Tag: Erica Banasihan

2015 in review

Erica BanasihanLeave a comment

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 500 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 8 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

15 Ways to Save Money

Erica BanasihanLeave a comment

Saving money is hard – and boring. And most of all, it’s so not effective!

There’s the matter of self-discipline that you need to develop.

You probably heard your friend say, “Tsaka na ko mag- iinvest kapag may ipon na ako.” Well actually you can save money whenever you can; careful planning and knowledge can direct you to financial freedom. If you are interested, read these helpful money saving tips.

How do you define savings? One of the biggest mistakes that Filipinos make is how they define savings. It usually equates to:

Salary – Expenses = Savings instead of Salary – Savings = Expenses

Lessen your expenses.
Since having a raise happens once a year, the best way to save money is to lessen your expenses. Here are some suggestions:

  1.        Save money by allocating at least 20% to your savings account.
    Whenever your money comes in, get the 20% and deposit it directly to your savings account. Not only that it would help you jump start your investment, you will have enough money to cover for any emergencies that will happen in the future.
  1.        Plan your meals.
    This could really save you a lot of money if you take packed lunch in the office and buying in bulk can actually let you save more. This is not so hard because we have a lot of amazing cooking mothers and great cooking bebots (beautiful ladies) in the Philippines.
  1.        Plan your grocery shopping.
    Planning your meals ahead can spell ‘savings’, it saves you time and money in going back and forth to the store and ingredients that you need for the week can be bought in bulk, always ask for a discount when you are in the public market.
  2.        Try to stay at home more on the weekends.
    Chances are if you are outside the house, temptation is everywhere especially when you are at the mall. You tend to eat expensive meals and transportation just adds up.
  3.        Buy local.
    It may not be so obvious but by buying local you can actually save a lot of money because these items are cheaper. Not only you are getting savings you are actually helping the Philippines’ economy. How about hitting two birds with one stone sound like?
  4.        Cut down your cable and landline.
    Do you really use these? With cell phones and computers you can actually watch TV shows on the internet and actually talk to people in your country and overseas and that is for free!
  5.        Calculate your hourly rate.
    From your hourly rate, you will then decide whether you want to spend hours worked, instead of money earned. Let’s say that you earn P20,000 a month and you work 40 hours a week (which is computed into 160 hours a month):

    P20,000 / 160 = P125.00

    Based on my example, you actually earn P125.00 per hour. That dress you’re looking at right now costs P1,500. Do you really want to spend 12 working hours just for a dress? 12 hours of tiring labor, 12 hours of your boss stressing you out, 12 hours of your back hurting, 12 hours of doing confusing reports and 12 hours talking to nettlesome colleagues for just one dress?

    Think about it.

  6.        Include a “guilt trip” card or picture in your wallet.
    Let’s say that you’re using cash exclusively when going out. Every time you open your wallet to take out some cash, you should always see this guilt trip message to make yourself think twice before spending. Some effective messages that you can use are:

    Don’t do it – your older self will hate you for it.

    You worked hard for this money. Don’t just spend it recklessly.

    You’re saving up for emergencies like unexpected hospital confinement or unemployment, remember?

    Don’t be pressured into buying that dress! It doesn’t look good on you – the saleslady’s just being polite!

  7.        For cash users, save your “sentimental” bills.
    All bills have serial numbers and letters on them. Designate a certain letter that you’re going to use to determine if a bill is sentimental or not.

    As my name starts with the letter “E,” I would save every bill with a serial identification that starts with that letter. There are times when I’m lucky, because only my P20 bills had “E.” But just recently, my P1,000 bills became my sentimental bill. It’s better to think of money this way: you’re saving it for yourself.

  8.        If you’re using credit cards, include a compelling photo in your credit card’s sleeve.
    This photo can either be motivational (a picture of the Eiffel Tower because you may be saving up for a trip, or a picture of your potential small business’s logo) or disastrous (a picture of a hospital’s emergency room or a homeless elderly). Choose something that will make you hesitate in swiping that card.
  9.        Freeze your credit cards.
    If you really can’t control yourself from using your credit cards and you know that you also can’t afford to pay the full balance and in time, just freeze them! Get a container, fill it up with water, put your credit card in it and store it into your freezer.

    The worse your lack of self-control is, the larger your container should be. It’s pretty inconvenient to wait for your card to defrost when your friends are already waiting for you.

