in retrospect…

Janette Toral posted last May 12 that her next project was “identifying identifying new and emerging blogs that are making an impact to its readers in 2007…” the only condition being that the blogs you nominate to your top 10 are those that started from 1^st August 2006… so, short of asking the blogger when exactly he or she has started, the best way to find out when this blog started is to look at the archive and look at the date the 1^st post was made… in the absence of the archives, you can look at the very 1^st post and look at the date the post was made… also, that it must be a Pinoy blog… and so, on to my Top 10 Most Influential Emerging Pinoy Blogs of 2007:

1. Carlo Ople’s Waukster: Ragnarok Online 2 & other MMORPGs — started March 7th, this blog jump immediately from PR0 to 4 in a matter of 2 months… Carlo is a brand manager of Philippine Ragnarok Online and himself a gamer, and his gaming blog caters to millions of pRO gamers in the Philippines… his posts, which consists of news about his favorite game, is the foremost site to look into first if you want the freshest news about pRO… well, that is, aside from the official forum of the game…

2. my own Kubiertos — this may be a shameless plug, but i believe that this blog i co-author with my wife Apples is the up and coming source of restaurants and food people may want to try… started November 2006 and currently at PR4, Kubiertos gives thumbs up to those who deserve them, and thumbs downs for those who don’t… and we can’t say that nothing’s personal when we do our rating, because this is all personal… of course we also accept paid reviews, but if we feel that we cannot give a positive review, we say so… if you want a no-nonsense food review blog, Kubiertos is what you’re looking for…

3. Carl Ocab’s Make Money Online With a 13-year Old — when SEO and making money online is your cup of tea, then, better head on out to this 13-year old’s blog… although a little young for his chosen niche, hist posts on 69 Ways to Boost your Web Exposure! Fast! and 5 Reasons Why People Don’t Read Your “Make Money Online” Blog (Probably) merit a look… you just might learn something new from this little fella… and he is not into SEO only!! he is also a prolific theme creator and a Web2.0 proponent, as well… oh, and his blog started just Feb 4th, 2007…

4. “Two people can look at the same thing and see it entirely differently. PROJMLA is how I see things differently.” this is the 1st line you’ll see after getting to Rick Manzano’s site, ProjectManila.com… the site looks at different aspects of Manila life from a different perspective, from restaurants to events, and it gives its readers a different view… i believe this a rebirth of the old site, and is worth mentioning as one of up-and-coming influential blogs of the year…

5. we all know that the Philippines, by now, is known all over the world as the texting capital of the world [if you didn't know that, from which rock did you crawl under from??] and apaprently, Carol Sinyel, owner and maintainer of TxtBuff.com — a Collection of SMS Quotes and Text Messages knows all about it, too!! her blog’s contents are all about txt messages friends and relatives forward to us everyday, which we also forward to other friends and family, and so on… a vicious cycle, maybe, but this is one cycle that makes you happier to know that someone else is willing to spend Php1.00 simply to send you a funny quote or an inspirational message… the site, which started Dec 2006, will surely not lack materials since she is inviting friends, family, and readers as contributors to her site…

6. what is a community without someone looking over our shoulders, eh? just like a kuya wanting to make our lives easier, Karlo Licudine of PinoyBlogero.com wanted to do just that… started barely 3 months ago, this blog aims to compile everything about blogging, from making a bloggers life easier to breaking the writer’s block… if you are a blogger and you think you still have some things to lear about blogging, head on over to Karlo’s site and you just might learn a thing or two…

7. another budding video blogger here… following in the footsteps of happyslip.com, Coy Caballes’ CokskiBlue is a vlog [short for video blog] of almost everything, from his personal travels to movie reviews… how he does that, all you need to do is head on over to his site and look for the SpiderMan 3 review and find out for yourself… who knows? he may just be the next happyslip, eh?? hehehe

