Zaldy O. Co's Blog

mPower Asia 2008

Mitel Networks held its first ever regional distributor conference at the Sunway Lagoon Resort in Petaling Jaya in Malaysia.

There were more than 50 attendees from all over Asia and Australia.

Added by Zaldy O. Co on November 14, 2008 at 7:00am — No Comments

Finally! I got my copy of Presentation Zen, a birthday gift courtesy of Ida Sih.

I should be able to put it into practice immediately as I have been doing a lot of presentations lately in addition to my Toastmasters speech projects. I really need to put a lot of sizzle into my presentations.

Added by Zaldy O. Co on November 1, 2008 at 7:00am — No Comments

Bored, there is nothing new under the sun

It's a Sunday afternoon. I just had coffee, ice cream, siopao, and Pepsi Max. None of my italki friends are online so I just sort of aimlessly surfed the web. It gets really boring when I cannot find anything new. It is either new information that would interest me are sunk deep in search engines or simply no one writes about them anymore. This simply means research into anything new should take a backseat and I should just refocus on creative pursuits like designing an app, writing code,… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on October 26, 2008 at 10:30am — No Comments

Traveling Light (轻装上阵)

When I travel I only carry one bag.

我旅行只带一个包.

4 years ago, I had a longer travel, months in America, I carried only one trolley bag.

四年前，我有一次更长的旅程，我只带了一个旅行箱在美国呆了几个月.

If baggage is heavy it would be difficult to move.

如果你的包很沉的话，行动起来不方便

Life is a journey.

生活是旅程.

It is our longest journey and like any other journey long or short, we have to travel light.

它是我们最长的旅程，就像其他所有的旅程一样，或长或短，我们都必须轻装上阵.

And to compete in life, we have to be lean and… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on October 22, 2008 at 7:42am — No Comments

Speaking and Shopping in Cubao

I had a stint as General Evaluator (评价主人) or G.E. this afternoon at the Cubao Merchants Association Toastmasters Club. It was the first time I had fun being a G.E. as I did not experience jitters anymore and it was just only my 5th or 6th time to act as G.E. in any speech club.

Already in Cubao I decided to for some shopping. Went to… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on October 11, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Reviving Mandarin in Emperor Toastmasters

I thought myself crazy when I decided to bring back the full Mandarin meetings of Emperor Toastmasters Club. I am already President of two clubs and bringing back the Mandarin meetings is certainly like taking on the presidency of a third club.

I recall it was the discovery of italki (爱拓奇) that led me to declare the return of the full Mandarin meetings at a club meeting last January 9, 2008. I actually only had a single language session in italki… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on September 22, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

iTalki 101

iTalki has been great so far. It has replaced my usual craving to clubhop to various Toastmasters clubs. Both iTalki and Toastmasters have things in common--they both relate to communications, learning, and meeting people. The main difference is iTalki is an online thing and Toastmasters is an offline activity and I stay home and need not spend money with iTalki unlike Toastmasters. I have done much clubhopping already in Toastmasters so the gains are not as much as my earlier days with the… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on September 6, 2008 at 10:00pm — No Comments

Language Learning 2.02 - Building Vocabulary

One lesson in building vocabulary is to find someone who will communicate mostly in Chinese text. The example sentences are from actual conversations in italki.

耳机 - earphone
空闲时间 - leisure time
聊天 - chat (隐身后也可以正常聊天)
汉字 - hanzi (你可以打汉字吗?)
在线, 上网 - go online (我看到你几乎每天都在线 , 你每天都上网做什么？是学习?)
没关系 - never mind
看懂 - read (我用中文打字你能看懂吧)

Added by Zaldy O. Co on September 5, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Language Learning 2.01

I spent this afternoon in a language exchange with Veronica of Kaifeng, Henan Province, China via Skype. At the outset it might actually be better chatting on the Internet rather than going into a language immersion in China. With iTalki I could reach out to my PowerWord Dictionary and Google Translate to craft my reply something I cannot do in face-to-face conversations. Unfortunately, I lost the notepad with some of the new words I have… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on August 24, 2008 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Language Learning 2.0

I first discovered iTalki late last year and tried it out on the day I discovered it. It actually took me till yesterday to get back into my language learning, specifically Mandarin. It has gotten better and the Flash or Flex-based voice & text chat client has made it easier to connect with language partners.

