Firefox 3.0 is Coming on Tuesday, 17 June 2008

Mozilla Developer Center made the announcement on 11 June, saying, “After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17^th”.

Coinciding with this event, Mozilla is also pursuing a campaign to hit Guinness World Record for the most software downloads in 24 hours.

Remember, however, if you want your participation to be counted in the “Download Day" campaign, you must download the complete version of Firefox 3.0. Updating your previous versions from beta or release candidates will not make your action officially counted. Moreover, if you are serious on taking part in this “would be” record event; you can simply hop to Download Day Headquarters. You will also receive a customized certificate by downloading your Firefox 3.0 copy from this site.

But why would I download the new version?

Well, reports revealed the new version has more than 15,000 improvements. Firefox 3.0 is faster, safer and smarter than before. In fact, Firefox 3.0 is already enjoying nearly 1.3M in total pledges from around the world, as of this post, due to these anticipated features.

What do you think?

I guess, this is going to be extremely exciting for Firefox fanatics like us.

Well folks, go ahead, calendar this day and be among the first few recipients of these new and powerful improvements of the web’s best browser.

Oh YES! Do something good. Spread the word and help other people enjoy web surfing to the next level.

NOTE:Time is fixed on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 at 10:00 AM San Francisco time, i.e. Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 1:00 AM Manila, Philippines time.

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Urduja and The First Filipino Full-length Animated Movie

Urduja (ca. 1350 C.E - 1400 C.E.) is a valiant warrior and woman ruler of Kaylukari city in the land of Tawalisi in Pangasinan (located on the west central area of the island of Luzon along the Lingayen Gulf) during the 14th century. Tawalisi is believed to be a kingdom with very extensive expanse that included the vast areas up to the fringes of the Benguet mountains and the Cordillera ranges in the east of Luzon.

Her legendary existence, however, remained the subject of argument by historians up to this day in time since the only first-hand documented story given for her through the travelogue of Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan born, Islamic lawyer turned writer, is not well accepted in view of the fact that it does provide only “unverified tales”. Scholars are still in unending search mode trying to discover apparent supplementary archaeological evidence to prove the content and chronicles of the manuscript as reliable and acceptable basis of history.

Whoa, it is a question of accuracy and it sounds very intriguing.

Given that as a premise, though,nobody has discredited Battuta’s texts to the point that any of his work is dismissed as fanciful or fiction. In fact, his work has been hailed in most quarters as a “valuable record” of South East Asia at that time.

Now, rather than giving you my own piece of historical synthesis, which by the way I am not an authority on the subject, as to whether Urduja is a fact or myth, I will refer you instead to some documented citations so as to further enlighten you on the accounts of this important figure in Philippine culture and history.Excerpts from these papers are vividly wrapped around this post while the complete and detailed content are compiled below and linked to their primary or secondary sources, for your guidance.

John Smart wrote the article The Case for Princess Urduja and published it in The Bay, a Subic Bay Freeport Chamber of Commerce Newsletter (Dec 2005 - Jan 2006). This was posted also in Pangasinan Blog by kingdom_tawalisi.

In Search of a Princess written by Chit Balmaceda Guiterrez was originally published in Filipinas Magazine’s June l999 issue. Although an on line site is available for the said magazine, this particular article is not available in the archives. It is re-posted at http://www.urduja.com/, with permission, under the inspiration sub-category.

Another interesting blog on this account is found at Igorotblogger. Bill Bilig reviewed Chit Balmaceda Guiterrez’s In Search of a Princess and highlighted Urduja’s “link” to the Ibalois.

The image (original painting details: oil on canvas, 16”x13”, 1956) above is a visualization of Urduja by the Philippines' 1st National Artist in Painting, Fernando Amorsolo. This painting is currently owned by Ms. Dorothy Francy while the digital copy was sourced from cream_529’s Flickr™ photostream.

Sigh! That was more than enough for a background. Let us now proceed to the second segment of this post. I hope I did not bore you with the prelude.

Urduja is coming “alive”, once again, via the first Filipino full-length traditional (hand-drawn) and digital animated movie adaptation of the legendary warrior-princess produced by Tony Tuviera’s APT Entertainment in cooperation with Seventoon and Imaginary Friends Production.

