Any computer user knows how vital it is to have a backup of all our important computer files. Any computer user also knows that even with the risk of losing valuable data, half the time we are not backing up as we should. We have many excuses for it, the same excuses we use for leaving something undone or unfixed: procrastination, do not have the time, too taxing, time consuming, no extra storage available, etc.

When calamity strikes, when something hit us without warning, we are only left crying and hitting ourselves for not doing what we should have done in the first place.

A family friend lost his over thousand dollars Macbook, his girlfriend’s notebook and his external hard drive when their apartment was broken in recently. More than the value of the computers and hard drive combined, expensive as it was, what they were most sad about was losing ALL their data on the machines. He just graduated and all his college files, research, papers counting 4 years were there. Years and years of vacation photos from all parts of the world, compilation of music, videos, digital files and documents- all gone. How do you put value to that? They are irreplaceable and priceless.

I was stunned by the news and seriously felt sick when I put myself in his shoes. I was speechless because I wouldn’t know how to deal with that kind of material loss. I wanted to cry right then while a tinge of panic struck me. I am NOT ready for that kind of loss. My computer is practically my whole life placed in an unprotected digital box! I’d go crazy if I lose ALL my files. I will probably not recover!

That was a kick in my butt and totally forced me to update my own backups ASAP!

What to back up?

Backing up EVERYTHING may not be a great solution if you’re like me who loves to take hundreds of photos of one event, stores even the crappy and silly ones, record TV shows, rip music and movies into digital files, and keep documents even from 10 years ago! We have a home server with 2 Terabytes (TB) full of those plus four 500GB external hard drive and counting. But paranoid as I am, I still want to keep a backup of a back of a backup! I have made DVD backups of my photos and music and realized I stopped in 2008. I have no back up at all of any of this year’s events and this is the last month of 2009! I have been all over the US this year and the accumulated pics are huge and no backups? YAY! I will not be able to recreate those moments and memories and I will probably not go back to any of the places I already visited so I need those backups.

Backup what’s important to you. Ask yourself every time: if I lose this data, will I be absolutely, positively ok with it? Will I recover? If you answered yes, then it’s probably not worth backing up. But if your answer is a resounding NO! Then by golly, back it up!

Location. Location, Location!

Where to back up files? The most sensible and easiest thing to do of course is to have an external hard drive attached to your notebook with a ‘mirror’ of what’s on your computer. However, as my friend’s case was, his back up being an external hard drive was stolen too! If you really value your files and you’ll die or go crazy like me if you lose them, then backup a backup of your backup!

>> Put aside an external hard drive that you do not use other than to backup files. Place all your important data there and hide it. Keep it in a locked filing cabinet, a hidden drawer, wherever it is that is not easily visible and or that you’re the only one who has access to it. Every month, put it out and update the files or add more files to it. Then hide it again. For smaller data, use a USB flash or thumb drive. They’re very small and easy to hide or carry.

>> On top of the ‘hidden’ external hard drive, create DVD copies of your files. External hard drives CAN FAIL AND WIPE OUT YOUR DATA! There is nothing like a DVD backup. As long as you keep it clean and scratch-free, it will continue to read your files.

This isn’t full-proof. What if the thief still found your hidden place? What if your dog ate it? What if your house burns down?!! What if…?

>> Find a friend or relative that you can trust and leave copies of your backup to them, either an external hard drive or DVDs for them to keep.

>> Rent a safety deposit box! (Too expensive!)

>> Put it in the trunk of your car! (Your car could be stolen too! The humidity and temperature could affect your hard drive also- too hot or too cold or too damp!)

>> Leave your backups in your workplace if you have keys to your own drawers. (Of course the building where you work at could be hit by a UFO and gets buried underground…!)

>> Carry it around wherever you go! Strap it to yourself. (This is extreme and something I have yet to do- maybe when I become that irrational…)

THE BEST SOLUTION?

Simple. Automatic. Secure. Fast. Safe. The answer is Online Storage. The key feature here is peace of mind. Online storage solves every scenario I have presented earlier about the limitations of an external hard drive or DVDs. The question now is how much are you willing to spend for that peace of mind and assurance?

Well for starters, it could be FREE! Free is always great; even better when there are no strings attached. I have searched the internet for the best online service that can store all types of files. Photo sharing sites like Flickr.com or social networking sites Facebook or Friendster while it stores your photos, are also meant to be shared to the world. You wouldn’t want to bore people by showing them 20 poses of you that you won’t delete taken in one same spot, would you? These sites are also just limited to keeping photos, same goes with online photography stores like Snapfish, Seehere, Kodak and Shutterfly that will store your photos provided you order from them at least once a year or they will delete them or something like that.

The two best online storage I have found that really works and are FREE and which I have been using for over a year now is: ADrive and Mozy.

ADrive gives a remarkable 50GB FREE storage! With the Basic plan intended for individual or personal use, you already have the essentials to store, backup, share, and edit documents online. The Basic plan also features:

• Universal Access
• 50GB Storage Capacity (per account)
• File Sharing
• Folder/Directory Upload
• File Download
• Easy Search Tool
• Remote File Transfer
• International Character Support
• Zoho® Editor

They offer two paid plans starting at $6.95 a month or $69.50 a year.

The good:

>> FREE 50GB. That is a lot of storage!

>> No annoying pop-up ads. The ads in the free plan is not over powering or not too distracting.

>> No setup fee, no monthly payments, no credit cards, no hassle. Fast registration.

