Spiga

Search Engine Optimization: Your Own Way

I found this post worth reading and you will have a lot to learn about Search Engine Optimization for your blog or website. A little bit lengthy but it is worth your time and effort. Lorelle says:

Why Pay for Search Engine Optimization? Search engine optimization doesn’t cost, but not paying attention to search engine optimization costs you plenty. The following are tips, techniques, and the tools you need to create a search engine friendly website or blog. If you are not familiar with SEO and search engine page ranking,SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the technique of fixing code, writing keywords, and making your site an open door to search engines to come in and explore.
Read more...

Undergone a facelift

Recently I have been modifying my blog due to some glitches in the template that I use previously. If you have been visiting my blog in this few days you've probably notice some pictures of photobucket plastered in all my blog page. The reason is that the creator of the template that I use has exhausted his/her bandwidth allocation in photobucket and am forced to revert to the classic blogger template and start all over again. I really like that template from B-theme but sad to say I must ditch it. So I replaced it with this new template and been thinking of backing this one up with my own images so that it will not happen again. My apology for what happened, hope you are not discourage to visit this blog again.

Blogging and the Lego Legacy

Today Google paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of Lego Bricks by creating the homepage logo the Lego bricks style.Everybody knows what Lego is but for everyones information it is a line of building toys that consist of plastic bricks in different colors that interlocks when you assemble and connect them in many different ways you can imagine,but the very name Lego is not the toys itself but the company behind the popular building toys.

Wikipedia has this info about the Lego Company history: "The Lego Group had a very humble beginning in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark. Christiansen began creating wooden toys in 1932; the company began calling itself "Lego" two years later in 1934. The company expanded to producing plastic toys in 1947. In 1949, Lego began producing the now-famous interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based largely on the design of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which were released in the UK in 1947. The first Lego bricks, manufactured from cellulose acetate, were developed in the spirit of traditional wooden blocks that could be stacked upon one another; however, these plastic bricks could be "locked" together. They had several round "studs" on top, and a hollow rectangular bottom. The blocks snapped together, but not so tightly that they could not be pulled apart.

The company name Lego was coined by Christiansen from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well". The name could also be interpreted as "I put together" or "I assemble" in Latin, though this would be a somewhat forced application of the general sense "I collect; I gather; I learn"; the word is most used in the derived sense, "I read". The cognate Greek verb "λέγω" or "lego" also means "gather, pick up", but this can include constructing a stone wall."
By the definition and meaning of Lego and its legacy we can derive a good inspiration with and how to make our blog.The Latin meaning of lego in the general sense - "I collect; I gather; I learn" can also be applied to how we construct a blog.

  • Collecting. In making a blog we try to collect, our thoughts, we make a plan, theme and concept of our blog.Always focus on what your blog is all about and make the design and concept blends with it.

  • Gathering. In blogging we gather information and ideas on how to make our blog more enjoyable and in some sense "marketable" to the whole blogosphere. And again,focus on the main idea and intention of your blog and be consistent about it.

  • Learning. Blogging is an ongoing process of learning something along the way. Don't get prostrated if as a new blogger your ideas is not that popular, anyway popularity is not inherited it is earned the hard way. Learning also means patience and persistent in what you have started.

The lesson from the humble beginning of this great company that caters to children and even adults is an appropriate aid to help bloggers to go and continue in what we are doing despite the odds of not getting notice at once. The main point is persistence, consistency, determination and focus on what we are doing.

Are you Addicted to Technology?



Here is a post that I have found interesting to share here. Research finds that there is such a thing as addiction to technology.

They're not called "Crackberries" for nothing. Some people may be as addicted to Blackberries and other personal electronics as junkies are to drugs, according to John O'Neill, director of addictions services for the Menninger Clinic in Houston.

These over-wired people are so focused on their gadgets, they neglect relationships with other people, O'Neill said. Communication aids such as texting and e-mail may actually hamper our abilities to have more important face-to-face conversations.

But some experts object to labeling the techno-savvy as addicts without verifying that they meet the precise psychological definition of addiction.....

read more | computers

A blog portal called "BlogFlux"


Are you familiar with this blog directory? If not here is a short review of what this blog site directory has to offer for all bloggers. Blog Flux's goal is to be a single source of services for bloggers-that's what they said in their about page. They aim to be a blog portal that offers a variety of blog services all from one easy to use site.They offer the following services for free:

  • Blog listing. All you have to do is sign-up and create your account then add your blog and wait for it to be approve. The administrator will manually review your blog if it qualifies to be added to their directory of blogs.They will send you a notification through e-mail whether your blog is listed or rejected. They are featuring at least as of this posting 101,475 blogs.

