The New Blog-Ranking Site For Pinoys

Hi! Topblogs is now alive!

Actually, it’s been active for a few days now.

See ya there!

My new blog for music.

Hi, I now have a new blog dedicated to music. It's called muzic.i.ph.

Feel free to visit my new blog. Enjoy!

You can now withdraw money from PayPal!

I've just received an email from PayPal saying that the Withdrawing and Receiving features are now available! So I checked my PayPal account and clicked the Request Money tab. And lo! PayPal indeed allowed me to receive money!

 So PayPal users in the Philippines can now receive money!

 Previously, Philippine users can only do Send Money.

Jackie Chan and Jet Li together in one movie

Maybe you've heard this before, but I'll add some fresh details.

Jackie Chan and Jet Li are teaming up for the movie The Forbidden Kingdom, which is scheduled to be released next year. This is the first time the two kung fu superstars are paired on the big screen.

(Update: The movie's title in Chinese is Gong Fu Zhi Wang (功夫之王), which means King of Kung Fu.) 

It's been around a couple of months now since they started filming in the Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang, China. Hengdian Studios is also where another Jet Li movie Hero was filmed.

(Oops, some pronunciation tips. "Hengdian" is pronounced HUNG-TYEN, where HUNG sounds like the English word "hung", and TYEN (one syllable) rhymes with "yen", the Japanese currency. "Zhejiang" is pronounced CHUH-CHYANG, where CHUH ryhmes with "duh" and CHYANG (again, one syllable) rhymes with "young". Back to the main story.) 

 The movie is basically about an American teenager (played by Michael Angarano, Jack's son in the TV series Will and Grace) that got transported back into ancient China. The story is inspired by a Chinese legend about the Monkey King. This same legend is also the inspiration for the Dragon Ball anime/manga series.

The movie is directed by Rob Minkoff, the same guy who directed Lion King and Stuart Little.

The action director is Yuen Woo-Ping, the one who also directed the action sequences in The Matrix, Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yuen Woo-Ping was also Jackie Chan's movie director in Jackie's 1978 movies Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. (Trivia: In both movies, the funny old drunken kung-fu master was played by Yuen Woo-Ping's own father, Simon Yuen Siu-Tien).

The movie also casts Collin Chou, who played the kung fu guy Seraph in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, and who also played Hayate in Dead Or Alive (DOA).

In addition, the movie also stars Crystal Liu Yi-Fei, the girl who played the enchanting Xiao Long Nü ("Dada") in the Chinese TV series Return of the Condor Heroes (aka "Love of the Condor Heroes").

Lastly, yet another Hollywood newcomer is on the cast list. She's Li Bing-Bing, a popular Chinese drama actress. Those people who are fans of Ken Zhu and the rest of F4 might be already familiar with Li Bing-Bing, for they  both co-starred in the movie City of Sky.

See also:

Jet Li - Filmography - The Forbidden Kingdom

Jackie Chan - The Forbidden Kingdom Official Press Conference

IMDB

Crystal Liu Yi-Fei at Yummy Celebrities 

Li Bing-Bing - Photos

Test post only

Sorry for my long absence.

I.PH Users EB!

Peter Juan is going to assemble a grand EB on March 31, Saturday. Meet all the babe-licious I.PH users at the Congo Grill in Ortigas! Yeehah!! 

Check out Peter's post for details

Lyrics and Chords: Sundo by Imago

Here's my favorite song from the Blush album, Sundo by Imago.

Chord chart in compact ASCII notation: 

      EADGBe
AM7   x02120
A7    x02020
Em9   020032

Sundo
By Imago

(Intro)
A   AM7   A7   D
A   AM7   A7   D

    Bm (hold)
Ooh…ooh

Lyrics and Chords: Last Dance by Imago

Here's the song Last Dance by Imago. From their latest album Blush.

Chart of "broken chords" in compact ASCII notation:

           EADGBe
DM7        xx0222
DM7/A      x04222
GM7        3×0032
Bbadd9     x13311

Last Dance

By Imago

(Intro)
A   DM7/A
A   DM7/A

A                                   DM7/A     A (hold)
   Sooner or later, someone's gonna get it…

 

Eraserheads book launch this coming Wednesday

There will be a launching of a book called Tikman Ang Langit: An Anthology on the Eraserheads on Wednesday, February 28 at Powerbooks Live!, 2nd Level Greenbelt 4, Makati City from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. There will be bands performing at the event: Cambio (Raimund Marasigan and Buddy Zabala's band) and Markus Hiway (Marcus Adoro's band).

