2016 ~ hartanbi

Spice Up Your 2017 With These Bucketlist Items

Happy New Year guys! I hope you have a very good welcoming time together with your families and friends. And for those who are not able to make it to be with their loved ones, like me, I am still wishing for happiness to each and everyone of us.

Every beginning has an end and every beginning's end is a door to a new beginning. Another year has been given to us - year 2017, another twelve-month period to be awesome and wise. Let us all be thankful for it!

If not all of us, then most people has this "New Year's Resolution" whenever a new year begins. That includes me, of course. It is like a nature to humankind. Well, what can I say? I've been doing it since I was in grade school. It is like a golden rule I can't never miss. To mention a few, these were a few of my New Year's Resolution. Few because I tell you guys, there were really lots of them in my list and some of them kinda appear to be very impossible already. From being a best student (wayback before, yeah I am a dreamer) to being the sexiest freak you could imagine not to mention the "diet" word lol (yes - I am a feeler, too) to being one of the best professional I can be (serious moment of silence please) and everything in between. I can personally say these are all good stuffs because we are aiming for improvement of ourselves. We are not giving up to our selves and we have good plans set in each of our archives for good. After all, it's our duty to take care of us, to spoil us with what we want - what we need.

To make your 2017 an awesome year, I have here some items you can add to your bucketlist to spice up your year a lot more. Let us altogether list our goals, achieve them, and experience our life desires. Pick one or more and take the challenge to do it. I, myself will definitely choose as well, if not then all!

1. If you are a working professional, make it a habit to only check social-media-related-stuff and personal-emails-stuff after shift. Preferably, at home before, sleeping.
- Last 2016, this snatched most of my time. I feel like I was multitasking the whole time I simultaneously checked these stuffs. My time management was a failure when it comes to this :( So, I am hoping I can improve this by now :)

2. Get advantage cards from your favorite stores and malls.
- Because points! Think about buying your personal stuff or shopping for your fashion items and at the same time earn points that you can used to pay in your next visit. Isn't that a clever idea? (I'm dying to have because I have none so far!)

3. No fastfood for the whole year. Eat home-cooked foods only.
- Whoever survive this, well, I am willing to be your apprentice! For those that cannot, well let us just bend it a little bit. From "No Fastfood" to "once or twice a month". Shall we? Deal!

4. Survive even if there is no boyfriend or girlfriend this year.
- Human can be happy without these species. There are a lot more to venture and to explore by yourself and for yourself. Love yourself first before you love another person - this is the main foundation of a successful relationship. Also, don't forget to settle your obligation to your family first.

5. Full makeup by a total stranger.
- I have done these already together with my friend Frances Marie. Don't miss to check the story of it here!

6. Parasailing
- It's a recreational activity where a person is towed behind a vehicle, usually a boat, while attached to a specifically designed canopy wing that looks like parachute. I'll definitely try this one during summer hopefully with my friends.

7. Eat in an eat-all-you-can restaurant alone.
- Indulge yourself with sumptuous food and extraordinary wine all by yourself only. Don't bring companion hahah!

8. Staycation in a resort alone.
- Experience staycation in a resort and sleep in the room all by yourself. Isn't it scary and full of adventure? You never know when you wake up, you got a ghost bedmate already. Whoa! Good luck to that. Just be careful and don't ever do this if you are hesitant.

9. Surfing and/or wakeboarding because why not?
- Adrenaline rush would be good sometimes.

10. Take an online course. Free or not will do.
- Prove to yourself that you can manage your time. This is a challenge because you gotta discipline yourself on avoiding unnecessary clicks in Youtube and Facebook. Just focus on finishing your enrolled course pretty please. Well, for me, I opted for the #100DaysOfCode Challenge and Javascript30 course - both are online.

11. Read book at least 30 minutes a day.
- We gotta work on our vocabulary. Plus, good read means good sleep.

12. Create a blogsite and blog your hearts out in there.

13. Strive to achieve this: 3 Sources of Income and be financially stable.

14. Complete the 52-Week-Money Challenge
- Be rich at the end of 2017.

15. Don't be a couch potato this year. Exercise.
- Hit the gym and/or engage yourself in a mountain climbing, weekly jogging, swimming and many more.

16. Sleep 7-8 hours a day.
- I know reality is better than dreams. I, myself couldn't even make a 7-hour beauty sleep. My gosh! But we will try and work to achieve this because "health"!

...and the list goes on depending on your preferred bucketlist items.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Happy new life! Let's make a blast!

