php | architect: Order Accepted

I was able to contact phparch.com's toll-free number and talk to a customer service representative. I contacted them to inquire about the shipping address that was registered in their database because I was being charged 11.90 USD for shipping even though I selected a US address for the shipping address. It turns out that the shipping address was indeed the US address, but since the billing address was a Philippine address, their system automatically charged shipping (this is apparently a bug). The lady on the line asked me to send a refund request once the order is accepted. At this time my order wasn't accepted yet since they manually had to check my credit card for validity.

I now know why my credit card was manually checked. It's a policy that they have right now, to check credit cards that have an overseas billing address. After that conversation, my order was accepted and I was able to download the soft copy of the book on my online account:

After they sent my receipt by email, I replied to them that they charged 11.90 for shipping and that I'm requesting a refund.


Now I'm waiting for the refund. They promised it will take about three days to credit back to my credit card.

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...

Too Many Tweets

Three times today Twitter responded with an overload. Perhaps the developers did not anticipate the number of people that sign up to the service to be so many. Social media marketing is a growing trend right now, and some people may use it not for personal connections but for business relationships. Whichever the case, these guys who maintain the network better get ready for the volume of sign-ups.

Bill Walks Out the Gates

Bill Gates, Microsoft's Chairman, bids farewell. I quote,

The geeks at Microsoft mourn his departure. The Ballmer-Gates dynamic duo will now be a solo flight.

Personally, I'm not a Microsoft fan, though I'm grateful for everything I've learned from MS-DOS to Windows. Will Bill Gate's move gain more ground for open source?