The successor to the ultra-convenient LUMOS FLOAT home theater projector has arrived, the LUMOS FLOAT EVO. But can it actually top its predecessor? Is it as good and versatile as the original? In this review, let me walk you through its pros and cons, and finally, if it’s actually worth the upgrade.

A digicam is a thing of the past, relics from the first wave of photography’s digitalization. But for some strange reason, they’re making a comeback—and it’s ironic that it’s doing that at an age where smartphone photos are so good most people have relegated their DSLRs and even the lighter mirrorless cameras to their closets. They say it’s the charm of using an actual camera. The charm of fiddling with clunky controls. The charm of not having the sharpest photographs. The lo-fi charm of decades past.

LUMOS, the Singaporean company most known for their affordable projectors, has recently launched something that caters to this market. The LUMOS EVOKE. A solid-looking digital camera that brings back the charm of bygone digicams, plus more.

One of the biggest drawbacks with using a projector for watching movies is that you can only decently use it in a dark room; during the evenings, when you can turn off all the lights, or in the mornings if you have heavy drapes that can cover your windows. Well, not anymore. LUMOS has recently released a projector designed for use even during the daytime, and they aptly call it the LUMOS Daystar.

In this review, let’s see if the LUMOS Daystar projector is indeed bright enough that it can decently project content even during the daytime.

LUMOS, a Singapore-based brand, has released a new version of their best-selling LUMOS home cinema projector, the LUMOS FLOAT. It comes three years after the original affordable home projector hit the market. And this new iteration is sexier—lighter, slimmer, more versatile, and even comes in three colors. Let’s see if it still retains the quality of the original in its new package.

I’m really not a tablet guy. The only tablet I owned was an Apple iPad a decade or so ago. And even that didn’t last, I quickly sold it off, finding no need for it in my life—my smartphone was more than enough for me.

That, however, was back then. Now in my forties, my eyesight hasn’t been the same as it was during my younger days. Glasses now sit above my nose—the texts on my phone swimmingly blurs and hurts my eyes on long reads. Rediscovering my love for reading books—now on its electronic form—I hanker for something better than my smartphone for my nightly book-reading sessions before heading off to dreamland.

I was actually debating on getting a dedicated eBook reader or a tablet. I was leaning on the latter, since it’s more versatile—I can watch movies, browse the Net, do social media, and all that, on a colored screen too—however, the ease of reading on the paper-like E Ink screens was also a big factor. That decision, however, was decided for me by LUMOS when they sent their latest tablet for review.

Goodbye, Kindle. Goodbye, Kobo. Hello, LUMOS Tablet.

For years, I have always been unconcerned about my health since even though I’m overweight, I have never once felt anything out of the ordinary. Until I decided to have an actual full physical exam. The results were all marked in red—my body, it turns out, was in terrible shape. And that got me to start my fitness journey—I calorie-counted, removed red meat as much as I could from my diet, added more greens on my plate, and exercised daily.

After a year, my health started to normalize. My blood sugar, uric acid, and cholesterol count went down, and I lost weight. However, I’m still unsatisfied with my current weight—a little over the BMI standard—so, I still exercise daily.

I usually alternate between doing static step-up exercise inside the house and walking 10,000 steps outside. With all these, I usually just use my phone to count my steps and the calories I burn. Pretty limited, since it can’t really read my body stats like heart rate and all that.

That was until I was given a chance to use the Samsung Galaxy Fit3. It just might be the perfect smartwatch that can help me achieve my desired body weight. I received the Galaxy Fit3 just right before BG, Kid A, and I embarked on an eleven-day trip to Baguio City—the perfect place to test it out since it’s gonna be one heck of a walkathon for us.

➤ CHECK OUT: BAGUIO TRAVEL GUIDE

The last movie I saw in the theater was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Like George Lucas’ galaxy that’s far far away; it was, for me, a time, far far away. That’s more than two years of zero cinema experience.

The Pandemic has forced everyone inside their homes. And while things have eased a bit now, I’m still hesitant to go out and watch a movie—fearing I’d bring home a nasty virus and risk my unvaccinated son’s health. The only option for us, really, is to simply stay home and make do with our standard 36” flatscreen TV.

But that was before LUMOS RAY landed into our home.

We were in trouble. Lounging by the beach at Koh Rong Samloen in Cambodia with no care in the world, we thought of reviewing our itinerary for the Vietnam leg of our Same Same Summer Trip. We checked each destination, counting the days that we’d be spending in the country when we suddenly realized that we’re two days more than the allotted visa-free days for Filipinos in Vietnam.

