Bagong Passport ng Tsina, Ipinrotesta ng Pilipinas

Ito yata ang unang entry na isusulat ko sa Filipino dahil medyo sensitibo ang paksa.

Sa mga nakatira sa lungga at hindi nakaka-alam: mayroong tunggalian na nagaganap sa pagitan ng Tsina, Pilipinas, Vietnam at Taiwan sa pag angkin ng Scarborough Shoal, isang napakaliit na isla sa kaliwa ng Pilipinas na sinasabing ang pwedeng pag minahan ng langis.

Inyo na lahat?

Sa pinakabagong hakbang ng Tsina para ipakita ang kanilang teritoryo, naglabas ang kanilang gobyerno ng bagong disenyo ng pasaporte na nagpapakita ng mapa kung gano kalawak ang umanoy saklaw ng Tsina sa South China Sea / West Philippine Sea. Ito ay nagsulsol ng negatibong reaksyon sa buong mundo. Ang Taiwan at India ay nagsabi na ng kanilang pagtutol. Ang Vietnam at Pilipinas naman ay nag file na ng diplomatic protest at hindi na magtatatak ng mga bagong pasaporte ng Tsina bilang protesta.

Kailangan talagang linyahan?

"Hindi dapat masyadong bigyan ng kahulugan ang mapa [translated]", ang sabi ng Chinese Foreign Ministry. Ang reaksyon naman ni Albert del Rosario, Foreign Affairs Secretary, ay dapat alisin nalang sa pasaporte ng Tsina ang kontrobersyal na mapa.

Ang ilan sa ating mga mamamayan ay nag dadalawang isip na sa pagpunta sa Tsina bilang tumaas nanaman ang tensyon sa pagitan ng dalawang bansa.

Ang mga isla sa gitna ng China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia at Bruinei ay matagal ng pinag-aawayan dahil sa potensyal na malaking mina ng langis. Kabilang dito ang Paracel Islands, Spratly Islands, at ang pinakabagong pinagaawayan ngayon, ang Scarborough Shoal / Panatag Shoal.

Sa aking opinyon, immature at kakapalan ng mukha ang paglagay ng bagong mapa sa kanilang pasaporte. Maihahambing ko ang Tsina sa isang batang nag tatantrums at nagpapapansin. Akin 'to, hindi kita bati attitude.  Mahilig ang Tsina mag provoke pag dating sa issue ng teritoryo, katulad nalang nung nagpadala sila ng mga barkong pang digmaan sa Scarborough palibhasa siguro ay may kapangyarihan sila at inaabuso nila ito para i-bully ang mga kalapit-bansa.

Naway hindi humantong sa gyera ang mga alitang ito. Share an island, win a friend na lang! :)

For those who live in a cave, there's an ongoing conflict between China and the Philippines regarding Scarborough Shoal. A small island, west of Philippines said to be rich in oil. In the latest news, Chinese government issued a new design of their passport which includes a map to make the world see their reach on the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea. This sparked negative reactions world-wide. Vietnam and Philippines filed a diplomatic protest and refused to stamp the new passports of China.

A New Design to mvergel.com

The number of people visiting this site has increased (but more on that on later posts) and mostly from the United States, probably because of my programming blog. It's reaching 16k since 2011.

In line with the increasing page views, I decided to re-design my site to give it a fresh look and accommodate newer devices. Last night I finished my initial design to mvergel.com. Though it still needs polishing, I have uploaded it already it can be tested and I can be informed about the problems of the new design in different resolutions, devices, or browsers.

The design is minimalist with a hint of inspiration from the metro style. I had a dilemma between light or dark website but ultimately chose a dark theme, aiming to reduce eye-strain.

I took advantage of CSS3 for subtle effects. When you hover in the main menu, you will notice the smooth transition from being gray, semi-translucent image to an opaque, colored one.  The bouncing animation of Twitter, Google Plus and RSS, and the way the advertisement follows you were also done using CS3. And the clouds! If you a browser other than Internet Explorer, e.g. Chrome, Firefox or Safari, you should be able to see several clouds moving from right to left. I had fun using CSS3; it enabled me to render effects and animations which, before, were impossible without Adobe Flash.

Speaking of advertisement, I decided to put one advertisement in my personal website so I can experiment on it. You should be able to see this on the right-side panel with the header "My sponsor" if you are using a desktop browser with a large-enough resolution. I placed it in such a way that it's visible without being obstructive or annoying. If it's annoying, feel free to comment about it.

The design is fluid; implemented using CSS3 Media Queries. What does this mean? If you're using a desktop browser, try resizing your browser window to a smaller width. You will see that the menu and content adjusts accordingly as the width becomes smaller as illustrated in the above image. The fluid layout is for better viewing on your mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, Android devices). There are still some quirks, like uneven padding and margin and it will be fixed later.

Lastly, I replaced the photos from my feed and from my "Photos" page with my pictures from Instagram. Instagram has recently opened their API to public, so I decided to take advantage of this opportunity and integrate Instagram to my site. Previously, I used Picasa Web Albums API to stream my photos.

That's it! The new design is still a work in progress, and it will improve over time. For now, I'm happy with the initial one.