Learned a few words and proper names. I have often heard 对啊 but it is only now I have learned how to read and write it in simplified Chinese. My Chinese name is written as… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on August 18, 2008 at 11:00am — No Comments

CommunicAsia 2008

After four years, I attended another CommunicAsia show, the biggest the telecoms show in Asia-Pacific.

ZTE sponsored the visitors' brochure bag and Quintum was right at the entrance of Hall 1 at the Singapore Expo. Quintum CEO Cheng T. Chen was at hand and we had the opportunity to sign our Asia-Pacific distributor agreement with him. The Philippine delegation headed by Globe Telecoms had their booth at one of the wallsides. A lot of the big names like Cisco were notably absent from… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on June 21, 2008 at 11:07am — No Comments

Toastmasters: Another Distinguished Award

Today, Area 4 of Toastmasters District 75 just completed the requirements for Select Distinguished Area. Area 4 consists of Emperor, Presidents, Greenhills Prime, and Molave Toastmasters clubs. With that, Area 4 gets assigned with the newest club--OCCI Toastmasters Club and with one new club the award is upgraded to Presidents Distinguished Area.

An Area level award is higher than a club level. It shows that the clubs in the area worked as a unit and not individually as a club. Help… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on May 24, 2008 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Toastmasters: From Extinguished Club to Distinguished Club Times Two

This Toastmasters 2007-08, I was a major driving force in propelling two struggling clubs--Emperor Mandarin and CaMaNaVa (later appended with a Brunch as a marketing tack) to President's Distinguished and mere Distinguished clubs, respectively. I would like to thank all those who provided the necessary support through thick and thin. Thanks also to Bo Bennett of FreeToastHost for providing free websites for Toastmasters clubs. All members I recruited into the two clubs came from the… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on May 11, 2008 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Back in Techie Mood

Spent the day downloading various VCLs, Windows XP SP3, two Chinese learning ebooks--Colloquial Chinese and Rapid Literacy in Chinese, and a single user license of DBA Manufacturing NextGen.

I have been working with the same technology for… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on May 3, 2008 at 12:30am — No Comments

Russians Adopt Delphi

I have to revitalize my spirits in coding. So I have to blog about the Delphi scene again.

There is good news--Russian Schools Adopt Delphi, etc. and this. I would really feel very comfortable if someday China does the same. I remember during the early days of computing, tools were picked based on their real merits in the absence of… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on February 4, 2008 at 1:08am — No Comments

In Toastmasters, you can't outsource Leadership

In conducting Toastmasters meetings, speakers can be outsourced, evaluators can be outsourced. But not its leaders.

Yesterday, CaMaNaVA Toastmasters Club had a joint meeting with REBAP Toastmasters Club. We managed to have six speakers in the program. Two speeches were credited to CaMaNaVa, one for El Presidente, one for Emperor, and REBAP did two demo speeches. Aside from that, six presidents and two area governors were present. Presidents of CaMaNaVa, El President, Emperor,… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on February 3, 2008 at 4:00am — No Comments

My Toastmasters Goals

I completed my Competent Communicator norm with Emperor Toastmasters last January 23. I still feel I need to do some work to be worthy of being called competent communicator. I intend to redo the Competent Communication Manual again with CaMaNaVa Toastmasters. Last January 26, I participated in the Toastmasters Area 3 & 4 Joint Speech Contest and joined the prepared International Speech competition. I did not fare too badly and it was a very good experience. DTM Norm Cook in his blog said… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on January 28, 2008 at 11:30am — No Comments

2007 in Review

2007 is primarily my Toastmasters year. I am three speeches away from completing my Competent Communicator and Competent Leader norms with the club. FreeToastHost websites are up and had already brought new members and will continue to do so for both Emperor and CaMaNaVa Toastmasters clubs. Emperor Toastmasters has gone from a very bad club to one of the best. Rehabbing CaMaNaVa brings a new experience as well as another stage to practice the craft of presentations.

Reworked much code… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on December 31, 2007 at 11:00pm — No Comments

It is not my war to fight

Oh well, time to cut my losses and walk away.

Sorry, readers. This is something personal.

Added by Zaldy O. Co on December 3, 2007 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Status Quo

I surf the Internet everyday to stay updated and find information that I may seize upon, Such information could be on the next big thing, on a significant shift or trend, or even something that reinforces the status quo in my little corner of the world.

This 2007, Visual FoxPro's demise, the opensourcing of Adobe Flex,… Continue

Added by Zaldy O. Co on June 30, 2007 at 4:00am — No Comments

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