Learn PHP - The Beginner Guide Video Course

I highly recommend this to people who have a lot of free time. It is simple to set up, and you can learn a lot in this YouTube video series about learning to program in PHP.

What most schools don't teach

8Ten 5MP SDV 5271 Action Camera

It seems that for the past year or so, the Action Camera segment has bloomed after GoPro started the trend. Other brands have made their own action cams and joined the fray. Now, to make it even more interesting, chinese-esque brands have joined the fray too with their own offerings. This only means more choices for consumers at different price points. You're not stuck with having to fork over an arm and a leg for a GoPro Hero if you feel that you won't need the entire suite of features. Other, more basic options are available.

One of the said options is 8Ten's SDV 5271 Action Camera. I just noticed this in Lazada's page, mainly because it was cheap. Looking at the reviews though is something else. This camera is being raved at by a lot of users garnering an average 4.16 out of 201 reviews. That, to me is a good indicator of value-for-money.

I then checked out YouTube for sample videos and I'm surprised that an unpopular brand has a lot of test videos for the camera [underwater, dashcam, helmet cam, etc]. I just had to ensure that I was watching the video at the highest video setting [click the gear icon at the lower right portion of the video to ensure you're watching the highest quality].

What I can say is that GoPro isn't sweating their pants over this, but this should work as a basic dashcam for cars, and other automobiles. Just make sure your expectations are clearly set, this camera should be a good buy if you need an action camera [underwater, biking, motorcycle riding, etc], and have a limited budget to pool from.

Link below if you want to check it out in Lazada. Available for cash-on-delivery so you don't have to worry about using credit cards or being scammed online. That to me, is a big plus in itself.

8Ten SDV-5271 5MP Action Camera (Silver)
₱ 1,499.00

Briggs Automotive Company Mono sets record

305bhp Briggs Mono

Talk about setting speed records!

This is the 305bhp Briggs Automotive Company Mono. This car unofficially broke the car hill record at Goodwood, this car lapped in 1:55 - 9.5 seconds faster than a Porsche 911 GT3, 7 seconds faster than a Ferrari Speciale and hold on to your hats, 4.5 seconds faster than a McLaren P1 

BAC introduced the 2016 Model Year Mono to the world at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, with an unofficial road car record-breaking run on the famous hillclimb. With a series of runs comfortably sub 50-seconds, and a fastest time of 47.9, the Mono is able to compete with many dedicated racing cars.

The blistering runs capped off a successful Festival of Speed for BAC, where they met countless enthusiasts on the manufacturer lawn and entertained current and potential customers at the BAC bespoke customer experience zone, featuring several cars, a cutaway chassis, technical exhibits and an owners’ lounge. 

With BAC test driver Oliver Webb at the wheel, the Goodwood hillclimb time was set in BAC’s 2016 Model Year Mono, featuring an all-new 2.5-litre Mountune four-cylinder engine producing 305bhp – that’s up 25bhp on the previous 2.3-litre Cosworth engine. The revised car weighs in at just 580kg giving an incredible 526bhp per tonne. The new 2016 Model Year Mono also includes a drive-by-wire throttle as well as a bespoke driver fitment culminating in a custom steering wheel and seat tailor-made for the owner. 

What makes the hill time all the more impressive is the fact it was set while Oliver was not attempting a record as he was driving a car fitted with a pre-production prototype engine.

Decent, for daily use notebooks which won't break your bank

It seems that these days, we no longer have to associate a portable computing experience with expensive prices. Budget laptops these days can definitely get the job done for 90% of users, who spend most of their time in front of their device either a.) working on documents, spreadsheets, and/or presentations b.) social media such as facebook, and twitter c.) porn [hopefully in incognito] d.) talking to family and friends via applications like Skype, and e.) playing games.

Having come from an age where laptops were more of a luxury than a need [if you need to use a computer, grab a desktop, or rent at a computer shop]. The cheapest of laptops came with barebone specifications, which works, but not especially well. Then came local and some unknown international brands that provided decent specifications for a lower price than "branded" models. However, some encountered issues with heat, crashing, or just poor after sales support [drivers, warranty service, etc]. 

Still, tech companies like Intel, and AMD, keep churning out new processors and graphics solutions for their notebooks that fight for your computing dollar. Other considerations such as power consumption, and battery life, are also touted. Before, if you needed a machine which had 4 hours run-time battery, you'd have to carry a heavy laptop which would either a.) break your arm and/or b.) grow you some muscles. These days, you can carry a svelte portable and still be able to enjoy long battery life without compromising computing performance. With technology becoming more, and more powerful, yet more energy efficient, it makes great sense to transition to these new systems.

A quick search through Lazada's basic laptops page shows that a new laptop can be had for as low as P7,995, but let's take a look at something closer to it, the Asus X200MA, which costs slightly more [P9,995] but at the same time has a reliable brand, decent specifications, and a year's warranty. Now, some might shake their head at the Celeron processor, but hear me out. These aren't the days when Celeron was just an unwanted stepbrother of the Intel processor line. It consumes very low power [7 watts], has decent computing power [2.16Ghz with Turbo Boost 2.56Ghz], and can play recent games on low-to-medium settings. If you have a bit more budget to burn, you can go with a slight upgrade, and head over to an Ultrabook with a slightly bigger screen, twice the memory, better processor and a dedicated graphics card, which is the Asus X452MD for a shade under 19,000 pesos. 

I highly recommend switching over to portables because of the reduced power consumption. Power rates have increased and using a machine which allows you to accomplish more of the same with less electricity usage would be a big savings on a year-on-year look. Also, portability and space saved is important in a world where everything seems to get tighter and filled up with other things that we own. Of course, due diligence is required if the laptop that you'd purchase would suit best for your needs. I'm sure there are other items to consider [brand, warranty, build, OS, etc] which you should take note of as well. 

Links used are listed below:

Lazada's Basic laptops page

Asus X200MA

Asus X452MD

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