>> You can share the file with anyone.

>> You can download the files back on your computer again.

The downside:

>> They don’t offer automatic backups for the free service (of course).

>> You have to manually upload each file/photo to a folder you create in your account. The upload tool uses java which allows you to select as many photos as you would like for one upload up to 1000 files. However, as I find out, this is most unreliable because your system or their system could time out base on you internet connection and once you’re disconnected, your upload stops and even if it says 98% or 600 files copied out of 1000, sometimes the files aren’t copied at all and you still end up re-uploading those files. To avoid the hassle, I keep the upload to 50 files/photos at a time.

>> During the upload, you can’t switch between tabs to view other websites. (But you can always open another Firefox browser for the fix.)

>> They just added an extra security to prevent bots from logging in. A human verification to key in numbers that are very hard to read is required every log in.

>> They log you out when idle even only after a short time. I end up logging in every half an hour I think, which is cumbersome after awhile especially having to key in the verification keys every single time!

>> No referral system. I love referrals! Nice to get something back for your efforts.

MOZY! I love Mozy.

The good:

>> No setup fee, no monthly payments, no credit cards, no hassle. Fast registration.

>> Designed to work as a backup from the get-go. After the quick install, it gets to work of backing up checked files at once.

>> Works quietly in the background. Install and forget. Even after a reboot or shutdown, it starts itself. Doesn’t suck up the CPU or take up space in your machine.

>> Shows up a dialog box when a backup is successfully completed. (Option to hide)

>> Can configure right in your desktop without going to your account and log in on their website. Check and uncheck the folders you want backed up.

>> Unlimited backup for personal users is only $4.95 a month! Something to think about when the need to have more space arises.

>> Does referrals! So yes, let me invite you to join and sign up for Mozy today. For a limited time, for every person that clicks on the link here and starts using Mozy, we’ll both get another 512MB of free backup space. That’s right, we both get the extra space! That’s 1GB of free space for every two people! There is no limit on the free space we can get. So go ahead, sign up and invite friends so you get to have more free space. It all adds up. The regular free space for every referral is 256MB.

The Downside:

>> Only 2 GB free! (But with the referral system, we can get more!)

>> Not sure if in the paid service you could do this. But you don’t get to see the files that were supposedly backed up in your account. No way of knowing but fingers crossed– that the files checked to be backed up are actually there when you do need to restore them because they said so.

Conclusion:

What Adrive lacks Mozy provides and what Mozy lacks, Adrive has. I recommend use of the two services. Together I think it will best fit a regular computer user’s needs for backup- at least to backup some of the important ones anyway. Do what you have to do to protect your precious memories by backing up in whatever form or all of it.

I still have my physical backup on hand here at home, my external hard drives, the home server and the DVDs. The online storage is yet another way to appease my fear of losing my data.  We can never replicate those moments captured in images and videos. If you lose them, you lose a major part of the memories. What are we going to show to our kids and grandkids when we grow old? We forget. We need visual and auditory help to recall when unable to. We need our music, videos and photos to remember.

Back up your data with Mozy and save 10%!

“For A Limited Time only, so hurry…”

Mozy is a simple and safe way to back up important stuff on your computer. A copy of your data is stored in a secure, remote location; in the event of disaster your data is still retrievable.

Just type in SHAREMOZY at checkout and save 10% on a MozyHome Unlimited annual or biennial subscription!

View >>

We all have seen these happen. People who were virtual unknown catapult to instant stardom beyond their wildest imaginations simply for putting out there a 2-minute or so video on YouTube. Bear in mind, YouTube was non-existent 4 years ago. Since its inception in February 2005, the way most of us ‘view’ life revolved around watching those clips, forwarding it, talking about it, blogging about it- next thing you know, the video has gone viral. Case in point the very recent Wedding Entrance march/dance video of the Heinz raking over 10 million views in less than 2 weeks.

YouTube has channels for everything- comedians, directors, gurus, musicians, reporters, entertainers, politicians and the ordinary ‘Youtuber’ further subdivided into regular viewers, those who have real talent like Charice, those who don’t, those who are desperate for attention or just plain crazies.

How does one video stand out amongst the thousands of uploads every minute? Remember the “Thriller” video performed by 1500 prison inmates in the Philippines? This was uploaded in 2007 and still rank among the most popular videos on YouTube currently with 31 million hits. How about the very funny “Evolution of dance”? Uploaded by comedian Judson Laipply in 2006 with 123 million views.

Or Noah Kalina’s self-portrait everyday photo?

Then Bree aka Lonelygirl15 anyone? This video blog was later exposed as mere fiction, meaning Bree is not real and was just a character played by Jessica Lee Rose.

Who could forget Gary Brolsma, the “Numa numa” guy singing “Maya hee, maya haha (Dragostea din Tei by O-Zone)”? Somehow the original video is no longer available on YouTube but according to “BBC article dated November 27, 2006 the original Numa Numa video has been seen over 700,000,000 times worldwide – making it the second most viewed viral video in the world,” says Gary.

Of course there’s Fil-ams Rin on the Rox, Erin and Roxanne whose channel was suspended by YouTube for supposed copyright violations but more like because the duo got “too” famous…

I have no talent in video editing and I’d rather hide in my writings as a blogger than face the camera. Let me rephrase that, I have no real talent whatsoever! So you wanna be an internet star? Knowing a few tricks will put you on the most-viewed list in no time. Check out this helpful video I found to get you started.

