i entered the world of television and even gained a little bit of political experience as one of

the hosts in a talk show that had a political theme. but along the way, i realized that i don’t want be a sena-tor anymore. i’ve decided i’ll just stay as an insignificant teenager with a voice that most people say ‘makes bold sense’. and i think i like it.

TPC: Why is that?DJ mo: i really don’t know for sure. call it fate or destiny, but i’m not try-ing to be mayabang or anything. Basta I feel confident about being where I am now. since this is the one thing

i’ve come to realize that i do best whether it would be lucrative or not, i just follow my heart. i also wanna excel in everything i do and be numero uno ‘coz i’m a very competi-tive person. especially against other shows and other stations, i always say like, if this whole game was a basketball game i wanna be the MvP and i wanna be the one to take the game winning shot in pressure time. i love pressure, competition, challenges and being the one who people admire as someone who’s

SpOTLIGHTWhat you don’t know about DJ Mo

…his lucid dreams of politics and the reality of why this talker is a walker.

by Hermann Calero aka taba

I feel confident about being where I am now. Since this is the one thing I’ve come

to realize that I do best whether it would be lucrative or not, I just follow my heart.

tHe center stageoF ProMinentPersonalities

brave enough to say whatever the truth is.

TPC: You’re currently a TV celebrity. Tell us about the transformation from being a radio DJ?DJ mo: Well i was only in radio for about six months before i was exposed to the tv industry. i re-member when gMa 7 had a new tv show called soP and they said they wanted a DJ sounding voice during commercials and stuff like that so that it would look like a radio show - so they asked me to join in. “because they were looking for someone new, that’s how i ended up on tv with soP although the show was can-celled a year ago. After that I went to ABS-CBN where I had my first act-ing experience. back then there was only a few of us as DJs. like Joe, the

madmonnaire, but now you even see tv stars as being a DJ’s.

TPC: How about Mo’s casa?DJ mo: yeah my home has 2 rooms, one room is for taking loads of calls wherein there are 6 rather intricate phone lines coming in which can be relayed to the second room. so it’s kinda cool, really.

TPC: So you do your podcasting there?DJ mo: ah! yes great, i’m having a podcast i mean, i always had this thought of doing an online show because it’s uncensored and stuff like that. Podcast is so fun like i just hope that more people will warm-up to, not only my show but actually as a medium. i think podcast is way better than radio because you can

finally go through all of these inter-national shows and stuff like that. It can cater to your “audio entertain-ment” with whatever you want -- if you are in a car and you like sports, say, jai-alai or whatever. there’s a jai-alai podcast that you can get in. you can never have that in radio. you can listen to comedy, you can listen to love talk shows, sex shows, career oriented shows, discovery channel... you can curtail your entertainment experience with whatever you want by downloading these “things” and even play it on anyone’s phone. i really do like podcasting and i want to make sure to be one of the first to appear the country’s main stream and be number one here and in sin-gapore or be in the top 20 in the u.s.

it’s huge, we have taken calls from africa, Kenya, singapore, u.s.,

58 SpOTLIGHT

canada, australia, and u.K. it’s amazing that you can have a show that is being broadcasted to the Fili-pinos as well all over the world and get to interact in real time...so that’s cool. Podcasting is fun i’m really, really happy about it and i converted my house into a podcasting station. i know you saw the radio booth; all the equipment there, is now also in my house as well so in essence i do have a little radio station.

TPC: Being in broadcasting, surely you must have a blog.DJ mo: i used to blog a lot but not as often as before. I can’t imagine anybody preferring to blog away and see their relationships go away as a consequence. Doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. blog-

ging is more like a hobby and i was getting 125,000 hits a day which is really kinda cool for a local blog. Like wow! suddenly this different blog which i didn’t expect much of, started to become popular and liked. amazing what the internet can do as an alternative form of freedom of expression. but i’d been busy with other things, things i’d rather give my undivided attention yo. My blog is just really dedicated to giving information for the podcast so now it just gets 60 to 70 thousand hits a day. i used to make 130 thousand hits a day but now i rarely reach 125 thou-sand. People kasi like long streaming blogs to read at work ‘coz it helps them kill time. i believe nowadays, the majority of people with white collar jobs works only 5 hours na lang

instead of 8. the rest of their 3 hours is spent either tweaking fantasy basketball teams or reading blogs. i have a hunch that’s the reason why my blogs are blocked in many com-panies. (laughs)

TPC: Do you dabble in photography? DJ mo: Oh yeah. I started off with a Nikon and then shifted to Canon because of the 5d video gain abilities of the Mark ii. it’s something that i’m really enjoying right now because of its’ high definition feature. I do have both brands, but i’m really pushing for canon right now.

TPC: Do you consider yourself as a geek? DJ mo: i never thought of myself re-ally as a techie dude because i never were into techie stuffs. So I don’t call myself a tech savvy person. but i do like this tipidPc magazine which was handed to me earlier. at first I thought it was one of those neat expensive techie magazines but i was surprised it was being given out for free. I find that amazing and admirable. it made me like gad-gets more. although if i could only start saving enough, I could afford to buy more amazing gadgets that keeps coming out of the woodworks almost everyday, but now that i’m an adult and have a fantastic job that i love, i’m so blessed being able to spend a lot more. i’m not saying i’m wealthy or anything, because most of my earnings were spent on gad-gets. in fact i have tons of computers at home. I probably bought five Macs within a span of only a few months. i just got three the other day and three days ago i got a 17” Macbook Pro. I’m pretty sure I have a Mac pro at home, so i guess i have thirteen to fifteen...even seventeen, I suppose. I also have an apple tv and an apple mini. i really just got crazy over

I don’t drink, smoke, or alter

my mind. What you see is what you get. I’m actually too honest for my own good.

60

these Apple stuff, but then again all my money just goes to all these gad-gets and realize i have no savings na pala. if my parents knew how much i have saved, they’ll probably kill me and say, “anong ginagawa mo sa pera mo at binibili mo lang ng gadgets, lenses and macs?” (laughs) TPC: When you mentioned getting info about reputable stuff, is it from friends?DJ mo: no. i just get them from the manufacturers website or something like that. Getting reliable informa-tion on review sites.

TPC: On women and vices. DJ mo: People are entitled to their own opinions. like i can say that to others too, but hey, at least i’m not a typical womanizer which people perceive me to be. i’ve learned my lesson well. i don’t drink, smoke, or alter my mind. What you see is what you get. i’m actually too hon-est for my own good. like you can ask me any question you like and i might have a healthy answer for it. there are times when i disagree, it becomes misconstrued until every-thing blows over. but that’s not my problem anymore. those who get offended are often the ones who are

guilty anyway. Hate me or love me. you can’t do both. an addiction is defined as something that labels you as an anti-social good for nothing loser and i’m completely against that. TPC: What gadgets are you particu-larly in right now? Upgrade maybe? DJ mo: Yesterday I spent a little bit of time in a coffee shop trying to get back in some rc airplanes. so now i’m saving up to buy a small one so

i won’t feel too bad if i destroy it. i have two helicopters and i’m think-ing of getting RC boats. I’m not into rc cars but prefer rc airplanes. a Mustang would be cool to fly, don’t you think? i majored aviation science in college aside from political science as well. i really do love aviation very much. yesterday i was kinda think-ing of getting back on RC airplanes. but for rc helicopters, never! i can’t do it. its too expensive when it crash-es, and it means throwing away ten thousand bucks just to fix it. Those things cost a hundred thousand and I can’t afford it...compared to a Mac.

TPC: Have you ever used your gad-gets to your advantage? DJ mo: Well not really, it is just because of my podcast and the type of topics we’ve discussed. Well i’m not really good looking but you know, people say, “hey wanna do some cybersex” or something like that and not knowing that i’m dating someone. i used to clone cellphone lines from a non gsM once so you can call abroad. i haven’t done it in a while though.

SpOTLIGHT

I’m not into RC cars but

prefer RC airplanes... I majored aviation science in college aside from political science as well. I really do love aviation very much.

61SpOTLIGHT

TPC: What do you think about cen-sorship in the internet?DJ mo: i mean one of it is profanities and stuff that’s gonna push censor-ship because you choose what web-sites you wanna go to, it’s not like a radio that when you open it acciden-tally that you can hear stuff. Obvi-ously the lifeless slander stuff should hold, you can’t just call or you can’t say to someone, “oh i heard that Mo has testicular cancer, don’t you know?” that would be something that should be banned. censorship in terms of content and stuff. I guess what i’m wondering about the inter-net is, and let us keep it like that, is the unimpressive, rouge and stuff like that. censorship in terms of profanity, pornography, liability, and some other spiral aspects of censor-ship. i don’t know about guarantees of jurisdiction and stuff like that, like if i said libelous statements on my blog but i’m registered in the us because that’s where my post is, but i wrote it in the Philippines, i don’t know what criminal court will handle this. i don’t know any of these things, but it is very difficult talaga. I don’t know who will define it either and which country gets the lead of these thing. like our laws in our country is so very different from

the other countries.

TPC: Have you ever heard of TipidPC.com before? DJ mo: Well, no i didn’t but now i’m very intrigued about it. i was looking in your magazine and it’s kinda cool. it features the gadgets and stuff that I personally like. It’s all value and stuff. Though I don’t sell second hand computer and cell phones because i think everything can be recovered even if you secure-ly empty the trash, military grade, rewriting of your hard drives. if you go to my house and if you go to my closet, you’ll see stocks and stocks of computers and phones that i’ve had. i guess it is not an answer to your question, but i don’t mean it badly but i’m really paranoid about people taking my stuff like something I used before, not because i think badly about it, no, but everybody have pores completely on their own butt’s and I don’t want other people to see mine.

you see i’m trying to get myself into making a tech Podcast, which a lot of people are asking about regard-ing my podcast. When it comes to podcasting any of this is much pos-sible. i treated it as if like i’m nobody

you know and i need help from big companies to look at this all. i can’t host a technical program by myself so i’m still looking for people who might be able to help me out. i know a lot of people who put up tech blogs on their own, it’s just, in the main-stream. i do a hundred thousand a day for my download apps from my podcast, it did quite well that i’m thinking if i can kind of expand that into a podcast about sports, or a tech podcast. it would be nice to have a really big mainstream network in the Philippines. I’m definitely looking into that so if i could tie up with you guys in anyway i can. i’m just here. but right now, it’s more of whom i kinda need as a host experi-ence at least with the style and the knowhow because my podcast and equipment will definitely be able to push a really good show.

TPC: You are known to be someone mean on the radio is it something we can only see in TV? In real life are you a different person?DJ mo: i think so. you know in my mind, i wasn’t mean on the radio. i don’t want to call it misconcep-tion. there are two reasons why i’m mean on the radio. number 1 it is tough love, when it comes to

people with questions, like a lot of questions that i get was “I’m cheat-ing on my wife”, “i’m cheating on my husband.” Kasi most people like “oh masama yan”. i don’t cheat, i don’t do that, i’m sensitive about it, so if i heard such rampage cheating going on a relationship, it pisses me off. so i am like “listen asshole instead of saying your name or something, I’ll just address you with insult.” it’s because of something you’re doing bad. you’re not gonna call a program and say “hi Mo, I just donated 10 thousand pesos to the Deaf Society of the Philippines” and i’ll respond “yeah dumb shit, it’s not that great”. if i’m gonna call you a name or something it’s because you deserve it, because you are very stupid. Second thing I’m pissed off as if you’re making the show stall, like i wanna greet my friends then pass the phone. no! no passing the phone, no don’t pass the phone. People like this are just moving along, they don’t move the story and it is taking so long, up to the point where there is already nothing to do with the buildup. it’s just because i need to entertain. i don’t do it for myself, i do it for everyone listening. nobody wants to hear this crap, let’s just move, move, move you know. because of that i’m gonna be labeled as such, and i know that, but i won’t be labeled i had patience with a stupid call. so i think in person, because it’s not a review show that we’re doing, its just real life. in real life, i don’t yell at anyone, i don’t get mad at anybody, i don’t do that to anybody, i really don’t. i’ve never been in a fist fight my life. I’m not that officially bad. It’s hard for me to be mean to people i had the chance to know and i just only do it on the show. i don’t know you so you tell me about yourself. I’m pretty gentle and i’m actually a disappointment to a lot of people. lot of people expect

me to be upset or expect me to party go out to drink and something. i don’t. i don’t even like music, any music in my car it’s my own podcast. i listen to podcast for at least 5 years already. i’m listening to psychology podcast, i listen to google sports, I don’t find it particularly funny and i don’t think the show is really entertaining. i listen to a lot of psy-chology lecture, “a lot!”, i listen to drug addiction but i don’t do drugs. i listen to a lot of relationship advice shows, tv shows ex. Dr. Drew Pinski, celebrity rehabs, love advice show called love line which i re-ally been seeing since i was a child and adam carolla. i’ve listened to american radio shows, british radio shows, and australian radio shows, and all their podcast versions of the program. and that in years maybe more than five or maybe longer than that. before podcast on itunes was available, i was just download-ing their mp3 versions from their website on my mp3 player. now it’s a lot more organized and you can subscribe and get it quicker. but no music or whatever. no never. it’s either quiet, there’s nothing or just wala never. though it’s fun listening to podcasts

TPC: Having seen a lot of technol-ogy around, even the person that you can see in the streets is with a cellphone, can you really identify, in your own words, the difference from a techie to a non-techie user with their technology? From your defini-tion. I think we are geeks.DJ mo: no, i don’t think so. i think i could be wrong because i’m not a te-chie dude like i said and i don’t even label myself as that at all. i think that i have a lot of gadgets that i under-use. a real gadget freak would remark something like “oh my god, those people who can afford can do so much more with their stuff, but it’s such a waste, they just buy them because it’s trendy” and it would seem to be such a good idea to do so, at that time. i feel a real techie gets irked when he sees that i bought a Mac Pro just to use it to surf the internet. it’s like buying a badass camera and just using it to point and shoot. it really all becomes better after a series of bad experimenting with its capabili-ties and different kind of settings or something like that to learn. it’s re-ally not the camera who dictates the outcome but the person who takes the shot. i don’t think that you can decipher or ascertain which people are techies based on their hardware, it’s merely a pasikat thing. it’s be-ing able to answer troubleshooting questions on the spot, and things like that. if somebody can trouble-shoot my computer without even having a computer in front of them. they twitch their head and then say click the firewall or something wherever it may be, they don’t even have computers in front of them (and they were able to) just go through it in their minds that’s impressive every time i see them. i tried doing that with girls because girls have more simple problems; Mo I need to screenshot this. and i go “Whoa! That

I don’t think that you can

decipher or ascertain which people are techies based on their hardware, it’s merely a pasikat thing.