Google Developers Group (GDG) Cebu Campus Talk Series 2016

Google Developers Group (GDG) Cebu, a non-profit group of amateurs and professionals (technology users, specialists, and developers) who are enthusiasts and daily users of Google technologies, conducted its “Campus Talk Series” event for the year 2016 as a major preparation for the upcoming Devfest on November 19, 2016. GDG Cebu Team aimed to be one of the most well-known communities in the whole region so that’s why we made this “Campus Talk Series” event possible.

The Campus Talk Series took place in four known universities of Cebu province. It started last September 17, 2016 and ended last November 12, 2016. This event aimed to assist the students to be fully equipped with the latest trend of technology developed by Google fundamentally focusing on the programming and development field. During this event, students were informed about the awesome flavors of Google technology which they could freely explore and use with their school projects or even their startups in mind. They were also encouraged to think and come up with amazing startup ideas that could help not only themselves but the whole community and the world as a whole.

The event has 2 categories:

1. Talk/Sharing Session – This is where the talking and the sharing happen. Students are gathered as a whole in a big room wherein they get to know and hear the latest Google Technologies articulated by our best speakers.

2. Codelabs Session – This is the hands-on period. Students apply what they learn during the Talk/Sharing Session with the help of selected best instructors. This is the fun part!

Why we target students?

Simply because young generations have all the time in the world to attend to our event, lol! Most professionals don’t have time for us; most especially this is a series of events, due to their family and work-related reasons. And besides, the young ones are the hope of our world. They have these lots of weird, crazy and awesome ideas. We want that beautiful ideas to be shared and become true! Of course, the older ones also do, we totally agree to that! And we also believe that students in schools and universties must be given attention first, tamed first!

The four legs of GDG Cebu Campus Talk Series are as follows.
These are all whole-day events full of fun and knowledge, plus gaining new friends (growing the friendship network) and being awesome altogether :)

1. Cebu Technological University (CTU)

Held last September 17, 2016.

2. University of Cebu (UC)

Held last October 1, 2016.

3. University of the Philippines Cebu (UP Cebu)

Held last October 22, 2016.

4. University of San Jose Recoletos (USJR)

Held last November 13, 2016.

Most pictures are owned by yours truly, taken by my Samsung Galaxy Note 5. I sometimes call my phone as the “GDG Cebu Official Phone” because the team keeps looking for it during picture-takings hahaha!

Our team who made this even successful: https://gdgcebu.org/team

Visit us on the following :)

Official Website: https://gdgcebu.org/

Facebook Page: https://web.facebook.com/gdgcebuorg

Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/gdgcebu

My 5 Favorite Pop Music Bands Of All Time

What is the first thing you will think if you are alone in a very quite place just like in your house or in the office? I sense "food" is the answer (haha). Yeah I agree with that but aside from that, if you are a young-blood like me, I will certainly think for cool musics to soothe my brain cells and inner being! You probably are also a music addict - instrumental, metal, pop etc. Yes? No? Maybe?

Anyways, I will share to you my five favorite pop music bands of all time. You can download their albums if you want or you may buy their songs if you have extra amount in your bank account.

And by the way, I may not have the golden voice that they have, but I do know most lyrics of their albums (shoulder-shrugged) so I guess that's one point credited in there, Lol.

Take note that the musics of these five bands have general appeal to teenagers (as well as those teenagers at heart like the one typing this haha). A bland watered-down version of rock'n'roll with more rhythm and harmony and an emphasis on romantic love. No wonder I like these haha!

1. One Direction- an English-Irish pop boy band based in London, composed of Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and previously, Zayn Malik.

2. Little Mix - a British girl group formed in 2011 during the eighth series of the UK version of The X Factor. They are the first and, so far, only group to win the competition. The members are Jade Thirlwall, Perrie Edwards, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Jesy Nelson.

3. 5 Seconds of Summer - an Australian rock band from Sydney composed of Luke Hemmings, Michael Clifford, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin . The group were originally YouTube celebrities, posting videos of themselves covering songs from various artists. The group have been referred to as a pop punk band in the media.

4. The Vamps- a British pop rock band consisting of Brad Simpson, James McVey, Connor Ball and Tristan Evans. They first gained fame in late 2012 with cover songs uploaded to YouTube, leading to comparisons with One Direction and being labeled as a boy band.

5. My Chemical Romance - (often abbreviated as MCR) was an American rock band from New Jersey, active from 2001 to 2013. The band's best-known lineup consisted of lead vocalist Gerard Way, guitarists Ray Toro and Frank Lero, bassist Mikey Way and drummer Bob Bryar.

