by Penny Angeles-Tan | Sep 28, 2012 | Tech Tutorials
Tomorrow I will be teaching web design principles in SPACE for the new term. SPACE is an acronym for the School of Professional and Continuing Education of the De La Salle College of St. Benilde. Given my experience last term with SPACE students (most or all of whom have regular jobs and are just enrolled for additional knowledge) I have decided to simplify the syllabus some more.
This is a modular class we only meet for 6 consecutive Saturdays. Teaching web design principles in space for six hours in six consecutive Saturdays is not an easy thing to do. For one thing, there is only so much information the normal human mind is able to process in a day. Ever since I was informed two days ago that I was going to be assigned this class I have spent a lot of time adjusting the lectures and activities to give the SPACE students the most information in a manner that they would be able to absorb better and, at the end of the day, they will feel that they have learned something useful and, they will not feel frustrated that they are unable to do the work required.
More or less I will be dividing the lectures and activities this way where each number will stand for the week/meeting:
- web basics and design principles
- designing with tables
- designing with css and divs
- content writing and assembling assets
- applying css navigation and spry assets
- using image viewers
Although the class is just 6 meetings I will request for a 7th meeting where my students will be required to present their final project to a panel. Last term I had 4 students. 2 passed, 1 gave up, and 1 failed miserably. I hope the statistics will be better this term and that we have better numbers.
fingers crossed
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Jan 27, 2012 | Sports
Gone are the days of a knight in shining armor and the damsel in distress. Nowadays it is all about women empowerment
I love watching movies with amazing fight sequences, especially ones where the ladies kick ass. I remember seeing this movie years ago where J.Lo is supposedly an abused wife and she learns self-defense so that she could protect herself the next time her husband came looking for her.
I remember thinking I wonder what fighting style that is? The moves are more akin to street fighting than with any structured martial art that Ive encountered. Between my dads karate, my judo, my sisters fencing, and my friends aikido, taekwondo, and capoeira Ive seen quite a bit.
Later I found out that the style J.Lo was taught was called Krav Maga, a self-defense technique developed in Israel, which initially appeared to me to be a hodge podge of techniques picked up from judo and karate with, perhaps, a little local (Israeli) flavor. As a former judo practitioner most of the moves shown were not exactly unknown to me.
My curiosity was peaked so I looked it up and found out that there is someone teaching krav maga here in the Philippines! How awesome is that? From what I garnered from the website, this is ideal to be taught to women and children, perhaps because, since they are perceived as weak, are often the targets of an attack.
Anyone who is interested in learning this technique can have a look see this Saturday (28 January 2012) from 11am to 12 noon at the 360 Fitness Club in Makati. Registration is ongoing. Rates are at P500.00 per session but if you sign up for all 4 sessions, you will only be charged P1,600.00, effectively getting a P400.00 discount.
For registration call360 Fitness Club Makati at:
- (02) 623-0911
- (02) 940-9575
- or (0917) 860-0360
Or visit them at: 7/F Dolmar Gold Tower, 107 Palanca Street, Legaspi Village, Makati City, Philippines
Who needs a knight in shining armor? This damsel is not in distress. 🙂
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Jan 27, 2012 | Ponderings
People write blogs for different reasons and I am no different. When I first started blogging it was more of a creative outlet and an opportunity for me to get my thoughts “written down”. You see, I hate writing, and by writing I mean taking a pen and paper and putting words on it. It is one activity I did not enjoy when I was in school.
With the advent of computers, hurray! Nowadays there is very little need for me to actually write with ink and paper. 😀
I blog for fun.
- I write blogs to reviews, whether they are movie reviews, book reviews, gadget reviews, food reviews, etc.
- I write blogs to share information about stuff I find interesting.
- I write blogs to share my experiences of different events like vacations, trips, concerts, and the like.
- I write to share my thoughts on anything under the sun and moon. 😀
But, primarily (initially), I like to blog just so I could put down in words how I feel. They aren’t always for public viewing but just the act of putting it all down in print makes me feel better. My blog started as more of an online diary or journal if you will. In the beginning, whether or not someone read my posts was not so important. If someone reads my blog and enjoys it or can sympathize with it or learns something from it, etc., I feel gratified. But if no one reads what I wrote it does not affect me much.
I blog to relax.
Blogging, for me, is a therapeutic exercise. It helps me calm down when I am stressed and it helps me in organizing my thoughts for all the other projects I am involved in.
A good friend once introduced me to the book Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff by Richard Carlson and since then I have embraced that phrase as my personal philosophy.
Of course, this does not mean that I don’t sometimes stress over the littlest things, but I try not to let them get me down by refocusing on what is more important right now.
I blog to promote.
