Capturing timeless memories at Great Image Studio

In a world dominated by selfies and smartphone snapshots, there's something truly special about professionally crafted photographs that capture moments and emotions in a way that a quick click on your phone just can't. Great Image studio, located in Ayala Malls Manila Bay, offers a unique and immersive experience to help you immortalize your cherished memories with style and creativity. Whether it's a special event, a family gathering, or a personal milestone, Great Image is the place to be.

Toshiba launches Canvio Slim portable hard drive

Toshiba Singapore Digital Products & Service Group (DS) has launched the Canvio Slim Portable Hard Drive. With a capacity of 500 GB1, the Canvio Slim is one of the thinnest and smallest 2.5” form factor external hard drives available in the market today.

Measuring just 8.9mm slim, this stylish drive offers high capacity storage in a sleek brushed aluminum design, available in black and silver. As a comparison, a regular 2.5” external hard drives measures over 13mm in thickness. The Canvio Slim also has a carbon footprint that is about 14% smaller than regular 2.5”external drives.

“As consumer electronics devices continue to get thinner, lighter, and more portable, we expect a huge demand for a portable storage device that is in line with those trends,” said Wong Wai Meng, Senior Manager of Product Marketing “With the Canvio Slim, consumers can now easily stash their storage device right along with their Ultrabooks, knowing that their data is always safe, even they’re on the go.”

Being small in size, the Canvio Slim does not compromise on its features. Like the Canvio 3.0 Portable Hard Drive series, the Canvio Slim comes equipped with NTI Backup Now EZ software that backs up your entire PC system including operating system, settings, programs and data. This is very important for all users since we don't have a full control over our gadgets. 

In case of computer crash, you can easily restore your system to the last backed-up state. Users can choose to back up specific files or folders, perform automatic schedule backups, and also secure backup files with a password. A password lock feature also prevents unauthorized access to your hard drive.

The Canvio Slim is also fast because of its built-In USB 3.0 interface that significantly improves file transfer performance for large media files and dramatically minimizes the wait time for backup, but still compatible with USB 2.0 devices. The drive comes with a NTFS driver for Mac allowing users to store and access files from PC and Mac without reformatting.

Best thing about this device, Toshiba offers this product with a three year limited warranty!

The Canvio Slim Portable Hard Drive is available from major IT retailers starting November 2012.

+  Follow me on Twitter and join my Facebook Page.  +

Celebrating RJ Rosales: A Eulogy Service in Singapore (Dec. 12, 2011)

A Eulogy Service called Celebrating RJ Rosales is organized by the friends and family of the Filipino-Australian actor-singer in Singapore on December 12, 2011 at 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm. This will be held at Kallang Theatre, Reception Room at 1 Stadium Walk.

There will be an open mic for everyone who would like to: a.) Share stories or memories of RJ; b.) Read or share a poem; c.) Sing a song or two; or d.) If you are too shy to sing, dedicate a song of your choice.

In lieu of flowers, cash donations for the family will be collected. You can also bring along your favourite photo memory of RJ, if you have any.

Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech to Standford University Graduates (2005)

Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955-October 5, 2011) was the co-founder and CEO of Apple and formerly Pixar Animation. He was born in San Francisco, California.

The video above shows his delivering the commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University in 2005. It was very inspiring indeed how his life turned around to become one of the most successful people across the globe and whose invention made an impact to the world and influenced a great deal of people's imagination.

+ Follow me on Twitter and join my Facebook Page. +

Telling your life story with the new Facebook Timeline

Facebook has once again created a new platform within its social networking site to record memories and to create mementos. Facebook Timeline is a collection of all your important photos, posts and applications that help tell your story to be shared to others. In other words, it's a way of documenting important moments and events in your life. 

NCCA & CCP pay tribute to Alejandro Roces

Alejandro Reyes Roces

(July 13, 1924 - May 23, 2011)

He was 86 years old.

