the post-MBA depression

if there is case of postpartum depression, post-MBA depression should be possible. i guess the recession is something relevant after your quarter life. Back during the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, I just started in college and it never really affected me and my friends. Earning your keep changes everything. Especially the taxes. I guess I don't have to worry about that since I don't have any taxable wage for now anyway.

Its depressing how the current batch of MBA graduates from AIM are slow in their diffusion back to the employment rat race. As far as I know only 2 of the 30(?) Filipinos have jobs... well 4 were company sponsored so that's 6 out of 30. I guess HR professionals are still drunk from vacationing. Also, it's the first batch of graduates from the 16-month MBA program who graduated in December, while all the previous batches graduated in May. I guess this should have been foreseen by the administration, regardless of the current recession, and measures should have been put in place. Else, why go for a 16 month program if your graduates will be idle for four months anyway.

So the jobhunt continues...

2009

i'm disappointed with the job hits from my MBA degree. but perhaps it's due to the fact that we graduated on Christmas season. i expected more leads and initial interviews. on the other hand, I think the job market is still adjusting and checking out how the economy is gonna perform in 2009. I wont tell much about the details of the year 2008. a lot of articles online and offline have already done that. i will say though that a lot of things happened last year both on the good and the bad extremes. so will 2009 be better? let wait how the economy pick up/slows down this week, since its the first business day of 2009.

i am hopeful though that there can still be jobs worthy of my MBA investment. i'm looking at starting a mini business but i'd rather it be a second stream of cashflow.

a professor of mine advised me to be open to overseas employment but i'm having second thoughts given what i've read that the Singapore economy is shrinking. i'm not too keen on working too far from the philippines.

the calm after the storm...

im going back to Cebu later today. it's been a week since my MBA graduation here at AIM.  I've been busy packing my stuff and organizing my digital files, still i'm not yet done.  After 16 months of blood, sweat, tears and CP, the thrill level goes down. I'm now the young MBA graduate but still jobless.  I guess all the HR people are still partying.

One thing I will remember in the graduation is the batch name coined by Madhu, our distinction graduate in his speech.  The previous batch which was the last of the 2-year MBA called themselves the last of the Mohicans, and  Madhu then called out batch as the first of the Conquerors.  I had tried to email the whole batch about a consensus on what our batch name is supposed to be but AIM always has fail points to consider, in this case group email.  Although Madhu's coined batch name, even though not done by consensus or popular vote is okay.

I've been staying in the dorm up to now andit feels weird that the walls and hallways do not echo the pressure of the past 16 months.  The nooks and cranny of AIM is devoid of the familiar faces who either greet you with sweet, drunken or sleepy smiles.  I miss my batch mates.  My experience in AIM, although not the best, I think thats what makes it  beautiful.  It calls to my mind what a friend told me once about falling in love, "Its not the pretty face which makes yoou fall in love, it's the small quirks and annoyances that endears the person to you."

After 16 months, I believe AIM has given me more than a diploma.  But one thing that must be addressed is the "unofficial/official" policy on cheating.  The cheating must stop and the cheaters must be penalized regardless of cultural differences.  

*(I wasted 800php on the worthless official photographer)

the battle of the UMPCs (part 2)

MSI Wind is actually a worthy contender for the top spot of UMPCs.  But the keyboard real estate for the period and comma key which is half of the normal size restricts the functionality of the unit.  Everything else is the same, the screen is okay although the speakers is really loud.  And then there's the cheap and small touchpad.  In terms of installing a hacked OSX, the Wind is the most stable but the wifi card doesn't work but instead they use another internal wifi card.  I think the card is from Dell.  These hacker guys actually created a new distribution called WINDOSX.  Check the torrents for it.  Another downside for the Wind is the 3-cell battery that comes with it.

The Lenovo Ideapad s10 has a lot of hype but it died down later on during the launch.  So far it is the thinnest of the other mentioned UMPCs.  But it doesn't have any distinguishing feature worth mentioning.  As a johnny-come lately in the UMPC, it doesn't offer much to switch to the Ideapad.  It did have a good love story a marketing video in youtube.  Somewhat like the laptop version of BMW's The Hire series. 

An interesting update on the HP mininote 2133.  HP just unveiled the HP mini 1000 which dropped the VIA processor and is now sporting and atom 1.6Ghz processor.  And the other good news is that: NO MORE VISTA for it.  I haven't seen it personally but based on my experience on the HP 2133, the keyboard real-estate is the best there is.  Let's hope its still the same.  The touchpad on the other hand could have been bigger.  Let me update this in a few days when I get to feel a test unit. The picture looks mighty nice. 

seeing Red (Mobile)

August this year I got a free uMobile sim card.  the concept was a network that was ad-driven but you can still load credits. The sim had a free 100php load each month for 6 months, but unfortunately I didn't really use it because : (1) it couldn't text to Globe Telecom and (2) I only have 2 celfones.