62 EXcLUSIVE

TPC: Any parting words?DJ mo: i just wanna say that you give Podcasting a shot. i’m not tell-ing you download to my podcast. let’s make more podcasts. i need competition on my style. i made podcasts that have nothing to do with what i’ve been doing. Podcast for every walk of life, i just want the medium to do well. i want people to really get in to it, kasi all our phones are capable of it. you can make it to cater to what you want and stuff like that. it is a great venue to be enter-tained. you won’t be stuck up with these radio shows that suck when you are in the car with no other choice. you listen to the same playlist on your iPod over and over that you have memorized it. so get in to Pod-cast, and make your own podcast, it is so easy to make them.

tpC: thanks yor your timeDJ mo: absolutely man, thanks as well and trust me the podcast thing, it’s gonna fly. I have so many spon-sors online in my podcast now, it requires 5 to 6 minutes commercial breaks so it’s like a prime time access radio show. and everybody ask the same thing “when are we gonna do in tech podcast?” and i respond to them the same thing “until i have really credible people” like techie dudes like you guys who are so pas-sionate. so let’s give it a go.

is really complicated. Let me try to dig deep in my memory here, press shift f4 then you see a square”. then they go “Wow you’re so smart.” i never asked anyone else. but if a girl has a real problem like “Mo since you know about computers can you help me?”, i’ll go “Okay wait, I’m really busy right now, let me call you later”. then i’ll get the answer in google, and then i’ll call back and ask “what is your prob-lem again I forgot? Yeah Yeah hmm let me see hmm hey I’m pretty sure if you do this and do that it’s gonna work.” then they’ll say “Hey your right! You’re so great!” so the truth is i’m not a real technical person, i’m just a poser. so if you’re a gadget geek that salivates about gadgets then god bless you. i consider myself as a geek of an-

other kind. i’m a geek about sports statistics, i’m a hardcore sports stats geek so i can relate to the gadget geeks on what they are feeling.

aside from that i could also call my-self a school geek, like i mean come on, i went to school take political sci-ence, legal management and aviation science. all of them have nothing to do with each other. it’s just that i enjoy school, some geeks about that stuff, some about other stuff, so we’re kind of a geek in our own rela-tions and fantasies. that’s fantastic, more power to you. it’s awesome to be an expert in something. i’d rather do that than not know a lot of about anything.

63EXcLUSIVE

The interviewier Hermann Thomas Calero is part of the TipidPC Core Team. He weighs a whopping 320 lbs, thus his TPC monicker “taba”. Aside from ravaging buffet tables, Hermann is also “heavily” involved in show business. He has graced several unsucessful TV shows and you could see him this coming Christmas season in your favorite malls dressed up as Santa Claus.

Chances are you have already spotted him as one of the most wanted pc modders in town. His creative work and humble attitude makes him more distinctive among the crowd.

Mhike Samsim A.K.A. Tantric

Interview and photograph by PaulTan

Chances are you have already spotted him as one of the most wanted pc modders in town. His creative work and humble attitude makes him more distinctive among the crowd.

Mhike Samsim A.K.A. Tantric

Interview and photograph by PaulTan aka pault_tan

Tell us how you started with PC modding.I started modding around 2002-2003, back when pc modding was not a full blown hobby, com-pared to what it is today.

Back then, we didn’t have the proper tools and accessories so we had to improvise and make do with what’s available. Now, PC modding has gone a long way. Modders now have the right equip-ment and parts, making the hobby moreaccessible to all.

One of my major influences in modding is theonline website called virtual-hideout.net, I

think they are one of the pioneers in PC modding.

Your PC modding business is verysuccessful since day one, what is the key to modding pc?I started pc modding as a hobby. Back then I had no plans of making it a full time job. It was more like just loving what I do. But in the long run, I realized that, the best job is if you can mix work and fun together. For me, this is the mix, loving the work and having fun at the same time.

The key is always try to think of something new, something different, as they say, think out of the box. Somehow, I have always made it a point to do something innovative to tickle the fancy of my clients.

>

Tell us how you started with PC modding.I started modding around 2002-2003, back when pc modding was not a full blown hobby, com-pared to what it is today.

Back then, we didn’t have the proper tools and accessories so we had to improvise and make do with what’s available. Now, PC modding has gone a long way. Modders now have the right equip-ment and parts, making the hobby moreaccessible to all.

One of my major influences in modding is theonline website called virtual-hideout.net, I

think they are one of the pioneers in PC modding.

Your PC modding business is verysuccessful since day one, what is the key to modding pc?I started pc modding as a hobby. Back then I had no plans of making it a full time job. It was more like just loving what I do. But in the long run, I realized that, the best job is if you can mix work and fun together. For me, this is the mix, loving the work and having fun at the same time.

The key is always try to think of something new, something different, as they say, think out of the box. Somehow, I have always made it a point to do something innovative to tickle the fancy of my clients.

>

Modding several pc at the same time is surely not an easy task, what does it take to make a pc unique in every way?I make it a point to talk with my clients first.Getting to know them personally, their likes and dislikes is key. From there, I try to come up with a concept that my clients will love. Once given the go signal, I start on the project.

What does it mean to be one of the most sought after PC modder in the Philippines?Weh? Di nga?

Nine years and over 300 modded PC, side panels, etc. What’s next for themaster?Master? I’m no such thing. Hopefully more projects to come. Not only for me but also for my group, Rignoobies.

You are currently a contestant in the 2011 CoolerMaster Mod Challenge, when will you present the finished project?Hopefully by first week of May. Wish us luck.

Of all the PC that you modded, what’s the one dearest to you?That would be the yellow GIGABYTE 3D Aurora 570 & Silverstone raven II “Nightraven.” I con-sidered them dearest to me because I was really challenged by both builds. Took me almost two months to finish each, dedicated most of my time and effort to make it a success.

”we had to improvise

and make do with the

parts and tools available

that time.”

PROJ: FRACTAL

OWNER: TANTRIC

PROJ: NIGHTRAVEN

OWNER: KNET370

PROJ: SPOON

OWNER: DREWT

PROJ: COSMOS VXOWNER: VIN621

PROJ: TRIXIE

OWNER: KNET370

PROJ: CARRERA GT-S

OWNER: EL_KARERA

PROJ: SHIVA

OWNER: PEEJ

PROJ: QUAD 580 SLI

OWNER: IBONBIRD

PROJ: G7 FXX EVO

OWNER: ANTHONY8659

Modding several pc at the same time is surely not an easy task, what does it take to make a pc unique in every way?I make it a point to talk with my clients first.Getting to know them personally, their likes and dislikes is key. From there, I try to come up with a concept that my clients will love. Once given the go signal, I start on the project.

What does it mean to be one of the most sought after PC modder in the Philippines?Weh? Di nga?

Nine years and over 300 modded PC, side panels, etc. What’s next for themaster?Master? I’m no such thing. Hopefully more projects to come. Not only for me but also for my group, Rignoobies.

You are currently a contestant in the 2011 CoolerMaster Mod Challenge, when will you present the finished project?Hopefully by first week of May. Wish us luck.

Of all the PC that you modded, what’s the one dearest to you?That would be the yellow GIGABYTE 3D Aurora 570 & Silverstone raven II “Nightraven.” I con-sidered them dearest to me because I was really challenged by both builds. Took me almost two months to finish each, dedicated most of my time and effort to make it a success.

”we had to improvise

and make do with the

parts and tools available

that time.”

PROJ: FRACTAL

OWNER: TANTRIC

PROJ: NIGHTRAVEN

OWNER: KNET370

PROJ: SPOON

OWNER: DREWT

PROJ: COSMOS VXOWNER: VIN621

PROJ: TRIXIE

OWNER: KNET370

PROJ: CARRERA GT-S

OWNER: EL_KARERA

PROJ: SHIVA

OWNER: PEEJ

PROJ: QUAD 580 SLI

OWNER: IBONBIRD

PROJ: G7 FXX EVO

OWNER: ANTHONY8659

67

What is rba and how, where did it originate? it actually started from a silly joke

among “bros” calling each other “sisters” and i kid you not!

yours truly started the “XFX Psu users info and tambayan thread” and the exciting journey of how rba began goes something like this…so come on, hop on board with me!

being a computer enthusiast got me browsing at the tipidpc.com website so often (read: all day long; ok exag) that it became a daily habit. i learned more about rigs there than at any other website. Then one fine day i decided to buy a new power supply. i was surprised to see that there was no thread about it, so i created one and the rest, as they say, is history. oops sabi ko history, wala akong sinabing the end so stay put, mga bros!

At first, we were all just shar-ing our knowledge and experiences about our power supply product, nearly every day so it was only natural that we started to build some kind of friendship. We never knew it will grow into something special the way it is today. a couple of months after I created the thread; we had 40 members but as expected, not all were active. one of our members created a Facebook account for us and i’ll always be grateful to him for taking that initiative coz things got even better and we became a lot closer. We planned meetings; had t-shirts made; went on road trips; you know fun stuff that the team would enjoy. then one day, the creator of

that “Fb” page had the opportunity to invite one of the best computer modders whom we all know and have heard about, Mr. chamelyon.

either…strict ang nanay ko eh…just kidding!

the original group name, “XFX Psu users info and tambayan

EXcLUSIVE

Rig Builder’s Alliance (RBA)

by Renier Delos Santosaka Autoprimephilippines

The first meeting for the group was March 11, 2011 and judging from the photos above, they all had a great time! yeah i wasn’t able to make it that time. i was around the area but hey what can i say, i lost their contact numbers – excuses, excuses...

good thing the second meeting went well with six of our members present and Mr. chamelyon gracing the meeting with his presence at our friend’s pod.

they had a great time as you can see right here. yeah i wasn’t able to make it to the second meeting

thread” was a tad too long. al-though we were unaware at the time the second meeting started, each

The RBA is a simple group

who share the same enthusiasm towards life and the commit-ment for the better-ment of the group.

68 EXcLUSIVE

member present were skilled at some-thing like modifications, gaming, overclocking, networking, photogra-phy, graphic arts, and many more. so after much discussion and delibera-tion (naks kala mo talaga totoo ano!), we discovered the different skills and hence, decided to change the group name and after voting came up with rig builDers alliance.

the third meeting was also the first time the group would meet me and it was also our first road trip. We were invited by one of our members to spend the weekend at his place in nagcarlan, laguna. We held our lan party at his computer shop and spent the weekend at his home up in the mountains. it was a great surprise to find out that the Fineupgrades group was with us. the road trip gave us an opportu-nity to get to know each other a little better; we had a great time and there was never a dull moment.

We arrived in nagcarlan in time for lunch and our host provided us with the best meal (read: kelan kaya mauuulit “sis”? Hehehe…). We then proceeded to his computer shop where we set up our rigs and did networking.

We invited players to participate

We headed to the resort after we brought everything that we needed back, and once everyone was set, we started the meeting and came up with rules, regulations, board members, upcoming events, plans,

that all of us have top of the line rigs. but whoever wanted to join us should have the same enthusiasm towards life and the commitment that all of us have by being involved and active for the betterment of the group.

After that fantastic third meet-ing, tPc gave us the opportunity to hold a seminar at the eton cyberpod in ortigas, Quezon city. it was a rainy day but nothing could stop us from supporting the free seminar for those who were interested to learn about rigs. We shared our knowl-edge about rig modding, rig build-ing, and overclocking to all the par-ticipants. owing to the bad weather condition, I wasn’t able to attend the first seminar coz of heavy rains and flood but I made it to the next one (nagmakaawa nako sa nanay ko eh).

sir chamelyon did great with sharing the basics “HoW to’s” on

at the lan party. they had a great time and even won prizes like shirts and lanyards from roccat. the par-ty was a success and i realized that making others happy is priceless.

etc. and things started shaping up for the group.

the rba is a simple group made up of enthusiasts. We’re not out to recruit new members nor demand

69EXcLUSIVE

modifications and of course, the tool of trades. We also had a Diy section for power supply wire sleeving.

i brought my own motherboard, video card, hard disk, as well as rams for the intel overclocking part. i was lucky to have money for a new cooler and we used it for the rig building section. After a successful build accompanied by a great lecture and demonstration from one of our fellow members, we overclocked our sandy up to just 5.4ghz, although at home i could do 5.5ghz (i guess worrying is part and parcel of overclocking).

i wasn’t able to explain how i did it during the last seminar so intel guys, if you want to get crazy juices out of your sandy bridge as well as more info on modifications, how to build your own rig, etc., do attend the next seminar. btW, my gratitude goes out to one of our members who shared aMD overclocking for the last portion of our seminar. He did a great job and we encouraged the attendees to participate in a mini overclocking competition.

After a long day of hosting semi-nars, we would traditionally celebrate it with freezing cold beer, food, and laughter. We’re always on the look-out for new events; new places; new members; new promotions; pretty much to grow this alliance that is open for everybody. our mission is to provide an alliance for information exchange among members, thereby promoting and improving our com-mon interests and passions. as to our vision, we aspire to establish a community of computer enthusiasts who are committed to sharing their knowledge and best practices on computer hardware, software, games, and anything related to rigs.

btW, i’m autoprimephilip-pines...and this, in a nutshell, is rba.

Photograph by PaulTan and RIG NOOBIES

Rig Noobies

is a group composed of computer

enthusiasts united by their common interest towards PCs; from the

latest hardware, software, parts and modding. Although the group is

also known for its passion towards gaming, photography, cars and

other hobbies too numerous to mention, the Rig Noobies will always

be known for their camaraderie. It is the family like atmosphere

shared by these group of individuals that really make them stand out;

through thick and thin, come rain ir shine, till death do they apart.”

details to the bigger areas, the whole theme has one “line”, which

goes through it.

