The Beanster Blog

-- this one's a classic. :-)

Spent the whole day watching TV and surfing the net. Was too lazy to step out cause of the heat and the fact that everyone else had work.

[mimibot x 2] [Darth Vader x 5] [Stormtrooper x 6] [Chewbacca x 7] [R2D2 x 6] [Ripple x 5] [Gloomy Bear x 5] [One Love x 3] -- Just got more stuff from mimoco . I posted about the flash drives I got from them here (review Part 1 and 2 ). So I joined the forum and other owners were discussing collecting the stickers, so I checked the packaging again and I had 2 free stickers (Darth Vader and Chewbacca) one of the mods mentioned that I should've gotten 1 each for my other two mimibots (R2D2 and Stormtrooper). So I wrote support and now I have all 4 and then some! Thaks mimoco!

Had dinner at Mey Lin along Jupiter Street in Makati. Was not impressed with the food. I had the Seafood Noodles which ws ok too. The Fried Spareribs was pretty tough. The Siao Long Pao's skin was too thick. Atleast the Kuchay dumplings were edible.

If your using twitter and/or jaiku and want to post to both using IM. Check out IMfied. It works with Gtalk, MSN (aka Windows Live) Messenger, AOL, pure Yahoo users are out of luck Yahoo connectivity is down ATM. It can actually do a lot more (post blogs etc etc) do check it out it's an awesome addition to your IM arsenal. Thanks to petteri for letting me know about it. -- https://www.imified.com/

A few posts back I mentioned that I was the only one left among my siblings here for the weekend. One of the pitfalls of this is all attention is focused on me. Case in point a few minutes back whilst having lunch my Grandma suddenly launched into this diatribe about us (i.e. us kids, if you can call us kids still) being aloof in regards to the family business. Between spoon fulls of Paksiw na Bangus and rice I was thinking "where the F this did come from?" In situations like this I think that we are faced with two make that 3 choices. Number 1, Walk Away, not an option since I didn't want to get my head chewed off some more. Number 2, Attempt a Rebuttal, nota bene the keyword here is ATTEMPT you can NEVER EVER win, I wasn't in the mood to argue. Number 3, Shut your pie hole and take it up the tail pipe, probably not the most famous of options especially nowadays when MTV has corrupted our morals, and our very souls. But being reared in a traditional passive-aggressiv...

Happy Birthday -- Meg Entrata John Noble -- May the FORCE Be With You...

Most of ACP will be out of town going North to Pagudpod and/or Laoag. Pity I only found out I've no work on Monday a few hours back. My siblings are off to Batangas to dive, I hope they keep safe and have fun. I'm Manila bound... I hope we can check out Phynn later.

I've noticed lot's of my friends have been bitten by the Photography bug [make that the Digital Photography Bug]. Here's a direct copy of the site's blurb: tips from the top floor , short and sweet with non-techy tips that you can put to use immediately. Covers everything from image composition to post processing. No matter if you use a digital point-and-shoot or an expensive digital SLR. Tips for the beginner as well as the professional photographer. I found this website with PODCASTs [you may use iTunes to subscribe] via Leo Laporte's Tech Guy PODCAST. Really interesting stuff. Go check it out... and keep on snapping!

DJ Phynn is here in Manila and spinning tonight at Embassy Super Club. I don't know anyone who's interested in checking that out [apart from me that is]. My friend Kenny is also having a small get together at a bar near my place might check that out later tonight.

I did some speed tests of my SMART pre-paid on my UX. Not very speedy but enough for lite surfing or checking emails. Tests done at V-Mall.

Saw this on twitter via my friend Darth Vader -- -- This should be shown in all Cinemas before each screening.

I'm thinking of shutting down our bakada's blog. No one is really active up there anyways. Hmmm. I'm thinking of transferring stuff to multiply but I don't wanna spam our members most of the posts on the ACP blog are just birthday greetings anyway.

