Bisaya Bloggers

Sad news — Caffe Vivere is closing shop sometime soon. Owner Mawie Bawar texted me yesterday and asked if I knew anyone possibly interested in taking over a restaurant business. Unfortunately, Mawie will be relocating back to Manila already, is why.

So, I thought it might be good to blog about it, to help her find potential buyers. Here are some information I got from Mawie. The establishment is located on Mt. Apo Street, near the rotunda. It is around 70sqm, with a mezzanine. It can accommodate around 30 people.

Food type: Italian cuisine with pasta dishes as specialty (excellent dishes!); high-quality coffee and fruit-based drinks, hot and ice-blended; specialty cakes (and they’re really good, too).

Inclusive in sale price:

• naming rights and licenses
• recipes of the existing dishes
• tables and chairs
• countertops and dividers
• kitchen equipment and utensils
• dining ware
• existing decorations and supplies (food, kitchen, miscellaneous)
• 2-week intensive kitchen staff and service crew training and orientation
• finances monitoring system
• list and contact numbers of suppliers

If you’re interested, please drop me a line, and I’ll put you in touch with Mawie. Please, somebody assume Caffe Vivere! Their food is actually really good, especially the Shrimp Diavolo– to die for!

I’d been planning a look-and-feel change for my I-love-Davao blog for sometime now, but I just couldn’t find the right timing. But when WordPress came out with version 2.5, I knew I’d found the inspiration and the impetus to give Ang Dabawenyo a makeover.

Of course, having a brand new logo helped, too! (Thanks again, Winston.)

Bueno, welcome to my new design! Hopefully, you’ll get to like it as I have. I based it on the theme called "Identity". The original, however, wasn’t fully compatible with WP2.5 — and it looked rather plain as is — so I had had to do some major recoding on the templates.

I did love my old theme very much ("Subtle for WordPress" by GluedIdeas), so here’s a tribute to it: a screen-capture of the blog just before I started upgrading WordPress and installing & tweaking the new theme.

The 15th TechnoKapihan Davao will be held on 2 April 2008 (Wednesday) at the We R Inn Hotel in Bajada. The venue is by Central Plaza I, across the highway from Gaisano Mall of Davao. The event will be from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. Attire: come as you are! (more…)

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The TechnoKapihan session for this month is a no-go. According to ICT Davao Inc.’s Bert Barriga, this monthly powwow will instead be held on the 2nd of April 2008, from 2 to 4 PM. No venue set yet. Whether we’ll have another TechnoKapihan for April, or this rescheduled session will be it, we don’t know yet.

Just to refresh your minds, the TechnoKapihan sa Davao is an informal get-together of IT industry players, supporters and guests. It’s where we can sit down and discuss issues and plans that affect our industry, but in a relaxed setting. For each time, the organizers — ICT Davao and the Davao Chamber — aim to create an atmosphere of openness so that people will be more inclined to share their thoughts. (more…)

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I’m really getting good at this…. If you’ve been reading IT talks! since its inception last year (actually it was “born” in 2004), you’d know that I’ve transferred the site (address-wise) twice now. In its infancy, the blog was found at http://ittalkscolumn.blogspot.com. When I started acquiring domains, I put the site under http://ittalks.robilloblog.com, thinking I’d host all my blogs under the robilloblog.com domain. And now, once and for all, my IT column is here to stay: www.ittalks.net.

For those of you who’ve linked to my blog posts, don’t worry — they will still automatically resolve to the correct posts under the new domain. (more…)

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I apologize for the many days when my blogs were down. This and most of my other blogs were taken offline due to a hardware foul-up at my previous host’s supposedly ‘industry strength’ data center. What a dismaying, depressing week it was for me.

The main reason why I chose Hostican.com for my VPS account was their “excellent” customer-service support. Boy, was I sorely mistaken. Only after 2 days did they inform me that the hard drive my VPS was residing in had failed, and only after much frantic emailing by yours truly. Funny how, in their mass-mailed message, they kept emphasizing that the disk drive they were using was of an expensive variety. Now wouldn’t you take better care of an expensive piece of equipment?

And there were no backups at all! After another volley of emails from me, Hostican finally replied that they couldn’t recover any usable data whatsoever from the errant hard disk. But… aren’t backups supposed to be kept in separate drives? Nada. Zilch. Nai. Wala. (more…)

Sponsored By: 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit - 27 Oct 2007, Davao City

Valentine’s Day is less than a week away! Make it as romantic as it can be — that’s your job. And make it as gastronomically memorable for you and your date — that’s what Picobello Ristorante Italiano is here for. (more…)

Announcements and other stuff about the ongoing Davao Food Trip will now be published in its own blog: www.davaofoodtrip.org. Bloggers who want to join us can sign up at that new site.

