What Day Is It?

Posted on February 19, 2012 by glforbes

January 17, 2012

My mission for the day is to goto Philippine Immigration and have my visa extended. I go on line and Google what jeepney would get me close to where I need to go. I find the jeepney routes and two land marks I need to to use to get there. They are SM Mall and Park Mall. Also in my Google search I find out that I will need over P6000.00 for my visa extension. I only have P4000.00 pesos, so I decide to delay my extension and pay the penalty.

January 24, 2012

I’m sleeping and I hear lots of bangs and explosions. I wakeup and I assume it’s the police in some kind of a gun battle with the bad guys. I put my head under the pillow try to go back to sleep. I wake up early in the morning to get my mission started for the day. I’m overdue in updating my passport. I now have the money to pay for the passport extension and the security yellow card.

I take the jeepney going to SM Mall and start to look for the jeepney going to Park Mall. Well, I didn’t find it at the jeepney terminal. So I say it’s a nice day and I need to walk and explore. The walk takes me about 40 minutes and I still have another 15 minute walk to immigration. I pass the fire station and arrive at the police station. There are 10 people standing out side as I walk by. I ask “Were is the immigration office?”. I’m told it’s just around the corner. Then they ask why are you going there? The office is closed today. It’s a holiday. “Ah! Holiday? What holiday is today?” I’m told it is the Chinese New Year. Ouch! I walk all that way and I still have to come back tomorrow. How stupid can I be.

Now the people outside the police station start asking a lot of questions. The usual things like where you from? Do you have a Philippina girl friend? Do you like your stay here in the Philippines? These questions I heard a hundred times before and they just turn on my sense of sarcastic hummer. Soon we get all the people involved and we laugh and it picks up my spirits. I feel that my day is not a complete loss and I’m having fun.

Categories: How Dumb Can I Be, Return to the Philippines | Tags: | Leave a comment

Cebu Technology Museum

Posted on November 29, 2011 by glforbes
Fernschrieber 100 fssk 2186/1 Made in Germany
Teletype Model 15
Teletype Model 33
S C M Marchant mechanical calculator.
Radio Shack TRS-80 Model II
Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III
Magnavox Odyssey Micro Processor
Intel iPLSD (Programmable Logic Software and emulation hardware) New in the box.
Intel Microphone
Emulex XT eight port serial expansion board.
Intel floppy and 5.25 inch hard drive expansion cabinet.
Intel 386 Computer with 5.25 in hard drive and coprocessor.
Intel 386 Computer with with case.
IBM PS2 model 5110 386sx and IBM PS2 5160 386dx
Apple II and external 5.25 in floppy drive.
16mm Bell and Howell motion picture projector.
Houston Instrument Servo Plotter
Polaroid Palette Instrument Cameras
OKDATA i860 IMAGE STATION
Intel Salesman’s demo case for the IAPX 186 microprocessor. includes key pad and LED character console and the integration of chips into a small package.
Texas Instrument Calculators. TI Programmable 59 and a TI-36X Solar Scientific.
General Electric Datanet 355 Core memory. A linear select design made by Frabri-Tek.
General Electric GE435 Core Memory Stack made by Frabri-Tek.
Intel ICE=5100 (In Circuit Emulator)and a ICE-960/20 Emulator with Stand Alone Self Test.
Test Equipment
  1. Hewlett Packard model Sound Oscillator
  2. Hewlett Packard model 427A voltmeter
  3. Triplet model 630-ns Volt Ohm Meter model
  4. Triplet model 630-na Volt Ohm Meter
Tektronics 465 Oscilloscope Includes a DM 44 Digital Meter and a C30 Series Comera
Categories: Museum | 3 Comments

Cebu Surplus Sale

Posted on November 28, 2011 by glforbes
Complete living room set.
  • Coffee table
  • Two upholstered chairs
  • End table
  • Two upholstered chairs
  • Couch

All great looking with some wear. Needs cleaning.
Herman Miller Work table with storage draws. Great table at a great price.
This tricycle was a shop delivery transportation for the General Electric Computer manufacturing in Phoenix, Arizona.
Very strong sturdy steel made chairs.
Assorted tool boxes full of tools and gadgets,
Back lite drawing table, Very useable in making cartoon cells.
240 volt ac motors.
Transformers convert 240 volt in to 120 volt or 240 volt out.
Servo controllers and actuators.
Electrical Equipment and Band Saw Pulley wheels.
Categories: Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Needed: Arizona Technology Investor

Posted on November 22, 2011 by glforbes

Hello! I am the owner of this site and the owner of http://cast-cebu.org. I like to think of these two sites as my ‘Right Brain’ and my ‘Left Brain’.