Rig Noobies

is a group composed of computer

enthusiasts united by their common interest towards PCs; from the

latest hardware, software, parts and modding. Although the group is

also known for its passion towards gaming, photography, cars and

other hobbies too numerous to mention, the Rig Noobies will always

be known for their camaraderie. It is the family like atmosphere

shared by these group of individuals that really make them stand out;

through thick and thin, come rain ir shine, till death do they apart.”

details to the bigger areas, the whole theme has one “line”, which

goes through it.

72

Android Powered DIY Home Control system

DO IT YOURSELF

the objective of this project displays the possibility of constructing your own Do-it-yourself home control and automation system. in its simplest form, it includes a user interface layer provided by android run-ning in your mobile phone, a home gateway (any x86 hardware capable of running linux) which acts as the backend of the system, an 8bit main microcontroller (arduino), wireless transceivers, and end devices.

the application running in your android phone serves as the user interface where anyone with access to it can send basic serial command to your home’s main controller via the web through the HttP protocol aka “the internet”. the home gate-way acts pretty much like the brain of the system as it does most of the processing and storage plus it can communicate both to your android application and to the main control-ler. the gateway interfaces with the controller (arduino) via a serial connection. owing to the limited processing capability of an 8bit mi-crocontroller, the gateway acts much like a proxy between the android application and the controller.

the arduino controller provides the layer from which software can communicate directly with hard-ware. this is the part that takes text-based command from the gateway and turns it into a physical action such as turning on or oFF a light,

locking a gate, taking measurement from sensors, etc. the arduino sends any command it receives from the gateway to other devices via wireless using a purposely built wireless pro-tocol. the project was designed this way so that you can have unlimited controllable devices without re-wiring your home to accommodate these devices. it is also possible to wire any device directly to the ar-

duino but this method is not scalable in terms of number of devices you can connect because it is limited by a number of INPUT/OUTPUT pins in the arduino and the re-wiring that needs to be done to accommodate these devices.

the setup above demonstrates the arduino directly controlling your end devices (in this case, the leD light). any command received

Simplified diagram of the project 

Android UI

HTTP POSTLinux LAMP

X86 hardware

Serial Interface

Arduino8bit uC

Proprietary short message wireless protocol

Lighting system8bit uC

Security device8bit uC

Sensors8bit uC

Device database

Basic flow diagramAndroid UI layer

HTTP POST data

Webserver + database processing

Text based serial data

Arduino processing

Wireless transmission

Internet domain

Local domain

Version 1*easy to implement

*minimal programming*power inefficient (x86 hardware)

 

LED light system connected directly to the Arduino 

 

The setup above demonstrates the Arduino directly controlling your end devices  (in this case, the LED light).  Any  command  received  from  the  home  gateway  via  the  serial  interface  is  processed  by  the Arduino and turns it into a physical action by turning the LED ON or OFF.  During the early phrase of the 

lED light system connected directly to the Arduino

Led light controlled directly by the Arduino

Arduino controllerSerial Interface

to home gateway

by xteamobsidianx

73

from the home gateway via the serial interface is processed by the arduino and turns it into a physi-cal action by turning the leD on or oFF. During the early phrase of the project, this system was used to test the connectivity between the arduino and the gateway. because of its simplicity, it was used early on to test the arduino, the home gateway, the android app and the communi-cation between these systems. like with any Diy project, starting with the basics to see and make things work is as important as having an optimized solution to your Diy problem.

THE HOME GATEWAYthe home gateway acts as the

interface between your internet connected android app and the arduino microcontroller. the project used a basic x86 computer loaded with linux, PHP and mysql database server. since the android app can be built to use HttP communica-tion instead of a more advanced tcP socket connection, the project began its life with a simple HttP protocol layer connecting the android ui to

the arduino. the PHP and mysql are used for storage and processing of HttP Post data. it was built this way so that any settings related to the microcontroller and end devices are stored locally in the server and that any ui layer (android, HtMl, ios) can be built to parse this data and present it to the user. by uti-lizing the mysql database server, although a bit of an overkill for its storage capability and feature, it is very easy to provide structured stor-age for the controller settings and by storing information in a central server, any number of connections from any user interface can be main-tained without conflict because all are serviced by the gateway.

THE ANDROID USER INTERFACE

the android application pro-vides the layer where the user can interact with hardware via other layers. in its current form, it con-sists of three tabs controlling each device type; light system, security devices, and sensors. Most of the services such as adding devices, editing information, authentication, etc are done in this layer. the ui is

built on runtime which means that it is dynamic and depends entirely on whatever information it gets from the database server. this way, devic-es can be added or deleted without having to recompile the application to reflect changes.

the advantage of having a cen-

project, this system was used to test the connectivity between the Arduino and the gateway. Because of its  simplicity,  it was used early on  to  test  the Arduino,  the home  gateway,  the Android  app  and  the communication between  these systems. Like with any DIY project, starting with  the basics  to see and make things work is as important as having an optimized solution to your DIY problem. 

The Home Gateway The home gateway acts as the interface between your Internet connected Android app and the Arduino microcontroller.  The  project  used  a  basic  x86  computer  loaded with  Linux,  PHP  and mysql  database server.  Since the Android app can be built to use HTTP communication instead of a more advanced TCP socket connection, the project began its life with a simple HTTP protocol layer connecting the Android UI to the Arduino.  The PHP and mysql are used for storage and processing of HTTP POST data.  It was built this way  so  that any  settings  related  to  the microcontroller and end devices are  stored  locally  in  the server and that any UI  layer (Android, HTML,  iOS) can be built to parse this data and present  it to the user.   By utilizing the mysql database server, although a bit of an overkill for  its storage capability and feature,  it  is  very  easy  to  provide  structured  storage  for  the  controller  settings  and  by  storing information  in a central server, any number of connections from any user  interface can be maintained without conflict because all are serviced by the gateway. 

Sample code utilizing PHP and mysql 

 

The Android User Interface The Android application provides the layer where the user can interact with hardware via other layers. In its current form, it consists of three tabs controlling each device type; Light system, Security devices, and Sensors. Most of  the services such as adding devices, editing  information, authentication, etc are done  in  this  layer. The UI  is built on runtime which means  that  it  is dynamic and depends entirely on whatever  information  it  gets  from  the  database  server.  This way,  devices  can  be  added  or  deleted without having to recompile the application to reflect changes. 

The advantage of having a centralized storage is that any UI can be built to provide an interactive layer to  the  user.  If  one  decides  to  use  a  simple HTML webpage  instead  of  a more  advance  and  prettier Android application, it's as easy as coding it to parse data from the server via the HTTP/POST connection and creates a dynamic page based on the downloaded data. 

Screenshot of the Android app UI 

   

Version 2 The  project,  in  its  final  form,  removes  the  x86  server  and  Arduino  and  replaces  it  with  a  single microcontroller powerful enough  to handle HTTP/POST and pseudo‐database storage.    It can now run on  a  32bit  ARM  Cortex  based  platform with  power  consumption  closer  to  2 watts.    This  involves  a complete  rewrite  of  the  HTTP/POST  and  database  engine  as  PHP  and  mysql  cannot  run  on  this hardware. The PHP POST data format and response remains the same. The wireless layer is also added to facilitate connection between the controller and end devices. 

74 DO IT YOURSELF

tralized storage is that any ui can be built to provide an interactive layer to the user. if one decides to use a simple HtMl webpage instead of a more advance and prettier Android application, it’s as easy as coding it to parse data from the server via the HTTP/POST connection and creates a dynamic page based on the down-loaded data.

VERSION 2

The project, in its final form, removes the x86 server and ar-duino and replaces it with a single microcontroller powerful enough to handle HTTP/POST and pseudo-database storage. it can now run on a 32bit arM cortex based platform with power consumption closer to 2 watts. This involves a complete rewrite of the HTTP/POST and database engine as PHP and mysql cannot run on this hardware. the PHP Post data format and response remains the same. the wireless layer is also added to facilitate connec-tion between the controller and end devices.

Simplified diagram 

 

Setup 

 

Wireless Transceiver

EepromDatabase Storage

RJ-45 Internet connection

ARM Cortex 32bit Microprocessor

Setup

Simplified diagram

Wireless transceiver2.4ghz layer 1 physical

connection

Power supplyDebugging connection

Serial peripheral interface

uC communication protocol layer 1

Controllable DeviceLED light8bit microcontroller

Wireless end device

Wireless end device

Home gateway

Test system

76 DO IT YOURSELF

PC8 CARDBoARD eDItIon

by Emmanuel R . Yumul aka eryumul

last Feb 20, i saw this post in tipid-pc.com; inviting members to submit their Pc cases made of something different. So I decided to submit my

lian li Pc8 inspired case. Well, it’s made based on lian li’s Pc8 casing but on a ghetto side type of mod.

the said casing dimensions are very similar to the Pc8 but, materi-als used are a little bit more organic. it’s a cardboard, as required by the tPc as a challenge to us who wants to submit an entry.

77DO IT YOURSELF

1. PC Specificationsa. Mainboard: aMD a690g-M2b. chipset: aMD rs690gc. Processor: aMD athlon 64 X2

4000+ @ 2100 MHzd. Physical Memory: 2048 Mb (2 x

1024 DDr2-sDraM )e. video card: ati radeon X1200

Series (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM)

f. Hard Disk: Hitachi (500 gb)g. Hard Disk: st3400832as (400

gb)

h. DvD-rom Drive: Hl-Dt-st DvDraM gsa-H42l ata Device

i. Monitor type: samsung saM-sung - 40 inches

j. network card: Mv88se614x Pcie to sata2 controller yukon 88e8056 Pcie gigabit ethernet controller

2. Materials useda. 1 pc 750x580x300mm box w/

angular side stands

b. ½ kilo shelwood white gluec. reused acrylic plexiglass

18x18x1/8” for side panel

3. a cardboard casing referenced from supposedly a pattern for acrylic plexiglass modding for a lian li Pc8 casing.

somehow temp reading was amaz-ingly low! and it is fun to make too!

GAME cENTRAL

videogames. Movies.videogames.Movies.

there used to be a thin line sep-arating these two media giants. but until recently, both have been trying to conquer—or more like replicate—the other. videogames are being turned to movies, and movies are be-ing turned to videogames. but every once in a while, a masterpiece finds a way to integrate the sentiments and entertainment of a movie on a per-sonal level likened to videogames by delivering exactly what the audience wants at any part of the experience, or play through.

Take for example Scott Pilgrim versus the World. it was a movie about a guy who lived in a videog-ame-like world. the movie demon-strated how a crossover of the two media giants could work and sell properly as a single, well-planned presentation. numerous franchises tried to achieve this, and few have succeeded. stealth-action block-buster Metal gear solid series and the action-adventure Halo series, to name some.

but nothing stands out in this pursuit of interactive cinematic im-pression like call of Duty does.

HISTORICAl BACkGROUND

call of Duty is the brainchild of Infinity Ward, a team that also fa-thered the WWii video game Medal

of Honor. the coD series, over the years, have garnered much praise from critics, and received millions of dollars through purchases of their blockbuster hits, call of Duty, call of Duty 2, call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and the more recent call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. although these masterpieces were made by the original Infinity Ward team, Activi-sion, their publisher, hired another team to produce coD titles alter-nately with Infinity Ward to keep up

with a ‘one-game-per-year’ schedule. treyarch was acquired by activi-sion for this purpose; they went on to produce the less-than-stellar call of Duty 3, the moderately successful call of Duty: World at War, and now that Infinity Ward has dispersed, claim ownership of the title, with their latest action-packed shooter—call of Duty: black ops.

THE ‘MOVIE-VIDEOGAME’ ExPERIENCE

ever since call of Duty 4, the series was known for its high pro-duction standards, offering gamers with fresh new experiences on every title. Black Ops is no different—every nook and cranny of this game has the workings of a certified hit. From every virtual bullet that whizzes past your head, to the insane plot twists that’ll leave you surprised and baf-fled, one thing is always guaranteed by black ops. you’re going to friggin’’ love every minute of it.

black ops starts out as a simple shooter, with you controlling alex Mason, a member of a team of marines sent out to assassinate Fidel Castro. Simple storyline at first, but as the game progresses, alex Mason gets tangled up in a world of decep-tion and brutality, a war behind the

Call of Duty: Black opsReleased November 9, 2010PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Nintendo DSRetail / Digital Download thru SteamTreyarch Productions / Published by Activision Entertainment

by Kevin Paulo Evangelista aka Drag_Drift

79

eponymous battlefield, with covert missions to cover up the actions of the military—where ‘seeing is not believing’. black ops deliver this feel of being in a war movie multiple times, but instead of watching the hero fight the war he’s caught up in, you get to be in the action. you’ll be shot at, you’ll be set on fire, you’ll be chased, you’ll be hunted, and you have to fight back. Just like the action star hero of the movie.

WAR-TORN EYE CANDYIt often goes unsaid that the Call

of Duty series deliver killer graph-ics. it’s always tied to their name that they offer a killer storyline, a stellar multiplayer experience and action-packed gameplay. but never did its players find that the graphics to be extremely remarkable in call of Duty. Although after a few play through, it’ll become very appar-ent that the eye candy presented in Black Ops pretty much increases as the game progresses. guns look very detailed, with signs of aging and battle scarred encounters on the field. The levels are well-thought of and the character design is superb. lighting, most of the time, is spot on at delivering a cinematic experience,

with the textures, reflections and shadows of the character offering near photo-realistic impressions. sure there are a few models that look un-detailed and bland, but then again, you aren’t supposed to look at them that way—it’s nitpicking, to say the most.

