Marco Polo Hotel

I woke up from a good night sleep; had a really hot shower; and tried out the breakfast buffet that came with my room at Cafe Marco. The selection was pretty good. It was no Shangri-La, but it offered a wide range of choices from continental to oriental breakfast. I went for the oriental selection with congee and noodles. Then I even had some California Maki (yes, for breakfast). For PHP3,700/night (based on Mozcom's corporate rate) with free breakfast, I would say its a good deal.

After breakfast, I toured the hotel grounds a bit and snapped some photos with my Nokia 6680. The shots were slightly better than the ones I had last time which were taken at night. But still, a camera phone is really no replacement for a decent digital camera.

From SDK to STK

I had to wake up very early today to catch my 7am flight to Cebu. I'm scheduled to do a 2-day training for the Cebu tech staff on SQL and C# with the .NET Software Development Kit (SDK). My stomach was not cooperating very well this morning so I had to use the toilet while at the Terminal 2, then once again while onboard the plane. I swear -- that PAL lavatory at the back end of the airline felt like the smallest lavatory I have ever been in. I can't imagine how anyone bigger than me would comfortably fit inside, not even to mention, potential "mile-high clubbers" (if you know what I mean).

Since I did not check-in any baggage, I was able to go out of the Mactan airport immediately. Traffic wasn't so bad today so I got to the office around 10am I think and proceeded to setup for the training. Everything went uneventfully and we finished our first day at around 6pm.

Upon the recommendation of the local staff, I decided to be a bit adventurous and tried out a local STK (aka. sutokil, which is a Bisaya contraction of the words sugba-tola-kilaw). From what I understand, STK is like their local version of a grillery but more focused on seafood (although they insist that its not really the same as a barbecue-han). Since the more popular STK restaurant Neo Neo was a bit out of the way, the local guys suggested I try STK Ta Bay which is only a kilometer or two from the office. I hopped onto a taxi and told the driver where I'm headed. He had to think a few seconds to remember where that place is. So perhaps its not as popular as I thought it was. He brought me to some small street with 2 brightly-lit food joints -- a grillery called Yayoy's, and a small restaurant beside it -- STK Ta Bay.

STK Ta Bay is actually an old house that was converted into a restaurant. The food was ok. I ordered their mixed seafood and grilled pork. The portions were small so it was just right for a single diner. Food was fairly cheap (well, there wasn't much ambiance either). After dinner, I had to walk a couple of blocks to get back to the main street where I could hail a cab to take me to Marco Polo Hotel, where I was booked.

Marco Polo Hotel is the former Cebu Plaza Hotel. It sits on top of a hill and is fairly close to the midtown where most of the activities (malls, offices) are. I've stayed at the old Cebu Plaza for like a week back during my Citibank days. It has been given a significant face-lift with its new incarnation as part of the Marco Polo chain. And that's a good thing since I think it was abandoned for some time after it closed.

I initially asked Cols if she wanted to come to Cebu with me since the room is already paid for anyway (I'll just sneak her in). She wasn't too thrilled when she found out that I was going to be staying in Marco Polo. She has heard my dad's horror stories (as in, ghost stories) of his stay before at the old Cebu Plaza days. Dad said he swears he has heard of poltergeist-ic activities, and at one time, he had to call room service to send someone to stay on guard at his room so he can sleep.

My night's stay at Marco Polo was unevently (thankfully). The rooms were very nice. I stayed at Room 1220. The only thing I found strange with my room was the uneven flooring. For some strange reason, the floor is not even -- it dips by maybe an inch in the middle of the room. I think they may have added some tiles and threw over a carpet on top without leveling the whole floor to save on costs.

While resting my feet, I caught up with last week's episode of Heroes 2, which I recorded and burned onto DVD-RW using my Philips DVD Recorder. Then had a really hot shower and off to sleep...

Department of Tourism Joins YouTube Generation

The Department of Tourism, under Ace Durano, signed up professional Fil-Am video blogger, Christine Gambito, better known as HappySlip to her thousands of fans, to help promote the Philippines through her popular Happy Slip website. This is a very out-of-the-box and novel marketing idea, and its good to know that the Philippine government sees the value and reach that the Internet offers. Kudos to DOT! The last interesting idea that I've heard from DOT was during Richard Gordon's time where he wrapped the UK black cabs with "WOW Philippines" images.

DOT hired(?) HappySlip to go around the Philippines as their "ambassadress" and document her travel through her popular video blog. It would be very interesting to see what she comes up with. I find her brand of Fil-Am humor, with references to Filipino mannerisms and customs, very funny and fresh.

Britney Spears' Unreleased Song

Seems that Britney Spears can't get herself out of the news nowadays. From her drunk driving, to wild partying, to custody battle with K-Fed, the former pop princess is going to self-destruct one of these days. In fact, the only respite we've had from Brit news is the recent death of Heath Ledger. Not that I'm a big Heath fan. He was ok with 10 Things I Hate About You and A Knight's Tale. Other than that, I haven't really watched his other movies -- including the (in)famous Brokeback Mountain where he got Oscar nominations.

Anyway, I saw this YouTube link today from Perez Hilton about a track that Britney recorded, but was apparently never released. From the sound of her voice, it may have been one of her earlier recordings. Its a remake of Ace of Base's popular All That She Wants. Listening to this song brings back memories of grad school at Babson where it was a favorite of my Indian roommate.

