Multimedia Gallery Complete

I was able to get the video and photo gallery up late Sunday night.

I've been burning the candle on 3 ends and this past weekend was no exception. A good number of things going personally from my wife being offered a job in Norwalk, CT about 1.5-3 hours by car depending on traffic. When I'm not doing the website, I'm working on unveiling a product that I think is very marketable so that's also taking up time, but I digress from what is supposed to be the focus of my time now.

When I completed the Photopost installation on Sunday, I did had made an integration error and could not seem to figure out how come I was getting errors on the main forum board. What should have been a very simple modification (which was the major reason I picked this software over others) wasn't working as simply as I expected.

After posting on the support forums for the past couple days I had not been able to come up with a solution with the technician. It turned out that I had followed some incorrect previous solution into the newest solution. Once I patched up the coding correctly my modification popped up quite beautifully.

Please check it out...and please feel free to upload some of your family photos, movies, sound files, etc. after you at least tell the security guard a "knock knock" joke.

Under the gun

I got the video and photo gallery up and running late Sunday night.

Poring over code looking for a misplaced / here and a extra . there or a $variable makes one cross eyed very quickly. It's also very tedious. I don't really code anymore not like I did when I was a kid and could look at 6502 Assembly code and know exactly what it was doing (for you non-techies, it's Apple CPU machine language, which eventually became the NES CPU in the late 80's.)

I've got some messages posted to the support forum and we're waiting for a reply.

Announcing...Forums

Please register at the Roces Family Forums.

There is a security guard who will let you in after you make your first post at the Front Gate.

Looking forward to seeing you readers there.

Plans for this weekend are to get the photo and video gallery online.

Here's Andreas!

I received this in my inbox earlier today.

From: Alfredo Roces [mailto:dingroces@bigpond.com.au]
Sent: Fri 8/19/2005 3:59 PM
Subject: Baby's Picture

I got this today and it is the earliest photo (ultrasound) of an member of the Roces line. He is Andreas Montilla, great grandson of my brother Liling, grandson of my niece Sylvia, soon to be born son of Agustin Montilla. Isn't science-photography amazing?

God bless

Ding

Here's Andreas!

Greenlight

Dori's trip has been approved.

Now we need to hammer out dates of travel, there's a small chance of making the trip be a world wide trip, going from NYC to Hong Kong (layover) to Philippines to India to London (stay over 2 days) and back to NYC. If I cannot do the full trip, I will do an abbreviated one just NYC to Hong Kong to Philippines to Hong Kong to NYC for about 10 days. The logistics of the flight is also a challenge since we're trying to make sure that we are on the same flight and hopefully sitting next to each other.

I'm looking at a 2 week pass needed from work, and of course we need to find the funds to do this effectively. It's going to be tricky since the project that has been slowly moving is finally moving faster. While I'm just gone for 2 weeks, right now I'm critical to this since I'm the only one internally who knows it so well. I'm hoping that by that time we can have training and installation before the trip, which will give my boss much more peace of mind since he'll be the one to step up to fill in my shoes.

Busy Weekend

I was quite busy with some personal items and when I did have some spare time I was elbow deep into manuals and software again. If we are going to the Philippines in just about 5 weeks, I would like to have something already up besides this blog page.

I am putting together the forum and gallery software in the evenings. It's very challenging getting it setup the way that I'm trying to setup, along with of course, a simple interface so that it's not so intimidating to family members.

I will also start posting "Roces In The News" as I find Roces family members who are highlighted, authored, mentioned, in any news articles that I can find. I have a few collected today, so it will start quickly.

What this means is that the needs are outgrowing Blogger already. I need to have categories so that you the reader can at least sort through the information in a coherent manner to help you manage your time. Only want to see what is going on in the building of the website? Well, as it stands now, you'll have to scroll about until you find it. Categories will allow one to sort and only see those in the selected categories. I have planned for this, and the change should happen hopefully sometime this week. I have been keeping a concurrent application as I test it with most of this blog information. I just need to transfer the sidebars and 3 entries and it should be complete.

