TheWatchWorks

To all our friends,

We will be going to China on July 16th upto August 1st. There will be no shipping-out available for anything. We have pre-posted some items for listing on Ebay starting on July 25th but we cannot ship these until August 1st.

As always, we will post our pictures here of our trip. We are going around China with the whole family.

Best regards,

TheWatchWorks Team

After distro-hopping from Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Linuxmint, sidux, OpenSuse, Debian and Fedora... I've finally decided to try-out the latest snapshot of Sabayon Linux.

I've heard and read lots of great things about Sabayon Linux and the one thing that attracted me to it was its "rolling-release" model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_release) which removes the hassles of re-installing the system every six months or so. Another thing that was very crucial to me was its "out-of-the-box" functionality. I wanted something that simply worked from boot-up.

I've had Java-related issues with Fedora 13 (the last distro I used prior to Sabayon Linux). I kept of getting the "Start: applet not initialized" error message on some (not all) websites. But it was the important websites that were not functioning properly for me.

As for Ubuntu 10.04 (& family), I've had NVIDIA problems ... black blank screen or incorrect resolution or low-graphics mode problem. Although I love Ubuntu, I needed something to work perfectly. Linuxmint also had the same problems as with Ubuntu and I was surprised that Fedora 13 did not have the problems I encountered with Ubuntu but had other problems.

Anyway, I believe that there is no "perfect for everyone" Linux distro out there because Linux Distros are also hardware-dependent. Choose the best for your hardware.

For now, I have Ubuntu 10.04 on my desktop and Sabayon Linux 5.3 on my laptop because these are what works best for my hardware.

http://sabayonlinux.org/

Cheers!

After many NVIDIA issues with the latest Ubuntu 10.04 like having "low graphics mode only", blank black screen or garbled graphics... I decided to try-out the latest FEDORA 13 "Goddard". I installed the DVD version and not the LiveCD version because I wanted more applications out-of-the-box instead of having to download them one by one.

Anyway, I am very happy with FEDORA 13 Goddard and it does not have any of the issues which my laptop experienced with the Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I also understand that by using FEDORA, I had to add the www.rpmfusion.org repository to be able to install more applications. Since I am a patient person, I was able to install all the applications that I need for my daily use like Flashplayer, Java, SMPlayer etc. I also installed VLC Media Player but for some reason, it does not work. MPlayer also does not work since it is missing a codec. SMPlayer works perfectly though.

An issue though I noticed with FEDORA 13 is that the package manager is quite slow as compared to synaptic. It finds packages very slow (as compared to Ubuntu) and installing packages requires a few extra clicks. Again, a patient person will not mind this.

To get to the point, I have found what I am looking for: an out-of-the-box FEDORA "remix" which should have almost all needed applications already installed. I am currently downloading it right now and will add more feedback once I try it out. The introduction to this COMMUNITY FEDORA REMIX 13.1 "Lucky 13" can be found here: http://fcoremix.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/lucky-13/ Please check them out.

We will be slowly adding pictures from our recent trip to Tokyo, Japan.
@Tokyo DisneySea


@The Tokyo Imperial Palace East Gardens




@Akihabara

We just want to inform our friends and customers that we will be going to Tokyo, Japan on May 11th upto May 16th.

Please note that since May 10th is Election Day here in the Philippines... there shall be no shipping-out available and that is why we posted on our listings that there shall be no shipping-out available on May 8th (Saturday) upto May 16th (Sunday). Shipping-out will resume on May 17th.

Hopefully we will experience nice weather in Japan. Based on weather reports... it is raining everyday in Japan.

Please also note that we are not sure if we will have internet access over there. We will not be bringing our laptop and we are not sure if there are English-friendly internet cafe's over there. We may not be able to reply to messages & emails during this time frame.

TheWatchWorks is excited to be in Tokyo, Japan.

Cheers!
TheWatchWorks Team

There could be shipping-delays and shipping backlogs by the shipping companies due to the stranded international flights going into Europe.

The link below shows the countries that are currently affected by this possible delay:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8627545.stm

Thank you for your understanding.

Just wanted to inform our friends and customers that we will be out-of-town on April 20th to April 23rd.

We will be going to Tagbilaran, Bohol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagbilaran_City

We will be writing a story on our stay over there.

Cheers!
TheWatchWorks Team

Dear Friends and Customers,

Greetings!

We will be out-of-town starting on March 24th and we will back on March 27th. We might not be able to answer Ebay inquiries, messages or emails because of the lack of an internet access at the place where we will be going to.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards,

TheWatchWorks Team!

We are currently in the process of blocking a certain country from buying from our store on Ebay because we have received 3 Negative Feedbacks from this particular country.