Below is a video for newbies who have never uploaded anything yet but are planning to.

Remember, all the successful videos have something special in them, something unique. The videos must make you feel something after watching. If you can make a viewer sad, cry, laugh, smile, emotional, happy or feel anything at all- the effect of one person feeling that would double as soon as he/she hits forward and then instantaneously, the video is spread throughout the world in minutes and days. Best of luck!

Pomegranates were literally unknown to me when I got to the US since we don’t grow nor import such in the Philippines. I’ve seen pomegranates many times over at the supermarkets but never bought one because I am too cheap (the price could go for up to $3 a piece! What if I don’t like it?). I never thought of eating it either while in California- sort of slips my mind every time and after having tried it tonight, I wish I ate enough while in CA.

Pomegranates are considered part of the “superfruits” for all its various health benefits. It is a favorite juice blend of companies capitalizing on its supposed nutrients and antioxidant values and is really popular in the US as a juice drink rather than as a fresh fruit to eat. If you ask me, fresh fruits are always better than the juice because the latter has undergone processing and blending- you’re not getting 100% of the fruit!

Eating Pomegranate for the first time:

I didn’t think I’d end up creating a how-to-eat-a-fruit post if I didn’t find my first Pomegranate experience rather amusing. It was such a “bloody” mess! As I treated it like a pear or an apple, I cut it into half at once and was ready to cut it up into more halves except that the fruit began to ‘bled’ (this was a red pomegranate with very bloody red, dark purple-ish juice!). The inside looked totally weird to me. Hmmm, I expected to see an apple or pear like texture instead I found “granules” of seeds- tons of it! I cut a small part and again the better of me just started eating all of it- the seeds, pulp, inner peel- ate it like a sliced orange! The taste was odd and bittersweet!

For a minute I got confused if the bitter part was the seeds and you’re not supposed to eat them as is or the inner peel was the bitter part and should be thrown away. For sure I didn’t want to waste the juice.

Helpless, I sought the internet! I googled pomegranates via Scour (wait, Google believes that is illegal to use the verb ‘google’ to google something other than Google itself! But I did google via Google too, so there.)!

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud! I found tons of links all pointing to “how to eat a pomegranate” and even tons of video on Youtube showing the whole process. Search and finding any information I want instantly on my fingertips never cease to amaze me!

Here I was attempting to attack a situation like I always do when getting a new gadget: open the box, assemble, play with the unit- until something goes wrong or doesn’t work——— then, open and read the manual. That’s what I just did.

How to peel/open a Pomegranate the proper way:

1. Make partial cuts of the fruit all around it (not cutting all the way into half). Just cut shallow from the outer peel not going all the way so as not to hit the seeds/aril. Be careful as it is very succulent and the juice tends to squirt all over the place. You’ll be in a lot of mess if you’re as clumsy as me cutting it all the way through the first time! (See photos)

Did I mention, it can stain your clothing?

2. With your hands, placing your fingertips on where the shallow cuts were all around- split it into two. Avoid squeezing too much as it will ‘bleed.’

3. With a fork or something with a sharp tip (one site suggested a chopstick!), take each seed out and place in a bowl. The process reminds me when as kids my sisters and I would help in the farm of our Uncle for fun taking mature corn kernels from the cob by hand which they would later put out and spread to dry. Of course, this pomegranate, you’d want to pick the seeds out with something because it’s gross and messy doing it with your bear hands. My kid memory on that farm just flashed because the pomegranate seeds shapes exactly like corn kernels except for the color.

One site suggested to immerse the fruit in the water and wait until the kernels or seeds will just magically float atop the peels. I don’t want to wait and I don’t want to waste all the juice that will mix in with the water to throw away. I’m not sure if anybody ever follow the above method. I didn’t. Another one suggests similarly to immerse it into a bowl of water while sort of rolling out the pith until the the aril/seeds will detach from it. Then with a strainer, drain out the water.

3.5 Found another site that says to just cut it into half like I did all the way. Then turn the first half of the pomegranate into your palm forming a half dome in your palm. Using a wooden spoon, start banging the shell that’s resting on your palm and the seeds/aril will freely pop out… Do this with a bowl underneath of course to catch the seeds. It sounds easy but some sites find this whole banging thing doesn’t work or are just hard. The seeds/aril are stubborn to come off the pith.

4. On the bowl, grab a spoon! Eat and enjoy the highly nutritious, succulent, tropical tasting fruit- mess-free!

How to eat a Pomegranate:

Some sites actually suggest, grinding the seeds, chewing while sucking on the juice in your mouth and when done, spit the seeds out. WHY? Why would you do that? Perhaps for some it is an acquired taste that’s why they very much prefer the juice instead of the actual fruit; but for someone who grew up eating guavas, rambutan, star apples, durian, jackfruit, green mangoes, lanzones, mangosteen, watermelons, santol, papaya and all other exotic tropical fruits with or without seeds- I have no problem eating the pomegranate seeds. I love it! Besides, as my mom would always tell us, the most vitamins/nutrients are found on either the seeds or skin/peel (if edible) of fruits. Either this was based on fact or not, we grew up believing it. (Moms are always right, right? Well, in most cases anyway…)

The best way to enjoy the pomegranate is to eat everything the seeds has to offer- juice and seeds or the aril all together. I made the mistake of eating the inner peel which tasted like that of an orange peel that gave the bitter taste. So I learned, you’re not supposed to eat the rest of the pomegranates- only the seeds that you took out by fork or any sharp tip tool.