THE National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) will pay homage to the late National Artist for Literature Alejandro Reyes Roces in “Pagdadalamhati ng Bayan” (necrological services) on Friday, June 3, 2011, 9:00 a.m.  at the CCP Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (Main Theater).

Roces, short story writer and essayist, was the country’s best writer of comic short stories. His widely popular anthologized “My Brother’s Peculiar Chicken” taken from his short story collection entitled “Of Cocks and Kites”, painted a portrait of a Filipino as a noble person endowed with innate intelligence, patience and compassion.  

NetSuite Delivers First Cloud ERP Software in the Philippines

NetSuite Inc., the industry's leading provider of cloud-based computing/ ERP (enterprise resource planning) software suites introduced the NetSuite OneWorld PH, the first cloud-based ERP suite in the Philippines.  It also announced the appointment of Mark Troselj (pronounced Trosely) as NetSuite's Asia Pacific Managing Director. This event was held on October 14, 2010 at the Manila Peninsula Hotel.

Lecture series on History with Ambeth Ocampo (Aug 14, 2010)

* click the image for larger view *

Wedding Essentials magazine launches blog site, Wedding of the Week Contest

 * click the image for larger view *

Are you planning to tie the knot with your partner and have the grandest wedding you ever dream of? Some people can get you started and help you with your wedding needs - from real life newlywed couples to the country's premiere wedding suppliers. The country's most creative wedding blog, www.weheartweddings.com has just been unveiled on May 18, 2010 at The Blue Leaf Events Pavilion, McKinley Hill in Taguig City. The web site is owned and maintained by the Wedding Essentials magazine.

Preparing your kids for success

It seems like there is a magic formula to guarantee your child's future, and it's not bottled in infant formula nor can it be bought. The key that leads to a successful adult life for anyone--no matter where a child is born or where he goes to school--is proper and effective time management skills.

Moleskine unveils the New Passions Collection with “Share the Loves of Your Life” exhibition

Moleskine unveils a new thrilling collection of journals that celebrates passions as a way of life. The launch of the new collection comes with the start of a new inspiring exhibition: “Share the loves of your life” with Moleskine Passions, held at Fully Booked bookstore at The Fort in Taguig City on March 26, 2010.

Moleskine Passions Exhibition focuses on the 6 themes of the new collection of journals: Book, Film, Music, Recipe, Wellness and Wine. It creates a unique cultural exchange with the exclusive participation of creative talents, celebrities and icons from the whole region.

Over 150 specialists and celebrities in Asia will share the loves of their life and reveal their creativity through notes, drawing, clipping…The passions notebooks created by the participants are showcased in March on Moleskine Asia website www.moleskineasia.com and in over 60 spots in 12 Asian cities.

I wonder why there is no Moleskine Passions notebook for Art and Theater. [If they need my help, I can help them conceptualize the notebooks for them.] Of all the six themed Moleskine Passion notebooks, the ones that speak close to my heart are: Book, Film & Music. If you have a penchant for documenting details and writing journals like me, Moleskine Passions is a must-have! Believe me, your heart will leap for joy flipping through the pages and see what you can accomplish with the things you love the most.

Fully Booked brings part of the inspiring works to the audience in the Philippines. Artists and specialists from the Philippines have also been invited to share their passions on the new Moleskine notebooks.

The participants have been asked to share their passions as a response to one of six themes of the Moleskine Passions collection according to the different page layouts. The creative works will be organized in a “giant Moleskine notebook”. During this event, participants might surprise you by responding to a passion, which might not be their usual field of expertise, but for which they might have an original insight. Audience will have the chance to peruse all the creative responses on each theme from all the different participants, creating a unique patchwork of drawings, notes, memories, and tips.