Our 3 Negative Feedbacks have come from France and so, we want to block the country from buying from our store. The 3 buyers from France who have given us negative feedbacks do not understand English and therefore do not understand our listing descriptions. There is a language barrier and we got negative feedbacks because of this.

We have a lot of good customers from France and they can just simply buy from us directly.

Just in case you are interested in purchasing SEIKO Z-22 RUBBER DIVER'S STRAPS (FLAT OR CURVED VERSIONS), please feel free to use our Paypal buttons. Shipping is via $3.00 Registered Airmail Signed- For which takes 2 to 4 weeks transit time to most areas. Thank you!

I just recently came back from a short trip to Iloilo City (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iloilo_City) and I just wanted to share:

Where I stayed - Sarabia Manor Hotel

Where I ate - Breakthrough Restaurant, Ocean City Restaurant, Freddys, Ted's Batchoy, Shakey's Pizza, Coffeebreak and the Sarabia Manor Coffee Shop.

Plane I took - Cebu Pacific

Transportation - Taxi and Pedicab

Thoughts - The people were very friendly and accommodating. Prices of food and drinks were much cheaper than Manila. A bucket of beer (5 bottles of San Mig Light) costs Php140 in the most expensive places. Maybe cheaper in other places.

The temperature seemed to be hotter than Manila especially because there hardly was any wind at all. It was very traffic most of the time because the roads are not wide. It is very easy to get a taxi anywhere.

Will I go back to Iloilo City? Definitely Yes!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Have a great New Year ahead!

We are looking forward to meet new customers and to continue to provide great service to our regular customers!

Cheers!

We have previously posted (and now removed the post) that we were losing a package shipped to the UK using Parcelforce. I gave a heads-up to various UK-based buyers that EMS & Registered Airmail packages to the UK are super delayed due to the huge backlog caused the the strike in the UK.

Imagine this, it should take only a maximum of 15 days for an EMS package to reach the recipient in the UK but my last shipment to the UK using EMS (Parcelforce) took a little more than 45 days! EMS to the UK is only US$10.00 cheaper versus FEDEX to the UK. But FEDEX to the UK only takes less than 1 week to reach the recipient and not 45 days!

Why pay for EMS (Parcelforce) when you will not get the speed of EMS.

I am quite happy that the package did eventually reach the buyer. I apologize to the buyer. We had no control over the speed of the shipment. All we could control is that we shipped it within 24 hours after the payment has been cleared.

Maybe once RoyalMail and Parcelforce get their act going, we can use them again.

Cheers!

Just last June 6, 2009 we announced that we will be providing EMS Shipping to the UK because it is $10.00 cheaper than FEDEX. We have realized, due to customer communication, that the Parcelforce courier service is quite unpredictable, unreliable and delayed most of the time. There are instances wherein the package cannot be tracked at all. We are not sure if it is because of the recent postal service strike in the UK.

So, effective immediately, customers can only use EMS (Parcelforce) if the payment is made thru www.xoom.com.

Paypal requires all shipments to be trackable online... and EMS (Parcelforce) to the UK is not always trackable. This inconsistency is unacceptable for business purposes especially for Paypal.

Just read about the many complaints about Parcelforce on the internet and you will realize that we made the right decision to stop shipping using EMS to the UK. We will only ship using the reliable and always-trackable FEDEX.

http://www.google.com/#q=parcelforce%20stolen&hl=en&tbo=1&output=search&...

Typhoon Mirinae on track to hit flooded Manila
By HRVOJE HRANJSKI, Associated Press Writer Hrvoje Hranjski, Associated Press Writer 27 mins ago

MANILA, Philippines – Typhoon Mirinae, the fourth cyclone to wallop the Philippines in a month, was barreling toward the capital of Manila, where some districts are still submerged by recent massive flooding, forecasters said Friday.

Authorities closed schools, grounded ferries and army troops mobilized a battalion with rubber boats ready for rescue operations in the capital and more than 25 other provinces. Trucks with food and other relief goods were dispatched to northern provinces in the typhoon's path.

Mirinae — Korean for the Milky Way — is forecast to make landfall Friday evening in the eastern province of Quezon, sparing the country's rice bowl in the heart of the main Luzon Island before passing south of Manila.

"If the center does not pass directly over Manila, we will still surely feel it," said chief government forecaster Nathaniel Cruz.

The typhoon, packing winds of 93 miles (150 kilometers) per hour and gusts of up to 115 mph (185 kph), is expected to exit Luzon into the South China Sea later on Saturday.

The government's disaster agency told people to prepare 72-hour survival kits, including food items like rice plus a radio set, flashlights and batteries, clothing and first aid supplies.