YugaTech | Philippines, Technology News & Reviews

Philippines, Technology News & Reviews

Archive for December, 2005

Happy New Year!!!

Published by: yuga under: Daily Dose. 11 replies

posted: December 31st, 2005 (Visited 2474 times)

I’d like to take this as my last post for the year! It’s been a very fruitful one, I must say!

I’d like to thank all my visitors and regular readers, my co-bloggers at PTB, Travel Blog and Urban Blog, the thousands of members of The Philippines According to Blogs, the bloggers I have met and got acquiainted with, esp. those who I became close friends with, the people I got to personally know from conferences and summits I have participated, the dozens and dozens of new clients on my folio, and every one else who sent their well wishes, emails, gifts, or even text messages.

I wish everyone more blog entries, more comments and linkbacks, better SERPs, more clicks and AdSense revenues for 2006.

Happy New Year!!! :)

permalink

2005 Philippine Blogging in Review

Published by: yuga under: Blogosphere. 3 replies

posted: December 31st, 2005 (Visited 3553 times)

2005 is the year of the Philippine blogs. Let’s review what happened this year, shall we?

  • March 15, 2005 - Manila Bulletin adds Blog-O-Rama section featuring Filipino blogs as interviewed by Annlyn Jusay.
  • April 4, 2005 - the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism launched its blog.
  • May 7, 2005 - iBlog, the 1st Philippine Blogging Summit was hosted by the UP College of Law, UP-ISP headed by JJ Disini.
  • June 12, 2005 - Gloriagate & Hello Garci scandal was exposed on the PCIJ blog with full recordings made available for download.
  • June 17, 2005 - the Sun Star Chronicles launched the Citizen Watch blog to take a closer look at Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the heat of the “Hello garci” scandal.
  • July 5, 2005 - Connie Veneracion (The Sassy Lawyer) became the first blogger-turned-columnist in the Philippine blogosphere. She now writes for Manila Standard Today.
  • July 15, 2005 - the Pinoy Top Blogs project was launched revealing the popular blogs in Philippine blogosphere.
  • August 4, 2005 - iBlog Mini - Blogging Gloriagate was hosted by UP College of Law, UP-ISP.
  • August 4, 2005 - The Philippines According to Blogs turned 1 year with over 2,000 aggregated pinoy blogs.
  • October 22, 2005 - Journalist as Bloggers Conference at the Linden Suites, Ortigas was heavily attended by journalist-bloggers and would-be bloggers alike. (sponsored by PCIJ)
  • November 4, 2005 - the PCIJ was slapped with a TRO to remove a certain post from its blog about Michael Defensor.
  • November 14, 2005 - big time blog network Pajamas Media launches with $3.5 Million in venture capital. Manuel L. Quezon III is among their top bloggers.
  • November 18, 2005 - Market Man runs after Inq7.net for blog plagiarism.
  • November 22, 2005 - Microwarehouse sponsors podcast session for 12 channels which included Jessica Zafra and Danton Remoto.
  • December 15, 2005 - first fan blog (Retzwerx) to be featured on ABS-CBN (only to be cancelled later).

A lot of other things happened though I can’t trace the dates. A lot of prominent people got into blogging as well, led by a pack of journalists like Ricky Carandang, RG Cruz, Ellen Tordesillas, Carol Arguilles, Tina Panganiban-Perez, Howie Severino & Bing Guanzon. Jessica Zafra joined the fray and Dean Jorge Bacobo went back to blogging as well.

If you know of any other blogworthy additions, please leave a comment.

permalink

Fulltime Problogging

Published by: yuga under: Problogging. 11 replies

posted: December 31st, 2005 (Visited 2323 times)

I tried to keep not posting this for about 2 months now but I guess the last day of 2005 would be a nice highlight for probloging.

Since the first week of November, I have gone into full-time problogging.

That means, I stay at home, wake up in the morning and check my blogs, check my emails, read some comments, blog a little, read my rss subscriptions, have lunch, watch some TV, blog some more, post comments, surf Technorati, blog some more, check some stats, tweak the archives (SEO), watch the evening news, dinner, read some more blogs, read my rss subscriptions, reply to emails, blog again, read and blog til I’m too sleepy to write (that’s why I usually find half of my entries mangled with grammatical errors and really lack some serious proofreading)

That means, I stopped going to my regular day job. I was hoping to do this for quite some time now but I just had to wait ’til that damn contract expires. That means I am relying on my blogs to generate a majority of my revenue to get me by for the month.

