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Outdoor Adventure Gear Rundown 2020 (Mt Pulag)

Outdoor Gear Rundown 2020 [Mount Pulag 2020]

I started this month preparing a documentary of my planned major mountain climb to the 3rd highest mountain of the Philippines, Mount Pulag in the Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines.

Documenting via photography was easy-peasy for me however, doing video format is a sort of an uphill assault of 9/10 difficulty up the Himalayas.

So, I started getting into 360 video, which can be stitched using an Android phone as I write this blog I will be using a Huawei Y9 Prime mobile phone which can get that job done.

So, I sort of got the beginning, middle, and  end of everything else in a nutshell:

I.   Beginning - Gear rundown
II.  Middle  - Trek/Climb documentation
II.  End - Post climb review/recap

Beginning (Gear Rundown)

So, the beginning was kind of setting up the documentation gear which was improvising on DSLR camera tripods using my Giotto DSLR tripod and my Huawei tripod cum selfie stick.

Hooked up my Deity VLav lavalier microphone and doing an uncut raw video recording first person type in a one night take/session when everyone at home was in dreamland.

I used the sala at home and spread out newspapers then a gray "down" quilt  to for the gears travel adventure gear to be shot.

For lighting, just the given warm incandescent lamps and nothing technical as this can be done practically by anyone.  Keeping practical and things simple.

I also turned off the power of 75 liters aquarium at home as the sound of the overhead water filter and water flow and achieving no ambient sound/noise interfering during the video recording.

By the way, this is my first attempt to use the Deity VLav to record my voice which was  a cool thing, but it will be a dry mix.

I proceeded to organize all my mountain climbing gear and stuffed them all in my Mountain Hardwear Scrambler RT 40 OutDry Bag Pack while the rest at a sofa.

BAG PACK

• Mountain Hardwear Scrambler RT 40 OutDry Bag Pack, 
• Godspeed Waist Bag,

ORGANIZER

• Generic Pouch organizer
• Ziploc bags

SLEEPING SYTEMS

• Forclaz 500 Mummy O to -5Celcius Sleeping Bag
• Coleman Emergency Thermal Blanket
• Naturehike Foam Pad
• Quechua Foam Pad
• NatureHike Inflatable Mattress

RAINGEAR

• Quechua Raincoat jackets and pants
• Solognac Waterproof Mil Cap
• Solagnac Waterproof Mountain Boots

THERMAL WEAR

• Nautica Hooded Parka Jacket
• Forclaz Hooded Down Jacket
• Wedge Long sleeve
• Dakota artcic precision waterproof gloves

LIGHT

• NatureHike USB Head Lamp
• USB Stick

WATER/FILTRATION/HYDRATION

• Osprey 2.5 Liters Water Hydration Pack
• Sawyer Mini Water Filtration System

CLOTHING

• Solognac Bermuda
• Columbia men's Silveridge Omni-Wick Trousers
• Calvin Klein Fleece Jacket
• Quechua M550 Men's Convertible Walking Trousers
• CK Wool Beanie
• Zara Wool Man
• Wedge Neck Fleece Gaiter
• Solagnac Green Hunting Mosquito Net

DRYING

• SeaToSummit Travel Towel
• Naibadji Microfiber Towel

UTENSILS

• SeasToSummit Spork
• US Mil Can Opener
• Zebra Mug

TENT / SHELTER

• Lanshan 2P UL 4 Season Tent
• HitokHike Carbon Ultralight Trekking Poles

FIRE

• Bic Lighter
• Guitar Pick

FIRST AID

• Scissors
• Aptonia Blister Pads
• First Aid Kit
• H202

CUTTING

• Basic Fruit Knife

SUNDRY

• Tent Sealing Kit
• Kalenji Handheld Rubber Strap for drinking bottles
• Generic wiring pen
• Collapsible Aluminum Chair

COMMUNICATION

• Huawei Y9 2019 with compass
• Xiaomi 2000mAh Portable USB Powerbank
• USB cables
• Diety VLav lavalier Microphone

TIME

• G Shock Basic Black

(For items I might have missed out, or decided not to bring will be discussed in the Part II of my blog.)

