Image #01. The Marco Polo Hotel and the Ateneo de Davao University-College Campus — two of the most recognizable structures in the Davao vista. The 3 succeeding images display this pair in various points of view.

Image #02.

Image #03.

Image #04. Which building is that dark-hued structure at the lower right-hand side?

Image #05. Gaisano Mall of Davao. That reddish edifice to the right, where is that?

Can you guess the names of these other buildings?

Image #06.

Image #07.

Image #08. Two more very recognizable landmarks.

Image #09. The above buildings, seen from another angle.

Image #10. And then from a higher perspective.

Image #11. This deceptively looks like a Shangri-la kind of scenery, doesn’t it?

I just wish Google would update Davao’s satellite maps so that those sections covered by clouds would become visible. Plus, of course, there’ve been a lot more buildings that have been added to the landscape since the last satellite pass!

Booking for my flight to Manila in October, I noticed that the Web site’s interface had undergone slight changes — some layout changes and minor improvements in the user interface. Then I was pleasantly surprised when I was presented with the Seat Selector screen (screen capture below).

It’s pretty neat! But, it’s a premium service — meaning, it ain’t free. After choosing my preferred seats, I noticed an extra charge of P448 on my total airfare. Oh well. Anyway, reserving seats isn’t compulsory. But at least passengers now have a choice, especially people who are particular about seating, like me.

Another change that I’ve noticed is an option to prepay for excess baggage. I find it deplorable that Cebu Pacific lowered the baggage allowance to 15kg per passenger on domestic flights, and this new online service doesn’t really alleviate the pain. However, I do appreciate it that the airline has put in place this measure that makes it less of a hassle for passengers to check in.

CebuPacificAir.com also now has a way for passengers to donate to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines). To quote: “Your donation will be used to support the WWF-Philippines climate adaptation work in Mindoro. The amount is based on the estimated carbon dioxide emission versus the actual flight distance being purchased.”

Kudos to Cebu Pacific!

So, one of the attached activities we thought of doing for WordCamp was a blogging contest that would highlight Mindanao — as well as other Philippine — destinations. It’s like expanding the scope of purpose of MindanaoBloggers.com, which has more or less succeeded in achieving its objectives for the island.

We approached Cebu Pacific to sponsor WordCamp, specifically to help us conduct the planned blogging contest successfully. The airline company agreed readily, and even sponsored the organizers’ plane fare from Davao to Manila and back. So, in appreciation, we dubbed the activity the Cebu Pacific Blogging Challenge. This contest is our brainchild, not the airline’s.

(I was part of the organizing team of the first national golf tourney ever held in Mindanao, and it was called the Dole – Casino Filipino Philippine Open Golf Tournament. Guess why?)

The contest means to encourage bloggers to promote Philippine destinations, but not to have them sugar-coat reviews for the benefit of the airline. Contest entries are blog posts that should talk about a Philippine city or town, and not about the airline. However, the rule that says there should be no negative reviews of the airline in the entries is but natural. We’re not asking bloggers to do away with their freedom of speech, and we’re certainly not asking them to say anything that’s not true about our sponsor.

If you owned a company and wanted to promote it by sponsoring an activity, would you want to pay for something that returned bad press? I agree, though, that companies who offer customer service should maintain a high level of quality to ensure that there are no negative feedback. But, zero negative feedback: is that ever a reality? There is a saying, You can’t please everybody.

I’m not defending Cebu Pacific. But I am defending my team, the five (plus five) of us who organized WordCamp Philippines. We’re conducting this activity in good faith, and with the best interests of everyone concerned. Including Cebu Pacific, of course, because they’re instrumental in getting this bloggers’ activity off the ground.

So, my appeal to everyone is, please focus on the good that this blogging contest will bring. Imagine the publicity bloggers can bring to places like Cagayan de Oro, General Santos, Laoag, Aklan, Davao, Cebu and many others.

In Davao, there is a growing number of businessmen who are getting on the digital bandwagon. When before it was near to impossible to do business with foreign clients and agents, today, practically the whole world is an open market.