Teresita "Chit" Bautista Roces

Chino Roces Foundation board of trustees member, Teresita "Chit" Roces, is a third generation Roces descendant.

Born on February 7, 1940, Chit is the daughter of couple Joaquin "Titong" Roces, who is the former ambassador to Taipei during Aquino's administration, and Lita Bautista. Moreover, she is the niece of well-known, Joaquin "Chino" Roces, her father's cousin.

In 1951, she finished elementary at Maryknoll College (currently Miriam College). She graduated secondary education from St. Theresa's, Quezon City in 1955. After high school she moved to Spain and lived with the Theresianas for two years, 1955-57. While abroad, she enrolled at the University of Madrid and took a course on Cultura and Hispanica. After which she moved back to the Philippines and studied college at St. Theresa's Manila where she earned a degree in Journalism in 1961. When asked why she took up the said course, Chit replies, "well, I wasn't cut out for business…I thought it was attractive (but) not because of the family. I think whether the family was in journalism or not, it was my inclination…"

After college, she married her first husband, Dr. Ramon Sutter, a neurosurgeon at Texas Medical Center, and migrated to the States. She had four children namely: Gianna, Robert, Vittorio and Juan Ramon. At present she is with her new partner in life, Vergel Santos, who is a columnist at Business World, director of Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, consultant of the Philippine Journalism Review and a former professor of Mass Communications at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

On her involvement in journalism, Chit has always been a free lance writer. Back in Texas in 1971 she saw an opportunity to write for a Sunday magazine. She remembers two articles she had written. One was about the no. 1 Filipina nurse of heart transplant doctor, Michael De Becky, and the other was on a leftist patient who acquired his dream of going to Houston for a heart operation. Upon her return to the Philippines, she was offered a section at Doris Nuday's Woman's Home Companion magazine, which she had until 1986. Her work then was to interview and write about interesting women "who made fearless decisions" in life. Furthermore, she chose the subject because according to her, "I was always fascinated with women who did these things that before only men would do". Then came November 3, 1996, she and her husband, Vergel, came up with a community paper. The publication was a weekly newsletter named, Our Town, which carried the slogan, "News you could use". It catered on a subscription basis to subdivisions within the Ortigas Center. But unfortunately, the paper lasted for only nine months. Currently, Chit is preoccupied with the Chino Roces Foundation and her membership with the Winner (Arroceros Forest Park) Heritage Conservation Society.

In her ways, Chit obtains the legacy of journalistic involvement. And this is somehow attributed with her being a Roces. Moreover, she says that, "I'm very influenced by my family background because my grandfather was a pure Spaniard but the moment he came to the Philippines he did not look at himself as anything but Filipino". She also mentioned that, "Journalism, I think run(s) in our side of the family more than the other(s)…our side produces the writers…"

Wrapping up her interview, she owes some words of advice to young writers and journalists. She imparts that, "The secret of writing is that you'll be able to tell a story". Likewise, she emphasizes, "journalists should never accept free meal from anyone because it limits your freedom…to say what you want…if you take (anything), you give that (freedom) away…"

(READ FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION)

An email connecting generations

-----Original Message-----
From: Alfredo Roces
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2005 7:15 AM
Subject: My father



It's my father's birthday today, 11 August. The feast day of Sta. Filomena. He was born in 1887 and died in 1970 aged 83. A wonderful man. This was taken when he was about 18 years old, I think.
Ding

I got this in my inbox this morning. It was a nice surprise.

Happy Birthday Lolo Raphael...

Meeting with Kain

I'm meeting with Kain in just a few hours. We're going to discuss the flowchart and templates. All day yesterday until late last night and up early this morning, I've been preparing the beta area.

