Incubators

Ayala TBI and DOST both have incubators. Recently opened are Open TBI is along C.P. Garcia Ave. near UP and Ateneo and UP Visayas Cebu College TBI. Both have spaces about roughly 15-30 square meters, which is just enough for a small team of 3-5 developers. It’s enough to get you started working on a prototype and you’ll have access to mentors and neighboring startups.

Virtual Offices and Coworking spaces

Another option if you just want a place to telecommute from time to time and can’t face being at the coffee shop all day is to rent a desk at Proud Cloud’s Hackspace in Eastwood. That’s definitely a “hacker house”, if that’s what you’re looking for. No long-term lease, you can just use the desk for a day or a month, and pay as you go.

With a more traditional business feel are the proliferating virtual offices in the metro. In Makati alone, there are: Worldnet Biz Center (830-0205 – 07 loc 11) and My Office along Salcedo Street and Makati Corporate (893-8909) near Don Bosco, and of course prestigious Regus at Enterprise. You can rent a desk or two for at usually at least 3-6 months for less than P5,000. Get a plan that allows you a few hours of the meeting rooms and conference facilities of the shared office space, so you can have private time for product presentations or customer interviews or skype calls.

Are you ready to step it up? Did I miss any other virtual office or small office options for startups and telecommuters? Feel free to share which ones you’ve tried or would like to try.

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Web/Tech-savvy people are at a great place right now — with consumers and businesses growing more comfortable with placing their data on the cloud. So will we be in position at the right time? Some of the upcoming events could help you connect with your future co-founders and end-users.

Startups Take a Pitch

Jojo Flores, who runs California-based incubator Plug and Play Tech Center, is giving Filipino startup companies a chance to pitch for funding and/or globalization. You have to be in the fields of consumer web, internet mobile, wireless, social media, gaming, software, hardware, clean & biotech… well, if you’re reading this, you can probably count yourself in.

• Submissions in by January 29, 2010, 5pm PST
• Competition: February 9, 2010 9am-3.30pm at SMX Convention Center
• How to participate

Via Globe Labs

PHP Developers Summit 2010

PHP developers are coming together at the PHP Dev Summit organized by the PHP User Group Philippines. There’s going to be talks on PHP best practices, versioning with Git, Starting a Startup (which will be presented by my colleague JP Dela Torre), UI design for web apps, and more.

• Registration: P1,200 pre-registered. P1,500 walk-in (including buffet lunch, snacks, conference kit, shirt, etc)
• January 30, 2010 8am-5pm
• Grand Ballroom, Hotel Rembrandt, 26 Tomas Morato Ext., Quezon City
• Registration and Conference Details

Form Function & Class Mini Web Design Conference

It’s BarCamp style, meaning anybody who wants to talk can talk. And it’s really casual. For web designers, by web designers.

• February 11, 2010 (Thursday) 6-9pm
• G2VC TechBar, Orient Square Bldg., Ortigas (View map)
• Registration Fee: Free! Sign up here

It’s an un-conference — we can be informal, we can speak in English or Filipino, there’s no structure. Be heard. Ask questions. Make new friends. Share your experiences and opinions on web design principles and trends.

On the same night, there’s also Roofcamp #6, so go and choose your booze.

Roofcamp #6 featuring Yahoo! Developer Network

Roofcamp is a venue for future looking, maverick, and fearless individuals sharing and distilling ideas from concept to reality. Michael “Smitty” Smith, Jr. and Alan Magtoto will be discussing YDN SEA and Live 3D Avatar technology.

• February 11, 2010 (Thursday) 6-930pm
• Mag:Net Bonifacio High Street (View map)

Via Proudcloud

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Do more with less (effort): Tools that make Drupal deployment extra-efficient by Marcky

• openatrium for project management based on drupal
• uniform server lightweight local server
• extplorer php-based file manager to demo obtaining a copy of open atrium and extract the tar and install on web server (sort of GUI cPanel). As an alternative, to quickly install and extract tarballs or zip from one server to another, I’d recommend using PuTTY (PC) or Terminal (*nix) instead. Go wget!
• apture plugin – content creation assistant tool
• lullabot’s pick: top 40 drupal module, drupalmodules.com
• for theming, start with genesis, fusion theme, adaptive theme