Exhibition period: March 26 – April 25, 2010
Exhibition venues:
- Fully Booked The Fort: B-6 902 Bonifacio High Street, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
- Fully Booked Eastwood: Level 4, Eastwood Mall, Libis, Quezon City
- Fully Booked Rockwell: Level 3, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati City
- Fully Booked Greenbelt 5: Space B1-12, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati City

Participants from the Philippines:

Pastry Chef Aileen A. Anastacio (Recipe), Aaron Palileo (Wine), Blooey Singson (Book), Chef Bruce Lim (Recipe), Elian Habayeb (Music), Ines Cabarrus (Wine), Jeannie E. Javelosa (Wellness), Johnny Alegre (Music), Lyle Sacris (Film), Waise Azimi (Film), Yvette Tan (Book), Agu Paiso (Wellness)

About Moleskine Passions 

Writing book or movie reviews, sharing cooking tips...recording and sharing your passions has been on your to-do list for a long time, but it always remains on the list year after year. The new Moleskine Passions collection provides just the right tools for you to take the first step and start the habit to record and share your passions.

Moleskine Passions journals enable users to neatly collect information and reviews about new recipes, books they read or books people suggest to them, concerts they attend, dishes they tasted, films they see or they want to see...and to share this information with others.

Each journal includes a set of different page layouts, with themed calendars, glossaries, listings, and a core part of alphabetically organized and tabbed pages to fill in.

All Passions journals come with a different series of themed stickers and icons, for page customisation. On the back end paper there is a double pocket, for clipping, ticket and card collection. The classic Moleskine elastic band keeps everything closed, tidy and neat.

6 Themes of Moleskine Passions Collection: Recipe, Wine, Book, Film, Music, Wellness
Retail Price: PHP 1,240

For more details please visit www.moleskineasia.com.

About Moleskine
Culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity. Moleskine is a brand identifying a family of notebooks, planners and travel guidebooks: versatile and essential companions both in everyday life and for special occasions, becoming an integral part of each of us. The Moleskine brand was born in 1997, celebrating the legendary notebook of great artists and thinkers of the past two centuries, from Vincent Van Gogh to Pablo Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin. The anonymous black notebook was a trusty, pocket-sized travel companion, a faithful keeper of sketches, notes, stories and tips before they became famous pictures or pages of well-loved books. Today, Moleskine accompanies the creative efforts and the imaginary of our time: it is a symbol of modern-day nomadism, closely connected with the digital world through a network of websites, blogs, online groups and virtual archives. www.moleskineasia.com

"Grade School for Yuppies," an open mic night at Ayala Museum

 

* click the image for larger view *

New Slang, an online publication and writer's collective devoted to theme based nonfiction, in partnership with Ayala Museum presents Grade School For Yuppies--an open mic night that's part show-and-tell, part storytelling where we begin with a simple questions to arrive at larger answers. These are questions we may or may not have asked ourselves before, through which we hope to arrive at larger truths about our selves, our creative processes, and our shared and personal histories.
 
Now in its third run, the prompt for this month's Grade School for Yuppies is "Because we should never forget...," dealing with the uses of memory and lessons from the past. Esteemed filmmaker Luis Bunuel once wrote that memory serves as "our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing." When we dig into a seemingly boundless trove of memories, what insights do we arrive at? More importantly, how do we wish to express these insights and turn them into actions?
 
More than just a symposium or a lecture series, Grade School for Yuppies is a space for sharing ideas and artifacts from our own personal histories, in the hopes of nurturing a stronger creative community. Come early and take a tour of the exhibits before joining the discussion; or just sit and listen on May 15, 2010 6 pm at the Ayala Museum lobby. There will be good wine, good food, and good company; and when the mic is open you can never be too sure about what to expect.
 
This event is free with museum admission. A discounted rate of Php75 will be available for purchase at 6:00PM. A limited number of slots will be allotted for those who wish to join show-and-tell. For more information about Grade School for Yuppies, visit http://new-slang.com, email because@new-slang.com or RSVP, +63 917 822 2915.

 ___________________________

Ayala Museum is located at the corner of Makati Avenue and De la Rosa Street, Greenbelt Park, Makati City. Please call (632) 757-7117 to 21 local 28 for more information or email inquiries@ayalamuseum.org. Please visit the museum's website at www.ayalamuseum.org.