8. …

because of that limitation of having started August 1, 2006, my list is currently limited to 7… will add on to the list as i find new ones… or, if your blog, or you know someone who’s blog fits into this category, please do comment here with your real name and blog URL… i promise i will look into it as soon as i get your comment… if it’s worth putting on the list, you’ll get to know it here on this list, as well…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Top 10 Most Influential Emerging Pinoy Blog ]

ok, i know i have been too remiss in my posts this past month… i actually have several in my plate right now, and i am having a hard time dealing with them… but slowly and surely, they’re all going away one at a time, and i hope to be back regularly posting in the next week or so…

to give all of you a rundown:

have you ever been fired from the company you were working from?? if you were and you want to get back, then, your bestfriend will be the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC)… if you really have a valid claim, then go to the NLRC along E. Rodriguez Avenue in Quezon City, file a simple form detailing the owner/general manager of the company you are filing a claim against, then have your claim raffled off to an arbiter… the arbiter will then set a date for a conference between you and the company or its representative at a later date…

if, during or after the conference, which is set for 2 days, you or the company representative do not agree on a settlement and decided to bring this to court, you have 2 choices: either 1) you get a lawyer to create and file a position paper for you; or 2) you can drop your claim if you think you don’t have the time or resources to go through with your suit…

me? i decided to go through with it since i know i have a very strong and very valid case… or at least, that’s what my lawyer was telling…. LOL

———–

i will be going to several blogging activities during this month… two of which will be A Taste of Asia at the Mall of Asia [July 3] and a food writing workshop [July 14]… last Tuesday [June 26], we also went to the opening of the Krispy Kreme DriveThrough in Greenhills, the 1st ever in Asia and the Philippines… we got to bring home to big boxes of their very tasty [but very fattening] donuts for free!! weeee….

we will now become regulars of the blogger badminton every Thursdays which include the likes of Abe, Gail with husband Marc, Bimbo and wife Des, and others… Abe invited us specifically to challenge the husband and wife teamup of Bimbo and Des… hehehe…

———–

i am now an avid player of PerfectWorld from LevelUp… you’ll be able to read a very extensive review of the game [at least from my point of view] from my game site…

a softlaunch of the game was held July 1 at the Robinson’s in Malate and i was able to get a set of installer CDs for the open beta which will start on the 18th…. but again, that news is not meant for this… watch out for that in my game site…

———–

it was a very good thing that i wasn’t very active in any activities, if there, where i need to take pictures, since i don’t have my Pentax with me… i have to bring it back to where i bought it from, and they, in turn, have to send it back to Japan, for repairs on the built-in flash… this i did last May 6, and only got my camera back last Friday, June 29, in time for the softlaunch yesterday afternoon…

———–
and finally, i have a new job… it is a project management job, and the guys i work with are all very good at what they do… as far as relationships go, i still am very new at the company, and will find out about that in the coming weeks and months… but we came off a good start, at least… so i am keeping my fingers crossed…

that’s it?? that’s it!! for now…

Ciao, sweetie…

are you a fan of Google Analytics, the web web page testing tool which can help you understand which web page designs really work?? if you are and are looking for a better integration with your blog, there is now a new plugin recently released to imitate the great Google app…

Open Web Analytics v.1.0.3 released May 13th which you can install right in your Wordpress-based blog and view the reports in your Dashboard… reports range from the usual keywords, referring web sites, and search engines for inbound readers, to the least usual like entry and exit pages to feeds reports…

go to their website and download and install the plugin now and find out how easy it is to use… and if your are a Google Adsense publisher, too, you can use this tool to modify your blogs to earn more…

with the elections over, and the counting of votes now crawling along very very slowly, the tally so far shows that 8 Genuine Opposition, 5 Team Unity, and 2 Independent candidates are in the top 15 as shown in the unofficial tally below:

go to the Inquirer.net page for an updated tally…

finally, it seems that the magic that celebrities, actors, and actresses hold over the people are finally waning… whereas before, people will vote simply because the candidate was well known for their movie antics and showbiz allure, voters today are becoming mature not to vote for them again… they probably learned from the lessons from a former ex-President, and several sports and movie personalities in the senate…

take the case of 2 very famous actors who just run for the senate, Richard Gomez and Cesar Montano, who are currently in the 18 place in the case of the latter and 25th for the former… and at the rate the counting is going, they will never set foot in the senate… not even the smiles of their equally-famous pretty wives campaigning for their husbands swayed the voters one bit…

also, Lito Lapid, running for mayor of Makati City, has finally conceded defeat to mayor Jejomar Binay… electorate of Makati City was not dazzled by Lapid’s waning star… likewise, his son, actor Mark Lapid, re-electionist for governor of Pampanga is in 3rd place behind 1st placer Fr Ed Panlilio and Lilia Pineda…

and lastly, champion boxer Manny Pacquiao seems bent on prolonging his agony and not likely to throw in the towel in his title fight bid for a congressional seat against re-electionist Darlene Antonino-Custodio, who’s father he has accused of trying to kill him before…

finally!! people are seeing into the real political agenda of these celebrities, and considering the needs of the Philippines more than their weakness for celebrity enchantment… ang galing ng Pinoy!!