  • Button maker. Where you can make buttons for your blog it is an 80X15 and 80x13 size button similar to what blogcatalog, mybloglog and other blogging portals used but in this case you can customize you button to suit your preference.

  • Email Scramble. Make your email accessible only to anyone visiting your blog, but hidden from spam bots. I like this feature for I hate spam in my mailbox as much as you do, but I like the one in can for breakfast!

  • Quick RSS links. Reduce the clutter on your blog. Instead of linking to twenty different RSS readers, you can use their service to provide readers with quick links to various subscription options.

  • Who's Online. Tracks the number of users on your blog in the last five minutes, and map their location with information on what page they are reading.
  • Pagerank Checker Know where your blog is in the Google ranking.

You can ping other sites to let them know you have updated your blog.
Create your own Poll and post it in your blog and added to that you can edit the way you want your poll to look like, you can choose the font, color and background for your poll.
Download a theme for your blog either wordpress, blogger or any of the popular blog software you are using.
They also features forum to show off your blog or learn how to make money from blogging by just joining the conversation at there forums.
All of these features from Blog Flux is FREE! And you get your blog exposed more with this blog portal all for FREE! I have added mine but still awaiting approval from the administrator.
Click the button to go to this site and add your blog. Blog Directory

The other side of Blogging



Blogging in my point of view does not consist only of creating a better, planned and well written content. It is just one of the factor to get a big following when blogging. Have you ever seen an advertisement on TV or just on the sidebar of a blog or website. What I have notice is the presentation of an ads aside from the wordings describing that advertisement.
What I am trying to point is that when blogging bloggers must also have in mind how he must present the content of his own blog to get attention from the readers, right!So a readable blog consist of the following:

content + presentation(design and arrangement) = a readable or presentable blog.


Content. Well this is the necessary thing in blogging. Whether your blog is all about pictures, videos, music, plain text or a combination of both without this it isn't a blog afterall. Often times I've seen some blogs who only posted affiliates and advertisement as the content of a blog and it isn't appealing in my own view. How can you get a good following if all you have posted in your blog is all ads, ads and more ads. Although we can not do away with this ads since we also need some gratuity from this sector of the web, when posting ads I think it is advisable to put it in the sidebar and should not be a distraction from the main blog content.

Presentation. In presentation what I mean is the choice of design and the blend of color to the content of a blog. Since my intent is to point out this other aspect of blogging I need to elaborate on this part more.Well, I always view a blog like a room and the blogger as the owner. When I try to make my room livable to visitors and friends I need to keep it neat and tidy all the time. I see this comparison to a blog and the blogger. For my blog to get attention from the viewers and visitors I need to do the following:

  • Choose a good design and template for my blog. It is just like choosing the right floor plan for my room. A good template and design makes a blog more appealing to the visitors.
  • Choose a good blend of colors for a blog. Same when you try to paint a room a good selection of paint is what makes a room cool and nice, same with a blog a well blended color makes a blog more attractive and viewable.
  • Make a good arrangement of your post, the headers, footers, sidebars add-ons. Don't leave a blog in a mess and full or clutter. Try to place your ads in an orderly manner so that it is not a distraction to your visitors put them on the proper place in the sidebar of somewhere else that it is not the center of attraction. Visitors shy away from blogs who is cluttered too much with ads that it doesn't looks like a blog anymore but more of an adboard.

That's all for today folks! What else that I didn't mention here you're free to add in the comment.

MacBook Craze II


On the users side, the Mac's OS X is relatively easy to use. The addition of new features in the latest Leopard release -- such as the slick Time Machine backup utility and Spaces, which lets users create multiple, task-centric virtual desktops -- only serves to burnish that reputation.

And Macs are considered more stable than Windows, with fewer spyware and virus problems, which translate into fewer help desk calls.

But that's not what has IT's attention.

The surge of interest in the Mac is a direct result of two developments from 2006: first, the evolution of more Windows-friendly, Intel X86-based Macs, and second, the introduction of Boot Camp, which allows a full Windows environment and its complement of applications to run natively in a separate hard drive partition on any Mac.

Boot Camp, in particular, garnered a lot of attention out the gate. According to Apple, 1.5 million copies of the beta version of Boot Camp were downloaded before the program's release as part of the Leopard version of OS X. The full integration of Boot Camp into Leopard has spurred some IT managers to actively review the potential of OS X as an alternative for general business computing.
So I put up a simple survey on the side bar of this blog just to know how popular the Mac family in the whole known universe of Computing which I in my own capacity is unaware of, so have your say on this.

Blog Trivia: How to open a beer bottle using a dollar bill!