Seriously guys, can I take you all to my cribb?! Let's party with our hearts out and nevermind the neighbors. Please!

Summer Outing in Pangan-an andAbalone Beach Resorts

Passerelles Numeriques Philippines pioneer Batch2012 of college scholars celebrated its seventh anniversary in Pangan-an Island, Lapu-lapu City, Cebu Philippines.

Everyone was very excited to finally be together again after all the hectic schedules brought by the professional life in the corporate world. Also, one of our abroad classmates, Catherine, arrived in Cebu so everybody was happy not to mention the chocolates pasalubong she brought for us :)

The summer outing happened last May21-22, 2016 in 2 beach resorts in the mentioned place : Pangan-an Beach Resort and Abalone Beach Resort. The said event has the official hashtags #CSNA201 #GoingStrongAt7

Day1 (May 21, 2016) Pangan-an Beach Resort:

A) 7am - Departure from Talamban Cebu City. Rode jeepneys going to Jolibee Highway > Parkmall > Mercado Mactan > Mactan pier going to Pangan-an island. Fare was around 50 pesos all in all.

Arrived at the pier!

Had fun, obviously!

B) 9am - We rode a small boat (also known as "sakayan") going to our destination. Fare was 45 pesos.

The more passengers, the more fun, the better :)

C) 9:30am onwards - Arrived at Pangan-an Beach Resort. Arranged our baggage in our rented house. Toured the place. Cooked Lunch. Had fun and lots of jokes.

D) 1:00pm - Personal time. Some of my friends slept and some went swimming. Bonfire and burnt marsmallows. Shots

Day2 (May 22, 2016) in Abalone Beach Resort:
This resort was a hidden treasure (well for me). Its area was covered with thick trees and plants situating few meters to the shore. At first, I found it weird since the main gate has "No Trespassing" sign. The explanation was, it's a privately owned resort and was not yet commercialized or known to the public. Entrance fee was 80 pesos. Cottage fee was 200 pesos.

(photos to be uploaded tonight)

Romantic Whispers about being “Single”

Are you single? Are you longing for that special someone to come into your life? We’ll you are not alone; a lot of people on Earth are singles too. Here I will show you the confessions of single people about their romantic desires. Whisper...

1. I wish I could send really cute texts to my girlfriend/boyfriend but I am single.

2. Even though I am single, I sleep on one side of my bed, in hopes that someday I get to share it to someone special.

3. Even though I am single, I like to listen to love songs and think “one day.”

4. I have ridiculously high expectations for relationships. I want romance. I want the random road trips, kissing in the rain, pebble thrown at my window kind of love. This is why I’m single.

5. I buy men’s cologne and men’s hoodies to sleep in because it comforts me, although I am single.

6. Even though I am single and never had a boyfriend, I know how kissing and cuddling would feel like because I think about this in my head. It feels so real.

7. I can’t sleep I wish I had a girlfriend who could sing me to sleep. But I am single.

8. I’m singe and happy, but sometimes I wish I had someone to hold me and be my rock.

9. I fantasize about meeting a man at the grocery store, him coming up to me and asking if Im single. I tell him yes, and I live happily after.

10. Every time I walk through the door when I come home I always call out “Honey, Im home” … even though I’m single and I live alone.

11. Even though I am single, I already know how I am going to propose to my future wife.

12. I bet trying to get pregnant is a really incredible experience. Im single, but I dream of the day I have a man and we want to make a family. It’s what keeps me going.

Taurus is my Zodiac Sign

Taurus people rock! The BULL!

We have a strong, steady and silent attitude.

The bigger the troubles that surround us, the more strength we find to bear them.

We make things slowly but surely and we have a high potential for wealth and success.

Fixed: Flickering Lenovo Screen

I had this really annoying issue with my laptop - the monitor of my Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro kept on flickering and it really bothered me. At first I just ignored it because I thought it would just disappear. Then, I somehow started to get used to it.
But then, there’s this time when I was having the moment of my life feeling the love of Noah and Allie in The Notebook movie (I honestly watched it thrice already) or the funny-giggly story of Adam and Emma in the No Strings Attached film (watched it over 4 times), and this flickering thingy really sort of pissed me off.