And the gastronomic adventures continue…

Sponsored By: 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit - 27 Oct 2007, Davao City

Good news!! The next leg of the Davao Food Trip will be exotic refreshments at Taj Minar. It’s a new Indian fine-dining restaurant located at Damosa Gateway, Lanang, Davao City.

The first leg, Zakoya Japanese Restaurant, will be on 19 December 2007, but we already have a full complement of bloggers. Here’s your chance to join us on the next stop!

Again, we can only accommodate a limited number of bloggers. So, if you’re interested to join us in the next eat-out, please fill out the form below. This event is exclusively for bloggers. In return, we will write about our experience at Taj Minar. To help us along, the restaurateur, Mr. Zafar Khan, will be there to explain the food to us.

The date isn’t final yet. That will depend on the availability of the participants. So please indicate your choice(s) for the date in the form below.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Davao Delicious. That’s the name of my newest personal blog. Oh, when I say “personal” it doesn’t necessarily mean for blogging about personal or private stuff (come to think of it, I don’t really do that online…). It means I own the weblog and nobody else writes for it but me. This is blog #5, Blogie Blog being the first, then Ang Dabawenyo, IT talks!, and Mission: 6-Pack Abs. (more…)

I’m so happy to announce that — finally! — I’ve gotten around to completing my Japanese-language WordPress blog: 真ん丸空間 (ManMaru Kükan or “Maru’s Space”). I’ve had my maruo.blogspot.com blog forever (and it’s actually doing very well, SEO-wise), but I’d always wanted to port it to WordPress — I just never had that push I needed to do it.

But last week I got a Japanese client who’s asked me to include their website as part of my deliverables. And one of my closest friends, Ichido Miyake, has also decided to start blogging already. He’s begun writing in English for Bob Martin’s Live in the Philippines Web magazine, and will soon publish his Japanese articles on his own blog. (more…)

As I’ve mentioned before, we are going to do a Blogging 101 seminar-workshop here in Davao City. This will now be a project of The Usual Suspects. Ria Jose and I will be taking the lead in this project.

The first hands-on seminar-cum-workshop will be held on 24 November 2007 (Saturday), tentatively at the Netfront Café (where we had the first Davao bloggers party last March). Participation fee is Php500 per person — this includes use of a computer and lunch. This will be a whole-day affair: from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. (more…)

Sponsored By: 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit - 27 Oct 2007, Davao City

Ang Dabawenyo is busy today at the…

1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit

1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit
Davao City, Philippines

Sponsored By: DVO Bloggers Network - the Davao blogosphere

Today marks a first as The Usual Suspects host the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit in Davao City. The purpose of the Summit is to encourage bloggers to wield their technological tool called “blogging” for the betterment of Mindanao’s global image. The theme “Spotlight Mindanao: Blogging for Culture, Identity & Understanding” sums it all up.

The Summit’s generous sponsors:

• Councilor Peter T. Laviña
• Join the DigitalFilipino.com Club!
• Dimsum Diner
• Swiss Deli
• Globe Broadband
• ACT for Peace Programme
• NoKiAHOST.COM P5/day webhosting
• Bitstop Networks
• Paradise Philippines
• BisayaBloggers.com
• Davao’s Food Huntress
• Web Design Philippines
• Orange County Real Estate
• Web Developer Philippines
• Fwendz Diner
• Motorcycle Davao
• Artcom Printing Services
• Cubepixels Design Studio
• Eric Clark Su
• Lane Systems
• Casa Leticia - a boutique business hotel
• Mam Bebs Bakeshop
• Snap Graphic & Sign
• Ecotrans Car Rentals

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It’s just three weeks to go before the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit, and I’m really excited about it! This is a first-of-its-kind event down South, and I’m proud that I’m part of the team that’s organizing it.

If you’d like to be part of this unique event on 27 October 2007, go ahead and register to join now. It’s free! But more importantly, it will be a venue for us to promote the true images of Mindanao to the world, via the power of our blogging voices.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the following generous sponsors:

• Join the DigitalFilipino.com Club!
• BisayaBloggers.com
• Davao’s Food Huntress
• NoKiAHOST.COM P5/day webhosting
• Globe Broadband
• 88DB Philippines
• Web Design Philippines
• Lane Systems
• Eastri Billboard and Sign
• Orange County Real Estate
• Web Developer Philippines
• Act for Peace Programme

See you in Davao!

Davao’s Food Huntress, My Davao City, Dbaa’s Clutter — these are a sampling of blogs whose owners write about dining experiences in Davao. I’m sure there are more out there, though. So, I’m planning a seminar on how to write well about food, with a possible side topic on food photography. (My friends Tope & Christian, in their sometimes unfathomable brand of humor, call this “food porn“.)