Tikman Ang Langit is a collection of essays about the Eraserheads. The book also has an official blog. It features a foreword by UP professor Robin Rivera, the producer of the Eraserheads' albums from Circus onwards.

The Eraserheads consisted of Ely Buendia (now with the band Pupil), Raimund Marasigan (whose main band is Sandwich), Buddy Zabala (now the bassist of The Dawn) and Marcus Adoro (now with Markus Hiway).

Election Candidates Polluting the Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is supposed to be a neutral, objective and comprehensive source of information on all branches of knowledge, freely contributed by volunteers around the world. But some election candidates are likely going to destroy that…

I was shocked when I heard nearly a week ago that some senatoriables were posting  their own entries in the Wikipedia as part of their election campaign. In short, they're turning the Wikipedia into a political campaign platform. Talk about poisoning the well…

As I read their articles one by one, I found that many of them violated Wikipedia's Verifiability and No Original Research policies by not citing credible sources such as newspapers and official documents for their claims. Some even blatantly hurled uncited negative statements bordering on libel. Others also violated Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View (NPOV) by using phrases that expressed their own grandeur and by narrating events that are biased in their favor. Phrases such as "highly-acclaimed" and "championed human rights" read like marketing ads. And phrases such as "successfully staged a political comeback" and "even challenging a more popular bet…" read like an underdog protagonist doing something spectacular in a story.

But in fairness, a few political aspirant entries did manage to cite their sources and write in a neutral point of view.

Admittedly, this is one weakness of Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it. Anyone can add any article to it. That is why Wikipedia is prone to abuse, specifically vandalism. But on the other hand, its weakness is also its strength. Wikipedia is arguably one of the most updated online encyclopedias to date and has a tight quality control. Everyone can police the Wikipedia for abuse and check the articles for violations against objectivity and verifiability. As of this writing, many of the political aspirants' articles are tagged with a "Uncited references" box by Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia editors are also on the watch for incoming election candidate articles.

Here are the election candidates who have their own Wikipedia entries as of this writing: 

• Edgardo Angara
• Benigno Aquino III
• Joker Arroyo
• Edgar Chatto
• Mike Defensor
• Francis Escudero
• Gringo Honasan
• Ping Lacson
• Loren Legarda
• Vic Magsaysay
• Cesar Montano
• Francis Pangilinan
• Jericho Petilla
• Ralph Recto
• Chavit Singson
• Tito Sotto
• Manny_Villar
• Miguel Zubiri

Sign up for a Gmail account *online*!

In an unprecedented move in Google history (hehe…), Google now lets us sign up for a Gmail account online!

More than a couple of years ago, we used to acquire a 1-GB Gmail account only through invitations by existing Gmail account members. This was a radical move, where other webmail providers like Yahoo offered (and still offers) account signup online.

Then came the Gmail account signup by mobile phone, supposedly to lessen the probability of signing up spammakers.

Now at last, Gmail signup was made available to all of last online. As of this writing, Google is offering 2.8 GB of mailspace.

Cheers!

How to upload widescreen videos to YouTube (Part 2)

In my last post, I discussed how to prepare your widescreen videos prior to uploading it to YouTube. As you recall, YouTube only offers a video viewport that is sized like a small TV screen, with an aspect ratio of 4:3. In order for your video to get displayed there properly, you must resize and reformat it correctly. To do that, there are two methods you can use: letterbox and pan and scan. Recalling again from my last post, a letterboxed video is one that has black bars displayed at the top and at the bottom. These black bars preserve the video's proportion while keeping it centered vertically. But if you're annoyed by the black bars and want to view the video fullscreen, then you have to resort to the pan and scan method, which I'm going to discuss today.

In the pan and scan method, you are going to fit the height of the video inside YouTube's viewport, then crop off the excess left and right sides. To demonstrate, I'm going to use VirtualDubMod as my video editor. To install VirtualDubMod, read my last post for the instructions.