Early reports uncovered the many years of preparing this milestone project in Philippine Cinema. Urduja took 11 years in the making, including the time when it was first conceptualized by Mr. Tuviera. He disclosed in one of his interviews that he originally planned Urduja as a TV series in 1997. The high production cost, however, convinced him to transform his dream project instead into a full-length movie a decade later.

As a full-length animation, Urduja has a running total of 85, 000 drawings shown in almost 2, 000 scenes which is equivalent to 8, 771 reels of film. The work force behind it is composed of around 400 Filipino artists in both digital and traditional animation in studios that spanned from Makati to Palawan [1] [2].

The much talked-about animated film is made more special with some of the biggest stars in Philippine show business lending their voices to the characters. Urduja is voiced over by no less than the Songbird of Asia, Regine Velasquez while her loved one, Limhang, is dubbed in by Caesar Montano. Lakanpati, the patriarch in the story, comes alive through the voice of the FAMAS hall of famer, Eddie Garcia while his favored warrior, Simakwel, is done by Jay Manalo.Other notable characters in Urduja include Wang (Johnny Delgado), Mayumi (Ruby Rodriguez), Daisuke (Epy Quizon), and the talking animals Kukut (Michael V.) and Tarsir (Allan K.).

While the legitimacy of Urduja’s possible existence is clouded with doubts in the scholarly understanding of great historians, this animated film adaptation will allow us all to remember her as the first figure to receive a tribute from technologies never imagined when she was “alive” and reigning as a warrior-princess [2].

Meanwhile, the animators of Urduja would like to strongly convey that they are not rewriting history through this outstanding venture. The storyline is fiction and whatever resemblances to names and places and events formed, created in this film version, are completely coincidental [2].

Excited? Certainly, I am. I guess many Filipinos are equally excited and can’t wait to see Urduja.Here is a sneak preview, for your viewing pleasure.


WOW! I have nothing but praises to the people behind this arduous yet very rewarding endeavor.

So folks, I encourage you to watch Urduja to witness “history” as it unfolds right before our very eyes. The movie is set to grace the big screen this 18 June 2008.

TRIVIA

• The name Urduja appears to be Sanskrit in origin, and a variation of the Sanskrit name "Urja," meaning "Breath."

• Tuviera said he could have produced three or even four regular live-action movies with “Urduja’s” budget.

• The first movie adaptation of Urduja was shot in black and white with Pedro Faustino, Mona Lisa, Fernando Poe, Sonia Reyes, Antonia Santos & Lupe Velasco in the lead roles. It was screened in 1942 with "Princesa Urduja" as the commercial title.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Princess Urduja - The First Tagalog Full-length Animated Movie
• URDUJA: A Filipino Animated Film
• URDUJA - First Fully Animated Movie Completely Done by PINOYS!
• Princess Urduja: A Myth in Paradise Philippines?
• Excited for Urduja?
• Urduja: Pinoy Animation

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Universal Studios To Rise in Manila (Philippines)

Cannot help but get excited on this featured article, which I happen to dig from our office broadsheet archives. It got me so engrossed, from the title alone, and had me spending my post luncheon break reading the entire article with unstoppable delight.

The article originally came out in 7 April 2008 issue of The Philippine Star and was written by Zinnia De La Peña

Over the weekend covering week 20, I started browsing the net to find related discussions or posts mentioning the same just to verify how hot the news has become.

It was not a surprise, though, to see fellow Filipinos blogging about it on their sites. Among the few that I came across are enumerated below:

1. Universal Studios Theme Park soon to Rise in RP by Sikat ang Pinoy
2. Universal Studio Philippines from TimogForum
3. Universal Studios Theme Park soon to Rise in RP by Angat ang Pinoy
4. Universal Studios Theme Park Soon to Rise in Manila Bay Philippines by Byahilo
5. Universal Studios Manila by Docgorio
6. Universal Studios by Manila Bay Casinos
7. Universal Studios Theme Park Soon to Be Here in the Philippines by Jessie Simbulan
8. Universal Studios Theme Park in RP? by Mc Dy Happy Meals
9. Universal Studios theme park soon to rise in RP by Living in a BackPack
10.Universal Studios Manila & Manila Eye by Kegler747

Here goes the original article:

Universal Studios Theme Park Soon to Rise in RP
By Zinnia De La Peña
Monday, April 7, 2008

The arrival of a Universal Studios theme park in the Philippines is creating a huge buzz after the Genting Berhad Group secured the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.(Pagcor)’s nod for its proposed project within the Las Vegas-like Bagong Nayong Pilipino-Manila Bay Integrated Tourism City.