Yes, there’s still the business. Then there’s the occassional blog consulting work. But they’re all set aside as some sort of an insurance (or Plan B). From now on, I will only use whatever I earn from my blogs may it be via contextual advertising, sponsorships, or direct ad sales. And so far, the budget seems to fit (with a few extra for some R&R).

That would also mean I have more time to support, advise and motivate my co-bloggers (here, here and here). Oh, and yes, pay them as well for their great performance. Good things come to those who wait and I have been very patient (I’d like to believe so!).

Here’s to a great new year! :)

permalink

WebGuerilla matches the $1,000 SEO Contest

Published by: yuga under: SEO. 0 reply

posted: December 30th, 2005 (Visited 2635 times)

Some isulong seoph magic here: isulong seoph, isulong, seoph.

Either way, you could get $1,000:

So I’ve decided the best thing to do would be to match the offer. I’ll pay the same amount for top 5 positions as V7N. The only requirements to collect the cash will be:

A) Not linking to V7N

and

B) Posting a link to Matt’s blog without using the www. (the non-www version of Matt’s blog is only a PR4, so it needs a little help)

I think this plan will greatly benefit the SEO community by getting far more people to participate. And at the same time, we’ll be able to help out a good friend. :)

I’ll let everyone know as soon as the keyword phrase has been chosen.

source: WebGuerilla

[tags]seo, contest, v7n, link, serps, keywords[/tags]

permalink

The $1,000 SEO Contest

Published by: yuga under: SEO. 2 replies

posted: December 30th, 2005 (Visited 3056 times)

Some isulong seoph magic here: isulong seoph, isulong, seoph.

Check out this SEO contest and you could win USD$1,000:

Continue reading ‘The $1,000 SEO Contest’

permalink

GMA 7’s Starstruck Blogs

Published by: yuga under: Blogosphere. 139 replies

posted: December 30th, 2005 (Visited 26124 times)

Interestingly, GMA 7 believes that blogging has a role in promoting their shows and their kapuso brand online. Now, they’re trying to incorporate blogs into their show.

Take for example their 3rd installation of the reality show Starstruck 3 which has a dedicated site over at starstruck.tv and sports a personal blog for all of the 14 finalists.

And these kids do really blog with entries from a paltry single post to as many as 5, with hundreds and hundreds of comments from fans all over.

Methinks GMA is really pushing blogging to reach their audience both local and international. And they’re on the right track there.

permalink

World Pyro Olympics Pictures

Published by: yuga under: Photography. 7 replies

posted: December 30th, 2005 (Visited 7818 times)

I guess everyone already knows about the World Pyro Olympics being held the whole week beside the Mall of Asia. It’s practically all over the TV, radio and the newspapers.

World Pyro Olympics

I didn’t really took special notice of this a few months back when they asked us at plogHost to be one of their sponsors/benefactors. Since we’re already hosting their site, I didn’t mind giving them loads of additional bandwidth and space for the pictures and videos. Had I known it would be this big, I could have asked for those tickets as well. :D

World Pyro Olympics

Anyway, due to heavy traffic and all at Pasay I only manage to get a spot beside the Blue Wave where a couple professional photographers where preparing to take some shots from as far a 1km away (I think it was that far from the venue).

World Pyro Olympics

Not prepared and didn’t know what best settings to use with my Canon Ixus 30, I fired away almost a hundred shots where more than half of them are blurred and out of focus.

More stories here:

[tags]world pyro olympics 2006, pyro olympic 2007, pyro olympics philippines[tags]

permalink

Belarc Advisor for PC Audit

Published by: yuga under: Freewares. 2 replies

posted: December 30th, 2005 (Visited 2227 times)

Don’t know what exact peripheral make and model you have on board your PC?

Check out Belarc Advisor (free to download). What it actually does is it build a profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your browser.

It basically audits your entire PC and show you what you got inside and what has been installed. Very helpful if you don’t know what’s the make/model of that soundcard or internal modem that doesn’t seem to work. Been using this on dozens and dozens of PC before and it’s pretty comprehensive I only know of a couple instances that it can’t identify a hardware.