To do pan and scan, follow Steps 1 to 4 of the letterbox method. Then follow the steps below (screenshots are provided for each step):

1. For New Width and New Height, enter 448 and 336 respectively. (448×336 is the size of YouTube's viewport.) For the Filter mode, select Bicubic for best quality after resizing. Then click OK. 1 2 3
2. In the Filters dialog box, click the Cropping button. This will bring up the Filter input cropping dialog box. Locate the two spinner fields called X1 offset and X2 offset, situated at the upper-left and the upper-right corners of the dialog box, respectively. 1 2
3. Compute for an offset by using the following formula: If your video has width W and height H, then the offset is:

   offset = (W / 2) - (H * 2 / 3)

   In our example video, the width and height are 704 and 396 pixels respectively. Thus, the offset is computed as:

   offset = (704 / 2) - (396 * 2 / 3) = 352 - 264 = 88

   Round the answer to the nearest integer. So if the result is, say, 77.2253, then make it 77.

   Put this computed offset in the X1 offset and the X2 offset fields. Then click OK and close also the Filter dialog box. 1 2

4. Finally, follow Steps 7 to 9 of the letterbox method.

Congratulations! Your video is now pan-and-scanned. You can now upload it to YouTube.

I'm planning to make another tutorial for converting 2.35:1 (a.k.a. Theatrical) videos to 16:9.  These theatrical videos can look very narrow when letterboxed in a 4:3 screen. You might want to "enlarge" them a bit by letterboxing them at 16:9. Stay tuned.

How to upload widescreen videos to YouTube (Part 1)

Update: My pan and scan tutorial is now available here. 

YouTube displays its videos in a viewport that is sized like a small TV screen.

But what if your video is widescreen? How would it look like in YouTube?

I just want to give some tips on how to prepare your widescreen videos before you upload it to YouTube.

For starters, YouTube's video viewport has a size of 448×336 pixels according to my own manual measurements. The viewport has an aspect ratio of 4:3 (TV screen proportion, a.k.a Fullscreen). Videos made for or captured from TV readily fit inside this viewport.

But widescreen videos are becoming more and more common today, especially with the advent of HDTV. The most common widescreen ratio is 16:9, although the wider 2.35:1 (a.k.a. Theatrical) is increasingly becoming popular as well. To give you some visual ideas, here are some images:

But regardless of the aspect ratio of the video you are going to upload, the video will still be shown in a 4:3 viewport. So how would you fit a widescreen video inside YouTube's viewport?

It's not always affordable to upload your video as is, because the bigger the file size of the video, the longer it will take to upload AND be processed by YouTube. So you would usually have to resize the video using a video editing program. But if you just resized the video to 448×336 (or 320×240 as recommended by YouTube), you will get this:

As you can see, the video is squeezed. Eggheads are talking and walking around. Everything is out of proportion.

 If you care about preserving proportion, then there are two ways to resize and reformat your video:

1. Letterbox - Fit the width of your video inside the 4:3 viewport, then put black bars above and below your video to keep it centered vertically.

2.  Pan and scan - Fit the height of your video inside the 4:3 viewport, then crop off the excess left and right sides.

 In this post, I will discuss the letterbox method. I will discuss the pan and scan method in my next post.

 
(more…)

Testing My YouTube Video

Just testing. Here's Keiichi Tsuchiya from The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift and Initial D:

Lyrics and Chords: Hana Yori Dango Theme

Chords nAPO Ito: Paano by Shamrock

Hi folks.

Here's another chords transcription of mine for the song Paano, another classic APO song performed by Shamrock. The song's simplicity suited Shamrock's slow-rock style very well, and Mark Tupaz's singing is full of emotion. The band did it absolutely well.