RATINGSaspects of the game will be

graded on a scale of 1-5 stars. one being the lowest and five being the highest.

criteria would be gameplay, graphics, sound, replay value and overall rating.

gampelay: ««««Black Ops offers etched in your

mind experiences through brilliant scripts and well crafted storytell-ing. the levels are well-thought of, with enemies having the possibility of coming from all directions. guns and ammo are always abundant, and you can opt for a straight-out gun-fight with Vietcong, British Com-mandos and spetsnaz, or you can take a ‘Michael bay’ path and tear up the warzones with an assortment of rocket launchers, heavy ma-chine guns, rifles with under-barrel grenade launchers up to an 8-round shotgun that fires incendiary rounds called “dragon’s breathe”. each game is nothing short of intense, and once you get tired of capping ai enemies in the single player levels, a Multi-player fame option is always there to give you a few more well-deserved shots of gaming adrenaline. not to mention a zombie scrimmage where you play as the late us President John F. Kennedy, with the irish ac-cent with witty quotes, all thrown in.

graphics: ««««Modern Warfare 2, the previous

game in the call of Duty series, was graphically groundbreaking in the whole franchise. although with a few notches, black ops does not fail to impress. the guns look robust and war-torn, with detailed texture work and superb lighting. levels are no different, capturing the look and feel of a Hollywood blockbuster. a few graphical glitches here and there, and the occasional bland textures can ruin the experience a bit, but it never manages the spoil the fun.Sound: ««««

With authentic tracks straight out of ‘nam, black ops makes you feel you’re in the heart of the ac-tion anywhere you go. every thud of a nearby grenade sends waves through your hair, and every blood-curdling scream from the vietcong

Black Ops offers etched in your

mind experiences through brilliant scripts and well crafted storytelling.

80 GAME cENTRAL

you just killed will echo out, giving you the feeling that it’s right there in front of you. and to add as cherry on top of this bad ass war cocktail, the actual voices of gary oldman, ed Harris, ice cube, just to name a few, were used. Hooboy!

replay Value: «««««I had Black Ops from the first

day it was released. since then, I have finished the campaign on recruit, regular and Hardened dif-ficulty. There’s something about the way that the enemies you expect to come at you are never really there, and then surprise you at places you never thought they could attack. I couldn’t even count the times when i was forced to retreat because the mass of enemies coming at me from that direction—a mass of enemies i never prepared for—was gunning for me at full force. black ops will have you playing it repeatedly, be-cause of the possibilities of different gaming experiences each time you play it. and yes, i’m also planning to finish it in Veteran difficulty.

overall rating: ««««black ops doesn’t change the

rules of the game, nor does it try to change the face of the series. and thank god it didn’t, because this mouth-watering combination of action-packed gameplay and power-ful, story-driven cinematics that the call of Duty franchise is known for should always stay the same. all we needed—and all treyarch deliv-ered—was just a new war to fight in.

nathan gould which has vital info in defeating the alien race. unfor-tunately their submarine was hit by the cephaloids and only alcatraz survived the attack. Delta force offi-cer Prophet saved alcatraz and gave his nanosuit to him because Prophet was infected by a “virus”. reviving alcatraz was the last thing Prophet can do to save the human race. Prophet eventually committed sui-cide and alcatraz is now on his own to find Dr. Gould, face the aliens and also to escape from cell operatives who were ordered to kill him due to having been infected by the virus.

NANOSUIT 2 – THE HIGHlIGHT OF THE GAME

every crysis game features an exoskeleton armor that is technologi-cally advanced and powerful called the nanosuit. in the game, the nano-suit 2 is the second version of crynet

crysis 2 is a newly re-leased first person shooter game from electronic arts (ea) and there is no doubt that this is one of the most anticipated games of 2011. the game is a sequel to crysis and an expansion of crysis: Warhead that was launched in 2007. both developed by crytek, Crysis 2 is the first game of ea that shows the power of their new game engine cryengine 3 and promises to be superior in terms of graphics. How-ever, when you’re using lower system requirements it has to be able to support stereoscopic 3D. this is good news for most gamers since they can play crysis 2 without the need of upgrading or buying a high-performance Pc. the urban setting gives vertical extension to the game and at the same time opens up new strategies and approach to play it. this game also features a new an-tagonist in the name of alcatraz, the new nanosuit 2.0 and a new breed or should i say an evolution of the aliens which Prophet and his team encountered in lingshan island on the first game.

the nanosuit warrior came back to fight the aliens who want to infest not just a jungle but an “urban jungle”. crysis is set in new york city in the year 2023(three years after the first game). A team of US Marine Force recon was sent to rescue a former crynet employee Dr.

CRYsIs 2

by Ariz Cabias aka incubus_boy08

81GAME cENTRAL

system’s nanosuit that replaced the older nanosuit 1 which was featured on crysis and crysis: Warhead. Although the first Nanosuit 1 users were Major Prophet barnes and his raptor team, there were hardly known users of nanosuit 2 except for Prophet and Alcatraz. The first Nanosuit still has its flaws like every first version product would have and also threatened to have a perfect copy by the north Koreans on the first Crysis game. Nanosuit 2 ad-dressed the issues of the first model while also giving the user new features and improved performance. Here are some of the improvements from the first version:

• Increased energy efficiency and capacity by 20%

• 32% increase in strength and speed

• Able to generate up to 450 N of force and up to 10,000 gs of contrac-tile acceleration

• Weighs 50% lighter than the first one

• Increases motor reflexes and reaction time

• Features SECOND (Semi-autonomous enhanced combat ops: neuro-integration and Delivery ai) made possible by parasitic blood-glucose infusion and electrolytic microstack which in return improves battlefield data collection and strat-egy.

• Has two main modes namely armor mode and cloak mode

• Secondary modes include Tactical/Visor mode (battlefield info collection), nanovision (thermal vision) and Power mode (speed and strength combined).

• Ability to learn and cope with any condition dynamically and bio-logically. in the game, alcatraz can learn any ability once he absorbed enough nano catalysts from the aliens he killed.

GRAPHICS SUPERIORITY AND SOUND IS SECOND TO NONE.

The first Crysis game became the gaming benchmark for all Pcs out there. it became a language that whenever you have a Pc and some-one will ask if it can run crysis on enthusiast or the highest settings, then your Pc is one the best ones out there. crysis 2 uses cryengine 3 that optimizes your computer’s resources unlike the cryengine 2 game engine on the first game. In return, Crysis 2 will give you the best graphics even if you still use the machine you used to play crysis. you will get better textures and frame rates compared to the first one. I was also worried about upgrading my current rig since i got a feeling that it can’t handle the game at my preferences but i was surprised that it still could. At first I thought that the new game engine was inferior to the last one but i was wrong. because of the tuning and optimization they have done on the last game engine, the game was one of the best-looking FPs shooter i have ever played. one thing though, the realism i felt lessened since the environment here

is not completely destructible unlike in the first game. Another thing is, the game does not support Direct X 11. it’s 2011 now and yet no DX 11? i don’t have any news at the moment if crynet will release a patch that supports DX11. aside from that, the textures, lightings, models and envi-ronment looked great.

The sound effects were accept-able based on quality although it’s not the best out there. However, the music tracks were very dramatic. i was expecting the audio scores to be a modern electronic one. instead, the game features superb orchestral music which impressively gives a larger-than-life depiction of the story.

GAME PlAY IS VERY NICE WITH SOME MINOR ISSUES

i like the fact that the nanosuit can provide you with strategy op-tions like going stealth, flanking and more. the game does not have a linear approach like other FPs games do. However, it is not that type of a sandbox game that the first Crysis has been. the game has more “height” than the first one, which gives gamers

One early review of Crysis 2 was published by Official Xbox Magazine, which gave the game a 9/10. According to the magazine, it was the multiplayer that tipped the balance. It describes the online experience as “some of the most exciting, angry and satisfying action you’ll ever have”.

82 GAME cENTRAL

83GAME cENTRAL

more option on what to do in it. you will encounter around 3 types of ce-phs here. the ceph assault (grunts), ceph Devastator (heavy) and ceph organisms (stalkers). there is also a ceph Pinger which is basically a ceph tripodal tank.

the vehicles that you can drive on this game were also less than the first. I only drove a CELL tank and a “humvee” here.

your guns and nanosuit pres-ent many custom options. you can

customize your gun to your liking. Attach a reflex sight or shotgun at-tachment to your scar depending on your preference. Whatever gun you have, it will affect your situation on the battlefield. Kill the Cephs to get their pores to convert it into nano catalyst so that your suit can open up options to beef you up.

i played crysis 2 on its hard-est difficulty (post-human warrior) and it took me around 10 hours to complete the game. one tip for those

who will play single campaign, always use the cloak Mode. even if you are wearing a nanosuit, never engage in a firefight as much as pos-sible. You will have a hard time fin-ishing this game when you play like rambo. your armor mode on your nanosuit can only endure a limited amount of damage so use the visor mode often to scan the battlefield and present you with options.

MUlTIPlAYER – A NEW STEP IN THE FPS SCENE

Multiplayer mode is fun and challenging to play due to the fact that you have nanosuits with you. aside from the normal shooting skills that you have, you must also incorporate the advantages the nanosuit can give you. i like doing stealth kills because it really knifes your enemy rather than the melee action which is just hitting someone with the butt of your gun. Multi-player mode offers six types, eight game modifiers and thirteen maps. While this might get you excited, some multiplayer ranked servers are having issues like progress or stat tracking and games not starting or stuck in the lobby. at the time of writing this, crynet is now aware of the issues being reported and will fix this as soon as possible.

Well there you have it my game review for crysis 2. overall the game is very great despite the issues that it has encountered during its first week of release. I believe EA and crynet will not let this game down and attend to the issues as soon as possible. or else the game will be short-lived and worse we will not see a sequel coming.

Presentation 9.0graphics 9.5sound 9.0gameplay 9.0overall 9.0

i have, as a gamer, been playing Pc games for as long as i can remember. and up until this game came about, i do not exactly remember playing anything as unique as this.

Just imagine you, the playable character, the area where you have to play in, a portal gun and your common sense. that’s it. and it is by no means a walk in the park, either. not because you have no opponents to shoot at (and that is not possible because your portal gun only makes portals and only into walls) or tur-rets to avoid (okay, there are turrets that you do have to avoid… but they sound cuuute…) that the game itself can be completed in an hour.

no sir, that is not possible. but we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Portal 2 is the continuing saga of a well known test subject named chell and her tester or shall i say nemesis, glaDos and a host of other (weird?) characters inside the aper-ture science laboratories. What you do in the game is simply to go from point a to point b. simple? not in your lifetime.

Remember that you are to find

a way to go to the succeeding test chambers without getting yourself killed. Well, you can get killed in the game and start from the last save you made but in real life, getting killed is not an option in a true-to-life test chamber).

Portal 2 came after Portal (duh….Who would have guessed that?). at first you might say that Portal 2 is a sequel of the first game but I digress on that. When I first played Portal, you simply went from test chamber to test chamber and beyond, until you finished the game, right? If you have played the first game, you will notice that there is simply no back-ground on who you are, what the hell aperture science laboratories is and who the hell (sarcastic laughter) glaDos is?

that is answered in Portal 2 and in the process you must find a way to get your freedom from this (weird?) house. Without giving away too much of the game’s mechan-ics and story, Portal 2 attempts to introduce you to what really goes on inside aperture science labs, what happens and why.

the game is really simple. it is a puzzle solving game set in the first perspective or FPs shooter game. to those who play those FPs games all the time, the gameplay is familiar to you. What you see is the entire world (or the test chamber) as may be seen when viewing through the screen or

Portal 2

by Jonas Martinez aka redwing0001

a view finder of a video camera.in your possession is what is

called a portal gun. it is the only weapon that you will ever need in Portal 2. unlike most other shooter games, Portal 2 makes you think. yes, thinking. you need to think to be able to get to the next test cham-ber. the portal gun allows you to quite literally make a portal that you can enter in one area and come out of another area. there are multitude of uses for the portal gun.

it follows the laws of phys-ics, gravity, and acceleration and just about all of the other laws that newton thought about. in layman’s terms, the portal that you create al-lows you to jump across any chasm by falling into it if you created a portal at the base and another portal above you. When you fall into that portal at the base, the acceleration that you gain by falling will instant-ly translate into a forward momen-tum when you exit at the portal that you created above you. this will allow you to jump over gaps that you cannot normally cross over to. this is just one of the ways to use portals.

Based on sales data from Amazon.com, Portal 2 was the best-selling game in the united States in the first week of its release. It fell behind others, including Mortal Kombat, in its second week. According to NPD Group, Portal 2 was the second-best selling game in the u.S. in April 2011, at 637,000 copies, and the fourth-best selling in May.

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as you move forward deeper into the game you will find more ways to use portals.

But, as much as I find the game to be excellently done, there were quite a bit of problems with how valve distributed the game and the way they made it. Don’t take me wrong, the game was excellent, and it was comparable to the first game, it is just that when it was released, Portal 2 managed to crash at random times. you will never know when it will crash next until valve released an update to fix that crash and fix a few niggles here and there to make the game play even better.

And boy it did. After apply-ing the update, there were no more crashes. another thing that made me feel weird after playing the game was how they managed to tie the story with the background of aper-ture, who your were, how you got there, who your parents were, etc.

Like I said, unlike the first game where I was ecstatic when I finished the game without cheats or hacks, in Portal 2 I felt kind of flat after completing the game the first time. It was like; they wanted to end the Por-

tal 2 franchise right then and there.Why? Well, err….. no spoilers.

i will not tell… much.. hehe.. i just really felt flat when I finished it but the ending scenes were fun to watch, kind of sad actually. i dunno.

the voice acting of glaDos, her main antagonist and chief rival, Wheatley are spot on as well as the level design and well as the graphics and gameplay. When you play the game, there are scenes where the ac-tual size of aperture is shown, and it is extremely huge. sometimes i wonder how on earth they made this place underground if it was that big.

another new feature that Portal 2 was trying to drum up attention was the online multiplayer game-play. this places you as one of two robot test subjects, P-body or atlas and with an online companion you attempt to get to point B together this time, vis-à-vis the single-player gameplay.

you may ask why robots this time and not chell with another companion? Well, err….. spoiler… it is part of the single-player story on why in multiplayer the two robots are used. you just have to play the game and finish it to find out why. Hehe.

to round out my review, the last item to be reviewed is the controls of the game. Just like any FPs shooter, you can change any key assignment

and any game controller or game pad assignments (for the Pc) to your chosen or favorite key combo.