I did not use or prepare any script.  So, everything in the audio-video recording was done spontaneously, impromptu.  Sorry, for the fillers.  Next time, I will come up with a script.

For items I inadvertently missed out in the video documentation, I used thumbnail photos and spliced it in the video in the post processing.

Day 1:Video Editing

Lightbulb moment that gets lit and spread fast like a wildfire in terms of enthusiasm that got me started and thus, this video documentation was one of the longest ones I did using an Android mobile phone around 28 minutes of recorded video.

The next hurdle is to transfer the video's  raw footage from  the video footage of my mobile phone to my desktop PC. Done. 

Now the real "work" begins that is, video editing. Personally, i would prefer the raw version however, I decided why not starting to learn the ropes of video editing. Newness in 2020.

So I ended up with a trial version of Filmora 9.3. And as I write this latest blog post, I literally stayed up 24 hours overnight having fun doing playing with the video edits.

I finally decided on Filmora and get a licensed version for Windows 10. Done!  The user friendly  interface and workflow running through Windows 10 was quite easy.  

A family celebration to a local diner got me to temporary creative pause/break from the edits. I needed to recharge food-wise too ha ha.

Day 2: Curve ball

Catching up to where I left at the video edits at around 90%  and curveballs do occur during a vlog post-production. Got bad review at home regarding the rough video cut transitions and dry video sound.

So, moving forward I will be adopting the following enhancements to enhance the quality.  3 things:

1. Decouple my uncut voice from the raw video footage; Done!

2. Record a new voice over dub plus via Filmora or via 3rd part app with reverb effects; Done using Ableton DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) 

3.  After getting some voice tweaks/optimization using Ableton Live, I sync that with Filmora 9.3. Just like instant coffee drinks, everything nowadays gets quite easy to mix/prepare. No rocket science needed.

 Launch Day

Here's my first baby step attempt with video editing my Vlog using Filmora 9.

Give me your thoughts on the feedback/comment section of my blog site or YouTube channel, TheAvianQuest and do subscribe/and hit the notification bell to enable me to sustain churning out blogs and vlogs.

 

Coming soon next month will be my full documentation of my climb to Mount Pulag 2020 great outdoors adventure.  Thanks much for dropping by.  
 Cheers!

~AvianQuests

 

Get [APPROVED] Google AdSense Now!

Get Google AdSense [APPROVED] Now!

In hindsight, I basically started three years ago with this post and the picture above is how my landing page originally looked like.

In a nutshell, I would not have reached this present state if I have not done things right the first time. 

The humble beginnings of my website started with Blogger.com

 

Thereafter, I transitioned to an initial domain to kind of "learn the ropes" until I fully transitioned to my present (new) domain registrar with Cloudflare.com 

(This is not a paid endorsement.)

Google AdSense approval  is the goal, right? However, I reached that goal through good systematic, correct habits. So, I'll always refer back to Axl Mulat's great content using the Blogger.com platform.  (It's totally free just give it a try.)

Check out how on how I systematically optimized my website for FREE! (This is not a paid endorsement.)

https://www.avianquests.com/2017/07/site-optimization-makes-better-blog.html

Oops, before I forget, I also recently revived back the following features for site optimization namely:

Google Translate

Google Translate is a free multilingual machine translation service developed by Google, to translate text, speech, images, sites, or real-time video from one language into another. It offers a website interface, mobile apps for Android and iOS, and an API that helps developers build browser extensions and software applications.

This will break language barriers for you to fully enjoy our blog content.

Google Translate covers the following languages/dialects:

Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Cebuano (dialect), Chichewa, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kyrgyz, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Mongolian, Myanmar (Burmese), Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Serbian, Sesotho, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek

Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba, Zulu.

and; 

a Total Pageviews display (kinda cool and old school lookin')

Last but not the least, here's a BIG SHOUTOUT to my friend Axl Mulat  of AxlMulat.com 



Unlimited benefit with Axl Mulat's invaluable and in-depth Blogger.com tutorial, tips/tricks,insights, et cetera by subscribing to his site at YouTube that served as a compass that guided my boat, teach me the skills to navigate the ins and outs of easy-peasy WebDev 'coding' and management, SEO et cetera to reach safely the shoreline in preparation towards Google AdSense approval.