Have you ever tried these? Here is how to do it. I have taken it from wikiHow just for a trivia and to have some tricks to show with your friends or drinking buddy and it is cool that you can even impress your girlfriend with it.



from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Once perfected, this trick can definitely impress your friends. It can also help you win bets like "So if I can open my beer using only your $20 bill do I get to keep it?"

Steps

  1. Fold the dollar bill in half.
  2. Roll up the dollar bill as tightly as you possibly can.
  3. Bend the rolled dollar bill in half to maximize the pressure at the bend.
  4. Put it on top of your bent index finger and hold it tightly in place with your thumb, with the bent part sticking out.
  5. Grab the bottle around its neck and push the cap upwards with the bend in the dollar bill until it pops off.


Tips

  • It takes a lot of practice and reasonable arm strength to perform this trick.
  • It helps if you use the hand you're holding the bottle with to get leverage by using it as a fulcrum.
  • First learn to do this with another bottle, then you'll understand how to use a dollar bill. It's all about using the object as a lever.
  • A lighter can also be used in same way.
  • Damaging the bill is only a crime in the United States if done "with intent to render [it] unfit to be reissued." [1]

Warnings

  • Take care you don't rake your fingers across the edge of the bottle cap. The cap is sharp and you WILL get a deep cut.
  • Make sure you don't hit your eyes or anyone else's when the cap pops off.
  • Don't shake the bottle before opening it.
  • Drink responsibly.
  • Winning bets against drunks can be hazardous to your health.

Related wikiHows


Sources and Citations

  1. Defacement of Currency from The United States Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Open a Beer Bottle With a Dollar Bill. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

The MacBook Craze!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The MacBook is a Macintosh notebook computer by Apple Inc. that replaced the iBook G4 series and the 12" PowerBook G4. It is a part of the MacBook family.

The original MacBook was released on May 16, 2006 and utilised the Intel 945GM chipset and the Intel Core Duo processor. Some of these early MacBooks had problems with "random shut downs". According to Apple, software and firmware updates have solved the issue.


The latest update to the MacBook line occurred on November 1, 2007. It utilises the Core 2 Duo processor and the GM965 chipset, which runs a 800 MHz front-side bus and Intel's X3100 integrated graphics.And the newest addition to the MacBook line is the recently unvieled MacBook Air wich was introduced during the Macworld Expo on the 15th of this Month.
The MacBook Air features a silvery aluminum casing which is fully recyclable, Greenpeace would be happy about that since Apple have frequently been in the crosshair with this environtmental group and added to that the CEO Steve Jobs explained further that it is "the first" to have a mercury-free display with arsenic-free glass, another points for them fom Greenpeace huh!

Aside from this new addition to the MacBook family also features a 1.8-inch hard disk drive with 80 GB of storage capacity standard. A 64GB SSD drive is optional. The hard drive is a PATA model at 4200rpm. It is powered by Intel Core 2 Dou chip at a speed of 1.6GHz, with 1.8GHz available optionally. The Intel chip operates with 4MB of on-chip shared L2 cache running at full speed, and utilizes an 800MHz frontside bus. A 2GB of 667MH DDR2 SDRAM included.

Like its predecessor, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, the Air features a slimmed down Mag Safe connector for power with 45 watt power adapter.802.11n-based wireless networking support and Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR included.

Lastly this new member of the MacBook family is small enough to fit inside an interoffice mailing envelope.

undergoing MyBlogLog verification | fashion

About Blogger.com

Without offense to the founder and staff of Blogger.com I just want to have some few comments about using this platform for bloggers like me. Blogger.com has indeed lots to offer every bloggers in the world. It features widgets to add on your blog, costumization of your template design,monetization of your blogs using adsense and other third party ads, an open ID system capability which I think is recently added and other features similar too other blogging platform like Wordpress, Typepad and LiveJournal. This blogging platform if I am not mistaken is the first blogging platform in the beginning of blogging, others just come around recently or a year after Blogger.com is launched. I love this platform since here I begin to create my first blog which I did not give too much attention then because I am not too often posting blogs back in 2005. The only thing that I observe about Blogger.com as compared to Wordpress is in the editing of your post and template design, I just don't know if all who uses Blogger.com has the same experience as I have. You see when you edit your post or you make a new ones or you redesign your template it takes at least 10-12 hours before you can see your post or the changes you make with your blogs and template design, but anyway I still love to use Blogger.com to make a blog. It is only my experience when I try to edit my blogs or post a new one or redesign my template, I just don't know if others have the same experience as I am. Maybe it is not Blogger.com's fault, maybe it is in the browser or the internet connection one has that makes Blogger.com's interface behave like that. Hope it is so.