Just like any valve game, the graphics options is good enough, although the eye candy that you can see and will notice is quite limited since you are underground trying to escape (spoiler alert!!!!!).

you will not notice much eye candy during the time you play the game since you will be hard at work concentrating on how to finish this level.

oh and by the way, Portal 2 also features easter eggs. in various parts of the different levels, you will find areas and writings from what appear to be another human being. Who he is and what he is doing remains a mystery and that is what you will need to find out while completing the current test chamber.

sometimes there are clues that you will find in a particular level if there is a hidden area there. the key-word here is look around and see if there is something more than meets the eye in this room.

Finally, my rating. i would give this game an exceptional. not just because it is different but the over-all experience of this game is very positive. i really like the way they designed it, how you must think outside of the box to get to the next area, etc.

this is a unique and a very dif-ferent way to play an FPs game, and being a unique game, it stands alone in this kind of game design.

all games have its bad side and this game was no exception. ran-dom game crashes when the game was released kind of removed some of the hype that was generated at the start but, after the first update the

Exceptional... the overall experi-

ence of this game is very positive. I really like the way they de-signed it, how you must think outside of the box to get to the next area, etc.

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electronic arts sports has long had a hold on the boxing game genre. this year, ea sports has released the latest installment to the Fight night series - Fight night champi-on. the game deviates from the norm and as with risks, comes re-wards. the game wins in a lot of ways. as the game loads up, you’ll eventually realize a new world of virtual pain in the realm of boxing will un-fold. you now are tied up to a story, a grim and dark one at that, which is reminiscent of the rocky series sans the over dramatic predictable storyline.

You take control of a fictional boxer named Andre Bishop, fighting for dear life in prison. Flashback to a couple of years before, and you’d see how your character turns (though not of his own fault) from Mr. red, White and blue to Mr. What-the-hell-just-happened-here?

the story line is superb. you’d start of as the poster boy middle-weight newcomer, a promising one at that, framed up and thrown in prison, then on the path of redemp-tion. a few nuances here and there, but the game rounds up really well.

the game uses the Full spec-trum Punch control system, which is mapped out on the right control stick. You flick the RT button to

throw punches, which is way better than the total Punch control sys-tem of previous fight night games. A much better game mobility, as it does not alienate new players with cumbersome button combinations just to throw a simple straight jab. The Haymaker modifier has been upgraded to the Power modifier, which you need to press simultane-ously with the rt to throw heavy knockout punches. We also have single buttons dedicated for blocking and dodging.

overall, the controls are re-ally great. It’s not an issue of button mashing as you really need to map out a punching strategy. throw-ing a lot of punches depletes your stamina, but offer more points on your scorecard if they hit. throwing punches sporadically may work to your advantage, if you are the type to pick your shots. Mindless slugfest or the calculated strategy, your call,

game crash-stopped. this is what i call a game fix! With that, accolades should be given to the Portal 2 team at valve for quickly making and re-leasing a game fix that actually fixed the game.

now, this may sound like i am nitpicking but I did find most of the test chambers a tad too easy for me. take note this was the test chambers. outside the test chamber is another matter and you need some serious thinking on where to go. Just play the game so you know where these places are.

When i was in the last boss battle, I did not expect the ending to be like what i saw. i will refuse to tell you but it still one unique end-ing. Just play the game and you will see.

there is one more thing. in Portal 2 there is what is called gamer points. you unlock achievements by doing certain things and this will give you certain gamer points. you can use them to ‘hop-up’ your robot when playing multiplayer and can be redeemed at steam. you will need to have an internet connection and steam running at the same time to redeem your points.

one last, thing, though. is it just me or did I find the voice of GlaDOS very sexy?

Extremely, last thing. I still find the voice of the turrets very cuuuute although they can be annoying when they see you.

Final notes: the ending song was disappointing if you compare it with Portal 1’s but the ending scene more than made it up for it. i refuse to divulge the contents of the Portal 2 ending song nor will i explain what the ending scene was because it relates directly with your game objective…. Just finish the game and you’ll see what i mean.

Happy playing!

Fight night Champion

by Jonas Martinez aka redwing0001

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as you live and die with it. the game graphics looks abso-

lutely amazing. it’s really polished to a point where at times you’ll feel that you are watching a movie. the last fight in Champion mode looks stunning. there were a lot of times where isaac Frost looked and moved so real, i got sucker punched into a knockdown. even players wincing after a solid punch looked and felt so real. speaking of knockdowns, upon being stunned, the camera angles change and you hear a distinct whistling noise conveying the ac-curacy in capturing the brutality of the sport. you try as much to block punches or move away, lest you face the wrong side of the glove and end up on the mat. trying to get up is a bit tricky, but otherwise adds up to the realism of the game. you’d now know how it must have felt for Hatton after that commanding solid left hook from Pacman. One minor glitch i encountered was during the replay mode, where i saw andre’s arm look disfigured after throwing a left hook. Another concern is the referee always getting in the way of the camera. With the exception of the two, there are no other concerns i have with how the game looks or feels.

While the game is not a com-

plete different experience (it is still boxing), champion mode made the game stand out in the series. as you progress, you see yourself needing to complete tasks while in the game. there are times when you need to stay clear of throwing body punches to avoid being disqualified by a crooked referee, or when you need to use only your left hand to punch, or end up losing your right hand to a career ending injury. other situa-tions see yourself asked to survive a couple of rounds, stay away from a damaging left hook, protect a cut or throw only specific punches. While it seems constricting to follow checkpoints in the game, it does not hamper the overall satisfaction you get when you win the round. cut scenes are there to remind you of the story, but not abound, to get you shouting at the screen.

The characters are well defined. andre lives up to the role of the protagonist. Dl McQueen is your typical mean head honcho with a lot of unscrewed nuts in the head.

Don King seems like a nice old lady compared to this guy. gus carisi re-minds me of rocky’s trainer, the old guy with lots of knowledge with the occasional F bombs. isaac Frost plays the bad-guy bit to a tee. seeing him hulking over andre is reminiscent of Drago vs. rocky. your brother raymond as the resident heel, who needs saving after he signs with DL McQueen (the punches thrown to your sibling will be worth it, trust me). and Meagan McQueen, the rebellious daughter, who seemed to have the hots for andre, which works good for your character, as she ends up being andre’s handler. The characters are fleshed out really well, making for a solid story line. again, nothing over the top, but you get a feel that you are starring a lead role in a rocky movie. and you have to admit, you’d really want to star in your own boxing movie, right? thought so.

the roster of boxers is one of the biggest in the game. From your legends to your current champion

Champion mode made the game

stand out ... As you progress, you see yourself needing to complete tasks while in the game.

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boxers, the game has about 40 to 50 boxers in seven weight divisions. nice to see that nonito “the Filipino Flash” Donaire is in the game. al-though there are no other players in the bantamweight division, it doesn’t affect the game negatively. As with nonito wanting to move up, you can check if he has the talent to go head to head with the likes of billy Dib or even Manny Pacquiao. also, some of the great Mexican fighters were not included in the game. one concern i had was with unlockable characters. in order for you to unlock players, you need to go to Dr. Pepper’s web-site and key in the code in the cap of the beverage bottle you bought. two problems - one, there are no Dr. Pepper’s sold here in the Philippines. two, i have never tasted the drink. (it’s tastes like sarsi –editor) seri-ously, the second problem was that i have no knowledge of how to unlock the characters outside of the redemp-tion promo from Dr. Pepper’s. not a big concern really as again, you have 50 boxers to use. the character’s alter egos included in the storyline are the unlockable ones, so feel free to send me an e-mail if you know how to get them.

the venues for matches were staggering, but you’d like to see more real boxing venues other than the MgM grand. i caught one venue called the Metro Manila coli-seum, which felt flat. I guess it has something to do with licenses, but

wouldn’t the Araneta clan benefit from sponsoring a game like this one? and don’t get me started with ring entrances. as with previous games, they have yet to be defined per boxer. c’mon, who wouldn’t want to see Clottey jig it up on his way to the ring? they did it in smackdown versus raw, why not do it for Fight night? lest of course you really don’t want to hear Manny’s entrance song (Pilipino... Pilipino... Pilipino ang lahi ko!). even national anthems are scratched from the list. While most of us will skip the part, i feel that this could add up to the re-alism of the game. not that the game doesn’t, but it’s those little things that matter.

boxer share lets you create your boxers from scratch (or with a tem-plate, your call really). the mode is reminiscent of the MyPlayer mode on 2k, where you create your own player and make them either achieve great things, or make them fall flat on their faces.

the legacy mode lets you either import or create and train a new boxer, or use anyone from the roster. you can go with the template, or edit the boxer to your style. tenden-cies are not measured in points, but more of will he or will he not. like in Manny’s case, will he throw more left hooks or throw more rights? When you move into skills, you will then get to assign XPs to your boxer’s skills. You earn XP points by fight-

ing, much like the MyPlayer mode of 2k11. you can also import boxers from the roster, and these guys will be pitted against you as you go along. While the minigames are tedious at best, the satisfaction of getting your boxer up the ranks balances it out. Fight challenges within a game makes for an interesting time, again emulating 2k11’s MyPlayer mode. you complete the tasks, get points and then spend on your player.

training games let you concen-trate on which actual skill you want to develop or get accustomed with to your liking. you get points for each accomplished minigame, though this does not translate to XP points. it’s safe to say that this is just for brag-ging rights, either locally or online.

speaking of online, the game lets you challenge other players to matches which you or your oppo-nents define (3 KO rule etc.), through XboX live. the Fight night store lets you purchase items like gloves, box-ing shoes and the like. While online mode isn’t something i’ve grown to like because of the occasional lag, playing against another actual per-son still has its perks. be wary of the options you pick when trying to get out of a lagging ranked match.

overall this game is one of the better boxing games I’ve encoun-tered. characters, storyline, graphics, controls and roster are one of the best. It’s a must for boxing aficiona-dos who want to come close to the real thing, but are too afraid to lace up the gloves. While not a champion of 8 belts, Fight night champion is a champion in its current class. now… you and me buddy - let’s get ready to rumble.

Console: XboXgameplay: 9.0Storyline: 9.0graphics: 9.5Sounds: 9.5

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Face it. Music games are here to stay. Face it. there is a “rockstar” in every one of us. Whether you want to play the instruments or you just want to sing your heart out, being in a band is really awesome! the Rockband game series tends to fill in the musician in our hearts and with that, Harmonix is back with a third installment of the popular franchise for Ps3 and Xbox 360. With so many music games out there in the market today, how will rockband 3 compete with the rest?

GAMEPlAYJust like the previous install-

ments, you can play with different instruments in rockband 3. you may say that the franchise is just the same with other games out in the market today. but i don’t think so. as an addition for keyboard enthusiasts out there who wants to rock out with their friends, the latest installment introduces the keyboard as the new instrument.

it may not seem as cool as the other instruments that are avail-able within the game but it is a great addition to the lineup, and it’s tons of fun to play as well. there are a lot of keyboard-centric tracks here, and while the keyboard feels just as rewarding as the drums or guitar, certain sections of certain songs can be downright challenging. it may take a while for some players to get accustomed to the new peripheral but once you get the hang of it, enjoy to rock out even if you’re only hold-ing a plastic keyboard.

THE PRO MODEthe Pro Mode is a new mode in

rockband 3. you might be wonder-ing how this mode works. With this mode, the game lessens its focus about achieving high scores but con-centrates more on hitting the actual and real music notes. rather than merely matching up the now expect-ed colored boxes, Pro Mode tasks players with playing actual notes.

Some casual players may find this new mode a little unfriendly but for others, it might be a new chal-lenge for them that give them the feeling of playing the real thing. of course, the new Pro Mode comes at a price as it will require new instru-ments like the drum kit add-on and the new pro-mode guitar that features a whopping 102 buttons. this video game instrument has the ability to be used as a real guitar as well. For a guitar player like me, the Pro Mode definitely caught my at-tention and i am planning to get the new peripheral once it’s available in the Philippines.

as for the songs that are present in the new installment, you have a pretty solid list that is divided into 5 era’s. the wide array of artists that the game includes are from the likes of avenged sevenfold, Paramore,

smash Mouth, rammstein, the Po-lice, Queen all the way down to Jimi Hendrix.

With rockband 3, it’s no doubt that gamers can experience the music from the different eras of rock and roll, making the game suitable for gamers of different age ranges. you can also import your tracks from the previous rockband games to rack up your song selection (i have greenday rockband game and fortunately enough, all 47 songs have been carried over in rockband 3) and if you guys have either rock-band 1 or 2, you can also import it here (which of course for a small fee of $10) but hey, with a wide array of songs to choose from, you will never get tired of playing rockband 3. add up the weekly track packs available on the Psn or XboX live, you can add more songs to your list. Perfect for playing with your friends. or, you can also hook it up over the net and play with other musicians from the other parts of the globe. sweet.

