I kinda wondered for sometime why I can only access www.codeplex.com outside the office or if I use my HSDPA access to the Internet.  From the office I get this weird behavior that codeplex downloads a file every time we access the site. It took a while for me to play around on settings on the ISA Server (no, ISA is not the problem.  Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server is so far the best server based network firewall! hands down!).  The solution was simple on the contrary;  I just needed to disable HTTP compression and voila!   It took a while for me to realize that.

The cool thing about my job, aside from doing software project architectures, is that I lead the development of Windows Mobile applications specially focusing on Auto-ID.   Photo's above shows the stuff I play around with;  RFID and Barcode readers that's built into Windows Mobile (these Windows mobile devices are rugged!  Can withstand 5ft drops to concrete, jet-spray with water, works as a computer for a user working in extremely hot or cold scenarios , etc) to RFID tags and labels, and specialized hardware.

Our company started in 1995 as an auto-id company.  I remember that we used to develop against highly proprietary hardware; where apps only runs on the device, the wireless interface uses proprietary frequency, and it looks more like a huge calculator than a portable digital terminal.   Those devices required us to write our code only in C and compile using a crude command line compiler.  The created binary would only run on the device so the only way to debug is to show variable values on the screen.  Yes, it was crude, no OS, and the development cycle was horrible.

Thanks to Microsoft's Visual Studio we are now able to write mobile applications and step through the code while the application runs on the device!  Now applications are more dependable as they become more bug-free.   This is specific to Windows Mobile devices (of course! :) ), though some competing brand has switched their devices to Windows Mobile OS, rather than their own OS, so let's say including the majority of portable digital terminals.    :D

The .NET Compact Framework gave way to a huge number of classes and functions that is highly re-usable including services for accessing databases (both on the device or to a SQL Server on the network), threading, encryption, network services, and others.  A Windows Mobile application can subscribe to webservices and access its classes and methods via providing the WSDL, thus allowing the portable digital terminal to communicate with diverse services over the network and the Internet just like a PC.

This makes Windows Mobile and .NET Compact Framework the de facto standard in portable digital terminals specially in the Auto-ID world.

Thanks to Blogie Robillo who invited me to the Blogger's Party.   I was amazed on the diverse blogs that are being made in Davao; from medicine, art, big bikes, and movies to name a few aside from the personal blogs that contain unique experiences that are not only entertaining but informative as well.

It's like everyone knows everyone in the party and the fun didn't end at the main venue; the party continued at the O' Flanegans (didn't have photos unfortunately) where interesting topics were discussed and had exchange of strange ideas (maybe it was due that we ran out of san mig light!)

Congratulations to Mindanao Bloggers!   may you have many more parties to come!  CHEERS!

Just wanted to share this scuba diving experience with wify :)    dating at 30ft!

The MVP's enjoyed the dinner with Ms. Canny Wang - MVP Lead for SEA.  The food was good at the Sentro(2/F Greenbelt 3).   I thought the "sinigang na cornbeef" (tamarind soup using cornbeef") was a joke, it was real and yummy.

Here's some photos of the dinner:

From L2R (first row) Chester, Ms. Canny Wang, Jasper, Jay , Michael, (2nd row) Jay B., Warren, Glenn, Eugene, and me :)

My wife and I have been fond of fishes for more than two years now.  I'd like to share some of the fishes that have been staying in our living room since they were young.

This is humpy (i guess you know why).    Humpy was unbelievably just about half-inch a year ago!

Below is July (you guessed it right, he was bought in July...  2006)

And our new favorite, fishy (just like you would name your dog "doggy" :D )      

Fishy loves to sing... most of the time.

It's been a while that I started a blog and was not able to update. ...and starting today I promised myself that I should have one again and will update this blog very often. :)  cheers!