In the Philippines, the mobile phone user generally has 2 handsets/units.  The primary being a Globe/Smart sim while the secondary being a Sun Cellular sim.  Now why the need for the secondary unit with a Sun sim?  Well, it's a cost issue.  Sun Cellular offers unlimited texts and calls to other Sun Cellular sims for a set fee.  Unfortunately, the signal is spotty in certain areas and sometimes the bandwidth is full.

So here comes uMobile.  But then the concept of being Asia's first ad-funded mobile didn't work. They were unable to get 10K users by the year end. Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprise, Inc. (CURE) which owned uMobile was at a loss because it needed to jumpstart their 3G offering or it loses its license.  Now here comes Smart Telecoms to the rescue.  They basically bought CURE to expand their 3G license.

Red and 3G.  Red Mobile is positioned to go after the secondary phone segment, those with  Sun Cellular sim cards.  Well to rationalize it first, to carry 3 phones is crazy.  So instead, dislodge the current secondary phone network.  The offering of Red Mobile to Red Mobile  is very interesting.

But then the need for a 3G mobile unit.  Hmm... Red Mobile/Smart is poised to take on Sun Cellular by giving the consumer more quality at an incremental price of 50 cents per text/MMS/call minute/video call minute to another Red Mobile user.  Furthermore Smart has an extensive network compared to Sun.  Let's face it, Sun Cellular's service although spotty and at times very busy saves users a lot of money from using their Globe/Smart credits.  But then again, how much are we willing to pay for reliability... at a cheap rate?

I personally haven't decided yet if I am moving to Red Mobile.  My free sim hasn't arrived yet.  I would predict thought that Filipinos will stay with Sun Cellular.  Free is still free, as long as its cheap (hell yeah!).

the ultimate burger... Ridiculous Challenge

I chanced to drop by A. Venue yesterday for some chow and I found this place Burger Avenue.  They had some pretty heavy quarter pounders grilled to perfection there and so i ordered a cheeseburger.  Then I played around with my little kid and then I saw these pics on the wall.  It said 'the 'ridiculous challenge.'  Whooa!  This is the place!  They sell this triple decker of a burger which you have to finish in 5 minutes else you have to pay 255PHP.

If only I knew before my order was taken... I'll come back next Saturday.  Their burgers are ok.  Juicier than other fastfood shops, even Burger King.  The place is quite small though.  There's quite a number of successful challengers with their pics on the wall... but then there are more failures with their pics pasted in 2/3 albums.

the battle of the UMPCs (part 1)

the battle for being the ultimate Ultra Mobile Portable Computer (UMPC) is afoot. so far the big brands have dished out their versions. so far i think only the Asus and Acer are the worthy contenders.  MSI Wind and Lenovo's Idea pad follow suit and then there is Dell, Neo and some other not so well-known brands.  And lets not forget the ergonomic HP mini-note whose hype died when the hardware screamed Via chipset (instead of Intel Atom) and the software croaked Vista.

The Asus 1000h so far has the 'almost-best' keyboard with a functional and ideally-sized touchpad.  And at the time of introduction, it was the only umpc with a 6-cell battery translating into 8 hours battery but with internet it boils down to 4 hours.  The other worthy contender is Acer Aspire One which has better aesthetics and best keyboard, especially the full-size right shift key, the small directional keys is quite a big issue  The touchpad is a bit small though.  Since the Aspire One is a johny-come-lately it was able to come up almost right away with 6-cell variants of the battery.  Apart from that it comes in sleeker colors than the 1000h.  Between the two, i'd have taken the Aspire One although initial specs wasn't so enticing because it was sporting an SSD instead of a hard drive, plus I was pushed for time given my MBA deadlines.  And by the way, I'm comparing UMPCs with hard disks only.  Those with SSDs are a different animal.  The 1000h is a bit lengthier than the Aspire One thus it is able to sport a 'functional' keyboard.  The Aspire one though is a beauty to hold when closed since it almost like a thick notebook.  Almost all the other specs are the same.  The software can either be Linux or XP, and thank god not Vista!  I was able to fool around with the Kalyway distribution which installs Mac OSX Leopard in the Asus 1000h and all I can say is... WOW! It was a whole new FUNKY machine!  But there was sound issues, and the wifi needed a bit of setting up which was wasting my time.  Some guys in eeeph.com say that the iDeneb distro is better but still the same issues.  I haven't read about anyone in the Philippines working with OSX on the Aspire One.
 

Oh well those are the two top contenders for the UMPC  in my opinion. In part 2 I'll talk about MSI Wind and the Lenovo Ideapad.  Stay tuned!