ROCk TIll YOU DROPin addition to the new modes,

the tour mode from the previous versions have been replaced with road challenge and while both of them share a lot of similarities, they are quite different on their key aspects.

in tour Mode alone, you can play by yourself or with friends. Whether it is online or offline and al-lows you to make progress however you see it, the objectives are still the same regardless. you’ll start on like a real musician who is at the bottom of “rockstar” stardom. you then use local transportation to get from one set to another, but as you progress you’ll eventually get your band a van, tour bus and even a plane until you make it to the top of the charts. you can still play road challenges

Rock out with Rockband 3by Michael Angelo Gonzales aka mikel_popo

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Angry Birdsif you haven’t heard about angry birds before, we’ll give you a little information on it. the gameplay mechanics are simple. launch you’re little and cute angry birds by using the slingshot and score points for each of the little pig you will kill on the level and advance to the next level. sounds simple right? building your trajectory is the key factor here, well, plus a little patience of course.

as for the graphics and ani-mation in the iPad version, expect theme both first class. Add it up with little soundtrack that gives the game another air of silliness, and combine it with the gameplay that is fast, easy and smooth and you’ll have lots of fun playing the game. in the next minute or two, you will find your-self launching the next bird almost before the previous one has landed. you can replay playing levels if you want to achieve the perfect 3 star ranking for every one of it though be prepared also to be frustrated as

well if you don’t launch your projec-tiles properly.

the developer chillingo ltd promises updates in the future re-leases for both the iPhone and iPad. the main advantage of the iPad version is that of course, you’ll have a bigger screen and the graphics in HD is just about as crisp as it gets. unfortunately, the previous updates that was given to the iPad version had crashes but don’t worry folks by this time, they have already fixed the problem.

there is another angry birds available right now (angry birds Halloween) and for the same price, you can get this one as well.

online or even offline. When playing online, each and everyone can still accomplish their own set of goals, but the primary player advances on their career.

as for the goals that was men-tioned before, they are essentially various challenges that you are tasked to accomplish. this comes to certain tasks as playing certain amount of songs on a certain dif-ficulty level that it recommends or trying to hold overdrive for a set amount of time just to name a few. as you complete these goals, your character can earn new accessories and clothing options available for customization as well as achieve-ments.

Players can now drop in and drop out of gameplay as they wish, as well as being able to navigate menus for each player without dis-rupting the experience of others.

OVERAll IMPRESSIONrockband 3 has placed music

simulation games up a notch. While some casual player might not find some of the songs in the list quite popular, it still caters the audience of different ages and I’m pretty sure that each and everyone will find a song or two of their choice on the playlist. i had fun playing out Queen’s bohemian rhapsody and head-banged all the way to slip-knot’s rock and roll.

With over a thousand tracks waiting to be purchased and down-loaded in the rock band network store, and the addition of the almost pro-instruments that you can use to play, Harmonix has indeed given a breath of fresh air on a genre that has a lot of competition out there.

simply put, if you love music and playing video games is your kind of thing, rock band 3 is one game you don’t have to miss.

iPad Game Reviews by Michael Angelo Gonzales aka mikel_popo

nFL 2011 HDanother year of Football season once again and this is Gameloft’s second nFl title for the iPad. With an es-tablished competition from ea with the same game, how will Gameloft’s strategy survive with a franchise that has been an institution in the Foot ball industry? let’s see it.

First up, nFl 2011 had improved from the previous version. the graphics are good, the grass fells like the real grass and of course, you can play as your favorite teams and compete with the cPu. there is no multiplayer here and for that, the game somewhat losses a point. still, NFL manages to offer a lot to make up for that shortcoming.

the game uses just about every feature that can be found on the iPad. Whether it’s the touch screen to select the play you want to execute, start the move, control the run using the joystick control, up to picking the receiver and throwing or kicking the ball them, you have it all here. you can even use the tilt facility to shimmy and sidestep tacklers.

though the loading times are quite long, as you start the game, everything is good and expect lots of football action right until the last second of the game. nFl 2011 is a great football title that will be sure to

appeal to any iPad own-ers out there.

Fishing Kingsahoy there! Do you guys like to fish but is afraid to go off shore or better yet can’t afford to buy a yacht and all of the fish-ing equipments that you need? try out Fishing Kings HD on the iPad.

the rules are simple, catch fishes, accomplish tasks and upgrade your

fishing gear to catch more fish. There are a ton of species to fish spread out on several locations in the game

given an underwater view together with their lure selected. as the player tries to catch a fish, the player might take time to study the envi-ronment as well as if he’s getting the right fish or using the right lure to attract the fish. There are some cases that fishes would be popping out of nowhere and thus, makes the game a little bit weird. There were also times that fishes passes through each other, taking out the games realistic approach in fishing.

gameplay is simple enough and is easy to pick up and play. touch the screen to select where you want to throw your cast, flick the device and reel by spinning the reel icon,

tug to give the line a tug and then flick the iPad again to catch the fish. that’s it… Per-haps this is the core gameplay, easy to pickup but can get repetitive and boring as you play the game for quite some time.

in return, Gameloft compensated

this issue by throwing in other stuff to tinker with. the customization and patient casting has sometimes challenges and there are times that the player might find it challenging as well. there is a PDa that gives the player new missions and at some points, allows them to enter new tournaments.

If you are a fishing fan, you can give this game a try. at to moment in terms of graphics and quality, it is the best fishing game available in the app store at the moment.

on the iPad, the game looks great as compared to the previous iPhone release. the visual of the wa-ter, the scenery and the fishes were well done and looks almost realistic. The fishing characters maybe a little bit blocky to be completely passable, but they will be present as you cast the line and during measuring mo-ments.

there are sometimes problems on the graphics on the game (e.g. dodgy fish models) after the lure has been cast underwater, the players are

For Madden NFL 11 the fans were given the opportunity to vote for who would appear on the cover. The choices were Drew Brees, the quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, Jared Allen, the defensive end of the Minnesota Vikings and Reggie Wayne, the wide receiver of the Indianapolis Colts. Drew Brees pulled in the most votes and became the cover athlete.

For most of us, speaking in flu-ent English is effortless and we hear a good number of our

countrymen speak it often enough all over the archipelago. However, have you ever wondered why and how people who work in bPos, like call centers as well as service ori-ented jobs which require them to speak correctly and effectively, are able to communicate with foreigners without much difficulty?

unless a person grows up in an environment where english is spoken as the first language, speak-ing it fluently and writing skillfully will take a concerted effort on one’s part to master the language. so how does a person speak english cor-rectly? What should one do to speak correct english in order to speak effectively? There is only one way to master the english language. you start by learning how to use gram-mar properly.

the proper use of grammar in the english language contributes to your successful use of it. correct grammar lends credibility to written documents and dialogue; it demon-strates intelligence and eloquence. Moreover, grammar ensures your message is broadcast effectively and unambiguously. After all, if you’ve got something to say, you might as well say it clearly.

Having said that, what is the one essential part of grammar that will help a person speak english cor-rectly? in order to do that, one must first learn the uses of the verb, fol-

lowed by other parts of speech. the verb plays a very important role in a sentence. if you don’t use the verb properly, you would be confusing the people you speak to. the wrong use of an article or a preposition or any other part of speech might not ruin the sentence but the wrong use of a verb will definitely spoil it. I’ve actually heard someone say, “Why, what did you said, what did you

did?” instead of saying, “Why, what did you say, what did you do?” one thing that you want to avoid doing is subscribing to that fractured, broken english or worse, taglish that are spoken by our local celebrities and sadly the younger generation.

the english language plays a significant role in our professional and personal life. speaking it cor-rectly and effectively is a major

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cOMMUNITY GUIDEeffective

Communication 101 by Jonas Martinez

aka redwing0001

asset for any individual. Without an excellent grasp of english commu-nication skills, a person cannot and should not expect to advance signifi-cantly in his/her career.

in my opinion, the four impor-tant things that one can do to master english as a second language are:

1. listen. i can’t stress that often enough. For me, one has to spend as much time listening to other people speak english and the best way is through television shows. Make sure you watch the english news channels such as bbc and cnn; national geographic; the Discovery channel; travel & liv-ing aside from your favourite tv programs. remember the more you listen, the more you’ll understand, the more you understand, the more your grasp of english will improve and the easier it will be to under-stand foreigners who speak english with an accent.

2. Write. it will do wonders, trust me. i remember my professor in High school would make us copy at least three pages worth of news-paper or magazine articles daily but that was before the advent of mobile phones. unfortunately the major-ity of the texting public tend to send messages by spelling the words in shortened versions. For example: “Where are you?” becomes “Wru?” “good night” becomes “gud nyt”. even when writing e-mail, people now have the tendency to write this way. it will not help your writing skills if you constantly write; type or; compose e-mail or text messages this way. i know it is quite hard to avoid text speak as we call it, espe-cially in online forums, where text speak is not only frowned upon and is not allowed. you really have to spell and write the words properly. i call it the classical writing style or as they call in business schools, busi-

ness writing style. it will not help your work application if you do not write in a proper manner. Writing well and succinctly is very impor-tant when creating your curriculum vitae (cv) or resume. remember that the HR Officer who’s in charge of going through tons of cvs every time there is a job vacancy will not waste her time of day in resumes that are how many pages long. it’s important to point out here that Hr people prefer to receive a one page CV or resume that pretty much tells them what kind of worker you are and if you fit the description of the ideal candidate that they’re looking for so believe me, never sell yourself short. if you’re being considered for the job, Hr will call you for an inter-view. that’s the time to give them a detailed account of your work experiences.

3. read. Without reading, how can one learn to be adept in speak-ing and writing in english? though we might not realize it, our brain is like a sponge. it is capable of absorb-ing so much information. When we read, we learn how to use different words that has the same meaning or we pick up beautiful and exciting words that we never knew how to use in a sentence before. reading

helps us formulate our sentences in a better way due to the number of words and terms that our brain has picked up and stored. Knowledge is power, use it. continue to read and learn no matter how old you are.

4. Speak. Practice makes perfect so speak english constantly, even if you’re all alone in your room; just make sure your door’s lock! learn to pronounce the new words that you’ve picked up from listening to others and from reading books, newspapers or magazine articles, etc. say them out loud, say the words slowly so that you’ll know how many syllables a word has and where the emphasis should be when pronouncing it. When you feel comfortable enough, start using the words you’ve learned in conversa-tions with others. this is the only way for your communications skills to improve. During job interviews, the HR Officer will know how good your communication skills are. this means you have to listen carefully as well as answer the interviewer in a clear, concise business manner. if you do not listen to her questions well, you might answer in a lengthy manner when all she is asking for is just one small part of your reply. Wait for her to tell you to continue but usually when a person has mastered his communications skills, there is no need to go into lengthy details.

speaking and writing are not in-herited traits that you pass on from generation to generation. you learn it from an early age and acquire bet-ter and better skills as you progress from one level to another, just like in computer games so don’t over think each word, just go with the flow because if you follow the tips that i’ve given you, speaking english correctly and effectively will become second nature to you.

93

Reading helps us formulate

our sentences in a better way due to the number of words and terms that our brain has picked up and stored. Knowledge is power, use it.

As members of tPc, most of us should be frequent computer users. With the reign of the

internet and modern technology making the world a one huge global village; playing, surfing and work-ing on the computer for hours is very likely. However, everything has its own consequences and so the question is, can excessive usage of the computer be detrimental to our health?

EYE DISEASEProlonged computer use can

lead to glaucoma, especially among those who are short-sighted. if untreated, this condition may cause total blindness. our eyes are very badly affected by how long we stare at the bright screen. unconsciously, we stop blinking and start staring that tends to make our eyes strain and dry out. Make sure you look away from the screen and close them for a few seconds every few minutes. Avoid washing your face after a long computer usage and when your eyes are really tired, it’s high time that you turn off your computer and get some rest.

BAD POSTUREbad posture is your number one

enemy. using the computer for hours also means that we are sitting for hours making us slack off and forget about the correct posture. check your posture now! you should be able to reach the keyboard and

mouse while bending your elbows at 90 degrees, with your shoulders relaxed. if you are stretching and you’re uneasy, this could cause prob-lems. your back should be straight and the top of the monitor should be just below eye level. if your monitor is to the left or right of your keyboard you’ll be straining your neck so be sure that your body and your head are aligned. After using your PC, stretch your muscles a little bit in order to relax those strained muscles.

HURTING HANDSour hands are the only body

parts that exert a lot of movements when using the computer. there are times that they ache and feel numb after working on the computer all day. research in recent years has found that things like typing can cause carpal tunnel. this situation may lead to severe pain and surgery. If you find yourself excessively using the computer, wear splints while you work to keep your wrists from bending too high or low. also try to adjust the level of your chair so that the keyboard and mouse are below your elbows and your wrists are on the right position.

COMPUTER STRESS INJURIESthere are a lot of people who

suffer from physical and emotional stress by abusing their computer habits combined with bad posture when using it. there are chances that these kinds of people may have experienced a fair amount of com-puter stress from minor frustrations here and there to a virtual visit to computer hell. Make no mistake, high levels of stress can harm and even kill you!

Highly stressed workers and gamers have a higher risk of de-veloping heart diseases and even

cancer. if you want to live a longer, healthier life, make sure that you learn to manage stressful people as well as stressful situations. start doing things that will help reduce it and don’t wait for your computer usage to become your archnemesis. take frequent breaks. this is an important tip to prevent repetitive computer stress injuries. every-thing that is abused is not good so it’s always best to moderate your computer usage. if certain rules of using computer are observed, the risk from any of these problems can be minimized. Don’t let 21st century technology stop you from having an active lifestyle. sure, the being online on and surfing the net has made life a whole lot easier and ev-ery single thing is virtually available within one’s reach. However, that doesn’t mean that we invest three-quarters of our time in the online world. give yourself a break. go outside and have some outdoor fun socializing with friends or your very own Jill over a pale of beer! you can even go tumbling after depending how you perceive it.

Go back to work or play after you really feel reenergized. no need to hurry up unless you’re using a prepaid dongle. Personally, i drink a tall glass of ice cold orange juice after taking a long refreshing cold shower. Feeling light in body and mind is the key to a productive work and badass gaming.

Health & technology: top 4 Pains while surfing the Internet

by Erwin Kim aka SYSTEMS_MANAGER

Take frequent breaks. This is

an important tip to prevent repetitive computer stress injuries.

94 cOMMUNITY GUIDE

At the tipidPc virus and spy-ware removal thread , one of the most common questions

asked by users when cleaning Mal-ware is that “how did i get infect-ed?”. there are a number of factors, but one of the common factors is that you are not practicing safe internet, you are running outdated security software, and that your security set-tings are too low.

PRACTICING SAFE INTERNETyou practice safe internet when

you educate yourself on how to properly use the internet through the use of security tools and good practice. Knowing how you can get infected and what types of files and sites to avoid will be the most crucial step in keeping your computer malware free. the reality is that the majority of people who are infected with malware are ones who click on things they shouldn’t be clicking on.

1. DO NOT OPEN any attach-ment from someone you do not know. it is a common method for worms and viruses to infect your computer.

