Wash, rinse and repeat…

They say that if you have a proven and tested way of solving things, get on with it and don’t deviate from the usual approach. But what if that doesn’t solve it? Well, think outside the box. Just don’t re-invent the wheel.

See more tidbits after the jump.

• Evan Hamilton, Flock Community Ambassador, left a comment asking how they can make the new Flock 0.9 better interact with the user. I had a minor issue with the orange media bar popping all the time. Anybody has a better idea? Leave a comment here or email him directly (he left his email address in the comments).
• An unknown book author wanted to market his upcoming book. It’s his first book so he wanted some viral ways to generate leads up until the launch date. I said a blog will showcase his talents as a fiction writer. Tickle the readers’ imagination to convince them to get more of the juicy stories in the book. If the book is really good, it should sell by itself.
• A full-time System Administrator emailed me asking for advise on doing online freelance jobs to earn on the side while he’s doing nothing slacking at work. He inquires about problogging but any other stints would do. I wrote some quick tips before on other ways to make money online. Worth revisiting the whole idea of e-Lance.
• Anybody on Yahoo! Hosting will agree with me that their hosting environment is just a pain in the butt especially if you’re running WordPress. They even give you a customized plugin just so the pretty permalinks would work. Problem is, it makes the RSS feed go whack and disappear. A reader asks if anybody has a similar experience.
• A reader left a comment and asks why hasn’t Paypal opened its full features for its Philippine userbase. And it’s already past the second quarter of 2007! I’m still using Xoom to do transactions with other Paypal users though.
• Yahoo! Publishers Network is still emailing me about their YPN program. Thanks but no thanks! I still can’t get in! Go international please, and real soon.
• Noemi got disgusted when she realized that a young and very promising Filipino blogger is being “coached” by his dad. And that’s using the word “coach” mildly.
• The Anointed CEO asks what do you guys thinks of this souped-up commenting system — Intense Debate. Haven’t tried it yet but looks like the feature set rocks — threaded comments, reputation, tracking and stats. However, several existing WP plugins combined might also achieve the same results thru the legacy comment system. I use the Better Comments Manager plugin.
• Hezron Mariano is doing a small SEO contest for Filipino bloggers. Free multiple domains for the top 3 winners. Check it out.
• Verizon gets 10 Billion SMS messages per month. In the Philippines, we get 1 Billion a day. ‘Nuf said.

Some more interesting links — Funniest Geek Quotes by Jaypee; t-shirt ideas dude! Drew released Daily Top 10 Posts Improvements; loved seeing some of my ideas lift the ground. An iPod on the Nintendo DS Lite; the more reason I want one.

Marc is in a pickle. He got a 1GB DDR2 RAM for Php1,500. Turns out the Php1,500 is for 512MB only. The store wants him to choke up another grand. It’s their mistake, obviously, but should he?

Microtel, the chain of hotels, invited a bunch of travel and photo bloggers to a dinner last floody Wednesday. During dinner, we discussed with the management about blog disclosures and they were happy to oblige. ReadWriteWeb explains it’s not whether you should or shouldn’t but when and what. I say before it happens, not after.

Nokia is launching a new line of mobile phones and introducing some new bleeding-edge mobile games as well. I will be attending this launch this August 29-31 in Singapore (insert disclosure here: all expenses paid by the company). Watch out for my coverage of the event here.

And here’s to all my friends who badly need some financial coaching.