What am I up to now?!

I’ve been seeing the ad of this website for quite sometime and I didn’t really pay much attention. Don’t know why all of the sudden I decided to check it out.

The concept is intriguing enough that after a quick read, I wanted to be a part of it! The idea is to collect a list of 1 million blogs. It is an experiment knowing that according to Technorati, there are 70,000,000 blogs in existence and growing every day, perhaps every minute!

The real challenge for this website however is HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE them to reach the 1 millionth blog! I just finished listed mine and I’m on number 1,838. It seems they are a ways to go but my guess is that it would take them years and years to reach the million blog mark.

The website was conceived April 10th, 2008. It took me over two months to find it. If they average out about a thousand mark every month, then it will only be 12,000 blogs in one year. A million divided by 12,000- you get an outrageous time frame and we’ll all probably be dead to see it reach the millionth mark basing it on their current rate!

Nonetheless, given that right now there are millions of blogs on the internet, if they could double or triple their goal every month, maybe we can see the day they reach 1 million blogs. I’m listing my other blogs to it so that should help ad up.

Are you up for the ‘game’ or you think this is too impossible to accomplish that it’s futile to join? What’s your take?

Jim Killeen, Executive Producer/Director
Google Me, The Movie

We’ve all done it! Admittedly, I do. It’s among my fave pastimes in the internet: Googling my name, my family’s or somebody else’s name. It’s always interesting what one can find by Googling a familiar name. It’s even more surprising to find a name exactly the same as ours.

For Filipinos and I guess for people with Spanish lineage, it is very rare to find names that’s exactly theirs. Blame it on our parents who seemed to find pleasure in blessing us with 2 or more! I have 4 names (including my middle name, which is actually my mother’s maiden name) with Maria as the first name. My three other sisters have Maria for their first names as well and they have at least 2 more excluding our last name.

In America and most parts of the world, people have only one first name, a middle name (that is actually just any other name-not from their mother’s maiden name!) and a last name (which could be taken from the father’s or the mother’s). Most often, they would drop the middle name altogether and just use a first and last name as in James Smith, Charles Davis, or Jennifer Taylor. Much easier to Google and finding a match, isn’t it? Sure beats finding the exact person with the 4 names I have!

This guy from Los Angeles, Jim Killeen takes Googling his own name to the next level! He made it into a movie! It’s the latest buzzword now here in America, “Google Me”! Like you and me, he Googled his name and found a list of his namesakes. This lead to an idea of what if I track and meet these people? He did and thus transformed his remarkable journey from different parts of the world into a documentary-movie that premiered in YouTube last Friday entitled Google Me.

“What do a cop, a swinger, an Irish priest, an engineer, a father of eight, an Aussie and a gambler have in common?” says the YouTube description. The documentary of course, stars 7 guys named Jim Killeen.

I was really impressed with the whole concept! Considering that we all have done it: Googling, that is. Yet, this guy thinks, what’s really in a name? what could I possibly have in common with these guys who have the same name as I have? Is it just the name? By realizing the idea, he met, connected and bonded with 6 other Jim Killeen and you know they each have found a friend in each other for life. This is another one of those, if you have an idea- do something about it! Follow where your heart takes you! The result may pleasantly surprise you and impact your life forever!

The 90-minute film is still available in YouTube for FREE for a limited time. The official website sells the Google Me DVD for $29.85 including shipping throughout the United States.

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ON THE SIDE: I am back from a long, very satisfying vacation in the Philippines! I am back to reality!

I chanced upon the term “do follow” about a month ago (November 2007) and I’m quite surprised that it hasn’t really taken off when I found the whole idea ‘nonconforming’ and even defiant of Google! I embraced the concept instantaneously!

My previous post here has been about my growing discontent with Google in general and Blogger in particular. The change Google made a few weeks ago included a permanent rel=”nofollow” attribute in its comments page. Since it is a separate page from the main blog, there is no way to manipulate its template making it impossible to remove the tag. Regardless of whether you want to be a Do Follow blogger or not, you can’t make the choice because there’s no way for one to remove the simple yet powerful tag. Your hands are suddenly tied in that regard.

Google launched the “rel=nofollow” attribute in early 2005 to combat spamming in blogs. Major search engines like Yahoo and MSN liked the bit so they followed suit. It was initially seen as a great idea because really, spamming has become uncontrollable at that time.

What is the rel=nofollow tag?