Pagcor chairman and chief executive officer Efraim Genuino said the Genting Group has committed to develop 35 hectares of the 90-hectare prime reclaimed land facing Manila Bay into a world-class tourist destination.

Genuino said the Genting Berhad Group is planning to invest $3 billion in the Manila Bay Integrated City, the Philippines’ biggest tourism development project.

The Genting Berhad Group owns the Genting Highlands Resort in Malaysia and holds the exclusive development rights of film giant Universal Studios in Asia. It has teamed up with its subsidiary Star Cruises and Alliance Global Inc., the listed investment holding firm of retail tycoon Andrew Tan, for its proposed project in the $15-20 billion casino resort complex along
Manila Bay.

Genuino said the Genting Berhard Group’s proposal includes the development of leisure and entertainment facilities including a theme park, state-of-the-art theaters, amusement and cultural centers, retail and gaming center and hotels.

Universal Studio’s movie-theme Hollywood park has 13 attractions based on movies including Shrek, Jurassic Park and The Terminator. Excluding its restaurants and theaters, the theme park alone draws about four million visitors a year.

Besides Hollywood, Universal Studios has other parks in Orlando, Barcelona and Osaka, Japan.

Another investor group, Aruze Corp. of Japan is planning to put up an integrated resort featuring a hotel with 2,000 standard rooms and 300 VIP suites; a major oceanarium targeted to be the world’s largest; theaters, a sports arena, a Holy museum and a giant ferris wheel similar to the London Eye to be known as the Manila Eye.

The Aruze Group is likewise infusing $3 billion in capital for the development of 40 hectares of land in the Manila Bay Integrated City.

Genuino said Aruze, a leading gaming machine maker known for its ties with the popular Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas and Macau, may start development of its project in the second quarter this year which may take two years to complete.

Other groups whose project concepts have been approved by Pagcor include Bloomburry Investments Ltd. of Australia which will develop 15 hectares of the reclaimed prime land, and the SM Investments Corp. (SMIC).

Bloomburry plans to build a hotel, sports arena and other tourist attractions.

Genuino said SMIC has yet to hatch a plan for the Manila Bay Integrated City but said this would be a unique concept.

Tessie Sy, SMIC vice-chair, said that aside from developments within the Mall of Asia complex along Roxas Boulevard, the company may work on something in the future to further promote the tourism estate.

SMIC, together with international hotel firms Carlson Hotels Asia Pacific and Accor will develop and manage a 350-room hotel in SM Bay City, which will be located near the SMX Convention Center.

Meantime, two administration congressmen supported yesterday the Integrated Tourism City, saying the nation should rake in billions in potential income from the project instead of growing grass on reclaimed land.

“We also need jobs. We have 430,000 new college graduates a year, but not all can be absorbed by existing companies,” Palawan Rep. Antonio Alvarez, House trade and industry committee chairman, said in the midst of reports that Catholic bishops are opposing the plan.

Manila Rep. Amado Bagatsing said he would prefer “that we grow money instead of grass on reclaimed land in Manila Bay.”

Alvarez said the Pagcor project would put the country in a position to catch a portion of China’s increasing spending on gambling.

“Due to China’s growing affluence, its 1.3 billion people are spending $70 billion in gambling bets a year, according to one estimate,” he said.

He said the gambling revenues of Macau, a Chinese territory, increased by 47 percent to $10.34 billion last year and have exceeded those of Las Vegas.

He said the Pagcor project could also prevent rich Filipinos from going to Macau or Las Vegas and would allow them to “just spend their money here.” - With Jess Diaz

Above all this agitated press release, I simply hope the plans will materialize immediately and be transformed to the desired outputs, just like the Manila Ocean Park (MOP).

Side Trips: If this will materialize, it can no longer be said that Universal Studios Singapore , which is expecting completion by 2010, is “one-of-its-kind theme park in Asia” as Universal Studios has promised that this will be the only park it would have in Southeast Asia for the next 30 years.