This is the 9th major revision to my 2.5 year old blog yey! This time I've made it 3 columns. More info, less scrolling and less empty spaces. I've also removed iLike and Flixster badges but added a smaller jaiku badge, the twitter badge is unchanged. I might add back the iLike and Flixster badges in a few days... we'll see. I'm tryin out Criteo which submits related blogs that my readers might want to browse (provided they've signed up to criteo too). I've temporarily re-enabled Labels, but they do take up a lot of space. Oh yeah. I just noticed that I've gone thru my 1,000th post [on 1,101 with this one]. Also nearing 20,000 hits cool! Anyway I hope you keep on stopping by my blog. For those reading this thru Multiply (this blog automatically cross posts to Multiply) keep in mind some posts are not auto posted, commenting on Multiply will not notify me, I see comments there only when I check (if you comment here on my main blog I get emailed), and th...

If you follow me on jaiku (you can add me: bnycastro ) you already know that I got a separate SIM card for my UX. For those not on jaiku here's the low down on my latest attempt at always being connected. The UX has WiFi and BT, it also has an EDGE/GPRS modem built-in I was able to unlock it [it was locked to Cingular] the 1st week I got it. A few weeks back during holy week I slapped my GLOBE postpaid SIM in there mainly because I was too lazy to tether my Treo and haven't been able to get BT DUN to work on Vista Home Premium. Long story short I racked up 8,444++ PhP for the few hours I was surfing and checking mail. Shitballs! Not good! To rectify over spending I temporarily got a SMART pre-paid card [10 PhP for 30 mins] I am seriously considering [I got all the forms here at Globe's GH Hub] getting a Globe Visibility plan [2,000 PhP per month unlimitted data with free USB HSDPA modem] the catch is it'll be a 2 year lockdown. That'll add to my already high monthl...

Happy Birthday -- Kenny Lao JJ Damian Kirby Ty -- May the FORCE Be With You...

Just finished watching 1 episode each of LOST, SMALLVILLE, GREY'S ANATOMY, HEROES and ENTOURAGE. I love the Internet!!!

SPB Software House has just released another uber useful application. It's called SPB PhoneSuite. In a nutshell it's all the essentials that you would need to make your PocketPC Phone Edition device really useful as a mobile. I was fortunate enough to be able to beta test the application before it's official release. I must say that the app is rock solid and pretty stable on my Treo. I've been running it for about a week and a half and it'll definitely be a mainstay on my device. Let's go over some of the features of PhoneSuite. -- Call Filters This is a worth while addition to any mobile. Allow/Block [Black and Whitelist] certain numbers. Perfect if you don't want to receive annoying phone calls during the weekend. Would probably be good against stalkers too :P -- Today Plugin The customizable Today Plugin gives not only Indicators of missed calls, received messages for SMS, MMS, E-mail and V-mail (not shown), it also includes a Wireless Manager, Profile Pi...

I've been stressing at work lately. Some unforseen problems with my brand... Hasslehoff. I really think I need to get away... Arghhh!

My friend Ven just leant me book 4 of the Legacy of the Force series. It's set 40 years after ANH (A New Hope)... I better slow down my reading this'll be the lat book for awhile. I hope I can spread it out for atleast 3 days.

I swapped with Jose [one of my partners] so I could be at the office today. Hopefully I get a lot of work done.

Happy Birthday -- Zalveen 'Doc Elars' Chua -- May the FORCE Be With You...

If you own a SONY VAIO VGN-UX280P on Vista, head on over to the eSupport Website . There are 2 Hotfixes from Microsoft. One for Windows Media and the other for the Camera. There's a BIOS update and the new SmartWi Manager for Cingular.

Happy Birthday -- Larry Ang -- May the FORCE Be With You...

I'd like to congratulate my shobe for getting the dean's list again! Nice work shobs!:o)

Happy Birthday -- Nic Santos -- May the FORCE Be With You...

Ok I finally decided to use one out of the 4 STAR WARS mimibots I got. :P -- I decided to use Chewie [Chewbacca] [Chewbacca the Wookie] [Chewie lost his head] -- The USB drive is 2.0 standard but is not Vista Readyboost compatible. Bummer! [Punching It!] -- There's about 189Mb of content zipped inside, I copied all the contents to my Ext HDD and deleted the zip file on the stick to make room for my files. [contents of sw_mimory zip] -- The zipped had lot's of cool content including Wallpapers, Avatars, Icons for both MAC and Windows. There are also flash movies and an app that makes your PC emit a random Star Wars sound once you insert your Star Wars mimibot [it's called soundbyte]. Unfortunately it seems that soundbyte is not Vista compatible :( I installed and did the mandatory restart but didn't hear anything when I plugged in Chewie. I tried playing the flash movies but I got stuck on the selection screen must be another Vista compatibility issue. Might try out Fla...