Pomegranate seeds are like corn kernels to me except they’re very different in color and taste. The seeds itself are very much like that of guavas in taste and texture or for someone who hasn’t tried fresh guavas yet, like fresh watermelon seeds. Every luscious seed gives a sweet wonderful tasting juice, like that of grapes with a tinge of sourness in it! Combine the guava-like seeds and the somewhat sweet-sour grapes taste and you have a pomegranate!

It could easily pass as a tropical fruit and I wonder why we don’t import or even grow them in the Philippines! I’m sure all guava-loving kids and adults will love it!

There is a website dedicated to everything pomegranate, why I’m not surprised!

As I was happily eating my first pomegrante on this celebrated election night, my TV concluded with an Obama victory speech. Some seeds almost stuck to my throat. What an obamanation!!

Americans and the world will be watching in the next four years as the first ever African American and youngest (?) president-elect in America’s history boldly proclaimed that “change has come to America.” Along with its countless promises, we await for tangible changes that will hopefully be felt not just by the poor but by the common, ordinary middle class citizens- THE taxpayers, that is the backbone of America.

As for me, I just had a change I can taste! After my small first encounter with pomegranates, I think I will be buying them at the store regardless of its price from hereon!

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Sixth Step: Paying attention to site statistics

I wasn’t. I only started doing it concurrently upon joining Entrecard sometime in June 2008. I wasn’t even checking my Adsense account until recently! A mistake on my part and one which newbies should take into consideration when blogging. You should pay attention to your statistics! They can give you important points as to what your visitors are reading, what they’re searching, how they got to your site and where they come from. It is very interesting. Though different sites give varying tracking information and results, it is more or less consistent and close to each other. Google analytics, e-referrer.com, histats.com, feedburner.com, feedjit.com are all great tools and must haves to study your stats.

I just installed e-referrer stats on July 27and it already tracked 3,961 visits. 1,674 of that came from Google searches! At the same time I installed flagcounter that shows 2200 US visits since July 27. I didn’t even realize I get an average of 100-150 visits a day according to the trackers. I would have been happy with 10 visits a day! Topblogs.com tracking Philippine sites says I’ve had close to 11,000 page views since June 15- the day I joined! I have a PageRank of 2 and my feedburner says I have 40-50 readers on average.

Alexa ranking is wonderful as well, when I checked my site a while back it was in the 1 million ranking. I saw it shrink in number since then! Right now it says, I’m ranked at 188,988!! 230,000! According to Alexa, 64% of my users come from the US. Makes sense since I’m in the US, what I couldn’t believe is that the Philippines isn’t on my TOP 5 users!! How did that happen? I’ve always thought most of my readers come from the Philippines. Here I am wrong again.

I mentioned about the “Sinigang” keyword and how I appear on that search. That’s not even the BEST part when I reiterate how important content is. By paying attention to my site stats I was able to see that majority of my traffic wasn’t coming from other bloggers or all these networking sites at all! Except for entrecard which comes second in my referrer list, I get the most traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN searches! How cool is that?! Because search engines find most of my “quality” content relevant and useful, I appear in various keyword searches when it calls for it. It means someone looking for Arnel Pineda or Kapatagan, Camp Sabros or Julia Roberts or Lea Salonga or Broadway or even Pinay Scandal and Sexy Filipina and Filipina images arrives to the site from Google! I love the latter part! I can imagine someone typing Pinay porn and end up disappointed finding this is not a porn site! It is the only SEO related content I did to help an initiative to reshape the Filipina Image on the internet! I wrote the article over a year ago I think and people are still finding it by Googling somehow. More people should write decent articles about the keywords Filipina, Filipina images, Pinay, etc. to level the playing field.

Another great thing I discover is that people actually stay on the site an average of 3 to 5 minutes and get 4 to 6 page views a visit. This is something every blogger should think about. Getting traffic is one thing but getting people to stay at your site for even one minute is a huge task. You must have heard of bounce rate. Wiki explains: “It essentially represents the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site. If your bounce rate is high, then you need to do something about it. It means that your readers are NOT really visiting your site but was just there long enough for your site to load, skimmed through your headline and moved on to the next site.

Entrecard (EC) comes to mind. This is the downside of this powerful and effective advertising exchange network for bloggers. In my desire to drop the maximum 300 cards to 300 websites daily, I was doing the same. As soon as the page loaded, found the Entrecard widget- dropped my card and moved on- sometimes not even noticing the blog name or who or what site it was I just visited. I was “bouncing” every 5 seconds from one blog to the next. I felt awful. It didn’t feel right. I stopped doing that at once and only visit a few now to which I actually stay and read some of its articles! But how many people are still bouncing to earn EC credits? You can’t stop them from doing that. That’s why you need some quality content to have actual readers coming into your site who are not necessarily bloggers to balance off your bounce rate. I must say that you should have at least more articles directed for general public rather than purely blogging related posts targeted at bloggers.

I have a funny feeling that some bloggers are not really readers. Most bloggers would visit your site and attempt to read ONLY your latest article. They rarely check out past or old articles. They’re busy people and they don’t have the time to explore our website. They have lots of SEO to do and only have little time left to care about their own sites foremost while balancing offline life. Where does that leave us? If you maintain a personal blog, you have to go after the non-bloggers to read your stuff. You know they’re coming when your inner pages are being read coming from search engines using keywords to land on your articles. You know they’re coming when your older popular pages have page ranks in them different from your homepage. Make that a goal: to have a page rank in some of your inner pages. You could have a PR of 4 in your homepage or landing page but if the rest of your inner pages have no rankng in them, it still means you are not getting enough reads or page views.