Rel=nofollow according to wikipedia, “is a non-standard HTML attribute value used to instruct search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thereby improving the quality of search engine results and preventing spamdexing from occurring in the first place.” Simply put, the rel=nofollow tag aims to blacklist spam comments left on message boards, forums and blogs. Spam comments are comments with no relevance to what the post is all about and is usually just a link URL pointing you to a site selling or promoting something- unfortunately, most sites are of obscene nature. Spammers come in huge numbers and it is a pain to remove the comments one by one when they come by the hundreds in your various posts. Blogs where the comment moderation is turned off are the ones mainly targeted.

Why do spammers love to spam blogs?

The reason is simple. Blogs have a wide, diverse audience and usually has huge content. Most blogs also have strong PageRanks (another Google owned trademark!) and spammers want to benefit from that. When you link with a blog, search engines crawl that link and will consider that link almost as important when attached to a page that has a PageRank. So then when one is searching for something and that blog shows up, most likely that spam comment will show up in search engines as well.

With the rel=nofollow tag attached to a template by default, spam comments WILL NOT be indexed by Google or other search engines thereby will be ignored by the search engines and will have no value at all whatsoever. It render the comments totally useless from a search engine’s point of view.

Now you see where I am driving at here.

While the objective is firstly seen as a deterrent for spamming, it is not totally beneficial to any blogger who cares about its readers and its blog’s ranking because the search engines CAN NOT determine what a spam comment is from a legitimate comment. What it does is totally ignore all comments- legit or not!

With the rel=nofollow tag on, the reader’s comments are never included when search engines rank a page’s importance. So from the standpoint of PageRanking, the blogger gets nothing from the comment and the commenter gets nothing back. It’s a dead end for both.

Is Do Follow the answer to rel=nofollow?

I strongly believe it is! Do Follow, writes a supporter, “is an action or a step a blogger initiates to remove the attribute rel=”nofollow” in its blog codes, either by installing a plug-in: Wordpress plugin or this Wordpress plugin, or manually for blogspot and for movable type. Most bloggers would refer to it as a campaign or a movement against rel=nofollow.”

Google does not prohibit one from removing the nofollow tag. It is therefore a choice we can make. I choose to reward my readers for taking the time to comment on my posts. Personally, I only try to leave comments now to blogs that support Do Follow. We all are busy people and there are millions of blogs out there. It’s impossible for us to visit all of these blogs so why not just visit the ones that will also benefit us in some way? I’d like to be able to give that to my readers and perhaps may encourage them to leave a comment knowing that their URL link will be counted by google and other search engines.

I’ve read that even with the rel=nofollow tag on, spammers are still out there! It doesn’t stop them from doing what they’re doing. So why not remove the nofollow tag to benefit us and our readers?

Blogs have other ways of fighting spams now like entering a word or sets of letters and numbers before submitting a comment or just having to enter information manually and clicking submit; these are moves a spam-robot can’t do automatically hence preventing the spam from occurring. One can also turn on the comments moderation to filter comments before appearing and going live on your site. I like the idea of comment moderation because it gives me control over what’s going to be attached to my site before it hits the blogosphere! I have had a small number of spam comments which I’m truly thankful moderation is on since the comments were nothing but objectionable links leading you to lewd sites!

Again, I think every blogger should make a choice and support Do Follow. It’s a win-win and the benefits definitely outweigh Google’s reason- that of punishing spammers. Why would we punish OUR readers?!

(Now is a great time to become a Do Follow blogger. Rob from Blogs that Follow whom I met on Blog Catalog and MyBloglog and whom I’ve exchanged a few emails with on the subject, is giving out Grey’s Anatomy 2008 calendars to bloggers who become Do Follow supporters! Kindly visit their website to know more about the ongoing promo.)

© 2007

send a postcard just like this one. get creative. the sky is the limit! the address is real; that’s where you’ll be sending out your postcards. snail mail meets the internet age!

This is my shout-out to all of you my visiting readers. I have a new project I’m currently working on over at The Poscard Collector. The idea is pretty simple and easy to accomplish. Simply send a postcard with your blog name and URL on it. If you got time and space, you may write more like what the blog is all about or any message to the world wide web! If you are a postcard collector, we can exchange postcards! If you are a blogger, I will feature and link your blog to mine! Be part of what could turn into something substantial later.