Before I proceed, here are the "broken" chords used in the song:

And now, here's the lyrics with the chords:

Paano
by Shamrock

D  Dadd9 D  Dsus
D  Dadd9 D  Dsus

(Stanza 1)
D             Dadd9  D
   Paano mo mala-la-man

 Dsus     A    A/G     F#m
Itong pag-ibig ko  sa 'yo

           Bm
Paano mo mararamdaman

Em          Em/D          Em/C#
Ang (ang) tibok   ng puso ko

                 CM7
Kung lagi kang kinakabahan

F#m            Bm7
    Na ika'y masasaktan

   Em           CM7
Pangako ko, ang puso mo

   Bm7         A7 A7sus A7
Hindi pakakawalan

(Stanza 2)
D            Dadd9 D    Dsus
  Paano mo mai-in-tindihan

     A      A/G  F#m
Na ako'y nana-nabik

             Bm         Em
O kelan ko kaya madarama

      Em/D             Em/C#
Ang tamis ng iyong halik

                CM7
Kung lagi mong inaatrasan

F#m                 Bm7
    Ang sugod ng nagmamahal

  Em              CM7
Sana nama'y pagbigyan mo'ng

   Bm7          A7 A7sus A7
Hiling ng puso ko

(Chorus)
         D         D/C#
Subukan mong magmahal

  Bm       A
O giliw ko

      G      E/G#     A7sus A7
Kakaibang ligayang matatamo

          D        D/C#
Ang magmahal ng iba'y

      Bm      A
Di ko gagawin

          G
Pagka't ikaw lang

E/G#            A7sus   A7
     Tanging sasambahin

          Bm7         F#m
Huwag ka nang mangagamba

          A
Pag-ibig ko'y ikaw

Em             A7sus A7
   Wala nang iba

(Repeat Stanza 1)
(Repeat Chorus 2x)
(Repeat Chorus till fade)

PayPal Finally in the Philippines!

At last, the moment Pinoy online shoppers are waiting for is finally here…PayPal in the Philippines!

If you don't believe me, then try signing up for an account now! Philippines is now on PayPal's list!

I haven't yet studied the details, though. There might be some caveats involved. See PayPal's site now!

Earn money online by helping sell domains

Just another boring day.

I've never tried this before, but if you want to earn dollars online, then this one is for you.

I chanced upon DotPH's website, and I got curious about this "Earn From dotPH" thing somewhere at the upper-right corner of the page. I clicked that tab, and then on the next page I found out that the company is offering "unlimited income" by "referring PH domains". They call this "the dotPH Affiliate Program", and every person who joins this is an "affiliate".

There's some mechanics on how to earn this "unlimited income". This assumes you have either your own e-mail account (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) or your own website (I think a simple blog counts).

For people with an e-mail account, says DotPH:

[Refer] via e-mail - Search for available [PH] domain names and send e-mail to your prospects. Anytime they register a PH domain (any domain!) using your referrer code, you earn [US] $10.

 For people with a website:

[Put] a dotPH banner on your website and turn hits into revenue. Whenever someone registers a PH domain (any domain!) by clicking on your banner, you earn [US] $10.

 The "PH domains" they are talking about are the domain names with any of the following extensions: .ph, .com.ph, .net.ph, .org.ph, .mil.ph and .ngo.ph, according to the DotPH FAQ.

I think you can claim your prize after three successful referrals. When that happens, you get US$ 30.

Says DotPH's Service Agreement:

(a) Affiliate shall receive $10.00 for each domain registered using the Affiliate’s referrer code. Affiliates must earn a minimum of US$30 before the commission can be claimed. This applies to cash and check payments. Credit Card payments will have a holding period of 6 months before it can be considered a commission. DotPH will not make commission checks for amounts less than $30.

You can explore this affiliate program further by referring to DotPH's FAQ.

You can try it if you like.

We Belong, Itsumo, First Love - Who Copied Whom?

If you wanna know firsthand what I'm gonna talk about, listen first to these songs (click the triangles to play): 

 First Love by Hikaru Utada

We Belong by Toni Gonzaga

Itsumo by Dice & K9

Did you hear something suspicious?

Yup, First Love and We Belong sound surprisingly similar. And also, just in case you were able to pick this up, some of the Japanese lines in the chorus of Itsumo are also found in First Love.

First Love is actually one of my favorite Japanese songs. It was performed by the New York-born pop singer Hikaru Utada (宇多田ヒカル UTADA HIKARU in Japanese). The song First Love came from her hit debut album, also called First Love, which was released in 1999.