Here I’m going to outline a business plan for a sweat equity partnership that will start with my assets an intellectual property. What I need from a partner is the implementer, the CEO.  Basically the idea is that I spent 15 years in the Philippines and now have a lot of programs and applications that need to be marketed and sold for money.

I will first make a list of my assets:

  1. Email Postcards: Send email with text, picture and sound. The email is multipart and the sound and images are sent as attachments.
  2. 3D E-Marketing: Connects manufacturer to the wholesale buyer in a sell before you make environment. Interactive 3D models, textures and voice communication.
  3. E-Calendars: Flash perpetual calendar with picture, sound and text.
  4. E Brochures: Flash E-Brochure with picture, text and sound.
  5. Newsletters: A what we do and how we do it, monthly newsletter.
  6. Facebook and Tweeter: Catch us on Facebook and Tweeter.
  7. Linkedin: Follow our technical side on the Linkin Form.
  8. Web Sites:  Checkout our websites at http://tetracebu.com. This is our left brain (technology) – WordPress MultiSite. Check out our website at http://www.cast-cebu.org. This is our right brain (Art and Animation).
  9. iText: An online conversion from HTML to PDF.

Physical assets:

  1. Technology Museum: Check out at Forbes Technology Museum/
  2. Medium Museum:
  3. Work Office:
  4. Contacts in the Philippines:
  5. CD, DVD and tape Library:
Categories: My Innovations | Tags: , , , , , | 6 Comments

Why don’t I smile?

Posted on November 12, 2011 by glforbes

Last Tuesday I was at a local conference and was walking around visiting the many booths. The house was pack so I made about 5 to 6 loops around the floor. Didn’t visit with many people but just help my self to the literature, candy and pens.

Well on my last round I stopped at this one booth and was just looking. The lady behind the booth spoke up and said ” Finally I get to meet you.” After passing her by about 5 times, I think she was a little frustrated.

I was just finishing my final loop and was about to walk out the door when another lady says “Hello! How are you?”. Then she says “Would you please smile? Come on smile.” I tried to smile but it just doesn’t work for me. I just said thank you and walked out the door.

Now I will try to explain why I can’t smile. I read in a book or magazine that when a mother looks at her infant baby they always look cute. There is an instant bond between mother and baby. Then they defined the word cute. Cute means small mouth and big eyes. All babies have large eyes and a small mouth. The eye size is set at birth, They don’t grow larger but the size of the mouth grows.

Well today in my adult life I have a small mouth and big eyes. Do I look cute? MMmm! maybe but the reason I think woman talk to me, is I wear a hat. (The only one at the show with a hat.) The hat, long pants(well pressed) and tucked in shirt is my trademark. I want to look rich. Well it works, at least with the older ladies. Oh yea! When I introduce myself I always say my name is Mr. Forbes.

Conclusion:
1) People with small mouths can’t smile because it feels so tight to curl your mouth.
2) I don’t like the word cute. Every time I here the word cute from my wife it cost me money.
3) Oh yes, I do get in trouble talking to the ladies so thats my best reason why I don’t smile.

Categories: How Dumb Can I Be | 1 Comment

WordPress MultiSite

Posted on October 24, 2011 by glforbes

Well now that I have WordPress MultiSite run on my server, I feel I need to make a few comments. To sum it all up so you don’t have to read further is: I like It. But I will go ahead and explain. How you don’t mind the list form.

  • All video now has a common directory. All blogs can share video with other blogs.
  • Works with child themes. I need to modify template code and plugin code to support my interactive menus.
  • Common login and admin for all blog sites. Easily slip back and forth from site admin the network admin.
  • Common pages for all blog sites. Using export and import I can make site pages be the same.
  • Common blogs for all blog sites. Using a plugin I can blog once and it will appear on all blog sites.
  • Live version updates. Since I modify code using Child Themes, I can update live with no conflicts.
  • Common plugins for all sites. These are managed by the Network Admin and controls blog site content.
  • A new site can be setup in a few minutes, complete with video, blogs, pages and comments.<

You may wonder why I would want all blog sites to have the same content and still have them look different. We are running a team and each must commutate to all the others. Log into your site and immediately see what everybody else is doing. It’s a conference meeting.

Categories: Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Adding Video to My Sites

Posted on October 23, 2011 by glforbes

This is more of a blog on the problems I had with the plug “All In One Video Pack”. At first this seemed to be the the answer and an easy solution. But it turned into a much bigger headache.