Universal Studios South Korea The park would become the sixth Universal Studios theme park in the world, and the fourth in Asia, after Universal Studios Japan and the future Universal Studios Dubai and Universal Studios Singapore. It is projected to open in 2012.

Photo credits:http://www.ramada-idrive.com/theme_parks

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Untimely Demise of Spotplex

Few days ago, while browsing my blog,
I noticed that one of my installed widgets was missing. GRRR! You can just imagine what my initial reaction was. But wait, can you guess which I am referring about?

It was Spotplex widget for Most Popular Post which suddenly disappeared. It saddened me since I just had it up and running for quite a while. If my memory serves me right, I had it installed only early part of April 2008. Still hopeful, however, I headed over to the site and inspected what happened.

Surprisingly, this is what I untiringly got from the site

Dear Spotplex users,

We regret to inform you that Spotplex is going offline. This was a very hard decision for us and we are sure you will miss the service as much as we do.

If you are interested in our assets or in knowing more on the shutdown of Spotplex, you can reach us at support@spotplex.com

Thanks for your support.

The Spotplex Team

Condolences

Note: If you have embedded a Spotplex tracking code on your site, please remove it. You might get an error message if you still have it beyond 5/9.

Too bad, there is nothing much I can do but to rest my case.

It was unfortunate, though, since I have not made any review yet concerning this tool. It is always my routine to test first the corresponding functions of any tool that I get to add on my site before making any recommendations or review. Sad to say so, I will not have that opportunity any longer.

My sincerest condolences to Spotplex for the untimely demise of Most Popular Post widget.

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April 23 Is World Book Day

I am 100% clueless that 23 April is globally celebrated as the World Book and Copyright Day until I chanced upon Scott Main’s site while dropping an EntreCard. It is also known as International Day of the Book or World Book Day.

According to the World Book Day website for the UK and Ireland, the celebration, which is nearly two decades, has become firmly established as the biggest annual event promoting the enjoyment of books and reading.

Since I just discovered it now, I wish to share the information to you. Yeah, It is a bit late to blog it but for record purposes sake, now that I know it does exist, I am jotting it down.

You can hop to Wikipedia for details and history of connection between 23 April and books.

I hope my bibliophile and bookworm friends would find this information very useful.

Enjoy and keep on reading…

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Free Blogger Widgets Directory

By this time, you would have chosen the appropriate template for your blog, at least, from the list I provided in my previous post on Blogger Template Directory. The next step after installing your chosen template is to compliment it with adornment such as web widgets to make your blogsite more attractive to your readers and visitors. Remember, aside from useful and unique content, your blog should be, more than anything else, remarkably appealing to the eyes so that readers would find enjoyment in every visit they make in your site.

Yes, an ensemble of applicable, useful and finely crafted widgets wrapped around your site will further add delicious quality in the appearance of your blog and thus would make it more attractive and entice your readers and visitors to keep on visiting it repeatedly. With repeated visits, you are super charging your site. In effect, you will increase your blog popularity.

So, what are you waiting for?

Grab a suitable widget from the list provided below and quickly garnish your blogsite.

Recent Comment/Post - Jackbook, Beta Blogger for Dummies & Widget-Based

Tag/Label Cloud - Phydeaux3, Frivolousmotion & Wilkinsons

Archive Calendar - Phydeaux3, Ecmanaut & Romkas

Web Counter - Sitemeter, Statcounter & Digits

Social Bookmark - Beautiful Beta, Elamb & All About Adsense

Photo Slider/Sharing - Flicker, Picasa & Rockyou

Search Box - Widgetbox, Technojuice & Yahoo

Popular Post - Webweaversworld, Affiliatebrand & Spotplex

Top Commentators - Gosublogger, D' Technology Weblog & Onewebsite

Poll - Tips for New Bloggers, Quimble & PollDaddy

Of course, I am not saying that these are the best widgets you can have. The list is just a guide that you can refer to start the ball rolling.

Now, if you still feel this list is not complete, you can also head to Blogger In Draft to avail of the latest gadgets that are 100% compatible with our very own blogspot.

