When April Went

The Philippines dodge the bullet. The month began with a lockdown because a second surge is happening not only here but in Brazil and India. In the last week of March the numbers were pointing to 18,000 new cases by mid-April. That didn’t happen to us. The reproductive number of the corona virus in the Philippines went down to 0.96. If we can hold this number until vaccine supplies goes up in sufficient level we are safe. The government feels that vaccine supply will stabilize by June-July.

Some frontline medical workers and seniors have been vaccinated at least with their first dose.

I have been using Converge fiber broadband with speeds of 160 Mbps download and 70 Mbps upload. The difference is palpable. Youtube content is now HD – 720p perhaps even 1080p if it’s available. Downloads and file sharing is a breeze. A 2GB file finishes in 10 minutes not 10 hours like before. I remember the days.

We are using the Internet in food delivery and payment facility. It’s a brand new way of life. The changes that are happening are here to stay. I just received my first credit card from my bank. They delivered it by courier and I activated it through their website. Everyone is taking their first steps in the digital world and I am anxious. A lot of people who do not have access to this digital way of life will be left out. They are going to be the new poor. Not everyone can afford a smartphone, a laptop or a computer. My mother bless her, simply can’t be motivated to use devices of this age. I do it for her.

Review Of Converge ICT Fiber X

Converge ICT installed its fiber service last 6th April and I hold off any opinions until I’ve properly gone through all things I use the Internet for. It has been 15 days. I have not experienced any service downs and speed tests are consistent.

This Converge plan 1899 TOD for Day should give me 70 MBps in the day and 35 MBps at night. It consistently tops 160 MBps in the day and 90 MBps at night. It exceeds promised speeds for the day and for the night. This speed tests are fairly predictable now that I am confused if there has been a mistake about my chosen plan.

The ping of 2 means 2 ms or micro seconds. Any ping value of less than 100 ms is considered desirable. Ping is a signal sent to a host to get a response (find if they exist) and to measure how long the response takes. Any ping value less than 20 ms is exceptional. So here too I am confused until I used another speed test website (fast.com).

It confirms that I am getting a significantly fast connection.

There are reviewers in social media who say that Converge is less stable than PLDT. I don’t know what they are comparing. I had PLDT pocket wifi which is basically a cellular internet. It is stable enough until the wifi modem broke after 3 months of usage and I could not get support. And that ended my experience with PLDT. My application for PLDT fibr only got to…uhm processing, of the application. But don’t worry I got a sad sms from them giving me the reason why I can’t have fibr. I was a loyal customer to Smart. PLDT bought Smart. PLDT swallowed my Smart account. Then they grandfathered the account. I felt relieved and thankful that I didn’t get what I wanted, but I got what I deserve. I got Converge Fiber X.

Peace Forever

Market day found me ordering online at Puregold San Mateo. I also use SM Shop online but I like trying out other services for comparison of their pros and cons. Puregold took their time replying to my app order – about 2 days. You can lose a lot of customers that way if they’re not as patient as me. But once they replied they pretty much tried to satisfy my item list failing just one until the last minute. The last moments I tried to add 2 to 3 items and they accommodated the request.

The Community Quarantine was extended by a week. OCTA research recommended 2 weeks of quarantine to bring down the reproductive number or the Rt of the virus to at least 1. This will give frontliners control of the capacity situation in hospitals. But other opinions point out that farther restrictions in mobility and social interactions in public places have not worked and they add more suffering to people.

We remember the events of Bataan in the War and honor those who sacrificed their lives for the defense of the Philippines. Say a prayer for the souls of all those who died in the war. May peace reign forever.

Summer 2021

I have two units vacant. One is a commercial space C2 and the other R1 a residential two bedroom unit. Both are ready for lease.

I downloaded Meet from Microsoft because PLDT support team uses it. The appointment with Noemi at PLDT support went well although my problem was not solved entirely. Like most offices they are restricting public facing engagements. She advised me to bring my router to a Smart store. Presumably the Smart store is open.

I ordered fresh meat and poultry from SM shop at San Mateo. They charge 150.00 for delivery. They waived the delivery fee during Christmas and New Years.

Summer is here. Afternoon temperatures reached 36 degrees. I am using the aircon from 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening.

Replaced a Non-functioning Disk in ZFS

I had to replace a hard drive element of my zfs pool. I’ve been getting some warnings about errors in writing and reading weeks before. zfs is the last to know about a failing hard disk. If you want to know a disk’s health then the SMART logs is your best bet.

This disk was finally made offline a few days before being replaced. The remaining three disks continue to function for the pool. I have a new disk ordered last November online that’s waiting for this same situation to happen. I used it to replace the non-functioning disk.

I like that zfs designates the broken disk as /dev/sdb1/old and the new disk as sdb. zfs automatically resilvers the new disk. It took about an hour and everything is functioning as good as new.