Still to come

• 1 Core Theme, Unlimited Subthemes, Adding configurations on layout, colors, fonts, etc.
• Automating your workflow with Drupal’s Workflow and Actions Module
• A Discussion on Drupal’s Form API
• Efficient Theming of Nodes, Views and Blocks

Have a great weekend! Photos

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This morning, we had an install fest where Drupal n00bs got a walk-through of installing Drupal on your localhost XAMPP, creating a database in MySQL phpMyAdmin, creating content types. (Personally, I’ve become a fan of installing via command line)

Earlier, Rick Bahague of Computer Professionals Union showed their workflow when working with nonprofit websites for NGOs. They’re always looking for volunteers and will have an intensive Drupal workshop on December 15-16, 2009.

Just wrapped up, Loloy D showed how he’s integrated photos hosted on his Picasa Web account to his Drupal site. He’s distributing the code under GNU license.

Breaking for lunch! Right after, we’ll listen to Marky Caballero “Do more with less (effort): Tools that make Drupal deployment extra-efficient”.

G2iX Tech Bar Venue
G2iX Tech Bar is really a fab tech venue. They’re very accommodating, you can have a classroom setup (where you can set up laptops) which is very fitting for something like the Drupal Installfest and it’s also comfy for informal Barcamp.

Good job with today, Rachel Jaro! Looking forward to see what Drupalchix has in store

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New Friendster: simple fun personal

If for some reason or other, you won’t login to Friendster, you can take a peek at

“First” Impressions

Green and yellow The new logo is quirky, tightly integrated with the whole new look, even the favicon, though I’m not fond of it yet. Green because they can’t do blue anymore?

More user-friendly navigation Friendster’s easier to use and nicer to look at now. Navigation is more obvious so I’m no longer afraid to click because I might get lost.

Efforts to get user feedback Sometimes you’d get an image ad asking for you to give feedback. Some incentive would be nice, perhaps some credit in the “Wallet” feature which I’m still not sure what it’s for.

Distracting image ads They get eyeballs but it’s hardly quality attention. I’m looking forward to more relevant and less obtrusive advertising. Good copy and stylesheets can do wonders.

An overhaul of a social network with a huge existing user base is a massive undertaking… which must be why my Friends list isn’t working yet.

What do you think of Friendster’s new look?

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Gloo is a new way to communicate online. It’s an online collaboration space where you can post Facebook pictures, web images and videos into spaces where you and your friends and family can collaborate in real-time. People can chat, doodle, write free form text, place post-its and even send SMS and MMS messages to mobile phones. Each element that you post can be moved and resized by you or by other people, and changes that anyone makes will be seen by other people IN REAL TIME. That’s the power and uniqueness of Gloo. It’s not only a place where you can post media and text, you can manipulate these elements with other people at the same time.”

That’s quite a lengthy description to tell us what we can do inside Gloo.. now if only I can manage to figure out how to register Sign up button in the middle of the page.

Give it a try and tell me how it goes. Now I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with mobile-crossover-web social networks. Was Gloo meant to replace or complement Facebook? When are the instances you’d log in here instead of FB/Flickr/IM/Wave?

Actually I’m a tad surprised because I always thought the Globe Labs Challenge was primarily mobile applications with some optional web component — but Gloo appears to be intrinsically a web app. If Gloo is meant to compete with Smart’s Sandbox, I have yet to see a mobile-friendly version of Gloo — if only I can try Gloo on my mobile for free. Till then, go ahead and explore Gloo.

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I wish I can tell you we’ve been busy with our product… and we did put some time into one baby project along with our new intern Ralph… but the start of this year was crazy. One of our partners jumped ship to movie school, we had too little money coming in from web development consulting projects, mainly due to a delinquent customer who was full of promise (and promises), but life goes on! and so do rental payments and salaries — thankfully things are looking up! (Quite!)

So, let me tell you the reality of our dev life — and what I’ve been up to as the enabler (so does that make JP the implementer?) Checks to write, meetings and tasks to delegate and actually work on, clients to interface with and events such as Philippine Web Designers Organization’s Form Function Class and One Web Day 2009 (next Tuesday! September 22 – Earth Day for the Internet).

