I just read an article from Inquirer.net that someone has already hacked the iPhone to work with Globe, Smart or Sun networks. It’s really amazing how people can do anything if they really wanted to.

Here’s the article from Inquirer.net:

“iPhone made to work on local RP network

By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 05:33pm (Mla time) 08/26/2007
MANILA, Philippines–Apple iPhone users in the Philippines can now directly use the popular mobile phone on a local network.

It has become possible to access a local mobile network without using a roaming arrangement with US provider AT&T after a certain “Dubeditions” posted a photo and a short entry in a website forum indicating that he had found a way to unlock the iPhone and make it work on the network of Globe Telecom, a local telecommunications firm.

In a post dated August 15, 2007, Dubeditions revealed to members of the Philippine Macintosh Users Group (PhilMUG)’s forum that he had cloned the iPhone’s subscriber identity module (SIM).

INQUIRER.net has tried several times to contact the person behind the technique, but he has declined to respond.

The Apple iPhone, which combines a mobile phone with the company’s iconic iPod music player, has not yet been released in Southeast Asia. iPhones in the US are exclusively available on AT&T’s mobile network.

“If you read closely, the original poster mentioned supersim. This means he is claiming to use methods (recently posted around the Internet) which involve writing data onto a blank ’supersim’ sim card to unlock the iPhone’s full network capabilities,” PhilMUG subscriber Danieldy further explained in the forum.

In the same forum, Dubeditions confirmed Danieldy’s short explanation.

Another post from a PhilMUG member Cyberprince in the forum explained that Dubeditions was able to extract information from both the AT&T and the old Globe SIMs, and then combine them in a new card.

“Hardware is relatively expensive too so props to dubeditions for taking the plunge without being sure he could get it to work here. I’ve been planning to give it a try myself but wasn’t ready to plop down some cash without any blanket of security that my sim card would work,” Cyberprince said.

But Elbert Cuenca, PhilMUG administrator, posted in the same forum that the hack was not “ready for prime time yet.”

“For me to be able to make local, non-roaming phone calls on my iPhone, I’ll need to find a v.1 SIM that is still active (i.e. registered and functioning with the carrier). V.1 SIMs are the old generation cards, the kind that can hold up to 100 contacts only. This kind of SIM is not as secure as the newer ones, hence the ability to be hacked. Dubeditions has tried on almost every kind of SIM card, and is still trying others,” he said.

“If ever I do find an active v.1 SIM, I still won’t be able to make calls using my post-paid account and I probably won’t have EDGE/GPRS,” Cuenca added.

INQUIRER.net has seen an actual iPhone that was using the cloned SIM, and was able to make local calls.”

I got this email from our alumni yahoo groups almost a year ago. It’s about my former adviser who I didn’t know what happened to her after our graduation. This was the reason why she didn’t stay with the school after we graduated. I was one of the students of HS4C but was not one of the students who failed then given a chance to pass the subject.

National Labor Relations Commission, St. Jude Catholic School, Rev. Fr. Noel Bejo, Ms. Priscilla Lopez, Ms. Natividad Tan, Ms. Vilma Lao, Ms. Jennifer Gil, Ms. Remedios Cabanlit and Mr. Camilo Gelido v. Ma. Bernadette Salgarino

In April 1988, respondent Maria Bernadette A. Salgarino was employed by petitioner St. Jude Catholic School as Mathematics teacher. She was tasked to teach Algebra, Trigonometry, Statistics and Analytical Geometry for third and fourth year high school students.   On 15 February 1999, or two weeks before the fourth periodical test of that school year, respondent went on maternity leave.  She was expected to be back in petitioner school on 19 March 1999.  During her official leave, she conducted make-up tests in her house in order to improve the grades of some of her students.  However, this was done by the respondent without the prior permission of petitioners.  At this same period, her co-teachers, Ms. Maria Luisa Capistrano (Capistrano) , Mrs. Angelita Rivera and Mrs. Michel Bongyad substituted for her in her classes.  On 2 March 1999, the periodical test for Mathematics IV was conducted and the same was administered by Capistrano, since respondent was still on leave.

One of herein petitioners, Head Teacher Ms. Priscila Lopez (Lopez), instructed the substitute teachers to check the test papers and compute the grades of the students in Sections 4-A, 4-B and 4-C.

On 9 March 1999, the white sheets or the grading sheets for the 4th year students were accomplished by the substitute teachers.  It was shown that some 4th year students obtained a failing grade in Math.  Subsequently, respondent, while still on leave, requested Capistrano to deliver to her house the white sheets which contained the grades in Math of respondent’s students.  Capistrano delivered the white sheets to respondent’s home through a student named Eunice Weeguano.  Upon receiving them, respondent encircled the failing grades under the column of Daily Work (DW) and placed a passing grade beside each encircled grade.  Respondent asserted that as the handling teacher, she had the prerogative to pass her students.  She revealed that she required her students to do some projects and conducted make-up tests for them before she went on maternity leave and to improve the final grades of the concerned students.  She avers that out of valid and humanitarian reasons, she indicated a passing grade of 75% beside the grades of those with failing grades.