I got first hold of this back when I was still in HeadStrong and we were asked to run a PC Audit on our workstations in order to identify softwares/games which aren’t supposed to be installed (read: WarCraft). It appears to read the registry for the details. What we did before was make a copy of WC3 on another folder, uninstalled it from the Control Panel then move the copy back to its original path. We could still play WC3 without it being detected in the audit process.

permalink

Are your visitors clicking on Technorati tags instead?

Published by: yuga under: AdSense. 1 reply

posted: December 30th, 2005 (Visited 2212 times)

While I love Technorati and do some tag surfing on a regular basis, I am also intrigued why so many blogs are using related tags at the end of each blog entry. I suppose it helps them get more traffic via Technorati or maybe they wanted their readers to check out Technorati for other blogs discussing the same related topic.

I think a couple of words might help but if you already ping Technorati after every post, I believe there is not much signifant benefits in adding those Technorati related tags.

However, it is possible that your visitors will be clicking on them at the end of reading your blog and you end up sending away traffic and not able to monetize them.

My personal view on this is to leave no other clickable items at the end of your blog but AdSense. You may add the related topics plugin but that’s just more traffic for your blog as well. If you can’t get them to click on this entry, maybe you could on another one.

Come to think of it, how many percent of additional traffic do you get with those tags? If you want to know more about what links your visitors are clicking when leaving your blog, try LinkLog by BlogFlux.

permalink

10 Tips when changing Blog Platforms

Published by: yuga under: Problogging. 8 replies

posted: December 28th, 2005 (Visited 3611 times)

After recovering from the backup disaster last week and after switching into a new blogging platform from Expression Engine (EE) to WordPress (WP), I realized ti would be nice to share some of the things we learned from that migration process.

So here’s my 10 Tips when changing Blog Platforms:

  1. Double check if the new blog platform you are migrating to has the features you actually need or wanted. If you are still unsure which one to use or if you want a second opinion, go check the Blog Comparison Chart here. It lists down some of the more popular platforms you might want to consider - TypePad, MovableType, Blogger, Blogware, WordPress and Expression Engine. For a more comprehensive list of blogging platforms, check out the Google Directory for Blog Publishing Tools.
  2. How much are you willing to shell out for your new blog software? While most of them are free (like WP, TP, Drupal) others require you to shell out as much as $149 for Expression Engine and $99.95 for MT’s personal unlimited license. I recommend you go for WordPress.
  3. Make sure your new blog platform has an import utility tool that supports the old platform. WordPress has several built-in import utility tools for b2, MovableType, Blogger, Greymatter, LiveJournal, TextPattern and RSS feeds. Otherwise, you may be forced to write your own import scripts, hire someone to code it for you, or worse, manually copy and paste all your blog entries.
  4. Backup your blog before migration. There are half a dozen ways to do this. Your cPanel has one, use it and download a full copy. If you know your way around phpMyAdmin, export all the databases into a zip file and keep a copy in your local PC. This is a good method if you have other scripts installed, like a photo gallery or Wordpress hacks and plugins that use the database. Install a WordPress DB backup plugin (if you are running WP). This way you can download a backup everyday with little or no effort at all. (see related entry on How to Survive a Blog Crash)
  5. Compatible permalink structure. Check if the new blog platform is able to duplicate the permalink structure of your old blog. You don’t want to loose all that traffic from search engine do you? If you are using MovableType or TypePad with their static and truncated pages, WordPress might not be able to duplicate it since it’s using standard/custom URLs. Expression Engine, TextPattern, WordPress and Drupal seems to be compatible with each other on this aspect.
  6. Seek professional help if possible or at least ask someone more experienced to assist you just in case you screw things up in between migration. That’s self-explanatory.
  7. Check out the support forums for both the old platform and the new one. Look for other bloggers who have gone thru the same process before you. They could provide valuable first-hand tips and information that you’ll need. You could also get feedback if the stock import utility you are planning to use runs perfectly well or still has some bugs that needs fixing. That should tip you off for a possible work-around.
  8. Schedule your migration well. By checking your monthly stats, you will have a good idea which day of the week and what time it is best to do the migration. Map a timeline from the start of your export to the time of your import and make an estimate on how long it will take you to do the whole process.
  9. Make sure you have reliable and fast internet connection. While broadband is widely available, there are still a lot of people connected thru dial-up. It would be agonizing to do the migration when you’re on dial-up so go get some broadband first or ask a friend if you can visit them one day and use his PC & DSL line.
  10. Inform your host about the migration. The migration process could shoot up the server’s load especially during cPanel backup/restore. This way, they are aware of it and could even give you some slack or an extra hand. Some web hosting providers put a cap on how much load you can put on their shared servers (somewhere between 10-20% if the CPU resources)

    11. and they could suspend your account if that happens.