I am starting to cull content to fill up Mambo, which is a rich content management system. My hope is that Mambo will tie all the parts together to create a seamless universe via one login. What normally happens in most sites that I've navigated as you move from one function to another function you have to login yet again. This means that one could have several logins just to access the Family Tree to the Family Gallery from the Mambo front page. It would be slightly annoying the first time, but cookies help a little with the "remember me" check box. Some modules boil down to compatibility, others it's a matter of setting up properly from the beginning. I'm finally ready to rollup my sleeves and start to work putting it all together and launch. I now feel like I need to rush because I'd like to have something in place before we arrive in the Philippines.

This project is really drawing on all my skillsets from evaluting and deploying software solutions for people around the world, to creating a simple process for usage and adminstration training. I'm drawing on my years of computer support and helpdesk to create a simple robust experience that doesn't overwhelm.

Kain and I will go over the flowchart which he's adjusted and I've amended.

Joaquin "Ito" Torrella Roces III

"Before I become a Roces, I have to prove I am a Roces," says Item Trade owner, Joaquin "Ito" Roces III.

Ito is a fourth generation Roces progeny. He is the eldest son of Joaquin "Joaqui" Roces and Cristina Torrella. He is one the grandchildren of known Press Freedom fighter, Joaquin "Chino" Roces. He married Elena De Venecia Santos and had two daughters.

Ito finished elementary and high school at Ateneo de Manila. In college, he studied Marketing at the University of the East.

His involvement in journalism started in 1986 when he worked with the Manila Chronicle. In 1988, he was with his grandfather's resurrected Manila Times. He was in the advertising section where he did market research. In February 1, 1989, he continued with the Times, which was then bought by the Gokongweis. He worked in the paper's circulation department for a year.

Aside from publishing, Ito had been in the charcoal business in the years 1984-87 while he was still in college. At present, he runs his own commercial printing business called Item Trade. When the company was put up in 1993, its first client was the Chino Roces Foundation.

With his being a Roces, Ito expresses high regards on his grandfather's achievements in the newspaper industry. According to him, "…he (lolo Chino) is not materialistic at all…the Manila Times had airplanes, yachts (but) not for personal pleasure. It was for media…then imagine (during) Martial Law Mercedes Benz ang kotse niya biglang after Martial Law…he ends up with a Ford Escort but bale wala. Ganun ka-simple siya…" He adds, "I asked my tito Tony, 'why was my grandfather successful?' He told me, 'because he was able to associate himself to the people down below and up. And he knew what the people wanted to read…he had the pulse of the people…"

(READ FULL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION)

Proposed Templates

One of the projects that I'm working on right now has me playing with a tablet PC. I must say these things are very cool and very Star Trek. I can dictate to the machine and give it orders and it follows them, with remarkable accuracy.

One other benefit is that one can scribble notes as if it were a pad and use "digital ink" to sketchout items, quickly scribble information, and other ways of normal annotation that people do to pieces of paper.


Content Management template


Individual template


Wedding template


Birth template


Family template


Clan template


Memorial template

Balikbayan

Okay, in a very strange twist, it turns out the my wife Dori may have to go to the Philippines on business. She's the international liaison for Scholastic International. If she does go, I will also as well, trying to figure out how to make it as long a trip as possible, I think I only have 5 vacation days so maybe I can do like the fish and loaves of bread and multiply them.

What this means for me is that in just under a year, I've been to Madrid and then also Manila. Madrid awoke a slumbering muse, and meeting with Gloria Roces roused it into activity. The miscellaneous conversations I have with different family members keeps the interest at peak. I'm trying to contact family members in hopes of getting them to talk to other family members and so on to get the word out in the family. The past month has been a lot of work on this in my spare time. The visit to the Philippines should really get me into stride.

I really need to focus more on this project or at least get a regular work schedule around it. It needs to be more in place then it currently is. I'm 1 1/2 months into this and I really would like to be able to unveil something soon. I don't want to rush anything, it's been a long time coming as it is. I'm just so excited about this project that it's infectious. We are so used to instant gratification with things that I'm drawing on my delayed gratification skills to keep me focused and on track.

I want to be able to meet with as many elders as I can and also meet the newest generation of Roces family members. As details and plans start to formulate, I will post them here.