We’re finally getting our office almost to the way we want it, after a year of bootstrapping. Each developer works on either an iMac or an HP laptop. The workstation has a 22-inch monitor (really liking Samsung P2250) or one of our own old 19″ monitors that JP wants to get rid of ASAP lol, beautiful super slim multimedia keyboard with laptop-like keys (Samsung Pleomax PKB-780 same as Tonio — which you can find for less than P800 if you shop around Festival Mall), and laser optical mouse (Logitech – buy from E-Hub, not from Octagon).

Small Office (not Home Office) Ergonomics

Since being a programmer entails continuous hours of sitting down, the comfy executive chair is a given. Our worktable comes is long enough and spacious enough to fit up to 2 (even 3?) 22″ monitors and extra stuff. We can’t have any of those fugly bulky wood or clerical desks with built-in drawers. For one thing, our chairs wouldn’t fit! haha and they’re too small to fit a laptop and monitor setup. We gotta make the most of our small office!

We debated whether to:

a) get one of those virtualization devices that allow you to share processing power from 1 CPU to 3-5 users. Cheapest option but could be demoralizing for the devs given that, hello, we’re a software company and we have to share computers?
b) desktops for the devs… but they wouldn’t be able to work from home, unless it’s using their own machines. It’s awesomely cheap to build though and easy to upgrade. But what about the data on the local drives? What if there’s a power outage? In short, it’s just too troublesome to think about… So we went with…
c) invest in a laptop for each dev. PC (HP Compaq) for now and as cash flow allows, perhaps provide Macbooks. Of course, there are security risks, especially in our wonderful developing country, since there is no laptop insurance in the Philippines (that I know of). Hey, I just googled and saw that Omnibrokers has computer insurance — but it doesn’t cover theft, more like a glorified warranty.

So now I’m the only one using a desktop (formerly used as dev server with CentOS) and Macbook at home while the others get to use the iMacs and the laptops. I have the biggest desk of them all because I need space to layout papers and attempt to have a GTD workspace.

We’re conscientious with using the laptops though. Cornell University recommends for full-time laptop users:

• position this on your desk/worksurface in front of you so that you can see the screen without bending your neck. This may require that you elevate the laptop off the desk surface using a stable support surface, such as a computer monitor pedestal.
• use a separate keyboard and mouse. You should be able to connect a keyboard and mouse directly to the back of the laptop or to a docking station
• use the keyboard on a negative-tilt keyboard tray to ensure a wrist neutral posture
• use the mouse on an adjustable position mouse platform
• follow the postural guidelines for working at a computer workstation

More photos of our fab green office. It’s mostly just my workspace — pardon the image quality, just using the camera phone. Will have to ask Flicker Happy Photographers where the other photos are.

Startup Purchasing and Financing Tips

Since furniture and computer equipment enable us information workers, that’s got to be foremost in your considerations in setting up an ergonomic office, aside from choosing an accessible location and preparing your downpayment for the office, and having a credit card, checking account, cash box, and some place to store files.

But since these are big-ticket items you’ll be using for a long time, it makes better sense to use longer-term financing. Well, that’s what business advisors will tell you — use long-term financing (loans, stock investors) for long-term assets, short-term financing (credit cards, short-term personal loans) for short-term expenses. So if you can loan from business angels or generous titos or titas that would be perfect. So that you can pay them back in a year or two, or when able. But if you really don’t have a choice, take advantage of 0% installment plans, whenever possible. The cash price is sometimes a bit less than the listed price, but in general, spreading out payments over a few months is better for your cash flow than paying a chunk of cash at the beginning.

Now if only I can find a good-looking reasonably-priced laptop stand. There’s your peek at running a startup office!

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

• Open Social API
• Globe Voice API
• Globe SMS/MMS API
• Globe LBS (Location based service) API
• Google Friend Connect API
• Google App Engine
• Youtube API
• Everything on Google Code or Globe Labs

Mashup the APIs you’ve learned to make some interesting applications! Ask questions and get started while the experts are on hand.

When: June 20, 2009 (Saturday), 12-5pm
Where: Ayala Technohub, Commonwealth Ave., Diliman, Quezon City (View map)
What to bring: Your own laptop. Ideas. Enthusiasm!
Click here to register.

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