Currently, Philippine tourists are allowed to stay visa-free in Vietnam for only twenty one days. And we have twenty three days on our itinerary. We were doomed. We ran down our options. It was either we get a visa extension, which would cost us at least USD40.00 each, do a visa-run on any nearby border, or rebook our flight. The first one was expensive. The second option was too much of a hassle. And the last one wasn’t an option at all since our flight was from a seat sale promo.

Running out of choices, I remembered Traveloka and how I was able to book cheap flights from it for immediate dates.

While most of us are enjoying our everyday lives, millions of people in the world are suffering from hunger. Did you know you could help fight this through something that is already part of your routine? If you’re one of those fortunate people who can help in the easiest way possible, would you?

Everyday, we unlock our phone approximately more than a dozen times. A new app (I know, have been checking out travel apps, left and right, like my Traveloka Review) has made this habit productive and helpful. Launched in February 2017, Unlock Food is a movement that has a mission to help fight world hunger. When installed, the app places a banner on your lock screen which generates advertising revenue when you unlock your phone. With just a simple act and for free, you can already donate to charity and help feed hungry people.

After booking a flight using the Traveloka app, my next step in fulfilling my Davao comeback was to book a hotel. And I really didn’t have to go far to check for one, the same app also has deals for accommodations, and like its flights, it has discounts too!

CHECKING IN AT DAVAO’S CASA LETICIA BOUTIQUE HOTEL

Before checking for hotels, I checked the ongoing promo at Traveloka. At the time, they have a Valentine’s Day deal for hotels using the voucher code LUVPIO; 35% off the original price with discounts up to PHP700.00. Not bad, not bad. So, on to the hotels section of the app.

A friend recently recommended Traveloka, a flight and hotel booking app, for my smartphone. I’ve had previous experiences checking for flights using apps, but haven’t really done any bookings through it. I’m on the page that thinks it’s cheaper to book on airline sites itself, but my friend was quite adamant that I use it, they always have online promos that can shave a few hundred of pesos from your final fee, he says. I downloaded it immediately.

TRAVELOKA DISCOUNTS ON THEIR FACEBOOK PAGE

I’m familiar with the Traveloka brand from TV and web ads I’ve seen. I knew they’re an international brand from Indonesia who’s now trying to work their way into the Philippine market—they’re legit and I’m confident that I won’t get scammed or anything. They’re somewhat similar to Agoda crossed with Skyscanner, a useful tool for checking the cheapest hotel rentals and flights for users. And since I wanted to go back to Davao this year, I decided to give it a go.

“Where’s D?” I asked my friends as we were strolling along one of the Taipei night markets. We retraced our steps, dodging tourists and food carts along the way, but to no avail. We lost our friend to the rush of the market. But we weren’t really that worried. A quick Messenger call and a few minutes later, we’re back together again, heading for a round of Taipei Beer. The night would’ve ended early though if not for our instant Internet connection.

We used to rely on local sim cards when flying overseas for out of the country trips. During our recent Taiwan trip, we decided to try out Flytpack, a rentable pocket Wi-Fi that provides hotspot Internet connection that your friends can tether to when traveling abroad.

Pacsafe, the world leader in anti-theft bag technology recently launched their first ever flagship store, not only in the Philippines, but throughout the globe at Makati’s Glorietta 5 mall. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the event, and with it, we were given a Pacsafe bag to review too—the Metrosafe 150 GII body sling bag.

THE FIRST EVER PACSAFE STORE IN THE WORLD OPENS AT GLORIETTA 5

The first thing I look for, and I guess most people too, in a bag is its style. Does it look cool enough, is it too preppy, does it stand out? With the Metrosafe, it passed with flying colors. I also love the textured 100% nylon fabric and its earthy tones. I’m not too keen on bags that looks too festive.

I was a blog reader before I became a travel blogger. It’s where I get my information when exploring new places, where I get tips on cool places to eat out in and most importantly where I get my kicks when unable to travel and terribly bored at the office.

Recently, I’ve been seeing blog posts nominating their 2013 Top Pinoy Travel Blogs hosted by Melo’s Out of Town Blog and I can’t help but tag along with the bandwagon. So without further ado, here are fifteen travel blogs bookmarked on my Internet browser and subscribed on my RSS Reader. Everything’s ranked from first to last. Kidding, they’re in no particular order. :P

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and if you’re a travel bum like me who only gets to enter shopping malls once in a blue moon, you probably don’t have anything ready for your girl yet. V-Day is just a few days away and if you can’t muster the energy to go malling, online shopping just might be the thing for you.