Then, around a couple of years ago, Itsumo by the local group Dice & K9 aired in the local radio stations. The song actually became a hit, most probably due to the Japanese chorus mixed with the song's characteristic pumping beat. It's actually one of my favorite songs too, but it was criticized mostly by local fans of Hikki for allegedly copying the chorus from First Love. First Love's two choruses are actually English mixed with Japanese. But some of the chorus lines in Itsumo seemed to be Japanese translations of a couple of English chorus lines in First Love.

Compare: (Lines in CAPS are allegedly taken from First Love; lines with ** asterisks ** are allegedly the English lines from First Love that are translated into Japanese in Itsumo)

In Itsumo (Warning: some Japanese words are actually mispronounced in the song itself. The lyrics are correct):
ITSUMO KOKORO WA HOSHII,
ITSUKA DAREKA TO MATA KOI NI OCHITEMO
ITSUMO KOKORO NI IRU,
ITSUMO ANATA DAKE NO BASHO GA ARU KARA

In First Love, first chorus:
** YOU ARE ALWAYS GONNA BE MY LOVE **
ITSUKA DAREKA TO MATA KOI NI OCHITEMO
I’ll remember to love
You taught me how
You are always gonna be the one
Ima wa mada kanashii love song
Atarashii uta utaeru made

In First Love, second chorus:
** YOU WILL ALWAYS BE INSIDE MY HEART **
ITSUMO ANATA DAKE NO BASHO GA ARU KARA
I hope that I have a place in your heart too
Now and forever you are still the one
Ima wa mada kanashii love song
Atarashii uta utaeru made

You be the judge.

As for Toni Gonzaga's latest song We Belong, the song is suspiciously similar to First Love, especially the chorus. Is We Belong copied from First Love, too? Again, you be the judge.

My post is influenced by liamshane's.

English Translation of Pangarap na Bituin

Someone in the tagboard requested me for an English translation of the song Pangarap na Bituin by Faith Cuneta. This song is the theme song of the Philippine release of Jewel in the Palace (Daejanggeum), one of the very popular Korean drama series today.

Here's the song by the way (click the triangle to play):

Here's the lyrics, first in Tagalog, then in English. The translation was done by me.

Pangarap na Bituin
by Faith Cuneta

(Stanza)
Saang sulok ng langit ko matatagpuan
Kapalarang 'di natitikman
Sa pangarap lang namasdan
Isang lingon sa langit at isang ngiting wagas
May talang kikislap, gabay patungo sa tamang landas

(Chorus)
Unti-unting mararating kalangitan at bituin
Unti-unting kinabukasan ko’y magniningning
hawak ngayo’y tibay ng damdamin
Bukas naman sa aking paggising
Kapiling ko'y pangarap na bituin

(Stanza)
Ilang sulok ng lupa, may kubling nalulumbay
Mga sanay sa isang kahig, isang tukang pamumuhay
isang lingon sa langit, nais magbagong-buhay
Sa ating mga palad nakasalalay ang ating bukas

(Chorus)
Unti-unting mararating kalangitan at bituin
Unti-unting kinabukasan ko’y magniningning
hawak ngayo’y tibay ng damdamin
Bukas naman sa aking paggising
Kapiling ko'y pangarap na bituin

(Chorus)
Unti-unting mararating kalangitan at bituin
Unti-unting kinabukasan ko’y magniningning
hawak ngayo’y tibay ng damdamin
Bukas naman sa aking paggising
Kapiling ko'y pangarap na bituin

English Translation

(Stanza)
Where in the corners of heaven will I find
The fortune I never had
Which I've seen only in my dreams?
There I would look up the heaven and exhibit a genuine smile
Then a star would shine and guide me to the right path.

(Chorus)
Little by little I will reach the heaven and the stars,
Little by little my future will shine,
With only a strong courage in hand.
Tomorrow when I wake up from sleep
The star in my dreams will be with me.

(Stanza)
Hidden in some corners of the earth are people in sorrow,
Those that lived in utmost poverty.
They would look up the heaven and wish for a new life.
Our future is in our hands.

(Chorus)
Little by little I will reach the heaven and the stars,
Little by little my future will shine,
With only a strong courage in hand.
Tomorrow when I wake up from sleep
The star in my dreams will be with me.

(Chorus)
Little by little I will reach the heaven and the stars,
Little by little my future will shine,
With only a strong courage in hand.
Tomorrow when I wake up from sleep
The star in my dreams will be with me.