2. If you receive an attachment from someone you know, and it looks suspicious, then it probably is. the e-mail could be from someone you know infected with a malware that is trying to infect everyone in their address book.

3. ignore any popups saying that you are infected while brows-ing, some popups masquerade as a Windows alert. click X instead of the OK button

4. be cautious on clicking links

from instant Message programs and social networking sites. Mes-sage back to the person to ask if it is legitimate before clicking it.

5. stick to major downloading sites if you are downloading soft-ware. some sites disguise malware as legitimate software to trick you into installing them.

6. uPDate Windows regularly. ensure that you have the latest patches and updates installed. in-stall any critical update immediately. http://www.windowsupdate.com/

7. Update your Antivirus soft-ware at least once a week. it will be able to catch any of the new variants that may come out.

8. Use a firewall. A router de-

Practicing safe Internet Habits

fends against outside attacks. But some types of malware - such as worms, trojan horses, and spyware - work from within. you need a Pc-based software firewall to stop them.

9. install an antispyware pro-gram. it will provide spyware and hijacker protection on your computer alongside your virus protection.

10. update all these programs regularly. Without regular updates, you Will not be protected when new malicious programs are re-leased.

Follow this list and your po-tential for being infected again will reduce dramatically.

95cOMMUNITY GUIDE

by Gabriel Quidilla aka ParticleX with the TipidPC Virus and Spyware Removal Team

MabuHey! Just wanted to let you guys know that we, in tipidpc.com spend a lot

of our time and energy in making sure that we not only keep up, but stay ahead of the game so recently, we hosted a number of surveys from our members as to their preferred brands, manufacturers and makers of Pc and parts. it is a simple question of popularity among the community, some of which have results that rep-resents the majority of our members. let the numbers show what many of us want on top of our computer table and the insides of our rig. With over 80,000 active members worldwide, we in tipidPc are convinced that you too will become firm believers in our members’ preferences. We hope the data provided below offers you some keen insights into the power and breadth of their choices.

asrock 9.35% 395asus 41.53% 1755ecs 4.59% 194emaxx 6.34% 268Foxconn 1.14% 48gigabyte 19.36% 818Msi 14.96% 632others 2.74% 116 total votes 4,226

conclusion: our surveys show the following:

1. graphics Card makers: Palit leads the pack at 21.46%! established in 1988, Palit Microsystems is a world-leading supplier in the design, manufacture, and distribution of Pc graphics accelerators.

asus 10.78% 397evga 8.69% 320gigabyte 3.67% 135inno3D 19.07% 702Msi 9.07% 334Palit 21.46% 790Powercolor 7.52% 277sapphire 11.57% 426XFX 5.87% 216others 2.31% 85 total votes 3,682

tipidPC Community survey

ati 49.75% 1682nvidia 48.95% 1655others 1.30% 44 total votes 3,381

aMD system 54.36% 1747intel system 40.32% 1296Mac 5.32% 171 total votes 3,214

96

2. motherboard Brand: Most preferred is asus at 41.53%. the asus P8P67 Pro seems to be the most viable choice for constructing gaming rigs.

3. Video Card Chip maker: topping the survey by a very slim margin at 49.75%, ati maintains research and development facilities in canada and the united states, manufacturing is done in taiwan as well as Canada, and sales offices are located throughout the americas, europe, and asia.

cOMMUNITY GUIDE

XFX

Others

Palit

PowerColor

Sapphire

Gi b t

Inno3D

MSI

Asus 

eVGA 

Gigabyte

0.00% 5.00% 10.00% 15.00% 20.00% 25.00%

Preferred Graphics Card Maker

MSI

Others

Foxconn

Gigabyte

ECS

Emaxx

Asrock

Asus

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00%

Preferred Motherboard Maker

OthersOthers

nVidia

ATI

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00%

Preferred Video Card Chipmaker

MacMac

Intel System

AMD System

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00%

Favorite Rig

4. rig: survey shows that the aMD system is the top choice when it comes to favorite rigs at 54.36%. aMD systems ltd was formed in 1990 to provide high quality solu-tions for the transmission of video, audio and data signals over optical fibre. The Directors and R&D team provide a wealth of experience in the design and development of top quality, high reliability, opto-elec-tronic systems. this expertise has been exploited to produce the most comprehensive and innovative range of video, audio and data transmis-sion products available in the market today.

this survey shows that brands, manufacturers and makers of Pc and parts can no longer afford to overlook opportunities such as the kind of valuable service that tip-idPc.com has done for them. Data shows insights to the filipino con-sumer preference on Pcs, which we hope they use as reference to con-tinually improve their products.

For consumers, surveys such as this allow them to make bet-ter choices and get better value for their money. so what are you folks waiting for, get online and join the tipidPc community survey!

Yes, sign me up today!

Alexander House Bldg. Rm. 502 #132 Amorsolo Street Legaspi Village, Makati City

Issue #3 - TipidPC magazine ( December 2011 )

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"

In its many different forms, Malware poses one of the big-gest threats and major source of

excessive downtime to internet users nowadays. MALicious softWARE or simply Malware is a term coined for different unwanted and malicious software. Viruses, worms, Trojan horses, scareware, spyware are clas-sifications of Malware. With just a single click of the mouse, an inter-net user can unknowingly get their Pcs infected. each time you plug a flash drive or connect to the internet, always bear in mind that tHere is ALWAYS A RISK involved of getting corrupted. even if you’re running a complete suite of computer security solution, in 99 times out of 100, the user’s own behavior turns out to be the source of unwanted Malware software.

Not running any security soft-ware is a bit like driving without a seatbelt. Oftentimes you can drive into the highways for miles without a problem, but there are uncertain factors that may cause an accident. the same holds true in the comput-ing world itself. a combination of firewalls, antivirus, antispyware, and antispam solutions, coupled with a security-savvy user, will make the computer immune to most attacks but even then, a well-moti-vated hacker could still break into a system regardless of your defenses. Here are the reasons why most com-puters are infected:

1. rogue security programs are among the fastest growing types of malware. usually, pop-up a window

will warn you that your system is infected and you need to act now. Terrified, a not so savvy user will click into the popup and will opt to install the rogue software. The pro-gram guides the user to the steps for him to purchase the product, which in turn not only steals the user’s credit card account, but he also gets infected with a program that pop-ups annoying windows and steals information at the same time.

3. Drive-by downloads on gam-bling, warez, porn, keygen and crack sites are one of the causes of infec-tions. searches for serial numbers, cracks, and security products come in the form of executable or self-extracting files. When these files are opened, the system is infected. ban-ners on these kinds of sites are also infected-laden.

How Did My PC Get Infected With Malware?

by Gabriel Quidilla aka ParticleX

social engineering is used by these malware writers into tricking you to install their programs to your computer in order to gain unauthor-ized access to systems or informa-tion in order to commit fraud, net-work intrusion, industrial espionage, identity theft, or simply to disrupt the system or network. rogue software, phishing, and pharming, are examples of by-products of social engineering, which we will cover later.

2. Bugs and unpatched security holes are exploited by malware writ-ers to infect a system. since it takes hours or even days for a company to discover and create a solution, you may already be infected by then. the exploits may also be used to install other malware. updating all software, therefore, is a must for every computer.

An example of a rogue anti-spyware application

Windows update window on a Windows 7 PC

4. links to websites can exploit security holes in your web browser. With the boom of url shortening services, spammers and virus writ-ers take advantage by tricking users to clicking links linking to danger-ous websites. it is best not to click a shortened link. if you must, just open the links in a sandbox environ-ment.

5. E-mail attachments end-ing with an .exe, .com, .bat, or .pif from unknown sources could be malicious and install trojan horses,

Key generators (keygens) are one of the common infectors

98

TEcH GUIDE

worms, and viruses that will use your address book to gather e-mail addresses and spread it to others.

6. Masked file extensions can fool a user into thinking that a file is safe. Malware writers simply name the file in such a way to make it appear as a harmless one. Windows installations do not show the true file extension by default.

websites that masquerade and appear to be legitimate sites. it uses spoofed emails to trick respondents to enter sensitive, personal and financial informa-tion that can be used for identity

theft. The user is redirected to a spoofed site that asks to update his informa-tion such as passwords, user names, e-mail, credit card and bank account numbers that

bogus site will likely look the same as the legitimate website. However, when users enter their account details, the information is captured by hackers. it is accomplished by Domain name system poisoning or DNS spoofing which directs the user to the fraudulent iP address of the hacker instead of the iP address that the user types in on his browser.

For example, you type in tip-idPc into your browser but instead of being directed to tipidPc server, you are sent to a fraudulent site that looks like tipidPc that is actually controlled by the hacker. instead of the tPc cube logo, the site displayed a video of rick astley’s never gonna give you up. and even if risk astley is safe, i myself would imme-diately think of his music as a virus,

10. Finally, be careful when backing up infected files as it is a source for re-infection. back up docu-ments, photos, videos, data files; to a CD/DVD drive

(not a removable drive as they can be infected). a safe way to backup is to not include any executable and script files because they might be infected with malware. avoid back-ing up compressed files that have executables inside them as some types of malware can penetrate into compressed files and infect them.

7. Flash drives can also infect a system. according to a comput-erWorld article, one in every eight malware attack comes from a USB device. A Malware modifies a file called autorun.inf along with the malicious executable file. Once the removable media is inserted, the system is already infected. Win-dows 7 made an important change to autoplay so that removable devices would not automatically infect the system.

It pays to know your file extensions

8. phishing are fraudulent

An innocent-looking flash drive could wreck havoc to a system

Fake page of a legitimate bank

the legitimate organization already has. you can spot a phishing e-mail with poor grammar, asking for an “update” to your account, and bogus link to the legitimate web site.

9. an evil clone of Phishing, Pharming is a redirection of a web-site’s traffic to a bogus website. The

Two examples of spoofed DNS servers

99

This is the continuation to the Photographic Composition series from the previous issue. The topics that follow are the different Principles in Photographic Composition.

1. CENTER OF INTERESTA picture should have a principal idea or interest

to attract the viewer’s eyes. Supporting elements in a picture can balance the attention.

Don’t make it too puzzling to the viewer by putting in more than one dominant center of interest, then becomes confusing. Having one dominant “point of interest,” the picture is easily understood.

A topic, idea or object to be portrayed must be set as you prepare to take a picture. The eyes wander throughout the scene and look for a particular subject. It maybe a single or multiple objects directed to a definite area.

When the center of interest is a single object that fills most of the picture area or one that stands out boldly, attention is attracted immediately to it.

Elements that can be used and arranged within the picture area to draw or direct attention to the primary idea of the picture. Example are lines, shapes, human figures, tone, and texture.

2. SUBJECT PLACEMENTIn photographic composition there are two general

guides for determining the best location for the center of interest.

The first is the principle of thirds. The other is dynamic symmetry. In the principle of thirds, the intersection of lines that divide the picture area into thirds are marked by O’s. These intersections are good locations for the center of interest in most photographs. Have only one center of interest to a picture-keep it simple.

The principle of dynamic symmetry is a similar idea. A good location for the center of interest is found by drawing or imagining a diagonal line from one corner to an opposite corner. Then, draw a second line perpendicular to the first from a third corner. The intersections of the lines are the location for the center of interest.

3. SIMPLICITYSimplicity is key in our pictures. The simpler and more direct

a picture is, the clearer and stronger is the resulting image. Instead of photographing an entire area that would confuse the viewer, frame in on some important element within the area. Check to see there is nothing objectional in the foreground to block the entrance of the human eye into the picture.

PhotographicComposition

by Raymund Daquioag

This is the continuation to the Photographic Composition series from the previous issue. The topics that follow are the different Principles in Photographic Composition.

1. CENTER OF INTERESTA picture should have a principal idea or interest

to attract the viewer’s eyes. Supporting elements in a picture can balance the attention.

Don’t make it too puzzling to the viewer by putting in more than one dominant center of interest, then becomes confusing. Having one dominant “point of interest,” the picture is easily understood.

A topic, idea or object to be portrayed must be set as you prepare to take a picture. The eyes wander throughout the scene and look for a particular subject. It maybe a single or multiple objects directed to a definite area.

When the center of interest is a single object that fills most of the picture area or one that stands out boldly, attention is attracted immediately to it.

Elements that can be used and arranged within the picture area to draw or direct attention to the primary idea of the picture. Example are lines, shapes, human figures, tone, and texture.

2. SUBJECT PLACEMENTIn photographic composition there are two general

guides for determining the best location for the center of interest.

The first is the principle of thirds. The other is dynamic symmetry. In the principle of thirds, the intersection of lines that divide the picture area into thirds are marked by O’s. These intersections are good locations for the center of interest in most photographs. Have only one center of interest to a picture-keep it simple.

The principle of dynamic symmetry is a similar idea. A good location for the center of interest is found by drawing or imagining a diagonal line from one corner to an opposite corner. Then, draw a second line perpendicular to the first from a third corner. The intersections of the lines are the location for the center of interest.

3. SIMPLICITYSimplicity is key in our pictures. The simpler and more direct

a picture is, the clearer and stronger is the resulting image. Instead of photographing an entire area that would confuse the viewer, frame in on some important element within the area. Check to see there is nothing objectional in the foreground to block the entrance of the human eye into the picture.

PhotographicComposition

by Raymund Daquioag

High Viewpoint

Low Camera Angle

The primary object is the reason the picture is being made in the first place; therefore, all other elements should merely support and emphasize the main object. Do not allow the scene to be cluttered with confusing elements and lines that detract from the primary point of the picture.

4. VIEWPOINT AND CAMERA ANGLERepositioning your subject within the viewfinder frame and

changing the camera viewpoint or camera angle are two simple ways of controlling composition.

Photographing from a different viewpoint or camera angle can often add drama and excitement or even bring out an unusual aspect of a subject. The photographer should study the subject from different sides and angles. Walk around the subject and look at it from all viewpoints. See it from elevated and low positions as well as from eye level to find the best composition. This greatly assists in composing the subject for the best balance and helps to select a background that compliments, not distracts from the subject.