Upon return of the white sheets, the substitute teachers noticed therein the additions made by respondent.  The substitute teachers immediately reported the matter to Lopez who, in turn, referred the matter to petitioner Rev. Fr. Noel Bejo (Fr. Bejo), SVD, Acting Director/Principal of petitioner school.

On 26 March 1999, respondent was investigated for her act of increasing the grades of her students while she was on maternity leave.  Respondent and the substitute teachers were allowed to attend and participate in the investigation.

The investigating panel reached the conclusion that respondent altered her students’ grades while she was on leave, which is, according to them, a case of education malpractice or grave misconduct and grossly prejudicial to the good name of the petitioner school.  In particular, the investigating committee found respondent to have violated Article XV, Section 79 and Article XVII, Section 94, paragraph (b) of the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools

On these bases, the members of the investigating committee ruled to terminate respondent’s services.

According to petitioners, Section 79 of the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools mandates that a student’s grade should be based solely on his academic performance; that it is therefore a serious academic malpractice or grave misconduct for respondent to give grades that are not based on their scholastic performance; that it is a serious misconduct for respondent to give grades at the time she was still on maternity leave because she has no moral or legal authority then to do so; that there is nothing in the Manual which states that a teacher has the discretion or the option as to what grade she will give her students; and that a teacher has the obligation to determine the grades of students based solely on their academic performance.

Truly, then, respondent had committed a misconduct.  However, such misconduct is not serious enough to warrant her dismissal from employment under paragraph (a) of Article 282 of the Labor Code.

Misconduct is defined as improper or wrong conduct. It is the transgression of some established and definite rule of action, a forbidden act, a dereliction of duty, willful in character and implies wrongful intent and not mere error of judgment.  The misconduct to be serious within the meaning of the act must be of such a grave and aggravated character and not merely trivial or unimportant.  Such misconduct, however serious, must nevertheless be in connection with the work of the employee to constitute just cause from his separation.

In order to constitute serious misconduct which will warrant the dismissal of an employee under paragraph (a) of Article 282 of the Labor Code, it is not sufficient that the act or conduct complained of has violated some established rules or policies.  It is equally important and required that the act or conduct must have been performed with wrongful intent.

Based on the foregoing, respondent may have committed an error of judgment in deciding to pass her students, but it cannot be said that she was motivated by any wrongful intent in doing so.  As such, her misconduct cannot be considered as grave in character which would warrant her dismissal from employment.  We, thus, find her to be guilty only of simple misconduct.  It is settled that a misconduct, which is not serious or grave, cannot be a valid basis for dismissing an employee.

As a caveat, it would do well for respondent to act more conscientiously and with more regard to the policies of petitioners in the future.  A repetition or similar misconduct may call for a more severe penalty in the future.

I have been working for around 1 week now at the new company that I have applied. Position is systems engineer and I am currently on probation. Pay is good and the only problem is that the work schedule is on a shifting basis. They have 3 shifts for 24 hours – 700-400, 1500-2300, and 2300-700. Currently I am on the morning shift since I am just new and on training.

The company is a Taiwanese company whose business is mainly on Internet Sports Betting. The company just started operations in the Philippines last Feb this year. Funny thing about my job is that I have already applied for this company last July but they placed me on another position. That position also has a shifting work schedule but the job description is that you are somewhat like a banker for betting. You arrange the bets and make sure that those betting lose so that the company earns.  I couldn’t take the pressure of that work and only stayed to finish the orientation for 3 days. They paid me Php900 for those 3 days so it wasn’t a waste of time. I tried applying again since they posted another ad on the newspaper for an IT personnel. I didn’t think that they would call again since I quit the last job offer.

As I have said this is a Taiwanese company so the bosses are mostly Taiwanese. I need to brush up on my mandarin to communicate well with them and thank God I am able to keep up.

Finally, I am able to post again after a few months. Here are some things that I have up to lately.

Baguio Trip last February:

Went to Baguio with my brother(Joel) and some friends(Keks, Shad, Jao, Cons, Ghel, Pepper, Kwissy and Zhen) last Feb during the last days of the flower festival there. One way ticket costs around Php 400.

Original plan was to see the parade and enjoy the sights. We also planned to play pRO during WoE time since we have some friends/guildmates who lives there (Baguio Division). Mans, one of the guys there, was the one who offered their house for rent where we can stay while we were there.