Just made a few more tones they're up and available at 2 locations. -- http://homesite.mobile9.com/bnycastro/ or http://bnycastro.multiply.com/music/item/206 -- 96Kbps 28sec Stereo MP3 -- Trust in Trance! Reach for the Lasers... Safe as F*ck!

Happy Birthday -- Matel Trinidad -- May the FORCE Be With You...

If you've upgraded to Office 2007 and are experiencing some performance problems with Outlook, maybe this fix will help you out. It's supposed to address issues with performance when dealing with big PSTs. I installed it on my system and will report back if it indeed gave a significant boost to Outlook 2007's performance. Click here for more info and download.

[Here's a sample of what clips are up on the site] A really fun website :) -- Check it out! -- http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/

Happy Birthay -- Bel Surla Terrence Yang -- May the FORCE Be With You...

Ok I'm back with another BoBW... Found this whilst surfing on youtube. Check out the cool animation using STAR WARS LEGOs [STAR WARS and LEGO match made in heaven]. Darth Vader is leading a Clone Trooper Orchestra in performing the Imperial March. -- -- COOOL!!!

I decided to clean up both my Friendster and Multiply pages I did away with flash and html badges and left just simple links. Nice and clean.

I just had to post on this. Orkidea - Beautiful (Alt+F4 Mix) features a sample from STAR WARS Episode I: The Phantom Menace (TPM). This trance track features Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala. It's taken from the scene where the two of them first meet in Watto's Shop. Young Anakin asks Padme if she's an angel. Cool! STAR WARS + TRANCE... BoBW!!! -- Trust in Trance. Reach for the lasers... Safe as F*ck... -- May the FORCE Be With You...

I used to post stuff I make on a number of websites some have even closed down or changed their formats anyway... The 2 that sort of stuck was deviantART and mobile9. Lately, I seem to have been neglecting my deviantART page. Good thing I had some time today and was able to check on my page and answer the comments/questions that people left me there. It's embarassing to admit that some messages date as far back as mid-March. I haven't been theming for any platform for the longest time, most of you know that I used to theme for Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Windows Mobile PocketPCs and Smartphones, maybe that's why my dA page has sort of fallen off my 'must check' sites. Nowadays I usually concentrate on making tones mostly EDM tones. Since dA has no facility for music uploading I guess it got bumped off eventually, I've uploaded most of my content to m9 a website/community for mobile phones. It has more upto date content and has all the stuff neatly categorized so it...

Category: Music Genre: Dance & DJ Artist: Various Artists Trance Energy is back once again. Often described as the biggest in door Trance event in Europe, you can be certain that quality tracks will be on the compilation for it. Thankfully 2007's release doesn't skew from this way of thinking. Although I must warn you guys that some of the tracks here are a bit on the heavier tech side of Trance which is ok really, I mean it gives an edge to the comp and a listen through doesn't make it sound flat at all. Check out the tracks by Ron van de Bueken, Phynn & Burns, Mark Norman, Geilen, Marco V , and more. I really enjoyed this album. Trust in Trance... Reach for the lasers... Safe as F*ck!

You're fave web-slinging, wall-crawling, friendly neighborhood Spider-man is back! -- Get back to school in style with these Spider-man 3™ Shoes. -- Available in all SM ShoeMart Dept. Stores and Selected Shoes Stores NATIONWIDE. -- NO TO FAKES!!! BUY ONLY ORIGINAL MOVIE MERCHANDISE!!! -- Spider-Man 3, the Movie © 2007 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Spider-Man, the Character TM & © 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Happy Birthday -- Je Bargas Cherry Velez Bolex Vicencio -- May the FORCE Be With You...

I set my Wireless LAN adapter to a static IP for the house and the Wired LAN adapter for the office. The thing is I have to remove the static IP settings when I want to connect to a different network i.e. a public network. I wonder if this is worth the trouble or if I should just let it go dynamic IP like before.

