Why I Left WordPress for Payload CMS + Astro
As of this week, archondigital.com no longer runs on WordPress. It now runs on Payload CMS for content and Astro for the front end, and the old WordPress install is retired from the public domain.
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Articles
Shōgun
“How beautiful life is, and how sad. There is no past and no future, only a limitless now” When I learned that James Clavell’s Shōgun would have a mini-series adaptation and it was going to be streamed on family-friendly Disney+, in the Philippines, because FX is under its wing here, I had a really good
A new home for my body of work
This was then at a time when I was still pretty much a graphic designer working for the Shangri-La Group (Makati Shangri-La, Manila) and when most of what I was doing were artworks for print. If you happened to dine at Makati Shangri-La’s Circles Event Cafe or red, or with any other restaurant from 2004
I miss you, Baguio
This love-hate thing we have going has me longing for your cool breeze, your laid back vibe that makes lazy afternoons strolling up and down Session Road good exercise, and to the everyday Baguio things such as having fried rice with egg for breakfast in Cathy’s (sa may sakayan ng PNR jeepney) or having coffee
So much to say, so much to say…
Open up my head and let me out… argh! I can’t seem to shake this DMB tune off my head. I went silent from April of 2020 up to now. With the exception of a few posts on my IG and personal socmed accounts, I pretty much erased my presence digitally. At some point I
Happy Easter.
It takes an awful lot of courage and faith to be able to say “Happy Easter, He has risen” in such trying times as this. Be thankful for your faith. Trust me, that void when one is without it can be taxing.
This is the new normal
Today the Department of Health have announced a few more COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila, bringing the number of confirmed infected to 33 as of 6:00pm (March 10, 2020). The actual number may be higher as some analysts estimate the figure to be closer to 200 or more. Classes are suspended and some employers have
No longer on Webfaction hosting
Note: I wrote this last March 2019 and somehow got busy and never posted it. I am due to revamp my blog soon and will be breaking things again. There’s no real reason why I have to post this note here but I just wanted to see how reusable blocks work on Gutenberg. From 2009
Still house cleaning
There’s a lot to clean up and fix on archondigital.com before I can begin development and migration into a new theme. Today I’ve managed to screw up the comments section by removing Facebook comments (and Disqus) and installing Jetpack, which I intend to keep as my commenting tool probably for the long term. Importing or
Almost 2019
“Got a lot on my mind/plate”, seemed to me as the usual excuse I give myself on why I just don’t go ahead and start writing again on this platform. Too much noise, too many distractions, real-life, actual work, etc… and the list goes on and on. These things I keep using as excuses to
Updating my neglected blog to WordPress 5.0 and Gutenberg
Neglected, not abandoned. Yes, archondigital.com is still very much alive. I’ve been as always, consistently inconsistent with updating content on this for as far as I could remember. A lot of this has to do with me being busy (I’ve given this excuse here numerous times too) but that really is what it is, I
passport.gov.ph – Expired SSL certificate on the PH Passport Portal for the past 12 days
A public portal used by citizens for passport applications (passport.gov.ph) suddenly becomes unsecure due to an expired SSL certificate and no one can do anything about it because, bureaucracy. Last May 12, 2017, the SSL certificate of the Passport Portal of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) here in the Philippines expired. I noticed this Thursday
Review: Webfaction hosting still sucks
Eight years on Webfaction and I’m still hosting my sites with them. So yeah, Webfaction hosting doesn’t suck at all, sorry for the click bait. I only mentioned ‘Webfaction hosting still sucks’ as an inside joke within friends since we don’t really have much to complain about. I’ve been using Webfaction on most WordPress websites that I run,
Outbreak
Down with the flu. It started with the runny nose on Friday afternoon, then the sneezing by evening and by Sunday I was coughing like a dog gone mad with the collar on a little too tight. Even while feeling really sick, I still took the kids this Monday to school through Uber and by the time
New Year 2017, back to old domain archondigital.com
Yes, I know it’s been weeks too late, but it’s still January and it’s also Chinese New Year now, so this still counts as a New Year’s post. The blog is now fully migrated back to archondigital.com and if you’re wondering why I moved it in the first place, and why I keep moving it around, everything
Car shows get all the love
The car show event was full of photographers taking pictures of ‘not cars’. So in one of my walks last Saturday, I ran into this car show event being setup mid-afternoon. The car show event had a booth that gave out free energy drinks, which was perfect, since I must’ve walked four kilometers by then
Help Eugene Geronimo a.k.a. @Ugin_x, a fellow street photographer, in his battle with cancer
My friend and fellow street photography hobbyist, Eugene Geronimo, a.k.a., @ugin_x, was diagnosed in October of last year with nasopharyngeal cancer. We used to go and shoot the streets of Manila together before he became ill. Eugene’s battle with cancer is not yet over and he needs our help now more than ever. Eugene recently
End Impunity. Our freedom is under siege.