Still on using Google Docs for Presentation

I wrote on a recent blog entry about the improvements of Google Docs' support for presentation. While it can display PowerPoint slides well, the creation and composition part still leaves a lot to be desired. Today, I attempted to create my slides for my upcoming training on SQL completely on Google Docs, and I had to give up after the Javascripts made my IE hang a couple of times (on the same slide). Whenever I tried to copy-and-paste some text from a PDF document onto the slide body then hit some key strokes to delete some text I don't need, IE would freeze up.

So I ended up going back to good ol' MS Powerpoint to do the whole presentation then just upload to Google Docs to share it. Below is an embedded version of my slides published in Google Docs.

Programming with the Canon Digital Camera Part 2

I got my Canon EOS Digital Software Development Kit (ED-SDK 2.1) back in December but have not gotten much time to experiment with it. I wrote some quick-and-dirty program today just to test out the different SDK function calls. I opted to test with my Canon EOS 400D instead of the Digital IXUS 400 primarily because the EOS Development Kit (EDK) already came with a C-Sharp wrapper called EDSDK.cs. So I didn't have to download some other 3rd party library wrapper just to integrate with the CD-SDK.

The C Sharp wrapper bundled with the EDK is pretty basic. In fact, I would not really call it a class in the OOP sense. Its more of like a traditional C struct. It enumerates all the different constants and data structures supported by the EDK, which is a big help since I would not want to re-type that. The development library can be either statically linked through the provided EDSDK.lib file, or by dynamic linking by referring to the EDSDK.dll. The C Sharp class file uses the latter method (since I don't think there is any way of linking directly to a .lib file with C#). The EDSDK.cs wrapper file provides the convenient function prototypes already also.

The program flow is very straightforward. You call EdsInitializeSDK() to startup the library and EdsTerminateSDK() to shut it down. Then in-between that's where you do all the neat stuffs -- like query the camera for its properties and settings; modify the settings; take a picture; go through the camera's storage system and retrieve images. The EDK pretty much lets you change all the settings that can be modified -- the ISO speed, AE mode, aperture, shutter speed, JPEG quality/compression level, and so much more. Anything that you can set using the camera's LCD menu, can be programmatically set as well. The EDK provides you with functions to lock the User Interface so that while the application is in control of the camera, it cannot be manually overridden by a human operator.

I think in theory you can connect multiple cameras to a PC via the provided USB cable and control them from a single application (this setup of EOS cameras is pretty amazing). The EDK just mentions some notes about concurrency issues that might cause problems. In any case, I have no plans of attaching more than one camera so that should not be an issue. The SDK does provide you with functions to list the cameras attached, or are available, and lets you select which one you want to work with. Once you've selected your camera, you would open a session with it by calling EdsOpenSession(). Then you would use the EdsSendCommand() mainly to do everything else like doing a remote capture.

I've gotten as far as the following:

1. Initialize the SDK
2. Enumerate the cameras attached and select the 1st one (my EOS 400D in this case)
3. Open a session with the camera
4. Retrieve its settings and properties
5. Perform a remote capture (aka. Take a Picture)
6. Close the camera session
7. Terminate the SDK

The images taken by step 5 currently remains on the camera. I have to do more experimentation next time on how to do image transfers from the camera to the PC. Of course, the SDK provides all of those functions as well. Its just a matter of figuring out how to use them correctly. I will need to define postback functions for sure. For now, I'm purely doing synchronous programming. However, the programming model that the Canon EDK uses is asynchronous and postback-based.

Walking Home

Our driver was absent for the second day due to fever (or so he claims). Since Ethan's yaya Thelma resigned this weekend, Cols was stuck home babysitting. And since today is our CRV's coding day, we only had one car at home. So I left the car home and took the cab to work this morning. Now, I've been thinking about this for some time -- how far is The Peak really from Rockwell? Is it "walking distance"? I've measured it on the car's odometer and its about 3km from The Peak's parking to Amorsolo West's parking. 3km isn't that far. I'm sure I've walked farther before. I've walked to my meetings at DBP before (right across Pacific Star). I did not feel that was far -- and that's almost close to halfway to Rockwell.

So feeling energetic, I decided to WALK home tonight! Yes, you read that right. I walked home from the office. I left The Peak around 6:25pm. At my regular brisk walking pace, it took me only about 7 mins to reach Pacific Star Building. I wasn't even sweating yet. Piece of cake! From there, I crossed Buendia; then Makati Ave; then trun to P. Burgos street (where all the bars are).

While walking along Burgos St., I saw a taxi drop off a passenger. But I figure -- I must be more than halfway home already. Seems kinda pointless to cop out now and ride a taxi. Besides, the flag down rate of the taxi would be PHP30. Maybe add PHP10 more to reach Rockwell. My cab from Rockwell to The Peak this morning was at PHP60. So at PHP40, that doesn't seem logical given that I'm very near.

So further on I went down Kalayaan, then to Rockwell Drive. I reached home around 6:50pm -- for a total of about 25 mins. Not bad at all! Driving through traffic can take as much time. Besides, I can normally jog for 30 mins on the treadmill. And this was just brisk walking. My only mistake was not being prepared for it as I was wearing leather shoes. So the sole of my feet kinda hurt a bit. But no big deal. I should bring my rubber shoes next time I do this. :)