  10.        Carry only big bills with you.
    When going out with friends, carry only bills in P1,000 denominations. (If you don’t have them, don’t go out in the first place!) There’s just something psychologically excruciating in breaking your P1,000 bill just for a P140-cup of cappuccino. It’ll really make you decide whether or not to spend your money.
  11.        Save that change.
    If you spend your P1,000 bills, though, make sure you save the change in your bank account. Have a motivational jar in your house and stash all your change in there. Then, every two weeks, deposit this change in your savings account and forget it exists.
  12.    Set up automatic transfers.
    I’m pretty sure you can talk to your bank about this one. You’ll have 2 bank accounts here –account A is your salary account and account B is your savings account, preferably no ATM.

    If your salary goes into account A, you can ask your bank to withdraw (at least) 5% and deposit it to account automatically. Don’t trust yourself enough to do this manually. The pain is just too unbearable. Leave it to automation instead.

    And the most important,

  13.    Ask the necessary “Do I need this?” question.
    Oh yes, instincts tell us that most of the items we grab are wants than needs. And, supermarkets are designed for us to buy the things that we don’t need.

 

Source: http://www.rappler.com/

 

Flappy Bird Free Download

Erica BanasihanLeave a comment

Flappy Bird is a 2013 mobile game developed in Hanoi by Vietnam-based developer Nguyễn Hà Đông (Dong Nguyen) and published by .GEARS Studios, a small, independent game developer also based in Vietnam. The game, which was released on May 24, 2013, was removed from both Apple’s App Store and Google Play by its creator on February 10, 2014.

How to play:
> Tap to flap your wings to fly.
> Avoid pipes.
> Try to get 4 medals: Bronze, Silver, Gold (hard), Platinum (very hard)

What’s New in Version 1.3:
1) Support Android 2.2
2) Fix bugs.

Here’s a screenshot of the game played by my brother Kim Banasihan:

Flappy Bird by Kim Banasihan
Flappy Bird by Kim Banasihan

Click here or here to download Flappy Bird.

 

Sources: Wikipedia, apkandroid

Android Remote PC and Laptop with File Transfer (ARPAL) User Manual

Erica BanasihanLeave a comment

Android Remote PC and Laptop with File Transfer (ARPAL) User Manual

ARPAL SERVER (Laptop or Desktop)

1

  1. Server IP – To identify what IP address of the server.
  2. Console – To show the process of the server and client while running the program.
  3. Start/Stop Listening – To listen and wait for a client to connect.
  4. Settings – Setting Configuration.

2

  1. Use Password – Used to define a password.
  2. Password – It is used to define the security password for your device.
  3. Show Password – Option to decrypt and show the characters of the password.
  4. Start Minimized – Option to minimize the server while running.
  5. Port – Specifies the name of the port. The name must be unique within the server.
  6. Save – To save all setting configuration.

ARPAL CLIENT (Android Devices)

Screenshot_2013-01-28-17-23-18

  1. Remote Viewer – To view and control PC or Laptop. With Control (Ctrl), Alt, Shift and Function (Fn) Keys, Zoom in and Zoom out, Keyboard, Left and Right click to control it well.Remote Viewer
  2. File Explorer – To view all the documents and files on the drives of the laptop.Screenshot_2013-01-28-17-21-01
    Screenshot_2013-01-28-17-21-06
    To Download a file, click it and it will show a Dialog box if you want to download it or not.

    Screenshot_2013-01-28-17-21-31

  3. Bluetooth Control – To control PC or Laptop using Bluetooth. But unlike wifi, using Bluetooth will not display the actual interface of the laptop. With Control (Ctrl), Alt, Shift and Function (Fn) Keys, Zoom in and Zoom out, Keyboard, Left and Right click to control it well. This will just serve as mouse pad.
    (Note: In using Bluetooth, both devices must be paired to each other)     

    Screenshot_2013-01-28-17-22-19
    Screenshot_2013-01-28-17-22-42

  4. About – About the Developers.
  5. Settings – Setting Configuration.
    Client Settings
    A.   IP Address – IP Address of the Server Side.
    B.   Port – Port from the Server Side.
    C.    Password – Password from the Server Side.
    D.   Debug Verbose – To view the process on the phone from the console.

       6.    Help – Instructions on how to use the program.