It's 2009!

Happy New Year to everyone! It's the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009. I also just turned 28 on January 1.

For the previous year, it was met with a lot of challenges for many of us. The recession has affected first-world countries such as the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and Singapore. There's less effect on us here in third-world countries but nevertheless the effect is there. Many Filipinos working abroad have returned to their motherland. Some have gotten laid off because of the financial crisis. Even my job hunt was not successful in Singapore, a first-world country that has a suffering economy as well.

As I'm writing this, I'm back in my motherland the Philippines. I'm currently a freelancer who's hopefully a future shareholder in a new business venture. The economy here has not changed much. Generally, companies pay as low as possible, and it seems that it's not easy to find employment that pays well based on experience, skills, and education. We just haven't reached that level in our job culture yet (my humble opinion).


Anyway, for the latest technology I've been exploring -- I recently got back to Drupal and learned more than I had at first. Drupal is viable for creating social networks, shopping carts, and point-systems (e.g. rewards for shoppers). I've tested all three features and they work. It's a growing active community with lots of modules to choose from. It's good to use for seamless integration that reduces the need to hard code. All you need to do is install the modules and activate them.

To a great year ahead...