When we got there, we got to do most of the stuffs when one goes there (shopping, little sight seeing, chat with the Baguio peeps), only thing that we didn’t do was to watch the parade. hehe. We were too lazy especially when we saw the throngs of people lining up at Session Road.

We got to siege/play WoE in the famous Outer Haven where our Baguio friends usually play their network/internet games. The place is huge and a very nice place. We also got to meet some of the players from our rival guild that also lives in Baguio.

Highlight of our stay there was the night before we leave when Jerome was telling some of his experiences with his not fully developed sixth sense.

Batanggas Beach getaway:

Went to Calatagan, Batanggas with Mon, Joy and her office mates (Charlene, Omar, Michelle, Charnee, Tina). We rented a van for about Php 6,000 to go there. The ride was about 3 hours long.

When we got there there was no electricity and the place was very noisy. We thought that we made the wrong choice to go there. At the end of the day, after the lights went back it seems to be alright already.

Although the sand is gray, water is very clear. There were sea weeds on the rocky part of the beach but it’s ok. The swimming pool was ok, only problem is that there were so many people using it.

I really enjoyed those trips since I got to meet new friends specially the Batanggas trip. That’s it for now… btw, I already resigned from my job and my last day will be on Friday. Need to find another job again or I won’t have money on me to spend.

When I was about to have my 25^th birthday, I started thinking very hard what have I accomplished lately and did I already made steps on achieving my goal to become rich early and retire young. Checking out the job ads, and applying for them made me think should I take up more courses to boost my career like taking up MBA or technical / programming courses for certification. Yea I have partnered with Hanzel and Oly with making Waffle Wrapps but the business still doesn’t make that much money yet and is not enough. I really have to think of ways on how I can be rich and successful by age 40. If anyone out there has some ideas share it to me please. =)

It sometimes is a real problem working for a new office with all the policies not straightened out. The branch office of Okaya here in Manila is already 6 – 7 years and yet still policies are not straightened. Since before the end of the year there are already debates going on with the given leaves for us employees. This time it’s about the company buying out the excess leaves the employees still have. I really don’t care about the first issue since it doesn’t affect me directly and since the policy on my leaves are already clear.

The leave conversion is the one that really has effects on me but I don’t really care much about it. My real plan is to use up my leaves but I was only given leaves during the last quarter of last year so they have to convert my leaves. Previous way is that one can convert 5 sick leaves, 5 vacation leaves and 3 emergency leaves to cash if you do not use it by the end of the year. When my new boss checked the written policy regarding that, and we were only entitled for leave conversion for the vacation leaves. I have no problem with that since I have used up 4.5 of my sick leaves and only 1 vacation leave and I still have 4 vacation leaves to convert. Hehe.

I think the one who really is affected by all of these is Madam. As they say, everything you do will get back to you sooner or later. She is currently debating with my boss regarding the leave conversion as I write this piece. Hehe. She even called someone asking about the policy.

Apple just unveiled their new product 2 weeks ago which is the iPhone. It really is a cool phone and the only thing missing is 3G capability. Here’s an article from macworld regarding the iPhone.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/01/09/iphone/index.php

Apple unveils iPhone

By Mathew Honan

After more than two years in the making, Apple CEO Steve Jobs Tuesday announced the company’s intention to enter the mobile handset market, unveiling the new Apple iPhone. The iPhone brings together several features of the iPod, digital camera, smart phones and even portable computing to one device, with a widescreen display and an innovative input method.

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” Jobs said.

Featuring a new input technology called “Multi-Touch” the iPhone features only a single physical button, called “home.” You control the phone by sliding a finger across its touch-sensitive 3.5-inch display, which has a resolution of 320-by-480 pixels at 160 pixels-per-inch display.

The iPhone, which runs Mac OS X, has full iTunes integration and can seamlessly sync data with a Mac, PC, or Internet service, including music and videos from iTunes, contacts, calendars, photos, notes, bookmarks and e-mail accounts.

The 0.46-inch (11.6-millimeter) thick device weighs 4.8 ounces (135 grams) and sports a 2-megapixel camera, volume control, ring-silent switch, 3.5-millimeter headset/audio jack, SIM tray, “sleep-wake” switch, speaker, microphone, and a 30-pin iPod dock connector. The quad-band GSM (850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900MHz) + EDGE phone also has 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities. Jobs noted 3G capabilities will come in the future.

Three smart sensors also help control the iPhone’s behavior. A proximity sensor shuts down the display and touchscreen when the phone is held to the ear. An ambient light sensor automatically adjusts screen brightness to save power. Meanwhile, an accelerometer lets the phone know whether to display in portrait or landscape mode.

Despite the phone’s revolutionary features, Jobs claimed that the phone’s strongest feature was its redefinition of how calls are made.