No, I’m not going to conduct this seminar myself. I do try to write about restaurants, coffee shops, etc. @ Ang Dabawenyo, but I’m no expert at all. Far from it. That’s why I thought of coming up with this food-blogging seminar in the first place! I really want to learn how to write effectively about cuisine. My dream is to someday blog about food and get people’s mouths watering just by reading my blog. On a more serious note, if you also want to be able to do food critiquing, I guess this seminar’s a good way to start!

Hopefully, the good people over at the Center for Asian Culinary Studies (Holiday Spa compound, F. Torres st.) will agree to provide us with resource speakers for this. I’ve already informally spoken to Chefs Toto and Jenny of CACS-Davao about my plan, so the ball is rolling…

Now who’s interested to join this gastronomic, educational adventure? Just leave a comment here, or drop me a line. If everything falls in place, we just might be able to do this this month. And if we can get sponsors for the venue and the food, then we won’t have to pay for participation.

Sponsored By: DVO Bloggers Network - the Davao blogosphere

Cheers to my AngDabawenyo.com blog! This is my 100th post, so some friends and I toasted this humble milestone with a few beers. Fellow blogger Maej Villanueva, entertainer extraordinaire Ahbet Padilla, new friend and chef Jenny Tan, and fellow student of Nihongo Peter Labor kept me company that night.

We were with a couple hundred Dabawenyos at the Victoria Plaza carpark, where one of several Oktoberfest celebrations have kicked off in Davao. By the looks of it, this one will most probably last the whole month of October. It’s located in front of 51 Coffee Shop and Buffet Palace — you can’t miss it, what with the humongous San Miguel tents covering the entire area. (more…)

The old PTA Park, as everyone in Davao should’ve noticed by now, has undergone a major renovation, and is due to be completed in December this year. It’s so named because of its having been the grounds used by the Parents and Teachers Association of Kapitan Tomas Monteverde High School way back when. If I’m not mistaken, the Association office had such a huge “PTA” sign, and so people started calling the place that way.

Right smack in the heart of downtown Davao, the new park, as before, will offer residents and visitors a place to unwind, relax and take in the city’s sights and sounds. The nearly 4-hectare park is nestled in the center of 3 hotels (The Apo View, Casa Leticia and Royal Mandaya Hotel) and numerous restaurants. Once finished, I imagine it’s going to be the perfect place for a quick break during weekdays, and for longer, leisurely strolls during weekends. (more…)

Not that I’m naïve, but it was a shock when I saw what results come out on Google when you do an image search for “Filipina”. I’ve been encouraging my friends to join Janette Toral’s “Filipina” Writing Project, and one of them showed me the current Google image search results. To put it very lightly, I was utterly dismayed. I don’t even want to describe it here, for fear of adding to the already negative connotation of the keyword.

The “Filipina” Writing Project aims to debunk the current search results associated with the keyword “Filipina” coming out of major Internet search engines. By generating more positive content related to this keyword, and via the pervasive effects of good SEO techniques, the Project hopes to spread an improved — and true — image of the Filipino woman. (more…)

Well of course I’m joining the MBS1 — I’m with the organizing team! We call ourselves The Usual Suspects: Andrew, Dom, Jun, Marc, Migs, Ria & yours truly. And the Summit’s chairman and initiator is Hon. Peter T. Laviña.

I’d like to take this chance to thank the sponsors, without whom we wouldn’t go very far organizing this exciting event:

• Join the DigitalFilipino.com Club!
• BisayaBloggers.com
• Davao’s Food Huntress
• NoKiAHOST.COM P5/day webhosting
• Web Design Philippines
• Lane Systems
• Eastri Billboard and Sign
• Orange County Real Estate
• Web Developer Philippines

Would you like to be a sponsor? We’d certainly appreciate your support! Please click here to view our sponsorship packages. (more…)

Janette Toral has embarked on yet another writing project that is worthy of lengthier attention spans. Right after the successful conduct of the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs project, now comes the “Filipina” Writing Project.

This time, bloggers are not only going to compete literarily, but also in terms of search-engine ranking. This points to the real purpose behind this endeavor: to encourage more people to write about Filipino women and their virtues, strengths, contributions… And thus, at the conclusion of this project, bloggers will have generated content that will hopefully debunk the unsavory image in which Filipinas — our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, wives, colleagues, friends — have been portrayed online.

This is a laudable effort by Janette, who also authors a blog called Women on the Web, Wireless, and Outsourcing. I’d like to encourage all who read this to participate — not just for the prizes, but for the contribution that you will be able to put into realizing the project’s noble objectives.