Check Out our new stuff! -- http://gadgetgeeks.multiply.com/photos/album/5

I wonder what's for lunch? I hope it's good, I'm starving ---- jaiku and twitter are really addictive. Try it for yourself ---- I want to quit smoking. Easy to say not so easy to do. ---- I need a new system. Probably a 12" notebook, would be just about right. The UX is nice and all being an UMPC. Mobility is great. But I think I need something more robust and with more horsepower for some heavy lifting. ---- Lately I think I've gotten addicted to the internet. I'm sure I am not alone... but the 1st step is always acceptance :P Let go of your mouse [just for a sec, don't worry], and raise your hand if you are addicted to the internet... There didn't that feel good? Don't you feel better? ---- I haven't been in the office during a Monday in the longest time. Mondays I'm supposed to be 'on duty' at GADGETGEEKS [or as our partner Mick would call it "Geek guard"]. I might check up on the kiosk after work. My mom is out of to...

Had dinner at Old Swiss Inn, Makati yesterday evening. First time I've been to the resto. It's nice and clean, and well lit. Probably great for a family dinner/lunch. We had the Sausage platter/sampler. Very nice. I like. Hahaha. I would have wanted to try the fondue as well but I was full na, maybe next time. No pics though since I don't bring my IXUS with me anymore [too many stuff on my belt]. The resto also has free WiFi always a plus to a net-junkie like me. The pricing is a bit high so either bring cash or plastic, and if you survive that the eVAT and Service Charge alone will knock your socks off.

Happy Anniv -- Lo and Col -- The FORCE Will Be With You Always...

Happy Birthday -- Roman Mojica Claudine Go Mahal Amanda Adams -- May the FORCE Be With You...

Category: Music Genre: Dance & DJ Artist: Tiësto Tiësto has a new album out entitled Elements of Life . I'm liking the tracks on this one especially the vocal colab tracks. Featured on the album are JES, BT, Maxi Jazz, Julie Thompson, Charlotte Martin, and Christian Burns. The album is a fitting follow up to 2004's Just Be . So far my fave tracks include Break My Fall, He's A Pirate, Elements of Life, In the Dark, Everything, Sweet Things . Hopefully Tiësto will have some Asian destinations [specifically Manila] for his world tour. I made ringtones for Elements of Life [28 seconds 96Kbps Stereo MP3] Tiësto - Elements Of Life - Rigtones [Part 1] (6 tones) Tiësto - Elements Of Life Rigtones [Part 2] (6 tones)

Still in beta but very stable on my 750v. Their website hasn't been updated yet but I got this from the Octro support team. -- 1) Expires on May 10th. The current build would have expired on April 15th. 2) Preference to enable single line buddy list. 3) Preference to enable multiple tabs (one for each ongoing chat). 4) Unattended file sharing -- you can share a directory on your device, and the buddy you share it with will have access to it, and can download/store files in that directory through OctroTalk or GoogleTalk client. -- You can get the CAB OTA just run Octrotalk. Alternatively you can wat for 1.15 to be posted on http://www.octro.com -- So far I find myself using Octro more and more over IM+ which I also have installed. i just feel it is less of a resoure hog and loads faster.

This post's title is from Ace Ventura Pet Detective 2, it echos my thoughts of late. No I don't have fear of bats. It's just that lately I haven't been getting enough Z's. One of our neighbors in the lowcost MDU behind our townhouse decided to get a rooster [or rosteers] a few weeks back [probably for Sabong aka cock fighting]. I'm a pretty lite sleeper and those devil birds are too friggin' noisy. There should be laws against disturbing the peace with chickens. Birds have a bad rep already cause of Avian influenza [aka Birdflu] and these bastards keeping me up [and/or waking me up] isn't helping their rep with me either.

[Right Click the My Computer Icon then Properties] [Clicking Windows Experience Index will show more details] [you can get even more details too...] Snipped my VAIO's Windows Vista Experience Index [the score is so so IMO], as you can see the processor brought down the score significantly still not too bad for a UMPC. I do feel a lag sometimes when trying to do too much all together. Photoshop is not the best on this system I can tell you that. My next system should probably have a higher score than this. The price of mobility I guess.