I’m not sure how it happened but I always seem to get e-mails from online shops offering items at discounted prices. Their products are tempting enough, so I checked out their site to see if they have items related to traveling and sure enough, they have tons of it.

If you’re romantic partner is also a travel junkie, here’s five sweet gifts you can get for her (or him):

I once asked Ed of SoloflightEd why he got an expensive Headware than buying a much cheaper bandana to use for his travel. He explained that it was much better than your regular biker dude bandana and proceeded to demonstrate its uses. Still, considering it is ten times more expensive, I was left unconvinced.

A week ago, I got a chance to test this wonder bandana called Headware in Baguio City after being sent a couple of samples. The first one’s a limited edition Marvel-inspired Headware that’s a bit too colorful for my taste (so I gave it to A instead) and the other’s a much more conventional black floral design that I kept.

“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, that I didn’t know who I was…I was far away from home haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared, I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost… I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that’s why it happened right there and then that strange red afternoon.”

Much has already been said about the modern masterpiece that is On the Road but I barely know anything about it before finally being given a copy as a birthday gift. I’ve been a book fan since forever and my usual choice of books usually revolve on horror, science fiction, fantasy and whatnots. I’ve never picked up a book about travelling even once, not knowing such kinds of books exists at all.

So there I was, giddy as a highschool kid, after finally having my hand on the rough covers of On the Road after more than a year of looking for it. I usually read in the bus on the way to and from work, and imagine my surprise when I opened the pages and found a never-ending flow of texts inside.

I was recently invited by Joseph Leh, one of the six finalist of the DPP-KLM-Lonely Planet On Assignment Europe to attend an upcoming workshop featuring award-winning travel photographer Diego Vergés.

Diego who, you might ask? Here’s a short description of the guy:

An Audiovisual Communication Degree graduate from Universidad Complutense of Madrid, Diego started traveling and documenting different cultures in Gabon, Africa in 2008. Between 2009 to 2011, he has been to India, Nepla, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Nusa, Tengara, Papua, the Philippines, Guatemala and Ethiopia.
A Luis Ksado Photojournalism and Fotografia Solidaria DKV-Intermon Awardee, his works had been published in various well known magazines such as Super Foto, Siete Leguas, Digital Camera, Light Magazine and Photo Creator.

He is currently one of the Getty Image Global Assignment Photographers.

To view more of his work, please visit: http://www.diegoverges.com/

Alrighty, big time travel photographer here!

I would definitely love to attend this workshop; unfortunately this coincides with my trip to the Netherlands. Tsk!

For those wanting to learn a thing or two in producing award-winning travel photographs, you may join this 2-day workshop that’s gonna be held at the historic Taal Town in Batangas.

        Here’s an outline of the schedule:

        DAY 1:
        6:00AM - 6:30AM - Departure from Manila
        9:00AM - Arrival in TAAL Town
        9:00AM - 10:00AM - AM Snack, Small Presentation of Diego's work
        10:00AM - 12:00PM - Technical practice, natural light, reflectors (indoor shoot)
        12:00PM - 1:00PM – Lunch
        1:00PM - 3:00PM - Outdoor Shoot1
        3:00PM - 3:30PM - quick rest and snack
        3:30PM - 6:00PM - Outdoor Shoot2
        6:00PM - Leave for manila

        Day 2:

        10:00AM - 12:00PM - Indoor Shoot/Review Work
        12:00 - 1:00PM – Lunch
        1:00PM - 3:00PM - Review Work, Post Processing of Work
        3:00PM - 3:30PM - Break/Snack
        3:30PM - 5:00PM - Review Work, Post Processing of Work
        5:00PM - 6:00PM - Question and Answer, etc

The slots for this workshop is limited to 15 persons only. For those interested, please contact Joseph Leh at
(0917) 407-0007 or email them at filters.exchange@yahoo.com     

Some might think that something as simple as a notebook can’t be seriously included as an essential for would be travelers in today’s electronic-driven world, but it is.

I find my small notebook invaluable when I go out of town. It may not be as small as an iPhone (well, it almost is) for taking notes down, but it does the job faster. I generally have it on my belt bag where it can be easily pulled out should I need to jot down some passing info that I would usually forget after an hour or so.

I have, for the longest time, wanted a real underwater camera (not some flimsy plastic where you put in your camera and hope to heavens that it does not leak and destroy thousands of pesos of camera equipment), but due to time and monetary constraints, I had never gotten around to buying one.

That is until my Southern Luzon Roadtrip came, I knew I just couldn’t go without an underwater camera this time. I had already regretted the fact that I didn’t have one during last year’s trip to Coron, this time I’d be armed and ready.