Here’s the official press release for the 1st Pre-Kadayawan Poker Tournament.

The Metro Madayaw Poker Room, Davao’s first and only legal poker room, in cooperation with Casino Filipino Davao will be conducting the 1st Million Peso Pre-Kadayawan Poker Tournament on August 11, 2007 at the Pantawan Hall of Casino Filipino Davao.

Players from all over the country are expected to arrive & play No Limit Texas Hold’em and vie for the top prize which includes a seat to the 1st APPT Poker Tournament. The APPT will be conducting its first poker tournament on August 23-26 in Manila with a buy-in of USD 2,500 and an estimated prize pool of 25 Million Pesos, one of the, if not, the biggest ever poker event in the country to date. International professional poker players will be participating in this once in a lifetime event.

(more…)

Last night I was invited to a press conference that was certainly not run of the mill. When Jojie (who’s actually my colleague of sorts as we both contribute to Sun•Star Davao as columnists) told me about it, she didn’t tell me what it was going to be all about. She just said there’d be food and alcohol, and that was enough for me to go!

Jojie was retained by this group of poker tournament organizers to handle their PR, but she probably didn’t know I played poker. I do, since 2005 in fact. And I used to be crazy over Texas Hold’em. I had a Japanese-language translation project that involved card games, and I started playing poker because I had to get into the groove so that I could understand better, ergo do my work better. (more…)

The Kadayawan sa Dabaw will be formally opened at the brand-new Centennial Park on 8 August 2007, 5:30 PM. From the 8th to the culmination in mid-August, there will be various activities that will celebrate the Kadayawan festival around the city. Below, following the Kadayawan highlights, is a set of schedule of activities (tentative, as of 11 July).

Kadayawan Highlights

(more…)

Attention college students in Davao!

Do you have a bankable I.T. business idea? Do you have an e-commerce vision that could potentially become a sustainable business? Do you want to acquire the necessary skills to formulate a sound business plan?

The P.E.S.O. Davao Challenge, launched last 20 June 2007 at the Ateneo de Davao University, is the perfect venue for enterprising young Dabawenyos who’d like the chance to see their ideas transformed into real businesses. The Philippine Emerging Startups Open is a nationwide business plan competition that was initiated by Filipino graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This “brain gain” initiative was inspired by the MIT US$100,000 Entrepreneurship Competition, which is 17 years running. This prestigious contest has facilitated the creation of more than 60 I.T. companies to date, with an aggregate value of US$10.5+ billion.

(more…)

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From the 29th of June 2007, Google Philippines Country Consultant, Aileen Apolo, will be in Davao City for a series of seminars. The Google Davao Roadshow will be for the benefit of owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as college students and faculty members. Aileen will also meet up with Davao-based bloggers and SEO practitioners.

(more…)

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Our judges Jojie and Rhonson have spoken. The winners of the Davao cuisine photo tilt are: Doris and ragingmon.

Congratulations, guys!! You’ve each won a gift certificate worth P1,000 that you can splurge at Hanoi. Kainan na!!

I’d like to thank everyone who joined this photo tilt. Watch out for more contests and gimmicks on AngDabawenyo.com in the near future!

I haven’t written about the upcoming blog party in this blog because the goings-on have mostly been more related to my Davao blog. But, aside from the first-ever blog party in town, there will be other activities around 17 March. Foremost, the event is a bloggers party. Non-IT for the most part. But the other activities do have a bearing on the local IT industry.

(more…)

Madayaw na adlaw sa inyong tanan.

There are few changes with Bisayabloggers.com

1. Please update your links to http://bisayabloggers.com.

2.If you’re a constant visitor/passerby of BISAYABLOGGERS.com you might have noticed that the past few days we are slowly moving into a new site. Please bear with us as we try to fix the new hosted site. Thanks to Jun for helping me and figuring it out how to make the feedwordpress works.

3. Aggregator. Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or “personal newspaper.” Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update.

4. Yes. Bisayabloggers.com is currently using aggregator. Since para mas convenient sa mga members ang magpost ng isang entry lang other than posting again to another online blog (like the blogsome). This may also increase traffic going to your blog esp for those who had Adsense or Google ads in their blogs.

5. If you dont want your posts/entries to be posted at BISAYABLOGGERS/com please let me know or email me at balikbayan@gmail.com. I will take your feed off from the list.

6. Please dont forget to join the You know you’re in DAVAO when…. photo/essay contest deadline for submission of entries will be on March 10, 2007 at 1159pm Phil time and winning entry will be announce on March 12, 2007

7. And if you’re in davao on March 17, 2007, then come and party with the Davao Bloggers at Netfront Cafe 730pm.

Daghang salamat sa inyong tanan.

AYEZA