One of my first questions was where is my video after I downloaded it from my local computer? It was not on my website. It was on somebody else’s site and I was not ask if this was OK. I would think that sense this is intellectual property that they would need my permission to host this on their web site. Or I should agree to a privacy statement. After I downloaded, I got a code segment to paste into my WordPress page. It worked fine, so I said lets activate this plugin for all of my network.

I go to the local dashboard and click Network Admin. Whoe! I get this big old error message “Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_contextual_help() in /home/…./public_html/wp-admin/network/settings.php on line 22 “. Now what’s wrong? I start my research to find the problem. I run into a post that explanes: All-In One Video Pack uses the the file name ‘settings.php’ and this file was overriding the WordPress ‘settings.php’.

Well! being a programmer I decided to fix it. I renamed settings.php in plugins/all-in-one-video-pack/settings.php to kaltura-settings.php. Of course this caused two more errors. Fixing the name change in the two faulting pages and things seemed to work fine.

Then I’m doing more upgrades to my site and I get another error saying it can’t find settings.php. Then I say wait a minute. This is not my code and I should not be making these modifications. Well! I can’t no longer switch to Network Admin because of the error. I have to use my FTP access into my site to just delete the plugin “All in one Video Pack”.

I have now switch to a Flash video player and .flv movies. Oh yes! part of my site is using HTML5 video. So if you can’t see my videos then upgrade your browser to something more modern.

Categories: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

How did I get WordPress MultiSite to work?

Posted on October 16, 2011 by glforbes

Well! The first thing I did was to RTM (Read the manual). This was all the how-to’s on the WordPress site. Followed the instruction and got nothing to work. What was I doing wrong?

Of course the next step is to Google my problems and come up with an the answer. No luck there, now what do I do? Well! If I can’t find the answer on the Internet, then the problem must be with me. I’m just stupid and don’t know what I’m doing.

The only thing I could think of was that I was not asking the right question. You get thousands of answers but it got to show up on the first page. After many tries I finally hit on the right question. ? and went to the site (see links below.). The thing that I learned amazed me. I learned what the word ‘virtual’ means when you talk about domains.

Virtual Domain: A place that has no physical being in the real world.

The word virtual is mention in the WordPress documentation only once. There is no definition for the its uses, so I will explain it here. A virtual domain is a database domain. It does not have a physical subdirectory. My big error is that I go to my Control Panel and create a physical subdomain with the associated subdirectory. Then I create a WordPress site in the new folder and link the database to the WordPress multi site.

After reading this blog journalxtra.com/2010/06/how-to-move-multiple-wordpress-subdomain-blogs-to-a-single-wordpress-3-multi-site-blog/, This site give a link to the following site to learn about virtual domains. I learn what is meant by virtual domain. I delete the subdomains I created for WordPress MultiSite. Wow! it works. Three days of work and it was that simple. Now if WordPress would just mention that a virtual domain is just a database and you do not make a subdomain in the control panel. All you do is make the wild card subdomain in the control panel.

Categories: How Dumb Can I Be | 1 Comment

The so called Google Redirect Virus

Posted on November 11, 2010 by glforbes

In the past two weeks I have been wrestling with the so called “Google Redirect Virus’. Yes you can Google this phrase and find many blogs of people in the same situation. All these blogs talk about how to remove this in Windows. But I am Linux guy. How did this thing get in my Ubuntu Linux?

Well! I do think the whole thing started with me. I do have computers here that are running Windows and are on the Internet. I just recently installed an anti-virus software and scanned the system. It found 255 cookies related to web browsing.

What does this virus or malware look like? if you search on your website, cast-cebu.org, then click on the link, you get redirected to a completely different site. The mouseover link shows a very long URL with many parameters. Other sites have a direct URL to the site. I search for many days on this Google redirect thing and find no solution that makes sence. They all say the problem is on my computer. Lets look at the evidence.

1. Different search engines show the same behavior.
2. Different browsers show the same behavior.
3. Different computers show the same behavior.
4. Different sites show Different behavior. For me, my site is infected, others are not.

The problem has nothing to do with Google. This is not the Google Redirect Virus. All the other search engines exhibit the same behavior. Nothing to do with my computer or browser. So the problem must be else ware. Maybe my website host, a dns server, my website or my local router.