In addition, the following Cloudflare hosted (free) apps are also helping out my site:



Side Nav - add a navigation menu to the side of your site.

EU Cookie Acceptance Policy

Content Showcase - Make a custom Click-To-Action (CTA) popup in seconds and/or announce important news, latest updates, special offers.

A Better Browser - Warns users with a simple message at the top of Avianquests.Com website if their browser version is too old.


The proof of the pudding is the eating, thus start now with your Google AdSense approval journey as I will be moving forward to creating more meaningful content of my blog site.

By the way, my present website template design is also powered VefioThemes. I highly suggest you check out their site if you want to upgrade to a paid pro Blogger easy to deploy and manage web templates. (This is not a paid endorsement.) 


Do check back my blog from time to time as I launch more of my photography, travel, and technology unbound blogs.  

I'll be back soon. Thanks for dropping by. 

Cheers! See you! 

~AvianQuests

 
 

 

Facebook Mobile Security 2020

Facebook Mobile Security (2020)

A Walk-Through

I believe that by observing "to err on the side of safety" as one of the best personal daily practices, which eventually becomes a beneficial positive habit.  

Nowadays, lots of users use mobile devices in accessing email, social media, blogs, et cetera.  I'll be sharing you how I personally access my Facebook account using any Android mobile device for you to benefit in terms of mobile computing security.



In addition, I'll be using a variety of mobile apps like i.e., CloudFlare WARP and Bitdefender VPN before I launch Facebook mobile.

Cloudflare WARP

(This is not a paid endorsement.)

It's free.  Install Now.

(Download at Google Play)

https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/ 

https://blog.cloudflare.com/announcing-warp-plus/

(This is not a paid endorsement.)

Google Play

Yup.  Most of us download Facebook mobile from Google Play and install it in our Android mobile phone.  I assume that you already have access to Google and you have your Google account, Gmail, et cetera.  Once in Google Play, go to the search tab go ahead and type Facebook full version.

Facebook full version

Why?  Because there is a Facebook Lite version and I prefer the full version for this presentation/illustration complete with app functionalities.

 

Download  Facebook mobile

 

Click the open tab to launch Facebook mobile which is approximately 61 MB with more varied controls/functionalities. 

Hit Install.

 

Installing...

Very Important:  Wi-Fi MUST be OFF! at this juncture.  If not, turn it off.

Once you finish installing Facebook mobile, deactivate (turn-off) your internet connectivity (Wi-Fi).  Why? (For security reasons and to set properly set your Facebook Language to your choice/preference and not the default US (English).

 

Launch Facebook Mobile and Hit Open.

(Still at this juncture, your Facebook mobile access to Wi-Fi connectivity must be kept OFF.)

Choose A Facebook Account saved with Google Smart Lock,

Press - None of the Above

 Choose and Press NONE OF THE ABOVE

 

Press More...

The More option presents you a choice of language preference to set your phone with.  For illustration/demo purposes, let me choose say, English (United Kingdom) as a default.

 

Then key-in/populate your Facebook login information and password.

DON'T click LOG-In yet (just leave it was it at the moment)

Activate / Turn ON your Mobile Phone's Wi-Fi Connectivity

VPN 

Install a VPN from Google Playstore or a VPN provider of your choice/preference.

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/7091/

Once you are connected to your VPN, then proceed to the next layer of security authentication.

Activate and connect to your VPN.  

In this instance, say, I will use Bitdefender VPN. (14-day trial) 

(This is not a paid endorsement.)

Activating Bitdefender VPN will deactivate Cloudflare WARP.