Spanish-era Colonial Bridges exhibit at SM Mall of Asia

* click the image for larger view *

Bridges do not only spur progress and development, they also serve as a link to the past, since many of them were built by the Spanish friars and conquistadores.  They bear witness not only to the engineering and design prowess of those times, but also to the nuances of the Iberian culture and style. 

In celebration of Filipino Heritage Month, there will be a photo exhibit of Spanish colonial bridges in the Activity Center of SM Mall of Asia on May 7, 2010 (Friday) at 7 p.m. The exhibit also features the brilliant Philippine Youth Symphonic Band who will perform a medley of the best-loved local folk songs and foreign film tunes. 

  

Before it became Jones Bridge during the American occupation, it was called Puente de Espana.  In the heart of the city, it was built across the Pasig River to accommodate that era’s major pedestrian and vehicular traffic.  

The Puente del Fuerza Santiago was believed to have been built to help secure the walls of Intramuros. Made of cut adobe masonry and granite, it spans 23 meters long by 3.4 meters wide.   

The Acueducto de San Juan del Monte in San Juan is where the Philippine-American war is reported to have broken out.  In practical terms, however, it was an aqueduct supplying clean water to Manila from the Estero de San Mateo.   

The majestic Puente de Paoay in Ilocos Norte complements the historic ambience of the town.  Walls, scroll works and archways’, designs of the bridge evoke an appreciation of civil engineering during the Spanish colonial period. Puente Dampol in Dupax del Sur accessed towns through the difficult Nueva Vizcaya terrain.  Built by Fray Francisco Rocamora OP in 1818, the bridge has imprints of sawali matting in its underbelly used to set the wet plaster, which was the principle material used for the bridge.  

There are six Spanish colonial period bridges still in use in Dimiao town in Bohol.  The most resilient of these is Puente de Calle Mabini, which has withstood the test of time.  Despite efforts at modernization through the years, the bridge remains intact in its original state.  

Spearheaded by Executive Director Ana Maria Harper, President Armita Rufino, and Finance Officer Araceli Salas, the Filipino Heritage Festival is supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the Department of Tourism and ClicktheCity.com. For more information, visit the FHF website at hwww.heritagemonth.ph, or call their office at (632) 892-5865.

My 365th Blog Post

March 5, 2010 marked my 365th post here on blogspot - which is equivalent to the number of days in a year! Thanks to my friend, Evanjohnn Mendoza, a photoblogger from Cebu, for reminding me on this. I told him that I'd blog about this before I make my 366th post (oh, by the way, this is supposed to be my 366th). It has been 3 years since I started blogging seriously on Multiply, though my Multiply site began on July 8, 2007, with tons of photos and texts about the events in my life, and the friends I have made. Later on, I decided to open a blogspot account on October 2008 and eventually this has served as my main blog site. The other one (which is Multiply) became my secondary site - a repository of photo albums, videos, reminders and promotions of my blog posts on Blogspot. 

Blogging has changed the way I see life, the way I treat each moment as an integral part of one's existence (or mine). My day has never been complete without getting online and blogging at least a few times each week. As a blogger, I believe that I have a role to play in the cyberspace - to know, to share, to inspire, to participate... The best part of being a blogger is that my life has never been this exciting because I meet a lot of people, who later become my friends. I will continue on doing the many roles, even without clicks on my google adsense :)

The Missing Left Rubber Shoe (A True Story)

I taught preschool in an exclusive private school for boys in Alabang, Muntinlupa City for S.Y. 2001-03. One time, after Prep-A’s Art class, students were getting ready for P.E. class of another teacher. Students at 5-6 years old were trained to change uniform by themselves and arrange things in the classroom.

Students had to fix their things first from the previous subject before getting their P.E. bag from their cubby holes. They started changing for P.E. uniform and hung their school uniform on the back of the chair. One of the daunting tasks kids face is either tying their shoelaces or keeping their things tidy, in order and complete.