I noticed that this issue started after I upgraded its operating system from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 and fully updated the system and device drivers to the latest version. I have already asked uncle Google about it several times. Well, it told me that I’m not the only who suffered from it because there were also other folks that’s facing the same culprit. It also offered me really lots of solutions; the worst was to send this back to manufacturer or let the Lenovo company know about it then ask for advice. That were pretty clever advices I must say but nah, I just wanted my problem be gone in just a snap. I occasionally wondered if was there an issue with the hardware itself? Should I just let a technician see its condition or consider buying a new one? I came up with different solutions in order to fix it, but only the following helped me:

Disable Panel Self-Refresh:
1. Open Intel HD Graphics Control Panel.
2. Choose Power > On Battery > check "Disable" under Panel Self-Refresh.
3. Click Apply. Then confirm by clicking Yes.

Set Up Refresh Rate from 60p Hz to 48p HZ:
1. Open Intel HD Graphics Control Panel.
2. Choose Display > General Settings > check "48p" under Refresh Rate.
3. Click Apply.

Your welcome!

How to Become a Front-end Developer and Designer

One day of my life, I realized that I want to become a Front-end Developer. I searched the internet for tips and advises on how to become one and I came across this very cool yet frank advise by Dillon Grove. I really had goosebumps upon reading this and it seemed he was directly talking to me. Thanks Dillon for being such a motivation!

Here it is:

Like you, I've found that there exist very little in the way front-end web development courses. And the courses that do exist leave a lot to be desired. As a result, it seems to me that most good front-end developers I've met are more or less self-taught. So if all we're trying to do is answer the question you posted ("How do people generally become front-end web developers?") we can stop right here. I tend to agree with your speculation that most of them are probably self-taught.

But I'm willing to bet that's not quite what you want to hear. By virtue of you asking this question, I'm guessing you're trying to find out how you can become a good front-end developer and if that's the case, simply saying "teach yourself" isn't useful.

Now, I could go on and on about what books you could purchase, or which technologies you should learn and in what order but to be honest, I've recently come to the conclusion that all of those things are pretty irrelevant. Sure, pick up a starter book if you want. I really don't think your specific choice of book will make much of a difference in the long run.

I could also start listing off what I think the qualities of a good front-end engineer are and hope that you might absorb some of those qualities. But I don't think that'll do much good either. If you're just starting out in the field, you probably have no idea how to apply those qualities to what you're doing.

Instead, I'm going to try to impart upon you a specific strategy for self-learning. This is the strategy I've used and I daresay it's worked pretty well for me. So here it is:

Stop trying to learn proactively and start doing things instead. Ask and answer your own questions.

Going out there and reading a book/blog about HTML/CSS/JS isn't going to do you much good if you don't know why you're reading it. If you're anything like me, you're going to retain maybe 10% of the material. You could read 20 books on the subject and you're not going to be much closer to being a good front-end developer.

Instead, just start a damn project. Set a goal of making something that you know you don't know how to do. Start writing code. At some point you'll run into a something you don't know how to do. Type what you want to know how to do into Google and figure it out. Then do it.

I should point out that this process can take hours even for the simplest thing. Especially if you don't know exactly what it is you even need to Google. But in 99% of cases, you'll learn something along the way. And the thing you learn will be relevant to what you're doingand because of that it will stick with you.

You might read about CSS Floats in a book and you're going to forget it within a week. Try to create a layout that requires floats and spend 2 hours on Google until you figure out how to make it work and you're not ever going to forget that shit.

Then keep setting the bar higher. Make loftier goals. Force yourself to meet those goals. Sometimes you'll find out that the thing you want to do isn't possible. Great, you've now learned the boundaries and limitations of the technology you're working with.

You literally cannot go wrong with this approach. No matter what you do, you're going to learn something.

This all sounds like an incredibly inefficient way of learning, I know. Why would you spend hours on the internet figuring out how to do things on your own when you could supposedly just read a book or two and learn everything you need to know? Because the latter doesn't really work, that's why. There isn't a shortcut to this stuff. You just have to do it. You have to bang your head against the wall until you figure it out. Keep chipping away.

Give it some time and you'll find that you have to consult the internet less and less. You'll run into a problem or a bug and remember experiencing the same bug in another project you've already done. You can then go back to that project, see how you fixed it, and apply the same fix to what you're doing right now. Eventually, you'll just know how to fix things. And then you'll begin to realize that you're getting pretty good at this stuff.

I'm not saying that you should never read a book. Often when you first start out it's good to read at least one introductory book to sort of get your bearings and learn some basic terminology. But don't expect books to do the learning for you. Ultimately, it's up to you.