Also you might want to check-out my past blog post dubbed

How Bitdefender Total Security 2017 Protects My Photography

 

 

(This is not a paid endorsement.)

 

 

SET UP Facebook Mobile and Google Authentication

Two-Factor

 Your security method

Authentication App

You'll receive a login code via an authentication app.

Activate Google Authentication

https://google-authenticator.com/

 

Write down the six (06) digit number , however be mindful of the blue pie countdown ("blue Pacman") and be quick.

Go back to the Facebook Mobile log in screen and as this is the much awaited moment, now LOG-IN to your Facebook mobile.

Hit/Press Log-In.  

 

Save your log in information - select NOT NOW.

Where you're logged in status.

We're having trouble with setting up Facebook in English (United Kingdom) at the moment.  You can try again, or use Facebook in English (US) for now.

Hit/Press Try Again.

A successful language  login say, English (UK) will set your mobile phone to default you to a UK VPN based in UK in this example, Manchester, United Kingdom.

   

Turn On Facebook Location option (depends on your preference.)  Allow Facebook to access your location?  Facebook uses this to provide more relevant and personalized experiences, such as helping you to check in, find local events and get better ads.  Most of the time I choose, Allow.

 

Allow Facebook to access this device's location.  Allow.

(depends on your preference.) 

For in depth information regarding Facebook location information, hit the link below:


https://about.fb.com/news/2019/09/understanding-updates-to-your-devices-location-settings/



I'll continue with a more in-depth with Facebook Mobile security on the concluding series of my blog post (which will include Facebook Messenger) and more tips and tricks.  

This next blog post will cover the following Facebook mobile:
-  login and logouts;
-  turn off sound in Facebook News feed videos;
-  activity logs;
-  clear data/cache;
-  uninstall/install;
-  two-factor authentication setup using a PC/laptop/tablet;  
- et cetera.

At the present time, how I personally use my mobile phone (Android) as I move forward 2020, and keeping in mind the importance of security as top priority to zero out/minimize problems related to mobile security problems, thus, peace of mind.


My past technology blogs might serve as a handy reference, do check it out:

Facebook Fixed Add More Friends No Posts to Show

Google Play Protect Can Find You The Love of Your Life

Click here to jump to the complete listing of my technology blogs.

 

 

 

 

 

The best tattoo. Simply indelible by Apo Whang-Od.

 My first solo travel on 28 November 2019 to Buscalan, Tinglayan, Kalinga, Apayao - Cordillera Administrative Region, Philippines to get indelibly inked by the best tattoo artist, 103-year old indigenous tattoo master (the only one remaining of the "headhunting" Butbut tribe) known as Apo Whang-od. Apo Whang-od manually used a wooden stick as "hammer" to drive a grapefruit thorn embedded in a stick with a mixture of soot and coconut oil and water with repetitive and constant blows. Fresh wet wipes is used to wipe of blood and clean the skin. 

-Extremely graphic: Video contains scenes with blood on tattoed arm. - No translation for vernacular language/local indigenous dialect used. - Grapefruit thorn used in the tattoo session is non-shareable. Buy your own grapefruit thorn only locally sold in Buscalan.

Apo Whang-od's signature tattoo signature is composed of three dots.  I was quite lucky that day, it was a Thursday that less than 30 tourists/backpackers who were in Buscalan village to obtain Apo Whang-od's signature tattoo.  My guide Manang Lydia talked to Apo Whang-Od after I received my signature tattoo and Apo Whang-Od chose a design which she saw fitting my personality.  Apo Whang-Od gave me the traveller tattoo and took about 40 minutes plus of tattoo session.

When you visit Apo Whang-Od I suggest as a gift is coconut virgin oil since that will help and heal those she embeds tattoo.  From what I read in Buscalan is a tattoo session guideline as follows:

 - Follow your guide's advise.
- Be quiet.  Silence is golden and observe this since Apo Whang-Od needs it to concentrate to her craft.

- Do not block Apo Whang-Od's natural light.
- Avoid profanity.
- Don't be rude.
- Communicate.
- Ask first for permission before taking photos.