“We want to reinvent the phone,” Jobs said. “What’s the killer app? The killer app is making calls. It’s amazing how hard it is to make calls on phones. We want you to use contacts like never before.”

A Visual Voice-mail feature allows users to skip directly to voice mails they want to hear. An easy-to-use conference call feature lets users connect two calls with one touch of the screen. Text messaging on the iPhone is similar to iChat, with user dialogue encased in bubbles and with familiar iChat sounds, and a touch keyboard appears below for entering text.

The iPhone uses its Wi-Fi and EDGE capabilities to automatically connect to the Internet. Internet connectivity includes HTML-capable e-mail that works with any IMAP or POP3 e-mail service. Jobs also announced that Yahoo will offer free push e-mail—similar to the e-mail system on a Blackberry—to all iPhone customers.

Apple also included its Safari web browser, and the phone can use its Internet capabilities to view standard Web pages, rather than WAP versions of pages. Integrated Google Maps functionality lets users look up locations, search for local businesses, and view satellite imagery. The iPhone also supports Dashboard widgets, and Apple announced it will include weather and stock widgets.

The iPhone’s photo management features are equally interesting. Its software enables users to use a “pinching” motion to zoom in and out of pictures, and to orient pictures in standard or landscape mode. When playing music, the iPhone can automatically adjust levels up or down as calls come in.

The iPhone will come in two versions: a 4GB, $499 model and an 8GB, $599 model. Both will require a two-year contract with Cingular, the exclusive U.S. carrier. Both models will be available beginning in June from Apple Stores and from Cingular.

Jobs said Apple plans to bring the iPhone to Europe in the fourth calendar quarter of 2007, and to Asia in 2008. Jobs also mentioned two accessories for the iPhone: stereo headphones with integrated microphone, and a Bluetooth headset that pairs automatically with the iPhone and goes to sleep to preserve battery life.

The following posts are long overdue but I would still like to post them anyway.

Our internet connections are made in Taiwan!

As in the news, after the recent earthquake in Taiwan, several submarine optical fiber cables connecting the Philippines and some of Asia to the rest of the world were destroyed. IDD connections were hard to use, internet connections to US based sites were slow. It was hard to connect to Yahoo! and Google and to my luck, blogger is owned by Google so for almost a month I cannot connect easily to those sites and their services.

Currently, they have finished fixing some of the cables including a major cable that connects the Philippines to the US. Internet connections to almost all the sites are back to normal.

New Year’s Wish List

You might say that it should be a Christmas wish list but because I wanted these wishes to come true within the New Year (2007) I named these New Year’s Wish List.

1. The current transaction with our client Sanyo Seiki to be finished already. I want it to be over already because I have gone through a whole lot with this transaction and it won’t benefit to me much. Client is hard to ask for their payments and the supplier is hard to negotiate with.

2. I find another job. I hate this company already. There are too many issues in here. Everyday issues come up. Even though we are just a small office there still too many issues and petty things that come up.

3. My 2 brothers find their respective jobs. If they have their own jobs already then the cash flow in our home will be much easier.

4. Our mini business, Waffle Wrapps (waffle stand), make more sales. A few weeks ago, sales were down. It might be due to the defective lighting in the store. I fixed those already and somehow sales were able to pickup last week. I am still not yet sure if that business is earning.

It was a good thing that my boss still gave us a few days off from work this coming new year. Originally, he told us that there will still be some days that we need to come to the office but later announced about the days off from work.

I’m starting to know better our new boss and he is one difficult person to handle. He doesn’t want to get involved even if the problem is already too big for me to handle. He has a short temper specially on our phone system. He keeps on banging on the phone if he can’t contact who he is trying to contact. He keeps on demanding so much from our suppliers that sometimes it is much better for him to just talk to them since our suppliers are already annoyed at us. Hay….. I really do not know what to do. Even if we try to explain to him this and that he just keeps on insisting what he wants and always cuts in to your explanation. I really needed to find another job with another company. I might loose my temper if this keeps on coming. I have been applying already to different companies on Jobstreet but up to now I no one is still calling for me to be interviewed, there is one company who is asking me to schedule an exam with them but when I tried calling their phone doesn’t work. Wish me luck for me to find a new job.

We just bought a new 19″ LCD Monitor! It took a while before we got to finalize what we were buying since some pc stores do not accept VISA or can only accept cash. This new one is really worth it even if it is not yet a wide screen version. It feels like heaven when looking at the LCD panel since the lighting/graphics is much better and it puts less strain in the eye. I don’t know why but I don’t like the wide screen version but everybody is saying it is much better. Well maybe much better if you will just use your computer for viewing movies and playing games but ours is not for those things only and will be also used for editing photos/videos especially since my sister is taking a degree on multimedia arts.