The Postcard Collector is two-weeks old and already it has drawn a lot of hits more than this month old blog! Oh and I didn’t even mention that in the spirit of fun and surprises, I’m giving out $5.00 via paypal to the first 10 people to send a postcard. In 25 postcards increment, I will give $5.00 to the 25th, 50th, 75th and so on postcard I receive. As long as I’m getting postcards, I will keep sending that $5.00! There are restrictions and ‘rules’ as in all projects, please go over the site now to read more… See you at the other side!

Note: The picture of the Sinigang collage on the postcard is lifted from the food writings of Umami blog. All photo credit goes to the author. Check out his site for mouth-watering, appetizing dishes! This will lead you to his main blog.

© 2007

S

ince it is All Hallows Eve, I get to talk morbid! I’m sharing an interesting web find. Click on the DeathClock.com. “It’s the internet’s friendly reminder that life is slipping away,” says the website. All you need to do is enter basic information such as date of birth, sex, BMI (Body Mass index- you can look it up from there.) and habits on smoking and your view in life (pessimist, optimist, sadist or normal?!); voila, it tells you the exact date when you are going to die!

Except that, you won’t actually believe on it yet it IS fun to do! It is not meant to be taken seriously because whether you are a believer or not in the supreme being, nobody can predict exactly one’s death. Only time can tell and it’s not going to reveal itself until, yeah- it’s time.

I found the website dark and twisted and morbid but all in a good way. It is inventive for what it offers. So what if it’s all bulls**t as others see it? It still draws people to try. It takes a creative mind to come up with one! Curiosity sometimes doesn’t kill, it drives traffic! This site’s been around like forever… it will perhaps outlast us all! I’m putting my EDD (Estimated Date of Death) for posterity sake: 4 may 2053… Check out yours and don’t forget to invite me on your funeral! I’ll see you in mine (evil smile)…©

Imagine an internet experience without clicks. Imagine opening Internet Explorer or Firefox simply by pointing your mouse to the browser icon, then placing your mouse on the address bar, begin typing to where you’re going. When you get to your destination, you merely navigate on the title and headings, do your usual browsing, pointing to all links and tabs without clicking your mouse! Impossible?!

Not anymore with this inventive, innovative concept from a website I StumbledUpon named dontclick.it- institute for interactive research. It is a work in progress but I believe once full blown, will make a huge impact into the future of internet browsing. I spent a good 15 minutes on this site trying to get the hang of browsing without clicking and then I keep coming back.

I LOVE the idea because I ’suffer’ from Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) being on the computer for long hours! (Well, mostly it’s bad posturing for me and not taking breaks but I still blame “clicking” too much as one of the causes!) The website is therapeutic for me. It is relaxing on the mind and on my index finger! It’s amazing how much clicking we do when we’re on the computer and how often we click on almost anything to get a result. It’s impossible to move about on our computers without clicking.

This idea is groundbreaking! The inventor hasn’t updated this site in a while but it still drives a lot of traffic and attention from all over. I can only wish the computer giants will pick up on the design. Spend some time on the page. Resist clicking! Believe, explore and discover the power of browsing without clicking! Oh, and the best thing about this website? It is absolutely commercial-free! No annoying pop-ads, banners or adsense from google. Puts my own blog to shame… sigh.©

StumbleUpon is the new google or the new wiki that’s taking the net by storm. Already boasting over 3 million users, been featured on TV and tech magazines, this is one sure find you want to keep! I just stumbled on it a week ago and I’m hooked! This is the Myspace or Friendster of bookmarks and links. There are millions of websites on the internet. One can’t possibly explore even half of it in one’s lifetime.

This must-have helps you discover websites that are only relevant to you, according to the preferences you included.The best thing about it is, it has a toolbar add-on with Mozilla Firefox so its so easy to use. Everytime you click stumble, you’ll be in a whole new world of serendipity! It’s exciting what you can discover in every click! It’s building a community of people helping each other bump into something new and interesting.

Everytime you stumble a site, it would ask you to rate it to help the next stumbler. In that way, only relevant sites are being distributed and the rejects are well forever be buried in the bottom of the internet ocean. A very intelligent tool! The only downside is it’s addictive. I recommend stumbling only on your lazy nights or spare time– or you’ll never get other things done!

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Click here to join StumbleUpon!
See my StumbleUpon Page

Don’t have Firefox yet? It’s time to get out of the dark ages that’s Internet Explorer (IE). Firefox in my opinion is way cooler, faster, has more tools and more efficient. Although some OLD websites still don’t support it and I find myself opening up IE or I just totally skip that website, it’s still better interface than IE! I’m not sure how Firefox works in Philippine websites but it’s worth having.©