Eye-Level ShotsWith the camera held horizontal, eye-level shots are usualIy

made at a height of about 5 1/2 feet, the height from which the average adult sees, and with the camera horizontal. With the camera held at eye level but pointed up or down, the camera position changes and you have either a low or high camera angle, respectively.

Low Viewpoint and Low Camera AngleLow viewpoints and low camera angles can add emphasis and

interest to many ordinary photographs. A low viewpoint can be used to distort scale or add strength to a picture or to emphasize certain elements within the picture. A low camera angle shots are done when the camera is located below the point of primary interest and pointed upward. This type of shot is very useful for separating the subject from the background, for eliminating unwanted foreground and background, and for creating the illusion of greater size.

High Viewpoint and High Camera AngleHigh viewpoints and high camera angles help orient the viewer,

because they show relationships among all elements within the picture area and produce a psychological effect by minimizing the apparent strength or size of the subject.

5. BALANCEBalance in photographic composition is a matter of making

pictures look harmonious. Each element in a picture has a certain amount of value in respect to all the other elements. Every tone, mass, shape, tree, rock figure, building, line, or shadow contributes a certain amount of weight that must be arranged correctly in the composition to give the impression of balance. The subject placement within the picture area is the factor that must be carefully considered.

aka aresdi

High Viewpoint

Low Camera Angle

The primary object is the reason the picture is being made in the first place; therefore, all other elements should merely support and emphasize the main object. Do not allow the scene to be cluttered with confusing elements and lines that detract from the primary point of the picture.

4. VIEWPOINT AND CAMERA ANGLERepositioning your subject within the viewfinder frame and

changing the camera viewpoint or camera angle are two simple ways of controlling composition.

Photographing from a different viewpoint or camera angle can often add drama and excitement or even bring out an unusual aspect of a subject. The photographer should study the subject from different sides and angles. Walk around the subject and look at it from all viewpoints. See it from elevated and low positions as well as from eye level to find the best composition. This greatly assists in composing the subject for the best balance and helps to select a background that compliments, not distracts from the subject.

Eye-Level ShotsWith the camera held horizontal, eye-level shots are usualIy

made at a height of about 5 1/2 feet, the height from which the average adult sees, and with the camera horizontal. With the camera held at eye level but pointed up or down, the camera position changes and you have either a low or high camera angle, respectively.

Low Viewpoint and Low Camera AngleLow viewpoints and low camera angles can add emphasis and

interest to many ordinary photographs. A low viewpoint can be used to distort scale or add strength to a picture or to emphasize certain elements within the picture. A low camera angle shots are done when the camera is located below the point of primary interest and pointed upward. This type of shot is very useful for separating the subject from the background, for eliminating unwanted foreground and background, and for creating the illusion of greater size.

High Viewpoint and High Camera AngleHigh viewpoints and high camera angles help orient the viewer,

because they show relationships among all elements within the picture area and produce a psychological effect by minimizing the apparent strength or size of the subject.

5. BALANCEBalance in photographic composition is a matter of making

pictures look harmonious. Each element in a picture has a certain amount of value in respect to all the other elements. Every tone, mass, shape, tree, rock figure, building, line, or shadow contributes a certain amount of weight that must be arranged correctly in the composition to give the impression of balance. The subject placement within the picture area is the factor that must be carefully considered.

Formal balanceThere are basically two types of balance in photography. The first is formal balance, also called symmetrical balance. It is when one or more identical or similar subjects are repeated symmetrical on each sides of a given point. The formal balance is most often recognized by subjects that are uniform in shape.

Informal balanceThe second type, informal balance or so called asymmetrical balance is when one or more dissimilar elements are balancing on each side of a given point. Informal balance is less obvious because the subjects are not uniform. A well made image using informal balance is more appealing to the viewer compared to a symmetrical composed image. If you have a large object in the image it should be counter balanced with a smaller object or objects to make a good composition. Use of asymmetrical balance is more challenging and requires more artistic skill and training to do well compared to symmetrical composition.

Radial balanceThere is also a third type of balance in photography – radial balance. This is when all the elements of the design “radiate” from a center point in a circular fashion. Radial balance is a great way to lead the eye into the focal point in the center of the ad.Understanding the factors required to create

pictorial balance is essential for you to produce good pictures. To gain this understanding, you can continually test your feelings for balance as you look through your camera viewfinder. Once you gain an understanding of the principles of pictorial balance, achieving balance in your photographs becomes an easy process.

6. SHAPES AND LINESShapes and lines are important elements in

photographic composition and when properly used, it can create a desired effect. As a photographer, you usually have control over the way shapes and lines are used in your pictures.

ShapeShape is a two-dimensional element basic to picture composition and is

usually the first means by which a viewer identifies an object within the picture. Form is the three-dimensional equivalent of shape. Even though shape is only two-dimensional, with the proper application of lighting and tonal range, you can bring out form and give your subjects a three-dimensional quality. Lighting can also subdue or even destroy form by causing dark shadows that may cause several shapes to merge into one.

Shapes can be made more dominant by placing them against plain contrasting backgrounds. The greatest emphasis of shape is achieved when the shape is silhouetted, thus eliminating other qualities of the shape, such as texture and roundness, or the illusion of the third dimension.

LinesLines can be effective elements of composition, because they give structure

to your photographs. Lines can unify composition by directing the viewer’s eyes and attention to the main point of the picture or lead the eyes from one part of the picture to another. They can lead the eyes to infinity, divide the picture, and create patterns.

Lines that lead the eye or direct attention are referred to as leading lines. A good leading line is one that starts near the bottom corner of the scene and continues unbroken until it reaches the point of interest.

Vertical, diagonal, horizontal, and curved lines create different moods. Vertical lines communicate a sense of strength, rigidity, power, and solidarity to the viewer. Horizontal lines represent peace, tranquillity, and quietness.

Diagonal lines represent movement, action, and speed. A picture with diagonal lines conveys a feeling of dynamic action even when the subject is static. Curved lines present a sense of grace, smoothness, and dignity to a photograph. The most common curved line is the S curve.

Lines are not only present in the shape of things but can be created by arranging several elements within the picture area so they form lines by their relationship with one another.

Left image: sample of shapes

Right image:sample of lines

Symmetrical balance

. . . to be continued on next issue >

Formal balanceThere are basically two types of balance in photography. The first is formal balance, also called symmetrical balance. It is when one or more identical or similar subjects are repeated symmetrical on each sides of a given point. The formal balance is most often recognized by subjects that are uniform in shape.

Informal balanceThe second type, informal balance or so called asymmetrical balance is when one or more dissimilar elements are balancing on each side of a given point. Informal balance is less obvious because the subjects are not uniform. A well made image using informal balance is more appealing to the viewer compared to a symmetrical composed image. If you have a large object in the image it should be counter balanced with a smaller object or objects to make a good composition. Use of asymmetrical balance is more challenging and requires more artistic skill and training to do well compared to symmetrical composition.

Radial balanceThere is also a third type of balance in photography – radial balance. This is when all the elements of the design “radiate” from a center point in a circular fashion. Radial balance is a great way to lead the eye into the focal point in the center of the ad.Understanding the factors required to create

pictorial balance is essential for you to produce good pictures. To gain this understanding, you can continually test your feelings for balance as you look through your camera viewfinder. Once you gain an understanding of the principles of pictorial balance, achieving balance in your photographs becomes an easy process.

6. SHAPES AND LINESShapes and lines are important elements in

photographic composition and when properly used, it can create a desired effect. As a photographer, you usually have control over the way shapes and lines are used in your pictures.

ShapeShape is a two-dimensional element basic to picture composition and is

usually the first means by which a viewer identifies an object within the picture. Form is the three-dimensional equivalent of shape. Even though shape is only two-dimensional, with the proper application of lighting and tonal range, you can bring out form and give your subjects a three-dimensional quality. Lighting can also subdue or even destroy form by causing dark shadows that may cause several shapes to merge into one.

Shapes can be made more dominant by placing them against plain contrasting backgrounds. The greatest emphasis of shape is achieved when the shape is silhouetted, thus eliminating other qualities of the shape, such as texture and roundness, or the illusion of the third dimension.

LinesLines can be effective elements of composition, because they give structure

to your photographs. Lines can unify composition by directing the viewer’s eyes and attention to the main point of the picture or lead the eyes from one part of the picture to another. They can lead the eyes to infinity, divide the picture, and create patterns.

Lines that lead the eye or direct attention are referred to as leading lines. A good leading line is one that starts near the bottom corner of the scene and continues unbroken until it reaches the point of interest.

Vertical, diagonal, horizontal, and curved lines create different moods. Vertical lines communicate a sense of strength, rigidity, power, and solidarity to the viewer. Horizontal lines represent peace, tranquillity, and quietness.

Diagonal lines represent movement, action, and speed. A picture with diagonal lines conveys a feeling of dynamic action even when the subject is static. Curved lines present a sense of grace, smoothness, and dignity to a photograph. The most common curved line is the S curve.

Lines are not only present in the shape of things but can be created by arranging several elements within the picture area so they form lines by their relationship with one another.

Left image: sample of shapes

Right image:sample of lines

Symmetrical balance

. . . to be continued on next issue >

Where the Filipino Mobile Phone Enthusiasts Converge

TRADING SWAPPING FORuM COMMuNITY

~ Never before in history has innovation offered promise of so much, to so many in so short a time. ~

Bill Gates

The advent of technology has brought with it a lot of advan-tages in our daily lives. one

of the most integral part of it is the computer. The benefits that we can derive from the computer are im-mense and it has become a part of our daily lives from home to school, work and even at play. today i’m going to introduce a technology that is coming here in our country to revolutionize client solutions in their different business environment. Diskless a.K.a. (diskless node or workstation) is a technology that has lots of benefits for network comput-ers.

DISklESS WORkSTATION OR HYBRID ClIENT

Diskless workstation as the name implies, is a computer or a workstation that has no hard disk. it uses a network for booting the os and storage. all the data is central-ized in a network file server or SAN (storage area network) storage.

the technology is not really new because it was developed way back when in the mainframe era when large corporation utilized dumb terminal for thin-clients operations. However, it has evolved. Previ-ous diskless workstations or dumb

terminal draws all the processing power from the mainframe or server, making it not feasible for applica-tions which hunger for cPu resourc-es and memory.

the current generation of diskless computing draws all their processing power from their native hardware making it possible to run heavy duty application limited only by the capability of the workstations hardware. the speed of opening files or saving data to the storage is dependent on the centralized server hardware and the design of the local area network (lan).

below is a summary of compari-son:

A comparison table of the clients

HOW DOES IT WORkSthe operating system (os) for

a diskless node is loaded from a server, using network booting. in some cases, removable storage may be used to initiate the bootstrap process, such as a USB flash drive, or other bootable media such as a floppy disk, CD or DVD. However, the BIOS firmware in many modern computers can be configured to use PXe boot and begin the boot up pro-cess automatically, without the need to insert bootable media.

After the bootstrapping process, all the hard disk data operation are virtualized and translated to net-work protocol (iscsi) for communi-cation between the client and server

making the client’s os unaware that it is not running on hard disk.

all the data that is required to be written to the hard disk in the cli-ent will first be written in a portion of the client’s raM disk and sent back to the server as a write-cache or copy-on-Write (coW) method.

the write-cache or coW has the functionality of being persistent or volatile. in persistent mode, all the data written will be permanent across reboot. in volatile mode, data or modification to the systems will not be intact across reboot of the cli-ent, making the client functioning as a kiosk.

All the clients can be configured to boot different boot images and

Maybe one day, all computers

will not need hard disk anymore. It will be booted straight from the internet which Google is pioneering....

104

Diskless Workstations: A promising technology for Filipinos

by Fai Ernisle Chancontributors: Irymarc Gutierrez,

Sam Hong, Stephen Lee

TEcH GUIDE

THIN ClIENT

• Needs connection on a central server

• Cheap Hardware

• Significant investment needed for central server

• Provides rick functionality independent of a central server

• Better multimedia performance

• Needs connection on a central server

• All data storage is centralized

• Same multimedia performance as Fat Client

FAT ClIENT DISklESS

NoLocal hard disk usage

SuMMARY

NoYesNoLocal General-Purpose

Processing usedYesYes

maintain separate volatile or persis-tent mode profile, making manage-ment of computers easier for admin-istrator.

PROS AND CONS OF A DISklESS ClIENT

Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages this technology could bring in a business environ-ment.

pros• Reduce Costs on Hardware

and electricity - Perhaps one of the most advantageous things it can do for your business environment is save the cost of investing and upgrading your hard disk over and over. it also saves power consump-

tion since you are not using any hard disk which reduces the overall temperature of the room requiring lesser air-conditioning.

• Reduce Cost on Anti-Virus Protection - the internet and third party software/malware are major sources of virus infections. you will only need to protect your server with a good antivirus. thus, you save money on buying license for all the clients.

• Centralized Data Storage and backup - this is certainly good news for all data administrators and tech-nicians. in case of corruption or any such disaster occurring, back-ups are centralized and easily recovered.

• Simple Update- If ever there is a need to update or install new

software, you will only need to spend time on one computer and all the updates are replicated to all the clients.

• Resource Sharing - All avail-able resources on your diskless network can be accessed and shared to all the users (cDroMs, HDDs, printers, etc), admin permitting.

Cons• Server dependent - If the

server went down, the client’s Pcs will be down as well. this is the most risky part for the diskless tech-nology

• Consumes network bandwidth – The entire client’s data I/O are transferred through network, caus-ing congestion on a poorly designed lan.

REMEDIES FOR CONS redundancy – Having a re-

dundant server will help minimize downtime.

gigabit network and network segmentation – one of the work-arounds for the bandwidth is to use gigabit network to minimize the network congestion.

WHAT’S INTO THE FUTURE? there has already been work

in progress to bring Diskless com-puting to the next step, integrating cluster computing technology into the diskless network, making it future proof for hardware upgrade requirements.

Maybe one day, all computers will not need hard disk anymore. it will be booted straight from the inter-net which google is pioneering. now that’s something to ponder upon.

For more info:http://www.diskless.ph sales@diskless.ph922-6754

105TEcH GUIDE

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