I’d hate to admit, but even as I try my best to not delve into political commentary, the situation everyday compels me to write about what is on my mind. This random image I took yesterday of the National Press Club’s compound from behind a barbed wire fence further convinced me that I should start writing
Meet Rubik, our new furball of joy
This is Rubik, our new furry bundle of fleas and joy. He’s so far doing okay, loves to snuggle up to whoever is sleeping and is somewhat more clingy than our previous cat. Our first cat, Peabo died last August which broke the kids’ hearts and so I just had to get a new one.
The Jesus cabbie #ihateMondays
Starting to change my schedule to an early morning one by taking my kids to school, so this in effect revives my #ihateMondays series again because of the commute. That, and I’m off to a meeting in two hours. Status update | 19 June 2016 Jesus cabbie Music was comforting, you close your eyes and all
Ongoing: Moving back from Jekyll to WordPress
This is my lousy attempt at trying to live blog my migration from Jekyll to WordPress. Please bear with me, apologies for the 404s. × June 14, 2016, 6:30amI am at the moment migrating my site back from Jekyll into WordPress. You may encounter some dead links throughout the site as I am still choosing
Facebook for Business Philippines launch
Facebook announced the opening of its offices in Manila along with their launch of Facebook for Business Philippines this Thursday morning of April 21 at an event held at the Shooting Gallery in Makati. In a Facebook post, Dan Neary, Facebook’s vice president for the Asia Pacific region mentioned the Philippines as “a highly engaged
Debunking Five Nights In Pyongyang – East Asia Tribune
This Saturday morning, I woke up to this well-written article entitled, Five Nights in Pyongyang, supposedly from accounts of an investigative journalist going by the byline Chu Jingyi, for a publication called the East Asia Tribune. It was an awesome read, too awesome you’d be left asking if the story checks out at all. Read
Happy New Year, Welcome 2016
2015 was a good year in general. I got to meet new people, launched a startup, and learned much from the past year’s experiences. I am looking forward to a much better one. This year will also be my last 180 days of working on the Official Gazette and Open Data PH. We’ll see where
How to load Clearing Lightbox using a URI hash on Foundation 5
I want to share how I made the Clearing Lightbox feature of Foundation 5 to be triggered by adding a location hash in your URI. The idea is to be able to share a page and, by adding a hash, have it load with the gallery already open when sharing photos or other media. I
How to Disable Disqus & Google Adsense when running Jekyll on localhost
When I migrated my WordPress website to Jekyll, one of the things that I forgot to do was disable Disqus comments and Google Adsense on my localhost when running Jekyll locally. It was one of those things that I used to do from PHP when I was still on WordPress. This had me end up
Turning 36, friends, family and Dengue.
Today I turn 36, and I am writing this down on a markdown editor on my iPhone while lying on my side, bored and tethered to a hospital bed a few inches short for my height, where I’ve been stuck since yesterday after being diagnosed with dengue fever. I will probably post this late since
Killing in the name
They start ’em young. While on my way to test a friend’s vintage lens in the street, I ran into a procession, mostly of children taking turns carrying a replica of the Nazarene in a procession on one of the side streets of Manila. This while the religious and some of our so-called “statesmen” call
Clarity
In the land of Gibberish, the man who makes sense, the man who speaks clearly, clearly speaks nonsense. Jarod Kintz, This Book Has No Title
Heroes, the SAF44
They served and laid down their lives to protect our liberties. The very liberties that allow us to live free and speak our minds, no matter what our opinions are, are the very same liberties that they have fought and died for. The very liberties that allow me to post this tribute is because of
Domain migration from archondigital.com to archon.digital
Just migrated my site to the new .digital top level domain. The whole thing, including setting up 301 redirects in Apache, moving my old domain to a tiny PHP app on my Webfaction and making changes to Google Analytics, Webmaster tools and Disqus all took less than an hour. Though I hope I wasn’t forgetting
Mona Lisa Mobbed
It’s literally the most famous painting in the world as no other painting is visited by droves of tourists that line up all day and push against each other, just to catch a glimpse, or take an obligatory selfie, of this masterpiece of Leonardo da Vinci. Honestly, I was more amused with the idea of
Today is Independence Republic Day
The Philippines used to celebrate its Independence day every July 4 since gaining freedom in 1946 from the Americans. The date was only moved to June 12 after the late President Diosdado Macapagal issued Proclamation No. 28, s. 1962.
Caramel Pale Pilsen Macchiato Venti Please!
Starbucks starbucks din pag may time…
Moving from WordPress to Jekyll
As of today, Archon Digital is now running on Jekyll and is being hosted on Github Pages. Everything seems to work fine and I’m happy the transition went really well considering I was migrating in between breaks, meetings, at night and over the weekend. The original idea was only to migrate the old /v5/ parts of the site but after spending time reading Jekyll’s documentation, I decided to move eve
Jai Alai Manila, the Sky Room and lost memories
This is where Dad used to play during his pro pelotari days. An elegant Art Deco structure that has been part of Manila’s history for as long as I can remember. Its Sky Room was also once the playground of the elite back in the City’s glory days.
The Eye
It’s like a giant cyclops from an alternate dimension, a single robotic eyeball looking down on us little people below, watching our every move. No, this is not the set of a movie on fictional dystopian societies, the photo is actually the ceiling artwork in the Mabini Hall of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pasay City.