Being a web junkie I couldn't resist it... so I just joined twitter a few days back and now I've just joined jaiku , it's like twitter only more feature rich [IMO]. I've linked my Blog, Flickr and Twitter to jaiku. I think that's uber cool I mean if I post on my blog, flickr or twitter it get's sent to my jaiku. I'm liking it. Go ahead and add me up :o) http://bnycastro.jaiku.com/

Happy Birthday -- Richard Santayana -- May the FORCE Be With You...

I'm really digging twitter. I like the concept. I even got a Vista Gadget for it :P -- Give it a try: http://www.twitter.com/

Hey folks if you reside and are a registered voter in San Juan's District 2. Please vote ALAN YAM for counsellor. Vote wisely and May the FORCE Be With You...

As I posted yesterday evening my mimibots have finally arrived... yeah they were delayed quite a bit but the folks at mimoco were all very nice and accomodating with all the changes I wanted done on my pre-orders anyway here are some pics I snapped of these uber cool USB sticks! Sorry for the crap quality was to excited to get the proper lighting and stuff. Maybe I should quit taking photos at home and just do them here at the office where I have better lighting. -- -- I got the 1Gb variants since I'm a cheapskate hehehe I'm still undecided if I should use em or keep em for display? To be honest I repacked them after taking the photos and never even plugged them in my PC. Maybe I should do that when I get home, I mean just to check if they are working. We'll see.

Happy Birthday -- Kim Tantuco -- May the FORCE Be With You...

Added some more stuff to my sidebar -- Twitter http://www.twitter.com/bnycastro iLike http://ilike.com/user/bnycastro Flixster http://www.flixster.com/user/bnycastro -- I hope you guys and gals keep on droppin' by... May the Force Be With You...

After months and months of waiting they are finally here! All 4 of my pre-orders arrived today! Cool. I'll post pics tomorrow since I'm going out tonight.

Just made close to a dozen tones from Tiesto's Elements of Life album which I'm listening to. Hop on over to my multiply site or my homesite to get the tones :o) -- Trust in Trance Kiddies!

Ok if you can't get what twitter is supposed to be this mash-up of Google maps and Twitter should give you a pretty solid idea of what it is. Neat stuff! -- Twitter Vision

My friend Debbie pointed this out to me... if it weren't for the USD 100 price tag I'd be all over this. :P -- Darth Vader Umbrella

Ok I've started using twitter ! You post short snippets on what you're doing and see what other people are doing as well. Seems pretty cool... I've added a twitter list to my sidebar. If you want to check on what I'm upto you can click on the twitter link I have under the My Links section.

It's been a slow Holy Week and a slow Monday as well. Went to V-mall to check on our kiosk not too many people [buying ones I mean] there either. Had to cut my day short a V-mall since I got a stomach ache. Been catching up on my emails and listening to podcasts.

Happy Birthday -- Reginald Tee Edwin Si -- May the FORCE Be With You...

Happy Birthday -- Jek Inocencio -- May the FORCE Be With You...

QUADRO' s Relapse Hit Number 1 in today's 'Stairway to Seven' on NU107. Congrats boys! Job well done! Keep on voting NUVOTE RELAPSE to 29107

USPS [United States Postal Service] wants you to use the FORCE and pick a stamp... I've used all my email accounts to cast my votes :o) -- USPS STAR WARS STAMPS

In my previous post I mentioned that I was using my Samsung SyncMaster 940BW as my primary monitor whilst extending the desktop on the UX280P. Here is a short video demo of what I meant. Enjoy :) --

Ok I finally got myself a bigger monitor for my UX office desk setup. So what can I say about the Samsung SyncMaster first off the screen is gorgeous. The colours are crisp and clear so far I've no complaints with this monitor. I made it my primary display and extended my desktop on to the UX's smaller screen. So I can actually tranfer some windows onto the UX and have other things on my main display... Cool! All I need now is that DVD-RW media drive, then I can start saving up for my next proj :)

Just got a 19 inch Samsung LCD Monitor for my office desk setup. I'll post some pics when I finish setting it up tomorrow.