racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

June is nearing and it’s the season for Hollywood blockbuster movies. With family-friendly films slated for theatrical release this coming June — Cars 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, X-Men First Class, Captain America, Green Lantern and Hangover II, who wouldn’t want to spend the tail-end of summer relaxing and watching a movie?

(OK, forget the Hangover as “family friendly,” but if your family is mature enough then go ahead.)

That’s why this blog, in cooperation with Globe My Super Circle and Sumo Sam, is running a photo contest that will showcase family connectedness using today’s high-tech (or even low-tech) tools.

The mechanics are simple:

• Take a wacky, funny, interesting or artsy photo of how you and your family members stay in touch.
• You can submit your entry through any of the following: (1) Post your photo on your blog or photo-sharing account, and link to this post, (2) Tweet a link to your Photo and mention @jangelo; or (3) Share your photo on Facebook, include a link to this post, and tag my account – J Angelo Racoma
• Photos may not be edited/Photoshopped except to improve the contrast/levels and to resize.
• To ensure I don’t miss your entries, send me an email at jangelo (at) gmail (dot) com with a link. If the photo is accessible from a photo-sharing site, do write a comment on this post with a link.
• Submission of entries will run from today, May 31, until 11:59 PM of Friday, June 10, 2010. I’ll be updating this post to include official entries.

I will then choose a list of 10 finalists, from which I will raffle off the entries using a randomizing application. Winner will be announced this Independence Day, June 12.

Note: I’ve extended the contest up to June 17, and I’ll announce winners by June 19, due to reader requests.

So get your camera out and take shots of your siblings, spouse, friends, relatives, pets, yourself, and whoever you hold dear. Prizes at stake are tickets for 8 people at Shangri-La Cineplex and a PhP 5,000 dinner at Sumo Sam.

This contest assumes the winner can claim and use the prize (i.e., located or living in the Philippines), but if your entry wins and you can’t physically claim/use it, then you can assign it to someone who can.

I know some blogs are fond of giving away stuff thru contests. I think I ought to try it out. I’ve been meaning to run some contests on Splashpress Media, but I’d like to see first how it goes here on the J Spot. So with a little help from the creators of productivity software FruitfulTime, here goes.

Update: On the urgings of Janette Toral, I’ve converted the contest into a survey-type one.

Just answer the question What machine do you usually use to blog: notebook computer or desktop computer?. Post your answer as a comment here. From the responses, I will to select three in random, via a randomizing software. In the event that the comment chosen isn’t a response to the question, then I’ll move on to the next number.

I’ll keep the contest open until I get 150 comments, so hopefully that would last until this weekend. Update: let’s make this contest quicker. We will end when we reach comment or trackback #50.

The prize is worth $49.99 (but they’re selling it at $29.99 up to end February). You can actually try out a free version, which is fully-featured, but limited to only 10 days.

A to do list can be written on a piece of paper but it’s way too inefficient to do that. FruitfulTime TaskManager can help you do the job. FruitfulTime TaskManager is a to do list software that helps you handle your to do list. With it you can input your tasks and split them into subtasks. You can then set due dates on the tasks and subtasks and have FruitfulTime TaskManager remind you about pending tasks. In this way, FruitfulTime TaskManager will become your life coach to help you eliminate procrastination.

Again, just send in your answer. I’ve recently switched to a desktop machine for my main non-mobile computing needs (a Mac Mini). But I still do bring my Asus Eee mostly anywhere I go.

I was unable to post about the Isulong SEOPH awarding night earlier because of the extended power outage we had in our part of town. I thought power would’ve already been restored, but it turns out we lost power again after coming back home, and it wouldn’t return until two days after.

Caren and I generally had a good time, save for some not-so-pleasant observations of some people (don’t ask). The food and refreshments were okay (Jason treated me to a pre-event beer. Thanks Jason!), but the venue was a bit cramped. I think Marc wanted people to have more intimate space to interact, so he chose not to set the event up at a larger place.

As I write this, there’s only a week and a few hours left to go for the Isulong SEOPH contest. This is basically your usual search engine ranking contest, where the ones at the top of Google search by the end of the duration for a certain keyword would be awarded the prizes.