Kids were given five minutes or less to do all these things – wearing their P.E shirt, shorts, tacking in their shirt, wearing rubber shoes, putting their P.E. bag and other things in order, cleaning up their table and arranging their own chair. So that when the P.E. teacher arrives at the door, they must be ready and already lined up inside the classroom facing the door.

Oftentimes I would stay in our classroom to check papers and workbooks while waiting for my next class. When the P.E. teacher arrived and announced with the sound of his whistle, “Are you ready, boys?” Kids excitedly answered, “Yes, we are ready!” But Chico was already crying and panicking. So I asked him, “What’s wrong, Chico?” He said, “I can’t find the other pair” (he was referring to his white rubber shoes).  Chico was helpless while his classmates were already prepared to play at the gym.

Chico already looked all around the classroom but still couldn’t find the partner shoe. So I asked him again, “Are you sure, you brought it to school?” (Whose mommy and yaya would only prepare 1 shoe?). Then he replied, (still sobbing) “Yes, Mr. Ello. I just took it out from my bag awhile ago.” So I helped Chico looked for the left pair, but to no avail. And I didn’t want him to miss his P.E. class either (which is only 40 minutes a week!).

All his classmates already went down to the gym, while Chico and I were still in the classroom hoping to accomplish a task. We checked on all corners of the room and under each table. Then suddenly, a lonely shoe has shown its presence. I saw that one white rubber shoe (for left foot). I gladly handed it out to him, “Here, Chico. It’s here!” Still weeping, he replied, “No, it’s not mine” So I checked his right shoe and discovered that the two shoes were not meant for each other. They just almost looked alike, both with straps. Then I started to wonder what really happened.

I told Chico to wear it than going to the gym playing soccer donned in one rubber shoe, “You’ll be late for P.E. Hurry! I’ll help you. Come…” We sat on two kiddie tables separately and I helped him wear the shoe. Surprisingly, it really couldn’t fit in. What are we going to do now? I thought to myself. “See, I told you, it’s not mine,” Chico asserted. Then I laughed! Nonetheless, I still encouraged him, “Let’s try again. 1-2-3 – ugh!…”

His pudgy left foot finally got in! But he was very uneasy with that shoe because he could hardly move his toes. “Chico, we’ll just check later who got your shoe by accident when your classmates come back. Stop crying now, ok. You’ll be alright. Go now to your P.E. class. See you later,” I assured him, tapping his shoulder. “Thanks, Mr. Ello. Bye!”

         When the class returned, they were also given five minutes or less to wipe their sweat, change uniform plus drink water. They had to place back their P.E. shirt, shorts, face towel and rubber shoes inside their P.E. bag. Students learn early how to be disciplined and responsible in taking care of their health and their things. A moment later, Carlos approached me, holding one rubber shoe, “Teacher, this is not mine.” I said, “Yes, that’s Chico’s. He’s been looking for that. Kindly get your shoe from him.”

          I asked Carlos, “Was it (the shoe) very comfortable?” Carlos answered, (laughing) “Yes, Mr. Ello, it just fit right! Hehehe.”

            Good thing, I was there to save Chico!

Poetry as Public Space: A lecture by Marc Gaba

Pinoypoets, in partnership with Fully Booked, invites everyone to "Poetry as Public Space," a lecture by 2006 Boston Review Poetry Prize Winner and visual artist Marc Gaba. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held on January 24, Sunday, 2:00 PM at The Forum, 4th Floor, Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street. 

The last of a five-part series celebrating Pinoypoets' fifth anniversary, the talk is a lyrical exploration of the architectural in poetry, finding parallels between architecture, or the art of articulating spaces, and the creation of rhythms, distances, memory, and meaningful interactions in language. It will also celebrate the launch of Gaba's chapbook "Nouveau Bored" in Fully Booked.

This event was organized with the support of High Chair and Filipinas Heritage Library. Visit www.pinoypoets.com for details, or contact Pinoypoets through mail@pinoypoets.com or 0917-6934821 for inquiries.