On occasion, people ask for my help in promoting a product or service. Sometimes they give me a press release to post as-is (but I still end up enhancing or even changing up a bit, if I think it needs some help … mostly for SEO purposes) and other times I get invited to events, given an overview, and am then left to my own devices on how I want to write it. In which case the only thing I ask for is some guidance such as … is there any phrase they specifically want me to say, or maybe a hashtag, or a feature they want me to highlight.
I blog to teach.
Every now and then I post some of my lectures in the classes I teach here. I’ve found that it is easier for me to maintain and, in addition, it also gives my students an insight into who and what kind of person I am.
Is blogging easy?
Some would say it is and to some extent, I would agree …
- if you like to write
- if you know your niche and can produce material for that niche
- if you can commit yourself to a schedule … ex. once a week at the very least.
Yes, I said that blogging, for me, is therapeutic, but that does not mean it isn’t hard work, especially if your goal is to have a GOOD blog site.
If you are a serious blogger then you want a GREAT site, not a good site. It’s achievable, indeed, and when done right it morphs into a site is rich in content, awesome pictures, etc. we could all be proud of.
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Jan 26, 2012 | Food & Beverage
A lazy Thursday afternoon for me means spending some time at one of many cafes in the area … today my cafe of choice was Banapple (located at Il Terrazzo, Scout Madrinan corner Tomas Morato, Quezon City).
I try not to go to Banapple too often because every visit seems to add inches to my waist. 🙂 At times, though, like today, the temptation was just too hard to resist!
Yo Ho Hope! Cheesecake
I have tasted, perhaps 6 of their cakes and every visit I like to try something new. A sign at the door advertised this cake called a Yo Ho Hope! Cheesecake. It looked and sounded promising so I decided to give it a shot with a cup of brewed coffee on the side.
At first, I was disappointed at the thinness of the slice I was served (since the poster made it appear like I would be receiving a bigger slice) but later I discovered that I could not even finish the slice I was given. Every forkful was a little piece of heaven in my mouth and I was tempted to force myself to finish it all, if not for the burrito and fries that was already occupying my tummy at the time. 😀
If I had known in advance that I was going to go to Banapple for dessert I would not have eaten so much at Army+Navy.
If you would like a peek at what goodies they have in store for us you could visit their website at http://www.banapplekitchen.com. Or … you may also download their latest menu here. 😀
by Penny Angeles-Tan | Jan 12, 2012 | Product and Service Review
After months of deliberation, we finally decided to terminate our PLDT MyDSL and our PLDT landline. In the beginning, we were hesitating because:
- we’ve had our PLDT account for 40 years
- PLDTs My DSL was not so bad
In the past week or so, though, the service has gotten so bad that it was no longer forgivable. At first, I thought it was the wireless router so I switched to the regular router. But when even that didn’t work I tried connecting my laptop directly to the modem. For 10 minutes the connection was just ok. Torrents were downloading at 80 kbps, but shortly after the download dropped to 8 kbps and would not go back up.
I thought, maybe I just have to reboot the laptop and the modem, so I did. It gave me another 10 minutes of okay connection then zilch.
I tried calling their customer service hotline but it was always busy and I have not been able to talk to anyone in all this time. This makes me think that they must be having lots of problems with many subscribers at the moment.
Consider, if you will, that Sky has been wooing us for months to shift to Sky broadband. With this latest development, we decided to take Sky’s 15-day trial. If Sky performs as promised then saying goodbye to PLDT will be a no brainer.
Later I found out that the style J.Lo was taught was called Krav Maga, a self-defense technique developed in Israel, which initially appeared to me to be a hodge podge of techniques picked up from judo and karate with, perhaps, a little local (Israeli) flavor. As a former judo practitioner most of the moves shown were not exactly unknown to me.
But, primarily (initially), I like to blog just so I could put down in words how I feel. They aren’t always for public viewing but just the act of putting it all down in print makes me feel better. My blog started as more of an online diary or journal if you will. In the beginning, whether or not someone read my posts was not so important. If someone reads my blog and enjoys it or can sympathize with it or learns something from it, etc., I feel gratified. But if no one reads what I wrote it does not affect me much.
I blog to relax.
On occasion, people ask for my help in promoting a product or service. Sometimes they give me a press release to post as-is (but I still end up enhancing or even changing up a bit, if I think it needs some help … mostly for SEO purposes) and other times I get invited to events, given an overview, and am then left to my own devices on how I want to write it. In which case the only thing I ask for is some guidance such as … is there any phrase they specifically want me to say, or maybe a hashtag, or a feature they want me to highlight.
Every now and then I post some of my lectures in the classes I teach here. I’ve found that it is easier for me to maintain and, in addition, it also gives my students an insight into who and what kind of person I am.
Consider, if you will, that Sky has been wooing us for months to shift to Sky broadband. With this latest development, we decided to take Sky’s 15-day trial. If Sky performs as promised then saying goodbye to PLDT will be a no brainer.
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