My tracking stats is an open book, find it on my sidebar to further see the numbers.

Bonus: Monetizing the blog

I found out along the way that people are making money blogging, in fact majority of blogs are geared towards making money online. Note that I did NOT add this to the steps in blogging because I don’t think as a personal blogger that this should be part of our goal. It is an added bonus to our site that we could earn something from what we’re doing but to focus on just making money online without putting any effort to our posts is not the ideal path to go. Money isn’t everything. Either change your niche into something else but don’t go talking about Botox or dishwashers when your site is postcard collecting for example (my other blog).

There’s nothing wrong with Pay per post blogs, I found some great ones that are successful in mixing both paid and personal articles. However, some bloggers put in article after article that are nothing but paid advertisements with paid text links cloaked in some made up personal story to make it appear that the product is actually helpful or necessary when the product or service isn’t even available to the blogger’s location. How do you build credibility when you start recommending Circuit City or Best Buy to your readers when you’re blogging in the Philippines or Australia? Except visiting their websites, you’ve never been to any of its physical stores, you’ve never received any shipments from them because they don’t ship internationally, you can’t be telling me why I should shop at these stores. You can’t tell me about heating systems either or snow removal tools because it is non-existent in the Philippines!

It’s all about choosing the products or services to review that can blend in well with your blog. Don’t go grabbing every imaginable ads because most readers would frown on a personal site that has PAID written all over it. In the end, what you have is a personal paid blog with no relevant content and value to your readers. You’re earning sure but you’re writing for the companies who pay you to blog. I say, balance it out. You can’t cover every paid ad especially the ones that are totally unrelated or sticking out like a sore thumb in your site. I also can’t stress enough the importance of disclosure. Personal bloggers should be transparent to their readers. Aside from a disclosure page it would add more credibility to your site to note  that you’re writing a paid post, either at the top or bottom of that page.

I studied at my options. One thing I didn’t explore in at was completely monetizing my site with all kinds of PAY PER POST memberships. It works for most bloggers, just NOT for me. Again, great to earn on the side but personally, not to the point where my writings are going to be dictated by some company and be paid to “lie” for saying this such product is great when I have not tried it(!) or worse that I actually tried it and it sucked but I couldn’t say it because the company won’t accept and pay for a negative review! I would only like to have third party ads on my site. They’re unobtrusive and just there for readers to click or not, ignore or not. I don’t have to render false or unreal opinion about what the ads offer. I joined affiliate networking sites. These are sites where you get either points or money referring others via ads and links. I also added Google Adsense. It seem to make sense so I applied hoping to get cents that would later translate to actual money! After a year of blogging, I’m happy to say that I got my first payment from Google for $113.60! Yet, I have a renewal bill for my hosting and domain, etc for $200.00!! I’m still short! LOL

This ends my State of the blog address! What are you waiting for? Go start that blog you’ve been putting off already! Until next year…

I have decided to make September 28 my blogversary. This was the date I bravely shifted from Friendster blog into Blogger blog exactly a year ago (I went live on September 30th). At that time, I knew nothing about real blogging even though I was already into it early 2005 via my Friendster account.

Since this is my first SOBA, I wish to give a background on the simple steps I did to get me started into blogging in my niche and my current position and state. I don’t have bragging rights- I’m not claiming to be anything. I don’t have any official blog awards. I don’t get a thousand or more views a day, I don’t earn much from it and I’m not trying to be the best blogger.

What I do have is decent and consistent traffic and page views. There’s something to be said there. Blogging shouldn’t be complicated. Blog happy and simply! This is dedicated to all newbies- what I was a year ago!

First step: Blog hopping and Finding your niche

For the most part blog hopping helped me a great deal while starting! It’s the best teaching tool for any newbie wanting to start their own blogs. It’s like window shopping for a website with live working themes and plugins and sidebars. As I navigate from one blog to the next, I learned what could work for me or not! There are some really sleek, neat looking blogs out there but there are also tons of crappy, sloppy ones! Sifting each, taking the best and discarding the rest- I was able to formulate what I want in my website.

I wanted a personal mixed bag for this site, allowing me the flexibility to talk on any subjects from family, travels, music, media, entertainment, opinion, photography, TV, the internet, technology, love/dislike of country, etc. I wanted a simple theme layout with black as the main background.

I followed up this site with a hobby blog, showcasing my interest in postcard collecting and then later on with a blog for a restobar I co-own in the Philippines, and then a Filipino Quotes blog to post quotations related to anything Filipino or the Philippines either by Filipinos or foreigners.

The best learning experience is going out there and blog hop! Call it lurking, spying, checking out, snooping- the only way to discover what you want in your blog is by learning from others. That’s what I would call it.

Second step: Choosing a blog platform

Venturing with Google’s Blogger platform was a smart move because there was no pressure to do everything right from day one as it was free. Free in the internet is awesome! Free allowed me to experiment on a lot of things, messed with the HTML codes and fixed them (without knowing how I made it worked again)!

With a blogging platform in place and a theme, I was ready to blog away! I imported most of my old posts from Friendster just so I could have content right away and so I could see how posts would look like in Blogger with photos and all. Wait, I didn’t import them with a click of a button! I had to manually copy and paste each article because Blogger and Typepad aren’t talking to each other. Blogger for that matter does not have an import/ export feature period. That was a pain.

