I found this on Biotek.net but before you try this out you must promise that you are not currently working in the kitchen, have something in the oven or watching the baby. I found it on my lunch break so that doesn’t count.

You will be hooked.*waves hand in an arc in front of your face*

You will not be able to continue anything else you are doing. *waves hand in an arc in front of your face*

All set? This works in Windows XP (and on Windows Vista too, as reported).

* Go to Start
* Click Run
* Type: Telnet.
* [A DOS window (also known as a command prompt) will appear.]
* In the DOS window type the letter “o” (without the quotes)
* Then type: towel.blinkenlights.nl so that the line looks like this:

Microsoft Telnet> o towel.blinkenlights.nl

* Press Enter

Enjoy the show.

Last I used Microsoft Outlook was in my last year with Ng Khai Development Corp. in Cebu. Back then it was Outlook 97.

Ten years later it is now MS Outlook 2007, and I had all but forgotten how powerful it can be for companies running on an Exchange Server. I had all but forgotten my Exchange stuff as well, because the company I moved to in 1999 and still work for now runs on a Domino Server and Lotus Notes.

But we do have clients for whom we set up and configure Exchange servers, and we support hundreds of users on Microsoft Outlook. The changing times demanded that someone know how to use it, and well enough to each other people to use it as well.

And that’s why I, little green person in red cap and pants, am here at MISNet on Valero St. Makati, learning the rudiments of this much updated version of Microsoft’s email client. The seminar goes on for two days (been here since yesterday) and is arming me with enough information to pass on to our clients in a few days.

I don’t want to ask Ron, my instructor, how old he is. I just might find out he’s my eldest son’s age. But he appears expert in his field, MOS Certified and he happens to be a lomography buff as well.

In the wake of Typhoon Frank.

I remember a time decades ago, typhoons were given women’s names only. The weather bureau came up with names like Herming, Seniang, Yoling — diminutives for typically (at the time) Filipina given names. This was probably a hand over from World War II when US Army and Navy meteorologists monitoring tropical cyclones over the Pacific would name these natural occurrences after their wives or girlfriends.

But when the Philippine weather bureau PAGASA started using men’s names I started to wonder: were there women in the bureau naming these calamity-bringers after their husbands and boyfriends, ex- and otherwise?

Typhoon Frank wasn’t forecast as a super typhoon, but it wrought increasing damage over the metropolis and killed more than 200 people. Not since Typhoon Milenyo has anything like this happened to my country. School is suspended in all levels and I still have to verify as of this writing, whether the seminar I’m supposed to attend at 9am today is pushing through. If you catch me blogging through the day, it probably didn’t.

Related reading:

• Philippine Disasters and Calamities
• Disasters Timeline, Philippines