Lakbay2Love: Kilig Moments and Hugot Lines Amidst Biking and Nature Loving

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Your Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas was recently invited to attend a special block screeing of Lakbay2Love, a romantic coming-of-age movie from Erasto Films. The movie will be publicly show nationwide on February 3 and will have a red-carpet premiere at UP Diliman on January 29.

The movie is directed by Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil who we also had the opportunity to chat with since I was the very first blogger who arrived at the event. Watch out for our video interview of her soon at our YouTube channel. She led the special block screening held at Robinson's Galleria Cinema 10 on January 13, 2016 for the members of the media, the biking community and other friends and families.

Lakbay2Love, aside from the love triangle among Dennis Trillo, Solen Heusaff and Kit Thompson, more than subtly promotes biking and love for nature as a way to promote a better way of living.

Better means healthier, cleaner and lovelier since the use of bicycles, may it be mountain or foldable bikes, metal or bamboo made, vintage or high-tech or whatever kind or design, and the drive against illegal logging, climate change, and other environmental preservation campaigns contribute to a world with less pollution and risk of disasters.

We all know that if more people started using bikes, it would lessen the damage to our world brought about by pollution coming out from motor vehicles. It would also promote a healthier lifestyle for everyone as the much needed exercise from biking would be highly beneficial. I've been biking ever since I was a child and it is surely uplifting for both health and spirit.

Lakbay2Love Teaser Trailer

Meanwhile, the preservation of our forests would reduce flooding so we can avoid disasters like Ondoy and Yolanda that devastated a lot of our countrymen including us. I will never forget the days we were stranded on the 2nd floor of a neighbors house because of Ondoy, and how our first floor containing all of our priced possessions went under water and forever damaged both our property and spirit.

Lakbay2Love Full Trailer

Trees also clean the air we breath, "Trees create an ecosystem to provide habitat and food for birds and other animals. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and potentially harmful gasses, such as sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, from the air and release oxygen. One large tree can supply a day's supply of oxygen for four people. Trees help reduce surface water runoff from storms, thus decreasing soil erosion and the accumulation of sediments in streams. They increase ground water recharge and reduce the number of potentially harmful chemicals transported to our streams."

Should Bloggers Fight Discrimination? Do They Deserve Equal Treatment as Legit Media Practitioners?

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The statement below is highly controversial....but there is truth in it. Many would not dare to even utter a word referring to these issues because they do not want to irk the guilty parties. They are afraid to get blacklisted or banned from the list. Some would even resort to the undignified and obsequious debasement or ingratiation of oneself to another in the hope of currying favor.

The worst is that this malpractice has apparently been going on for years already, and that many has accepted the fact that it is already an undesirable culture that will forever exist in all sectors of society.

"I was surprised to learn that there are still some people who discriminate bloggers. The worst are those who ignore and do not have the decency to be sincere. I've witnessed so many blatant rigging of raffle draws during events in favor of their selected friends from trad media. 

The sad news is that the big names from top media outfits are somehow involved. Don't you find it questionable when the grand raffle prizes were won by the top media men from the top media outfits? 

Mind you, these are just the minor anomalies that are happening. The worst are when the organizers would even lie and make up crazy and unbelievable stories when you confront them with the abnormalities. They would easily just bribe you with everything possible just to cover up the irregularities. 

One of these days, I would look back at these moments and laugh at them because online media is the future, and the rest will soon be in a museum. They will resent the day they looked down on bloggers."

Sophos Predicts Top Cyber Security Trends for 2016

Wazzup Pilipinas!

In the ever changing and increasingly complex landscape of cyber security, Sophos experts offer their top predictions for 2016.

1. Android threats will become more than just headline-grabbers

In 2016, an increase in Android exploits becoming weaponised can be expected (as opposed to bugs like Stagefright which was heavily reported in 2015 but was never fully exploited). There are significant vulnerabilities on the Android platform, which can take months to patch. Although Google claims that nobody has actually exploited these vulnerabilities to date, it will ultimately be an invitation that is too tempting for hackers to ignore.

SophosLabs has already seen samples that go to extreme lengths to avoid App Store detection and filtering—giving Apps a better chance of surviving on App stores. For example, some hackers will design an App that loads harmless games if it thinks it is being tested, but then loads the malicious payload when it detects it is ‘safe’ to do so. And more recently, mobile users using third-party app markets were tricked into granting malicious apps from the adware family Shedun with control over the Android Accessibility Service. Once they have handed over control, the app has the ability to display popups that install highly intrusive adware, even if a user has rejected the invitation to install it. Because the apps root the device and embed themselves into the system partition, they cannot be easily uninstalled.

Android malware can be complicated and consumers cannot necessarily trust the App Store to detect these vulnerabilities in every instance.