I was actually rooting for Oscar Dela Hoya before the fight but when the punches started to be thrown, I found myself already cheering for Manny. Big win for the GenSan puncher, big loss for my boxing credibility.

Yup. That’s one hundred twelve days to respond to this query! While it’s still better to have a late reply than never, it certainly can be better.

The reply is very professional and very informative. If only it came quicker, I might have used it then.

As a reference for other guys who might be in the same situation as me, I’m posting BIR’s reply. Hope it helps someone without having to wait more than three months. Click on “View Plain” for a simpler view.

<some lines snipped >

Greetings!  Thank you for communicating with the BIR Contact Center .

In reply, if you have been issued a TIN but have not been issued a TIN Card yet, you need to coordinate with the BIR - Revenue District Office (RDO) where your TIN is registered to find out whether a TIN Card has already been printed under your name or one has to be printed still upon request.  Due to lack of the information provided, like the TIN itself, we could not confirm as to what RDO your TIN has been issued, if any.  Regarding how long will it take for your TIN Card to be printed, depends on the workload of the RDO where you are currently registered.

Further, please be informed that effective May 2002, plastic TIN cards (just like in SSS / GSIS) shall no longer be issued by the BIR - RDO.  Instead, TIN cards for new applicants and/or reprints shall be issued in cardboard form / type pursuant to Revenue Memorandum Order (RMO) 10-2002.  You may inquire from said office how soon your TIN card can be released.  You are also informed to present valid identification card/s upon claiming of the same.  You can avail of the same for free.

To verify your TIN registration, we suggest that you give us a call at 981-8888 and press 1 for Tin Verification.  Kindly inform the person who will take your call that your request number for this query is <snipped> .   Said person will be asking you questions to establish your identity but failure to sufficiently answer the questions will hinder us in revealing the RDO to the caller.  Further, TIN verification thru email only allows us to check whether a given TIN is existing/valid or not, but not to disclose the same.

For other inquiries, you may visit www.bir.gov.ph or call us at 981-8888. We appreciate your continued support.

I was in a situation very much like this guy and I need to block access to other DNS from within our company network. Some coworkers are technology savvy enough to disable the static network configs on their workstations and in effect bypass our web filters.

Here’s what I did on our dd-wrt router:

1. Administration -> Commands (after typing the code below, click on Save Startup)

dnsmasq -S 208.67.222.222 -R -i br0 -p 1054

2. Administration -> Commands (after typing the codes below, click on Save Firewall)

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p udp -i br0 -s 192.168.0.0/24 --dport 53 -j DNAT --to $(nvram get lan_ipaddr):1054
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -i br0 -s 192.168.0.0/24 --dport 53 -j DNAT --to $(nvram get lan_ipaddr):1054

After wading through fedora-testing emails, I was quite hesitant to change my desktop to Fedora 10. Why?

1. I have a working CentOS 5.2 and it’s working fine.
2. The download keeps getting paused and I can’t be bothered to make it faster.
3. I’m being lazy. Fedora-testing has those scary scenarios that I want to veer away from then.

So now, after banking in my first full weekend and finally getting that massage, I’m lethargic no more! Yay!

Initial impressions

• The boot up sequence is clean, must be the new bootloader - plymouth. Definitely looks like Windows booting up.
• Was able to set static IP using System->Preferences->Network Configuration on first try.
• Installed Adobe Flash 64-bit easily. No shamanistic rituals required.
  • Download the package from Adobe.
  • Extract libflashplayer.so from the tar.gz package.
  • Move libflashplayer.so to ~/.mozilla/plugins.
• Peeked on the ext4 option while disk partitioning. I chickened out and installed ext3. Maybe later.

Our friend Charlemagne Abarca topped the recent CE Board exams (he’s number 4 on the list).

My cousin Darryl Pagcaliwagan as well as Jason Palacio, Ralph Acierto and Juliet Sartillo also passed the said exam.

Congratulations to all those who passed!

The full exam results can be downloaded here.
[update] The original announcement can be viewed online here and here.

This just came through the mail.

AMH Philippines will be celebrating its 10th year anniversary next year and we’re launching it with a fun run dubbed “Race to 10″. Race to 10 will be held either on November 22 (Saturday) or 23 (Sunday) at the University of the Philippines Academic Oval. Registration is free.

The Filipino mailing list is now operational. Many thanks to Mike and Huzaifas for making this possible. Nothing there yet, but I’m excited to see a community grow from this. Giddy!

This early before Christmas, I wish can be able to afford either of these at the end of the year:

• Lenovo Thinkpad T61 - Php 54,599
• A clone PC with specs like the one below - Php28,440
  • Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.5GHz
  • Asus P5K-SE
  • 2GB Kingston DDR2 800
  • 80GB Seagate SATA
  • Lite-on DVDRW SATA
  • 19″ Samsung 920NW

Now back to work.

I just had the green-light to pick a specific laptop model that will be our company’s standard issue for our future purchases. So far, I’m having a hard time balancing what I want with what we need. There’s also the ever present question of price.

Anyhow, I have already identified how our company utilizes a laptop unit:

1. Presentations/meetings - powerpoint/word processing/spreadsheets/…
2. Desktop replacement - AutoCAD/STAAD/Google Earth/SketchUp/…

For simple presentations or meetings, the choice is simple - I’ll go with a netbook like an HP MiniNote or an Asus EEE - something you can easily lug around without necessarily compromising performance.

For the desktop replacement, here are my criteria:

• Should cost around Php 60K (around $1270)
• At least dual core (2.+ GHz)
• At least 2GB RAM
• At least 80GB hard disk space
• Good enough video card (for AutoCAD)
• Windows XP Professional or Windows Vista Business (downgradeable to XP Pro)
• 10/100 LAN and wireless G connectivity
• Around 14″ display size
• Reliable brand (should have after-sales support)

A simple scan of the Internet yielded me such brands as Thinkpad, HP and Dell are said to be reliable. Right now, I’m leaning toward Thinkpads but the price scares my boss. Oh well.