I do have a dhcp(Dynamic Host Configuration Program) server and DNS(Dynamic Name Server) router installed on my Linux box. I need this because I host a local Dynamic IP website. URL http://tetra-wonderland.dlinkddns.com I use this to communicate to my customers and try out new programs I write. Anyway I checked this all out looking for recent changes via a changed date codes on the files. Found nothing. My connection to the Internet is via a cable modem. The modem has no configurations to set. I strike out there. Going further back in the chain, I change the my DNS default Internet name server. The problem is still there. Only one more thing to check, my site. But what could be the malware on my site and how would it get there?

I now go back to Google and search on ‘hosted website malware’. I run into a post that explains a malware that is encoded into all php files. This is code at the beginning of each <?php tag. It looks something like this ‘eval(base64_decode’(Google this phrase). It is then followed by a long list of characters that make on sense. Yes! I found the code string in all my site PHP files. Now I download the complete website. I manuals edit each PHP file with Bluefish and removed the malicius code. That fixed the problem, but is it the final cure? How do I know that I got all files clean.

Today I Google more about removing the eval malware and find web site you can pay to remove malware. Sites with Linux code to auto remove the code string and sites to check if you are infected. I now think I have learned enough that I am smarter than the bad guys that infected my site. Mmmm! Can I reserve my judgment on that statement. I may want to change it later. I still need to know is how the perpetrators got into my website?

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off

Why am I a Comedian?

Posted on September 17, 2010 by glforbes

As I get older I see myself as a comedian. Things just pop into my head when someone speaks to me. Is this part of my “Turn our brain off” theory? Or just a sign of old age, a return to my childhood. Hopefully I can get some answers by writing this blog.

This thing all started when I discovered that I have a right brain. The side of me that does not think. I have wrote several blogs about this subject. Most of them center on how to be an innovator and create new things.

See:

1. My Brain as a Innovator:

2. Turn Your Brain Off:

OK! Time for some recent stories where I make a fool of myself. I am having breakfast at a local restaurant. The waiter is very attentive and asking all kinds of questions. How was you day? Can I get you anything? Can I get you something to drink?

Of course my answer to “How are you?” is, “I feel terrible today”. This just happened to me today. I’m at Macy’s waiting for two woman to finish looking at womans stuff. The attendant ask me how are you? And I answer her, “This is one of my worst days, I feel miserable”. Her response to me is “You are the first person ever to tell me they are measurable”. Well think of it, I’m just waiting around in the woman’s department while my wife and friend spend hours just looking at things. Am I suppose to be happy?

If someone ask me “Did you find everything you were looking for?”. Of course I’m going to answer. “I was looking money but I didn’t find any”. They always laugh and respond, “ We don’t carry that product.” or “If you find some let me know.”

Getting back to our restaurant story, I’m about to pay the check and there is a sign that reads “Kids Eat Free”. I ask the cashier if she would define the word “Kids”. Why would I need to do that? Well I’m a kid by my own definition and I should qualify for a free meal. I get a scowling look and some kind of a comment that you have to under 10 years old. Mmm! Isn’t that age discrimination?
I’m at a yard sale and the owner of the house was selling a book that she wrote about the ten things an artist should know. In my mind I think “Ahh! Heres a person who has no left brain.” I make the comment, All an artist needs to know is don’t think, just let it flow. Then I make the stupid mistake that artist don’t have a left logical brain. That means that art is a no brainier. Right? My conclusion is that you can’t tell a person with no logical brain to turn it off. If they’ve never had one, how can you turn it off? Anyway the conversation ends and we are all laughing and having fun.

The question is, “Where is all this stuff coming from that just pops into my head?” It comes from my right brain. I’m not thinking so I’m free to create or innovate. See: “My Brain as an Innovator” and See: “Turn Your brain off.” Or another reason this could be happening is that in my old age, I don’t have a thinking brain anymore. I’ve lost it and I have returned to my second childhood.

Now we know that can’t be the answer. I was to bashful to even open my mouth when I was a kid. I was a thinker not a talker. It must be that as I get older I become more intelligent. I have learned to turn my thinking brain off and turn my talking brain on. Yep! That’s it. Now my next move is that I’m going to run for Governor of Arizona or my be the Mayor of Phoenix. We need a good politician that can think before they talk.

My platform is:
1. There is no absolute true in the world, and that is absolutely true.
2. Go for a walk out doors. Explore a new environment.
3. Play computer games. Freecell keeps my intuitive brain working.
4. Do volunteer work. A great thing to do to get the runners high.
5. You can not listen if you talk.
6. And the most important. Turn your brain off.

Categories: I Enjoy My Brain | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off