Once I learned the basics, after 3 months with Blogger, I shoot for the stars and headed to the BEST BLOG PLATFORM there is, Wordpress. Wordpress self-hosted isn’t free. You have to commit to blogging because once you start paying for it, it’s not going to be pleasing for you all the way.

Third Step: Getting Internet traffic with Social Networking

With a week’s worth of content, the next step was how do I get people to see my new site? Social networking and blog directory is the answer. In Friendster, my readers were mainly contacts on my lists and people already on Friendster. I didn’t bother promoting it. I wrote, I published and that was that.

To successfully kick off any blog in the “real” blogging world, you need to self-promote it initially. There is no way, people will magically visit your site without any kind of announcement. That is like preparing for a huge birthday party for yourself. You prepared for weeks, cooked laboriously, spent endless nights cleaning your house and filling in loose ends. On the day of your birthday, everything is set. You waited for people to come expecting they would remember your birthday and come to your house to visit. Nobody came except your family. You forgot one important thing while busily preparing for your supposed huge party- you forgot to sent out the invitations!!! Get the picture? Invite people to your site.

I joined Mybloglog, Blogcatalog, Spicy, Fuelmyblog, Romlet, Stumble Upon and the latest- Entrecard. I submitted my sites to tons of blog directories and exchanged links with blogs I liked. I was promoting my site to my Friendster, Multiply and Facebook accounts. I was rolling.

Fourth step: Pacing yourself

At this point, your visibility in social networks are now working for you. People are flocking to your site. it is now time to loosen up a little bit. This is hard to do when you’re pumped up because people are taking notice and coming to your site by the number.

In the “real” world of blogging, most bloggers take everything seriously; obsessively and excessively if I may say so! I honestly felt the rush in my first few months myself! I wanted to publish as many posts as I could, visit as many sites as possible to gain mutual visits and find all possible topics in God’s creation for a post. There was a need to check my blog multiple times a day and tweak my codes until it stops working and then spend time fixing it again! And again!

The challenge is to pace even restrain ourselves so we don’t get burned out. If we don’t overcome the “addiction” to blog excessively in the first few months, once we withdraw from it- it’s all over. We will lose interest altogether and end blogging as fast as when we started it.

On a good month, I try to blog twice a week. On a bad month, I’d be lucky if I could blog once a month. That’s ok. The key is continuity and creating timeless quality content.

Fifth Step: Getting Internet traffic with Quality Content

This is the most important step that most newbies fail at. Why? Because as in other cases, we all want easy and we all have one thing in mind, capitalizing on our sites. How to make money online?! After making friends with other bloggers, growing popularity in social network groups, traffic increasing, we want to make money now- and fast!!

Well not so fast! We must first create timeless, quality content that anybody can relate to- not just bloggers. Understandably, personal blogs are like an open diary but please don’t make it all about you, me, myself and I. There are ways to incorporate talking about yourself all the time to other places, people and things.

SEO, Tech and Make Money Online (MMO) bloggers’ mantra is all about SEO or search engine optimization. They give all kinds of tips on how to increase your ranking in Google or how to have your site show up in Google pages with the ultimate aim of eventually landing on the first page of Google search and even be number one on the list for that particular keyword. All those are good advice. The bottomline however is QUALITY CONTENT. Would you believe me if I say I never worked on my SEO for my blog name yet this blog appears on page one of Google when you type “Sinigang” and this is not even a food or recipe site blog?! Even moreso when you type “Sinigang blog,” I appear in 5 of the 10 links on page one of Google search. “Sinigang for the Soul” is a given as it is too specific to my blog, all 10 links refer to my site.

You can do everything and anything to increase your PageRank or ranking in searches or you can focus on one thing: improving your content! In the end, content is king! It’s true, that’s all I did. Except for joining various social networks already mentioned above, I never did anything special to make this blog or MOST of my articles appear on Google.

When I took a vacation early this year, I was in and out of blogging for 3 months. In April, I only had 1 post! Surprisingly, I was still getting the same traffic more or less as though I was actively blogging! That goes to show that I have at least some decent content that people are reading with or without recent activity. That doesn’t mean I could stop blogging and be gone for months again! That just means that I have to continue creating articles that can be read or re-read today, six months from now and two years later and still be relevant to a reader.

Please continue here for the second part. The article has gotten really long- I had to splice it. Happy annniversary to this blog!