Always have a Plan B. If the migration fails, you can always restore back from your backup, review your process and see where you got it wrong, and do it some other day. This is to minimize your blog’s downtime which could cost you more in lost of revenue.

permalink

The stupid congressman strikes back!

Published by: yuga under: The Internet. 8 replies

posted: December 28th, 2005 (Visited 3471 times)

Remember Rep. Joseph Santiago blaming broadband for the proliferation of porn in the country? Well, he back again lashing at 3G networks.

A lawmaker has raised the red flag over the future proliferation of pornography over faster mobile networks like the 3G (third-generation) networks.

“The advance of broadband or high-speed Internet access, coupled with the coming of 3G mobile telecommunications technology, will surely open the floodgates to the cell phone delivery of pornography,” Catanduanes Representative Joseph Santiago said this week in a statement. (full story over at Inq7.net)

Just great.

permalink

Playing Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Published by: yuga under: PC Gaming. 3 replies

posted: December 28th, 2005 (Visited 4162 times)

Been playing Diablo 2 since yesterday after I found my old game installers in the closet. Reminds me of the good old days back in college when I first encounter Diablo (I think I was in 3rd year then). I spent many sleepness nights trying to get me into the next level and ramp up my character’s profile and stats. I practically wasted an entire semester playing all night and in between classes all day. Then, I’d switch with a room mate so he could play while I’m at a class and I get my turn when I’m back.

Aside from EA Sports, Blizzard Entertainment is one of the top game developers out there (at least for me back in the late 1990’s) with Warcraft and Diablo getting most of my playing time.

It’s nice to have them on your PC once in a while to throw back the stress and just relax (if you can call it that way). I rarely get into a playing new games lately because it could take much of my time learnign the ropes, reading up tips and tricks, which could basically get me too addicted to it until I finishthe whole thing or my eyes get hurt for staying 24 hours in front of my PC.

Well, unles it’s World of Warcraft. :D

permalink

What happens to your blog when you’re indisposed?

Published by: yuga under: Daily Dose. 1 reply

posted: December 28th, 2005 (Visited 1612 times)

Over at Performancing, they asked about what to do with your blog when you die as discussed in one of the WebmasterWorld’s threads. I don’t want to use the word “death” in the title here so I am using “indisposed”. Besides, there are other less extreme cases when you and your blog are torn apart (how about disability?)

Anyway, my blogs are the least of my concerns actually. There are far worse financial/economic tragedies that could result if I happen to be indisposed. I have talked about this about almost a year ago when one of my business partners passed away. He used to do our financials for our business back then and almost everything went awry as we were not properly equipped to handle such situations — bank accounts, SEC registrations, BIR, documents, contacts, online accounts, applications, almost everything. We were a start-up company then so we handled things on an as needed basis.

After that, we came up with a redundancy plan so that no less than 2 people have access to whatever information, documents or finances related to the business.

That also gave me some thoughts about my own situation. I’m living alone here in the city while all of my family are back in the province. What happens when I’m indisposed? Well, I wrote down all my bank accounts, credit card accounts, list of properties, collectibles, insurance, legal documents and whatnot, put them in a box and wrote down instructions then told my younger brother what to do if such cases happen.

Just a thought I’d like to share.

permalink

WordPress 2.0 Released

Published by: yuga under: Wordpress. 6 replies

posted: December 27th, 2005 (Visited 4005 times)

Matt was switching server an hour back while preparing for the launch of WordPress 2.0. Every other WP blogger is anticipating this release since last week.

I am more interested with its built-in import utility which promises a smooth migration from any other blogging tool into WP2. I just hope it works well will Expression Engine, else we’re stuck with it for PinoyBlog.