This way of doing business, however, is a whole new practice. While the core principles might be the same, the paradigm is now totally different. One way of putting it is this: the ultimate objective is still to make a profit; but the way of going about it is completely new.

To give an example, consider credit card merchant accounts or merchant bankcards. Traditionally, these were services provided solely by banks or brick-and-mortar financial institutions. But in this day and age, we’ve gone beyond this limitation.

To a certain extent, business activity isn’t even limited by geographical boundaries anymore. A local company here can apply for an offshore credit card merchant account with any of the globally-aligned services that can be found online.

There’s no reason for Davao-based companies to miss out on this wave of opportunities. All it takes, really, is the willpower to go online and discover the potentials and realize them.

In the gaming console scene, we see the Nintendo Wii, PSP, and who knows what else is out there? And digital cameras, as well, have made a big presence lately. When before cameras were the purview of professionals and hobbyists, now it’s very common to see ordinary people toting digicams of all shapes and sizes.

One indication that we are now a gadget-crazy population is the proliferation of tech magazines that have come out. Or, publications that aren’t focused on technology but have sections dedicated to gadgets. And these are glossy, high-quality magazines — all the more to entice potential buyers.

The driving factors here, I believe, are the Internet and price cuts. The first is responsible for making information available more readily and to a broader audience, and this has made more people want more technology products.

Price cuts are probably a direct result of this growth in demand. In the late 90s, mid-range mobile phones cost upwards of P30,000. Today, that’s the price of high-end phones.

Speaking of low prices, we probably have CD-R King to thank for driving rates down. This chain of gadget stores is probably responsible for bringing technology to the masses. People from various walks of life can buy computer accessories, cell phone chargers, and a myriad other products that were previously available only to the wealthy.

Myself, I own a mobile phone, plus another one that I receive for trial purposes, a notebook computer, a digicam, and a PDA that I don’t use anymore. What about you?

Speaking of which, it’s all about gifts this time of year. Receiving is a lot better, yes, but most of us find ourselves at the giving end now.

For those of you not in the city (or not in the country, for that matter) but want to send meaningful Christmas gifts to loved ones or business partners or whoever here in Davao, here’s the perfect Internet store at your service: WowDavao.

The cyber shopkeeper is my friend, so I can vouch for the reliability and professionalism of this outfit. And the wowdavao.com domain name used to be mine, so I’m very happy with what Bob Martin has transformed it into — a virtual shopping center with so many items to choose from.

And, they deliver to anywhere in Davao City.

Flowers for your girlfriend (or boyfriend)? Heck, why not an iPod? WowDavao carries Philippine-made jewelry, toys, appliances, food, … even mobile phone credits! So it’s not just for special occasions but for everyday needs, too. Give it a try and be one of WowDavao’s thousands of satisfied customers!

WowDavao accepts Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Discover. Wouldn’t it be neat though if they also accepted payments via PayPal?

This is not a paid post, by the way. :)

It wasn’t planned, though, this baby blog. You see, I’m doing a website for my friends, Rochelle and Romano Venuti (owners of Swiss Deli, Picobello Ristorante Italiano and Prego Caf&eacute. In search of a domain name late at night several days ago, I came across a catchy and available name, davaodeli.com. Without delay, I purchased the domain, and told the husband-and-wife team about it the following day. However, they weren’t too keen on it. They still preferred to have their real company name in the upcoming website’s URL. (They eventually settled for dbutcherdbaker.com — coming soon!)

What to do with this cute-sounding domain name, then? I wasn’t not about to open shop with my own delicatessen in Davao! Although, yeah, it did cross my mind.

But, no, the restaurant business is not my thing. I’ve tried it indirectly when I was still working for Casa Leticia, and so I know that being a restaurateur just isn’t my cup of tea. That’s one way to succeed in life, you know: stick to your strengths. And one of mine is blogging. So it’s no surprise really, that it immediately dawned on me to create a blog out of it. Davao Delicious.