01. Call an old friend, just to say hi.

02. Hold a door open for a stranger.

03. Invite someone to lunch.

04. Compliment someone on his or her appearance.

05. Ask a coworker for their opinion on a project.

06. Bring cookies to work.

07. Let someone cut in during rush hour traffic.

08. Leave a waitress or waiter a big tip.

09. Tell a cashier to have a nice day.

10. Call your parents.

11. Let someone know you miss them.

12. Treat someone to a movie.

13. Let a person know you really appreciate them.

14. Visit a retirement center.

15. Take a child to the zoo.

16. Fill up your spouse’s car with gas.

17. Surprise someone with a small gift.

18. Leave a thank-you note for the cleaning staff at work.

19. Write a letter to a distant relative.

20. Tell someone you thought about them the other day.

21. Put a dime in a stranger’s parking meter before the time expires.

22. Bake a cake for a neighbor.

23. Send someone flowers to where they work.

24. Invite a friend to tea.

25. Recommend a good book to someone.

26. Donate clothing to a charity.

27. Offer an elderly person a ride to where they need to go.

28. Bag your own groceries at the checkout counter.

29. Give blood.

30. Offer free baby-sitting to a friend who’s really busy or just needs a break.

31. Help your neighbor rake leaves or shovel snow.

32. Offer your seat to someone when there aren’t any left.

33. Help someone with a heavy load.

34. Ask to see a store’s manager and comment on the great service.

35. Give your place in line at the grocery store to someone who has only a few items.

36. Hug someone in your family for no reason.

37. Wave to a child in the car next to you.

38. Send a thank-you note to your doctor.

39. Repeat something nice you heard about someone else.

40. Leave a joke on someone’s answering machine.

41. Be a mentor or coach to someone.

42. Forgive a loan.

43. Fill up the copier machine with paper after you’re done using it.

44. Tell someone you believe in them.

45. Share your umbrella on a rainy day.

46. Welcome new neighbors with flowers or a plant.

47. Offer to watch a friend’s home while they’re away.

48. Ask someone if they need you to pick up anything while you’re out shopping.

49. Ask a child to play a board game, and let them win.

50. Ask an elderly person to tell you about the good old days.

51. During bad weather, plan an indoor picnic with the family.

52. Buy someone a goldfish and bowl.

53. Compliment someone on their cooking and politely ask for a second helping.

54. Dance with someone who hasn’t been asked.

55. Tell someone you mentioned them in your prayers.

56. Give children’s clothes to another family when your kids outgrow them.

57. Deliver extra vegetables from your garden to the whole neighborhood.

58. Call your spouse just to say, I love you.

59. Call someone’s attention to a rainbow or beautiful sunset.

60. Invite someone to go bowling.

61. Figure out someone’s half-birthday by adding 182 days, and surprise them with a cake.

62. Ask someone about their children.

63. Tell someone which quality you like most about them.

64. Brush the snow off of the car next to yours.

65. Return your shopping cart to the front of the store.

66. Encourage someone’s dream, no matter how big or small it is.

67. Pay for a stranger’s cup of coffee without them knowing it.

68. Leave a love letter where your partner will find it.

69. Ask an older person for their advice.

70. Offer to take care of someone’s pet while they’re away.

71. Tell a child you’re proud of them.

72. Visit a sick person, or send them a care package.

73. Join a Big Brother or Sister program.

74. Leave a piece of candy on a coworker’s desk.

75. Bring your child to work with you for the afternoon.

76. Give someone a recording of their favorite music.

77. Email a friend some information about a topic they are especially interested in.

78. Give someone a homemade gift.

79. Write a poem for someone.

80. Bake some cookies for your local fire or police department.

81. Organize a neighborhood cleanup and have a barbecue afterwards.

82. Help a child build a birdhouse or similar project.

83. Check in on an old person, just to see if they’re okay.

84. Ask for the recipe after you eat over at someone’s house.

85. Personally welcome a new employee at work and offer to take them out for lunch.

86. While in a car, ask everyone to buckle up because they are important to you.

87. Let someone else eat the last slice of cake or pizza.

88. Stop and buy a drink from a kid’s lemonade stand.

89. Forgive someone when they apologize.

90. Wave to someone looking for a parking space when you’re about to leave a shopping center.

91. Send a copy of an old photograph to a childhood friend.

92. Leave a pint of your spouse’s favorite flavor of ice cream in the freezer with a bow on it.

93. Do a household chore that is usually done by someone else in the family.

94. Be especially happy for someone when they tell you their good news.

95. Compliment a coworker on their role in a successful project.

96. Give your spouse a spontaneous back rub at the end of the day.

97. Serve someone in your family breakfast in bed.

98. Ask someone if they’ve lost weight.

99. Make a donation to a charity in someone’s honor.

100. Take a child to a ballgame.

And last, but not least…

101. Forward the list to at least 10 of your friends, or post to your blog and tag the ones who tagged you with it (that’s a sure way to make one smile! )…

I’d like to make the following people smile with some link love

My Consoling Asylum | The Chronicles of a Pinay Dreamer | Digital Guide for Techie Ladies | My Emotional Recycle Bin | Snippets of a Quaint Quill | Stacie’s Blog | The Zen Bitch Speaks | Joan Joyce Says… | Bituwinfish Unwritten | Ink blots Life Unravelled | Linky Love | Pulse by Em Dy | Comics Mix | Ansichtskarten and more | Blogs That Follow | Literary Ek-Ek | Jesie Blog Journey | Malawika | Julia Aquino Blog | Thinking Out Loud | Not a Lawyer | Being Human | PJ Bacolod | 100% Batangueno | Jericho Central | Soapbox Spectacle | Filipina Images | Cyberpunk’s So-called Life | Tech at Hand | No Need For ink | I am Rozeh | Potpourri | Prudence and Madness| Modern Musings | Webbyman | Flygirl | Warmstone | Waliz Diary | Mental Stimulation | JMom | Pusang Maganda | A Linux Sysad Blog |

First stop for me was “Three Days of Rain,” which was only playing until Sunday, June 18. As expected tickets we’re sold out (except for premier seats!!). But I kept pressing for cheaper seats, until the ticket guy said- “here’s the deal, we’re selling ‘Standing Only’ tickets two hours before the show on a first come first serve basis. If you want it, you have to be in line way before two hours.” Those words sounded music to my ears and I was excited. “How much?” I asked. I was calculating, if orchestra tickets were at $112.00. Standing tickets must cost half of that! Shoot, $60 bucks! But what the hey, I’d take my chance. I wanted to see Julia Roberts in the flesh! And then the guy answered, “$26.25!”