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Philippines | politics | OWA | celebrities ]

got this news from Matt:

the newest version of Wordpress version 2.2 dubbed “Getz’ honor of tenor saxophonist Stan Getz came out today… it has more than 240 bug fixes and a bag of goodies came along with it… the goodies are the following:

• WordPress Widgets allow you to easily rearrange and customize areas of your weblog (usually sidebars) with drag-and-drop simplicity. This functionality was originally available as a plugin Widgets are now included by default in the core code, significantly cleaned up, and enabled for the default themes.
• Full Atom support, including updating our Atom feeds to use the 1.0 standard spec and including an implementation of the Atom Publishing API to complement our XML-RPC interface.
• A new Blogger importer that is able to handle the latest version of Google’s Blogger product and seamlessly import posts and comments without any user interaction beyond entering your login.
• Infinite comment stream, meaning that on your Edit Comments page when you delete or spam a comment using the AJAX links under each comment it will bring in another comment in the background so you always have 20 items on the page. (I know it sounds geeky, but try it!)
• We now protect you from activating a plugin or editing a file that will break your blog.
• Core plugin and filter speed optimizations should make everything feel a bit more snappy and lighter on your server.
• We’ve added a hook for WYSIWYG support in a future version of Safari.

go to the Wordpress.org blog to find out more…

i tried upgrading Kubiertos and the upgrade went well without a hitch!! if you are hosting your own blog and want to upgrade to the newest version of 2.2, you can look at the Upgrading page…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Wordpress 2.2 | Getz ]

blog-surfing today and found the following interesting posts from bloggers i know:

• Rick spending a weekend with kids
• Liz amuses herself with a Google game
• Camille’s adventures with her point and shoot cam
• FHMs Sexiest is out!! says Rich
• Poell still playing a game at his age??
• Ajay finally in Singapore and splurging
• Jester’s sample ballot for the coming elections
• Joel [and his daughter] is now into creating comic strips for BB
• PJ is still waiting for the POBT of GE
• Carlo [Waukeen] is clarifying things for RWC…
• …while GM Tristan [Mon] is talking about the 2004 RWC

return link-lovin’, people… the name of the game… hehehe…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Google | kids | FHM | Singapore | elections | GE | RWC | RO | BB ]

secrets for me, at least, since i am getting to know them just know… already know this?? then, move on as this is not for you… not yet?? read on, as this will teach you a few things known only to probloggers…

– using borders around your ads?? take them out and make your ads look like they are part of a post… nothing shouts “ADS!” than borders

– if you are a very artsy-fartsy colorful person, follow the color schemes you are using in your blog for Adsense… Google offers a wide variety of colors in its palette that you can use to configure your AdSense colors… use it!!

– best ad format to use?? forget about the 468×60 ad blocks, and use instead the 336×280 [large rectangle] or the second best 300×250 [medium rectangle]… you don’t want your ad to look like an ad, do you?? *wink*

– in your posts, where is the best place to put an ad?? one general rule on the Internet is that people spend most of their time on a site “above the fold,” said Joel “Dr AdSense” Comm… “above the fold” is the part of the page people can see without scrolling… and that is where you want your ads to be…

– only 3 ad blocks are allowed by Google on the same page…

will add to this as i learn more in the following days… hehehe…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Google AdSense | ad blocks ]

like i told many people, i started blogging way back June 2002… unfortunately, due to the constant changes my blog underwent [from blog.apc.edu.ph to haravata.net to haravata.com] and travels from one server to another, my old posts have no choice but to get lost…

but now, the prodigal sons posts finally came back home to roost… and all thanks to the Wayback Machine which archives web pages [blog pages included] “from 1996 to a few months ago…” i was able to retrieve my posts from the very 1st one [hosted at blog.apc.edu.ph] to posts hosted at haravata.net… yes, all of ‘em!!

so, if you are missing out on your old posts and want to retrieve them, give Wayback Machine a try and you just might uncover a few surprises…

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Wayback Machine | old posts ]

on May 14, people from all walks of life will be trooping to voting precincts to vote for their favorite candidates… favorite because:

