Danny's Space

The Omicron variant is a fast spreader. Experts agree that it is a concern even if some of them think its symptoms are more manageable compared to the delta variant. Surges are occuring in Europe and the United States. when we got vaccinated fully the community thought that Covid is now behind us. New cases are in its lowest and the reproductive rate is less than 1 in all regions of the country. Or the other scenario is that this is a lull in the war, a temporary quiet period of sort. I just finished a zoom meeting with QNE software. I am trying to find out if there's help for small businesses in the rental concern about accounting systems and Tax report generation to the BIR. What I got is a basic accounting introduction using their software. I want to get help in reporting my income and taxes to the BIR. 

My Asus laptop is a backup to my desktop Ubuntu workhorse. It has been running debian buster for a while now and I found time to upgrade it today in fact this evening after work. I thought it's going to be a 2, 3 hour download and then buster to bullseye.  So I updated buster first. That's #apt-get update && apt-get upgrade.  To upgrade to debian 11 - bullseye i have to edit /etc/apt/source.list. This edit is a matter of changing "buster" instances in the text to "bullseye". I was prompted to also change "buster-xx" to bullseye-security. Nice catch there. This will point me to the upgrade mirrors.  Then I issued the command: #apt update. This will update the index to the new mirrors.  Then I typed: #apt upgrade. This will download the minimal packages. Then to take that leap to debian 11 I typed: #apt full-upgrade. This is the main upgrade process.  All the while my laptop kept sleeping and I try to catch it by disturbing the mouse pad. But...

I have ignored this booting problem for a long time. It shows two lines when booting Ubuntu. Error: Invalid Environment block. Cannot find command hwmatch. This affected upgrades to grub-common and three other packages. I found a solution in the Ubuntu help forum and followed their instructions.  https://askubuntu.com/questions/191852/error-invalid-environment-block-press-any-key-to-continue I didn't want to mess with grub because the boot continues, no-biggie, but when upgrades of certain packages are failing I had to find a better solution. As I understand it, I have to replace a file in /boot/grub called grubenv, create a new one which contains default=0. Restart the computer. No more messages during boot.  I then did an apt-get update and upgrade. No problem there too. 

Property tax rate in the Philippines is usually 1% in the provinces and 2% of the assessed value in the big city. I'm looking at you Metro Manila. I paid my brother's property tax today. It hasn't been paid since 2016 when we last paid it at Montalban. The assessed value of the property increases year after year. You can't stop that, especially as the town progresses into a city. My brother's real property does not have improvements. So it is just a matter of knowing the lot measurement in square meters.  I also pay "our" lot where we live, my mother and I. Unlike Lino's lot ours have improvements in the form of two houses. The old family house sits infront. It's the first thing you see from the road. It is now being rented out to commercial tenants and residents. Mom and I live behind the property in a newer but smaller house. That's all we need now. Compared to my brother's property, this is bigger and has improvements. The location of th...

The long wait is over I think. People are feeling more secure to ride public transportation. I see people entering restaurants. The Philippines is vaccinating 12 years and older (with parental permission). Slowly we are going back to our jobs because we are needed. I found Robert bringing his grand daughter's dog to the vet. We were still wearing our masks, but the thing is, we are worrying about our pets' health now.      My computer gave me a scare when it notified me about a failing hard drive in my zfs pool. I checked my Disk application to verify and the OS is not detecting one particular hard drive. I don't believe that the drive is failing. So I opened the box and checked the SATA cables. I have a few spares and I replaced the cables instead. I reboot the desktop and opened the disk application. This time the hard drive is detected. I gave the "zpool scrub" command to clean detected errors. I reboot once again. I really don't have any problems except ...

The number of new Covid cases at least in the Capital City, is peaking and recoveries are showing that vaccinations are helping. I am preparing Mother for her second dose which might be scheduled at the end of next week. Meanwhile, Jansen & Jansen released a statement regarding their single dose vaccine which was what I got. They are recommending a booster shot after 6 months. Which leads me to ask why they made it a one-dose vaccine in the first place.  Isko and Bongbong Marcos both announced their intentions to run for President of the Philippines in the election of 2022. I wont vote for any of these two. Both are weak on morals and opposition to Duterte policies. If you're considering any Marcos candidate for any position in government, you should have your heads checked. The viable candidates for me are Leni Robredo, Antonio Trillanes IV and Leila De lima (who as I write this, is still in jail for investigating Duterte).  The 2022 Elections for the Presidency is very i...

I got my Janssen vaccine today at SM San Mateo after waiting for my turn since the Sinovac was made available here in the Philippines. The Philippines use multiple vaccines as soon as they arrive they are made available to local government which operates on a set of prioritized group of the population.    It itched and the nurse gave me an antihistamine. After 15 minutes they let go home.  The Janssen vaccine received its Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA last February 2021. It is unique among the available vaccines in that it is a single dose jab.  Other vaccines namely, Pfizer, Moderna and Astro Zeneca are administred in two doses. These cards are given to vaccinated individuals with details about their vaccines.  At the back of the card there are two slots for the two doses. Mine will contain just one and it is sufficient to stop the virus from killing me or sending me to the hospital. Reports around the world confirm that these vaccines work and helps...