Holy Molly!! For a fraction of the seated seat, I get to watch the show! You bet I’ll wait in line!! I don’t care if it was standing or lying down on the floor! I called my friend. It was 10am. I waited in line until they open the sale at noon time for the matinée. And so after 2 hours of waiting I got our tickets to watch Julia Roberts! That’s only the icing on the cake as I later find out. We had lunch and then it was time to see the play.

To my surprise, most theaters do ‘Standing Only’ tickets and we’ve never heard of it. All the time we’ve been going to New York to watch a show! They don’t advertise it of course and tickets we’re very limited to only about 20 people or less! Our tickets were numbered so each ticket had a specific area where you stand, it’s not the “you’re on your own because you’re standing type of ticket.” It was well organized.

The usher was very friendly with us when we were in our place at the back. More than friendly that I was going to tape her mouth to keep her from talking! She kept telling me what “Three Days of Rain” was all about! In my mind, I was like “look lady, I’ve read all the reviews and I know the boring story by heart by now. I’m only here to see Julia Roberts!” I just sweetly smiled and asked, “does Julia sign autographs after the show?”

Oh boy, was I glad I kept my temper with her- otherwise, I would have never known! She said “yes, Julia is very kind and accommodating, just today she came out to talk with us and have our pictures taken with her and blah, blah…” (“Lady. Tell me what to do!!”) Finally after a long talk, she tells me what I wanted to hear.I stood there for the whole first act. A 15-minute Intermission came. That same usher came to us and directed us to 2 empty seats at the near center!! She says, “these seats are available, you can seat here for the remaining act.” That lady was surely an angel! It pays to be nice sometimes! We endured the next hour pinching ourselves from sleeping (there were parts in the play that even the three characters looked like they were falling asleep themselves!) As soon as the curtain fell, I was dashing out of the theater to head for the backstage door for autographs!!

Outside, there was a barricade near the street and a few people, I showed my ticket and I was in! Security was very tight. It was a rather long wait but nobody seemed to mind! This was the cake! I would have never known where to go for autographs had we been sitting. I would have never talked to the usher at all and by the time we got out of the filled theater, Julia would have left or the guards wouldn’t have let me in!

Meanwhile, Julia’s bodyguards were making sure everyone were behaved. Only the ones inside the barricade were allowed to hang around the area. They were practically shoving and driving bystanders away. The guy made some funny ground rules like, “Julia has her own pen, do not give her a pen. Don’t ask Julia to smile for you- she’s tired, Don’t ask her any questions- she won’t answer. Don’t ask her to pose for you, she doesn’t have time. Take as much pictures as you want but don’t push, if this barricade even moves, Julia is out of here!”

So when Julia came out, the whole crowd just went silent. I’m not sure if it was because of what the bodyguard said. I think it was more of a shock, mouth agape in a state of amazement that THE Julia Roberts is in fact in our midst! I was star-struck!! To quote Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, “it was surreal but nice!” She looked almost ‘mortal’ in gray shirt and striped gray pants and flipflops! She signed about 5 playbill (the play’s souvenir program) on my side and she was gone! Just like that, she stayed about a minute on each side to sign autographs! And not even her own signature!!

Apparently, she never signs her own name in autographs, she just scribbles- so we all got different scribbles of Julia but we were happy!! Damn, this stupid phone cameras!! I was fumbling with it and panicking that I won’t get good shots of her. See my friend had to get our digital cameras because we were asked to deposit them before the show. By the time he got it, Julia was gone!! We were only able to get Paul Rudd’s pics in good quality. Bradley Cooper didn’t even show up!!! Paul Rudd actually stopped and smiled for me in my phone camera! He was so nice, stayed and signed (in his own name!) and chatted with the group.

Satisfied with our first day, my friend and I took an early start Sunday morning to conquer the unconquerable, the most popular show in broadway in 2006- The Jersey Boys! We went to the theater 3 times on Saturday to see if there were available seats for the Sunday show or if somebody cancelled out. The line was always long and the same answer, “we’re sold out, try tomorrow!” So we did. Crazy as we were, we went to check the theater at 9am! Wow, three people were already in the seemingly abandoned street- sitting by the theater. It is going to be a looong day for us. We talked ourselves in for a quick breakfast near the theater. At 9:30 I asked my friend to go and fall in line while I finished breakfast. I didn’t want to take any chances, slow eater as I am, that by the time I finish- ten people are already in line! We were 7th and 8th in the line!

As the time progressed, more and more people were showing up! Around 11am, the ticket guy separated the “Student Rush” and “Standing Only” group. The ticket center was about to open. They accommodated 12 students, no more and seven, SEVEN “standing only” tickets!! We were 2 and 3. We bought our tickets at 1pm!!

It was fun, insane and ludicrous waiting for four hours!! But we got in! We had a fabulous time standing! And did the same thing head for the door as soon as it was over and got myself an autograph and a picture of the BIGGEST MAN IN BROADWAY in 2006! If you’re a theatre buff like I’m becoming to be, be smart- go for the standing only or student rush tickets. You can stretch your one orchestra ticket easy to watching 3 broadway shows in the end! I can’t wait for my next Broadway experience and you bet, I’ll be waiting in line!©