Wait, you can also try a host of other cool widgets from Widgets Lab.

Again, my friends, if you like you can subscribe to my RSS feeds to receive Stitches™ updates at your convenience in your mailbox.

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About StitcheS™ and The Author

Mabuhay!

Welcome to StitcheS™ - The Blogzine for Everyday People.

Perhaps you are wondering why I used this term to represent my presence in the blogging community.

So, to satisfy your curiosity, I am revealing to you the “mystery” behind this site name.

As a blog title, StitcheS™ is rather figurative or symbolic than literal in nature. The contents are neither about sewing, knitting, weaving nor regarding the popular experimental music group in Australia or a U.S. punk rock band. It has nothing to do with comedy or is associated with the Canadian medical humor magazine. Moreover, it is not, in any way, a review of the 1985 comedy film that depicted the misadventures of three medical students.

StitcheS™ is a metaphor. It is more often about my personal experiences, thoughts, opinions and views concerning a variety of subjects. It is StitcheS™ because the entries are like yarns weaved together to come up with a very interesting fabric. The fabric being the article or the post and the colorful threads are the narratives and facts, relating to it, combined together.

I do not thrive on yarn or fabric but I sustained three stitches on my upper right cheek when I was much younger, which is probably one of the compelling reasons why I chose the word. I would say, I am using it to my advantage.

I like gathering information and sharing them to those who I believe are equally passionate in learning new things. Instead of keeping this collected knowledge to myself, I always see to it that other people will also profit, in one way or another, from it. What makes the information contextually different, however, is I infuse some of my notable experiences in life so that visitors and patrons alike will find their reading adventures more engaging and enriching. Blogging through StitcheS™ is my very medium to accomplish this, although undeniably e-mailing in the past was the best and easiest route for me. With blogging, I do not only share the message of each post to my friends, colleagues and relatives but to the rest of the world. This is one of the major goals of this blog; to share to as many interested readers as possible.

StitcheS™ is a mixed bag blog that covers various topics about health and wellness, nutrition, lifestyle, money and personal finance, culture and history, self-improvement, books, hobbies, local cuisines, travel, family, arts, films, alternative and traditional medicine, etc. Occasionally, when time permits, the blog is also spiced with opinions on current trends in internet, science and technology. It is a nice, well I hope it is, mix of articles, photos, illustrations, clips and relevant quotes. Hence, the tagline The Blogzine for Everyday People is used to easily and quickly describe it. It is a magazine, in a blog form, desired to be somehow useful to its readers and followers.

If you like any of the topics mentioned above, I bet you will find value in this blog.

It is really nice to meet you. After all, we have a whole lot in common.

Who is Darwin?

Darwin is the principal architect of this blog. He is a Filipino, born and raised in The Melting Pot of Luzon, Tarlac City and currently residing in Manila, The Philippines' premier capital.

Aside from English, Darwin speaks Tagalog and Pampango fluently.

He completed his high school from Tarlac State University and pursued a degree in Chemistry from Far Eastern University. He was fortunate enough to continue higher studies while working and took his masters in Analytical Sciences from University of Santo Tomas.

He has worked with the local FDA for six years and took the responsibility of developing analytical procedures for determining active principals in natural products, traditional herbs and medicine, functional foods, and nutritional supplements using state-of-the-art technologies.

After his stint at the Bureau of Food and Drugs, Darwin joined a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listed company, PerkinElmer – a multinational entity dedicated in improving human and environmental health – as product line leader supporting customers through training, consultancy, assistance in development of analytical methods, lectures and tutorials on data analysis using current analytical data systems. The job has allowed him to travel across Asia, which gave him an ample amount of experience on various cultures in the region.

In addition to these tasks, Darwin also manages content management system (CMS), customer relations management system (CRM) and e-marketing database for the company’s local operation.

Fun times for Darwin are reading self-help books (on personal finance, investments, marketing, motivation and health & wellness), playing badminton, going out for a swim and honing his skills on photography. He also likes to cook, collect stamps, watch movies, chitchat with friends over an irresistible cup of brewed coffee, crawl the web and, of course, blog for StitcheS™.

StitcheS™ is the other side of Darwin and this is where he finds solitude and personal gratification outside his taxing corporate routines and demanding family responsibilities.

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