• they were given money by these people
• they were harassed to vote for them
• they were promised jobs/money/their life if these candidates win
• they recall the name of these people from billboards
• the candidates they will be voting for were/are celebrities
• they were given insurance cards worth 100K pesosesoses
• they were promised insurance cards worth 100K pesosesoses
• he was a boxer, ergo, may be a good politician
• they were/are actors/actresses, ergo, good politicians
• they spammed your email/SMS with their propaganda
• they gave you lechon during their campaign sorties

if these, and others similar to these, are your reasons why you will be voting for your favorites, please think again…

• money can be spent in an instant, while the person who gave you this will spend a lifetime [ok, 4 years at least] milking money from you
• you can still be harassed to do things you hate?? goodness!!
• lies, lies, and more lies… that’s the life of a politician… he even finds it hard to tell himself the truth!!
• if they need to be recalled by other means than by the good they do, they must not be doing anything good…
• remember Erap?? he just acted through it!!
• insurance cards are worth nothing if your hungry…
• same reason as above…
• huh?? when has a boxer done good in governance??
• even worse!!
• i hate these people!!
• hehehe… eat a day, rob for a lifetime??

now, if your list gets shorter and shorter because of these qualifications, then, it would be better not to vote [or abstain] than to vote for somebody who is not worth your one vote… i am not calling for a boycott here [though i am tempted to, not that anyone would listen], but simply laying down foundations for your eventual choices like how jester-in-exile made his choices…

me?? i think i’d just use my one vote for myself and be done away with it… kidding!!

Ciao, sweetie…

Tags: [ Philippine Elections | May 14 ]

a question was posed by Yuga in his blog and he asked “Is technology slowly enslaving us?”

for the longest time ever, i always find myself with one gadget or another that i definitely cannot live without… back in college, all that i ever needed for school was my scientifc calculator… all the calculations that i need to do for my BS in Geodetic Engineering classes can be done by this small calculator, and my notes, if ever i need to jot them down, are in small pieces of paper borrowed/stolen from classmates and can be found in the nook and crannies of that calculator… it’s sort of a personal digital assistant [PDA], or at least, close to it…

then, i also had my taste of my first ever computer… an IBM PC-XT [who can remember those??] which had about 16K of memory, no hard disk, green monitors, and a cluinky [read: very big] keyboard… no mouse, yet, then… and all i used it for was to run Wordstar or Lotus 123 for the work i was doing with my uncle in his brokerage firm… as for communications, i was using those large bulky cellphone-types, much like what the military in the field was using… made my back ache lugging them around that’s why i threw them out the window after some time…

after graduating from college, my needs also graduated to more newer stuff… i basically got to use all kinds of PCs from the AT to the newest model today… as for cellphones, i got my first taste of a *really* portable lightweight cellphone in the late 90’s when then Bayantel offered me a Motorala phone for about P1750 a month, i think… i also graduated from that to Sony Ericsson T-series to newer ones K-series about 2 years ago…

as for other gadgets, i still have my Palm T5 which i cannot live without as it has my personal planner, datebook, hundreds of contacts, and several books in digital format i am reading at the moment… i have a portable USB card reader for my Pentax K100D dSLR camera, a set of rechargeable batteries with charger [opkors], a USB fan, a bluetooth earphone connecting to my SE K700i, several hundred charges and whatnot lying around the house, and a score of others i don’t know [or forgot] the use of… haaayyy…

and no, i am not a slave to my gadgets, though i definitely cannot live without them…

Ciao, sweetie…

(n)

read from Mike Abundo:

The National Telecommunication Commission plans to classify Web sites and other data posted on the Internet as a value added service that needs to registered with the government.

In the preliminary hearing of a draft memorandum circular on value added services, Edgardo Cabarrios, NTC director for common carrier and authorization department, said contents of Web sites such as Yahoo could be classified as a value added service in so far as its delivery is concerned.

“Telecom is delivery of content. When content is delivered it becomes a telecom service,” Cabarrios said.

WHAT?? are they crazy?? with the millions of Filipino web sites, blog sites, galleries, and what not all over the cyberspace, it would take months if not years to process just one site!!

THIS. IS. JUST. SO. CRAZY!! :S

is this their newest way of bilking us for more money?? stupid idiots… tsk tsk tsk… and what will they do if i don’t register mine?? shut me down?? hah! lemme see then do that!!

grrrrrrrrrrr… p0ta!!

Tags: [ NTC | telecom ]