WordPress 3.8 responsive dashboard
The WordPress 3.8 dashboard has gone responsive and it’s gorgeous. I’m posting this now from my iPhone 5 through the default iOS Safari browser and I must say I’m really impressed. The guys at Automattic has definitely moved in the right direction on this one. From my phone, I was able to tinker with the
(mt) Media Temple was just acquired by GoDaddy and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing
(mt) Media Temple was just acquired by GoDaddy, one of the best hosting companies that both graphic designers and web designers love to use and one of the best around taken over by what is known as one of the worst hosting company that ever existed.
Newsweek says goodbye to print. #lastprintissue
A sad day for print. Their farewell cover artwork highlights the stark contrast between traditional printing by portraying print as a classic, black and white New York city skyline photo with Newsweek’s office building in the foreground and the modern, web-centric hashtag headline, #lastprintissue.
Never Forget
(note: This article was published in Nov of 2012) Three years ago, 58 innocent men and women were violently murdered in Maguindanao by the Ampatuan clan and their henchmen. The following names are those of the journalists, lawyers, members and aides of the clan’s political rival and those unfortunate motorists who just happened to be
It’s more fun in the Philippines – vector and raster template
Note: The Department of Tourism has released a new logo and typeface for the tourism campaign of the Philippines. Check it out on their website. I’m keeping these old logos here (and fixed the original download links) for documentation purposes. × The Department of Tourism’s new brand campaign to attract visitors to the country focuses on
Webfaction, Hosting that Sucks
After 10 months of hosting under Webfaction, I’d like to give some insight and clarify a few points on as to why Webfaction sucks.
LinkWithin-Inspired YARPP Template
Yesterday, after reading a forum entry on CMF about LinkWithin, I immediately went and installed it on my site just to test and see if it worked as discussed by the forum members. The plugin seemed fine with the only two issues I have is that Linkwithin has a link back to it’s own site
Fallout 3 is Almost There, So Close I Can Smell it Now
War… War never changes. The wait has been sooooooo long but is definitely worth it. Fallout 3 will soon be released and Archon Digital will be ready as soon as it comes out in the U.S. market.
29
Happy Birthday to Me! Today marks another year of learning and enjoying all the things that life has to offer. A perfect time to reflect on my present status, my faith and also reviewing my personal and career goals. God has been kind to me and has always been there to keep me strong and
Ynzal Loses Apple Reseller Status
Ynzal Marketing, one of the country’s leading Apple resellers has been stripped off its Authorized Apple Reseller Status. A copy of Apple’s termination letter was posted on Ynzal‘s website along with their public announcement. The company has also posted a copy of their appeal for reconsideration on their website. Scores of Mac users in the Philippines showed their support by launching
Inspiration or the Lack of It
Archon Digital began as my rant blog for every little evil thing I can think off after a long and stressful day at work. It has since included a few sneak peaks into my world and into the stuff I really am passionate about. This evolution has been for the good as there not many
Firefox 3 Download Day: Setting a New World Record
Today is D-Day. I got a friendly e-mail reminder from spreadfirefox.com on Download Day (17:00 UTC on June 18, 2008) for the official release of Firefox 3. The guys from Mozilla Foundation are on a mission to set a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. Firefox 3 is Mozilla’s latest stable release of the
Number One Dad: Special Father’s Day Wine Label
Father’s Day had me work on a special wine label to be pasted to some real expensive wine bottles which was given to top male executives from corporate clients of the hotel. I had to prepare something personalized and quick yet remain classy. The idea was to come up with an elegant gift for that
Permalink Migration on WordPress
It has been one of those things you knew you had to do but was near the bottom of your very long to-do list. But after a few days of thinking it over and browsing the web and eventually looking for the right plugins, I managed to migrate my permalink structure to a more keyword
Saying Goodbye to the Grid
I fell in love with the grid (gs) back when I signed up and up to the last minute. It was easy for me to ignore the issues with loading times, downtime and other problems as I was one happy customer. Mediatemple is family, but you just can’t stay at home for the rest of
A New Slice of Life – Slicehost
One of the main things that I do find interesting with blogging has never really been about making money online but more on the design part of things. Two weeks ago I got myself a 256 slice from Slicehost. I figured this was a worthwhile investment for most of the sites I run (for myself and
Firefox 3 Beta 4
Just this morning I installed the latest beta from Mozilla Firefox. This is the first time I am installing the beta to give it a road test. Since I first started using it, I immediately noticed how faster the beta is as compared to the current version and it appears to not consume too much
Malu Fernandez is My Tita
“If blogging is such a slacker job then maybe that makes me bad at slacking off.” — Archon Digital
People Power – Worth It or Worthless?
It bothers me that to this day, no significant political change can cure this lingering cancer of corruption in our nation. This malignant and ruptured anomaly continues to worsen our people’s way of life. It has grown to the point where we all have to make a stand and face this problem head on. I
Pantone Goe: Is it Worth the Switch?
Pantone’s latest product, the PANTONE® Goe System is a completely new color inspiration / specification system introduced last September 2007. Our team received our own set just this January 2008 and we have been tinkering with it (and still learning) since. Here is our first encounter and review of the good and not so good
