About

I started blogging back in 2005 because I wanted a way to write a journal and curious about the whole Web Log-ing thing that has turned into Weblogging and what we now know simply as “blogging”.

Now, I blog for a couple more reasons:

  • A way to write down what I learn. I found that lessons learned are more easily remembered and in more detail if I had to write about them.
  • An opportunity to connect and learn with like minded individuals who share the same interests, views, passions and belief.
  • An open forum for anybody who cares to share their opinions about the topics I write about.

Who is Rick Ong?

My story here revolves around the people, places or things I was, or am passionate about and love.

I was exposed to computers at an early age, XT’s, 286′s, but it wasn’t until Pentiums that I would say I fell in love with computers.

In high school, I got my first PC as a Christmas present. It was a generic Intel Pentium 133Mhz PC with 16MB of RAM. It came with some games (Warcraft I) and some porn. (Back then I already knew that the Internet was for porn)

When I got my first modem, a U.S. Robotics 28.8k, I set up a Bulletin Board System (BBS) called MP3 Ztation because back then, MP3s were just starting to get popular. It was fun and I got a kick out of receiving people dialing in into my computer, each time the modem would go teeneeeneeeneeeeng kuushhhhhhhhhh kushhhhhhhhhh kusssssssssh shhhhhhhhh eeeeeeeeeeee… CONNECT! And I get to watch what they do as they browse around MP3 Ztation’s files and folders of free MP3s.

Perhaps I like observing behavior and that was probably the start of my web publishing career.

Internet = Porn

Back then, the internet was pretty much unheard of in the Philippines and it costs a lot to have a dial-up connection. When I got my first taste of Internet, courtesy of PhilWorld (or Phil-something I forgot already), I immediately got addicted to information. It was love at first click. Probably because of my curious nature I devoured everything I could lay my mouse on from hacking (sorry PhilWorld for hacking your client accounts), phreaking, cracking , porn, programming, irc, games, mp3s, warez, linux and the like. You get what I mean if you’re a confessed geek.

I got my thrill from being up late nights playing WarCraft with Einber, Johnson and Jayson, drooling over GreenGuy’s links, fishing for stolen credit card numbers on IRC, and remember Back Orifice? That was fun! If you saw me during this time you would have seen the big L on my forehead.

Not all of my time was wasted by the way, I was also being a bit productive by learning HTML, Perl (it was CGI then), and building web sites. The earliest domain I bought and site that I can remember building was PinoyHome.com back in August, 2000. It was an internet directory containing my ever-growing list of favorite sites. It had a forum, free webmail, mp3s, lyrics, and monetized by AltaVista search! I was the owner of a proud PORTAL that made a few dollars a month to pay for hosting (thinking back I couldn’t imagine how much of a geek I am for having the enthusiasm and drive to build such a site). You can still see Internet Archive’s copy if you click the link ;) Memories..

Trading Dreams

Sometime during college I got introduced into the stock market by my Uncle Walter and I was instantly hooked. It was just natural for a geek to love the way markets move, the numbers, the money and the thrill. It was love at first trade.

During classes I would listen to the radio for stock quotes until 12 noon. It was thrilling and exciting, knowing that I could be making (or losing) money just by the market’s behavior. I was totally absorbed in all things financial. Took my On-the-Job-Training (OJT) at the Philippine Stock Exchange’s IT department. Being right there beside the trading floor seeing them brokers do their thing and watching the prices on the price board flash was an everyday excitement. Even my final thesis as a computer science student was a technical analysis charting software written in Visual C++.

Just Over Broke (JOBs)

After graduating I immediately scoured the classifieds section of the papers for jobs. Priority was of course a job that would be related somehow to money, finance, stocks or trading but no opportunity jumped on me but a boiler room operation selling forex trading down at the PSE Ortigas Tower. It took me a week to realize it wasn’t for me.

Up next was a short training stint with Link2Support (call center for Linksys) which was then just starting operations in Eastwood City. It was there that I got a call from Debbie from ePLDT ContentDev saying they’d like to interview me. So I went, got hired and the rest is ContentDev history.

You Can Surf in the Ocean?

After I left ePLDT ContentDev, I joined IconPacific Guam which was then led by Ronald Brigman, AJ Rosario and Steve Dierking. I was their first employee in the Philippine office doing everything web from PHP to Kannel SMS. It was during that time that I met Pineapple Joe.

Joe’s surf resort in Yap, Micronesia just got devastated by the typhoon. He started coming frequently into the Philippines and staying at IconPacific’s condoffice. He brought with him his boards and looked at the boards with such curious interest. Up until then I thought people only surfed with their mouse. I volunteered to drive them to several surf spots and they taught me how to surf. It was love at first ride and before we knew it, Stonemoney Surf Co. Philippines was born!

Ya’ll Gonna Learn Chinese

Another one of my passions that grew was that of China. Back in 2002 I went with my Uncle Walter and cousins back to our ancestral hometown in YangXia, Fujian Province. It was there that I realized how excruciatingly unconvenient it was to have diarrhea in a cold winter night without warm clothes on in a provincial home. That was also the time I realized China is going to be the next world leader and is only a question of when.

That sparked my interest in learning more about Mandarin, regretting that I had taken that subject with seriousness back in Grace Christian High School days. So I looked around and the best place to go to was Beijing. I landed in Wudaokou and shared an apartment with Cebu-mates Tiffany and Karen. China was loads of good food and fun. I miss it.

Trying to Drink from a Firehose

After coming home from China I got an opportunity to join a proprietary daytrading franchise called SwiftTrade. It was ran by Angelo in San Juan and it was a dream come true to be able to trade U.S. equities in real time. Day after day (or night after night whichever timezone you were in) we would punch upon the keyboards and closely guard our computer screens that displayed price movements to the second.

It was lots of fun and passion until I realized I wasn’t going anywhere with day trading and that there are a lot more easier ways to make money than to stare at the screen all night and lose ‘em. I realized the futility of day trading when Ed Seykota answered my email and said, “Trying to make money day trading is like trying to drink water from a firehose”.

Wiped Out

Around the same time was the collapse of the housing market. It all started with New Century, then CFC, to Bear Stearns and on to other brokers and banks. It was a bloody year for Wall Street. I thought it was wise to trade on margin and buy FXI (China) ETFs just before the bottom of that market. Coincidentally, I was on a trip in New York when Lehman went bust, together with my margined positions. Bye bye all-my-hard-earned-money hope they went to charity.

Searching my pocket, I found that it was the Web all along that has consistently made me money and taking another piece of advice from Ed, I was set out to go back and love the Web. So I moved to Davao, recuperated, found my energy and gained momentum to move on to my next AHA revelation which is…

Relationships Are What Makes People Happy

To be continued!