There are plenty of material for me, too. In fact, in only a few days I’ve already done a couple of posts. Davao has so much to offer in terms of culinary fare. It just takes some effort to discover them. But that’s the fun of it!

So, from now on, whenever I have something to blog about food — and anything related to that topic — it will be posted on Davao Delicious. This blog, Ang Dabawenyo, will focus more on business, local government, events & festivals, social issues and such.

But last week I got a Japanese client who’s asked me to include their website as part of my deliverables. And one of my closest friends, Ichido Miyake, has also decided to start blogging already. He’s begun writing in English for Bob Martin’s Live in the Philippines Web magazine, and will soon publish his Japanese articles on his own blog.

With that, I finally took a look at WordPress Nihongo edition and started tinkering with it. It wasn’t so difficult as I’d first imagined. IMHO, WordPress’ language localization is top-notch! You just have to RTFM first, of course!

Many plugins that I like using on my various blogs aren’t as friendly to the Japanese language, in which the word order is totally opposite of English or Tagalog. So I had to manually edit and translate the texts of those plugins. It was fun, though. And good practice for me.

I also discovered something about WordPress because of this move. WP now has an import tool for Blogger! I don’t know if it’s a recent development in v2.3, but it’s awesome! It imports your posts, categories (Blogger tags to WP categories) and comments! You are also able to associate your destination blog’s author name with that of your source’s (blogspot.com user). Not your uploaded photos, though… but I’m not complaining. :)

Over at ManMaru Kükan, I’ll continue talking about Davao and my work with the Japanese (those that I can discuss anyway), as well as my exploits in Nihongo. This blog also serves as a tool for developing my language skills. So, if you’re a student of the Japanese language like me, head on over to my blog and let’s practice together!

Jehz says that the blog’s objective is “to deliver fast, on-time and accurate exam results” via an “easy-to-browse and user-friendly GUI“. The best feature of the blog site is its SMS subscription service. Whenever there are professionals’ exam results coming out from the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), subscribers are notified of the latest exam results on their mobile phones. The interface was designed by Jehz, and the SMS gateway was developed by Winston.

The PRC official website is reportedly unavailable on many occasions, so that it’s not a very reliable source of information for expectant examinees. But with the PRC Board Exam Results blog, Filipino examinees now have a single, centralized portal upon which to check their exam results. Board exams for nurses, teachers, and other professionals are included. In the near future, Jehz says that they will also include results from the bar exam.

They’ve been getting quite an impressive amount of traffic already. In only a few days since launch (23 October 2007), the blog’s pageviews now stand at almost 54,000 from nearly 5,800 visitors. Their SMS and email subscribers have also breached the one-thousand mark, according to Jehz. This blog is definitely here to stay, and it’s proudly Davao made!

Jehz is a graduate of the University of Southeastern Philippines, while Winston is currently a 5th-year student at the Ateneo de Davao University. They were both scholars of the Department of Science and Technology when they were in high school. These two 21-year-olds definitely have a bright future ahead of them! With each possessing technical skills in information technology and a good head for business, the world is definitely their playground.

The “Filipina” Writing Project aims to debunk the current search results associated with the keyword “Filipina” coming out of major Internet search engines. By generating more positive content related to this keyword, and via the pervasive effects of good SEO techniques, the Project hopes to spread an improved — and true — image of the Filipino woman.

It is disgusting how pornography websites have dishonored the Filipina and have attached lewd, dirty connotations to the term. Do we just sit on our hands and let this remain unchanged? unchallenged? This is a terrible blight on our name and on our nationhood! Let’s use our powerful voices as one and tell the world who and what the Filipina truly is!

I’m calling on all Filipino bloggers and SEO practitioners — as well as those of other nationalities who’d like to positively contribute to this worthy effort — to join the “Filipina” Writing Project. Do you part now!

Just as I published this post, I came across FilipinaImages.com via Janette’s W30 blog. Here’s another way of helping to improve the Filipna image worldwide!