Again, I don’t recommend upgrading your blog to WP 2.0 immediately (unless of course you’re installing it for the first time on a new blog). Could cause some glitches especially with your plugins and hacks. Let it slide for a couple of weeks first until all that post-launch bugs are fixed or your favorite plugins for 2.0 are released as well.

permalink

WordPress.com adds blogstats feature

Published by: yuga under: Wordpress. 2 replies

posted: December 27th, 2005 (Visited 2650 times)

Just notice this now that free blog hosting service WordPress.com has a built-in blog stats. I took a screenshot below:

wordpress stats

Reminds you of the WP-Shortstats plugin but a little bit simplier. It has a list of referrers which you can track for the last 7 days, top posts in terms of page views and search engine terms all tracked for the last 7 days. There’s also a graph of blog stats summary but that’s all (no unique visitor count).

The problem with WordPress.com though is you can update it with your own codes or your own theme. You can’t install plugins as well. That’s why not a lot of people are using it (and still stick with Blogspot). I guess all these feature must-haves will come out soon.

permalink

Philippine Blogging Movers & Shakers of 2005

Published by: yuga under: Blogosphere. 2 replies

posted: December 27th, 2005 (Visited 3145 times)

Connie & I have been contemplating on something like a blog awards over at PinoyBlog for months now but we don’t want anymore of those popularity contests.

What I had in mind was some sort of Movers & Shakers of 2005, much like what ITNetCentral did a few years back during the dot.com years. It’s not too late yet though but I’d like to throw out some questions and suggestions on how to go about it.

  • Who are the bloggers or blog that influenced you the most?
  • Which Filipino personalities/bloggers heavily contributed to the Philippine blogosphere?
  • Which bloggers or blogs created the biggest buzz this year?
  • What are the greatest and most notable achievements in Philippine blogging this year?
  • How has blogging influenced the Philippine society (even in a minuscule way or if at all)?
  • Has blogging increased online content readership?
  • How about in the academe? the press? or the government or judiciary? Have they made steps to incorporate blogging as a form of communication?
  • Has blogging made an impact on consumerism and brand awareness in the Philippines?

Share us some of your thoughts on these. (or maybe add some more questions on this list.)

permalink

The blogging fad will fade in 2006

Published by: yuga under: Blogosphere. 3 replies

posted: December 26th, 2005 (Visited 2650 times)

Gary Goldhammer writes on his blog about 2006: Year of The Vanishing Blogger and points out that blogging will evolve from being novelty to utility. “2006 is the year when blogging moves from novelty into the “utility” phase, where the mere act of blogging is subsumed by what is being published, as well as how to find, use and participate in that information.”

Blogging will be so common that everyone will have a blog. Gary adds that as technology becomes more essential, it becomes more invisible – and when everyone is blogging, there are no more “bloggers,” just people interacting in ways they never before could have imagined. After all, someone who talks on a telephone isn’t called a “phoner,” any more than someone who communicates via a blog today will be called a “blogger” tomorrow.

With blog giants such as WeblogsInc being incorporated into AOL and Gawker Media contents being syndicated into Yahoo, their uniqueness as being an indie blog network is reduced by being part of a huge content portal such as AOL and Yahoo!

While the west is not so ecstatic with blogging for 2006 (read Jason Calacanis’ prediction for 2006), the rest of Asia are just starting to get the feel of it.

permalink

Checking out the Performancing Firefox Extension

Published by: yuga under: Freewares. 1 reply

posted: December 25th, 2005 (Visited 1898 times)

(via WordPress and the Performancing Extension | Performancing.com )

I’m posting this blog entry using the recently released Performacing extension for Firefox. I waited for a couple more days after the released before using it as I’m pretty sure it will be getting some more updates as bugs are found and fixed. Still there are bugs to be found (I lost a sentence or two while switching editor windows) and there’s no option for future-post.

Fun to have with your Firefox and with more updates and feature upgrades in the coming weeks, this could pretty well be one of the top Firefox extensions of 2005.

Post-publish comments: The results after publish was okay except for a few glitches. Though you are able to select the Category of the entry, it still ends up in your default blog Category (needs fixing asap) and you’ll see some HTML tags (BR tags) whenever you edit the post in your native editor (i.e. WP Admin) along with extra spaces here and there.

permalink

Page 1 of 512345»
By N2H