Pro blogger: A possibility why not!

As a new blogger I always admire the pros in the blogosphere.
Aspiring to become one someday but that day I don't know for as of now
I don't know if what I am writing in my blog is of interest to the reader.
Sometimes I think I am a boring blogger of sort and always in a dilemma
whether I am making an interesting post or not, but as the saying goes
"there is no glory without sacrifice" so I just go on and post whatever I think
is interesting to share to others knowing that it will be worth reading.
How to become a pro blogger I don't know for the time being. What I know is that; this interesting people make it to the top of the blog world from humble beginning and they just go on despite the fact that there blog may or may not be followed by everyone in the blog world. I am an optimistic person, but when it comes to blogging I have a second thoughts whether I convey what I blog about effectively.
So what I do in my free time is to read the blogs of the pros and try to get some ideas and insights that there blogs can offer and just ponder about it, then I just go on and continue what I have started.
I am not that good in writing things interestingly, but still I continue to blog and do my best to try and imitate the pros and make them my inspiration by what they have become knowing someday, somehow I would be able to reach that level and become one of them.....
Oh! It's just a dream, but it could become a reality....someday.

Blog: What, Why and How?

Blog is a website where entries are commonly displayed in chronological order. It is an interactive form of website where users don't need knowledge about HTML codes to be able to use them. Blog has revolutionized the internet in the way it is used. Blog nowadays is the main medium of communications. A blog can be a personal one just like a journal or a diary, it can be a collection of photos, videos, music or audio or made to promote a business or news items.

There a lots of things you can do using a blog.The most important thing in making a blog is that you must have :
1. A good planning and concept.You must have a central theme for your blog.What you want to share about? Do you want to share about your recent travels or your photos or simply you thoughts about anything you like.
2. You must have an objective for your blog. What is your goal for blogging? Is it just to make others know what you can share or for getting some extra bucks or both ot them.
3. Always plan and make a draft of things you are about to blog so that your grammar and syntax is correct, viewers and visitors to your blog often would ignore yourblog if it contains wrong grammar; of course this is if you are blogging in English.
4. Choose a good blog template often blog designs helps in getting you notice.There are plenty of templates to choose from in the web. Here some few sites to get your own templates:
Freetemplates
BlogTemplates
Template Panic
5. Always have a good, well written concept and ideas to blog about.

This are just a few ideas of what I think is the things new bloggers like me should do. And the rest you can consult the experts and pros in the blog world:
Problogger.net Mr. Problogger has lot to say about blogs and blogging.

Consumer's Information, tips and tricks to get you heard!

Sick of having your complaints ignored, being ripped off and getting the short end of the stick?

Here are 52 great sites, services and secrets to help shoppers, road warriors, home owners and all types of consumers. There are tips on how to complain effectively, protect your privacy, talk to a real person, get free stuff and fight back when the system is unfair! I have stumble this great site to help out consumers on how to, where to go, and recommends sites on how to find things you needed. Read more here...

fashion

About Wordpress

The good thing with WordPress.com is that it features the following advantages:
It is free!You can get a blog started in less time than it takes you to read this sentence. All you need is an email address and a name. You can blog as much as you want for free, your blog can be public to the world or private for just your friends, and the paid upgrades are completely optional.
Dozen of great themes to choose from.
You can change the look of your blog with over 60 attractive themes ranging from professional to fun to crazy, and you can switch themes instantly with just a click of a button. Each theme allows you to customize your sidebar using widgets, and several themes let you upload your own photo or image for the header bar. They add themes regularly based on user requests. If you’re a CSS pro, you can also customize your CSS code.
You can categorize and tag your post.
WordPress.com includes an easy system which allows you to categorize and tag your posts while you write them. They automatically create archives based on your categories and add them to their global tag system and their tag surfer, so you get extra traffic as other people interested in the same topics as you will find your post and leave comments on your blog.
Spell-check, Previews, Autosave, Words, Photos, Videos
You can upload your own photos or easily include images from other services like Flickr or Photobucket. You can even embed videos from places like YouTube or Google. To keep you from looking too silly, they include an inline spell-checker that makes it easy to proof your posts. They also have a preview feature that shows you exactly what your post or page will look like before you publish them for the world to see.
Integrated Stats System, which gives you up-to-the-minute stats on how many people are visiting your blog, where they’re coming from, which posts are most popular, and which search engine terms are sending people to your blog.
Automatic Spam Protection using Akismet,the world’s best comment and trackback spam technology. It blocks spammers from leaving spam comments on your blog.
You can import from Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal, and More.
You can add “widgets” to your sidebar and rearrange them without touching any HTML code or messing up your blog. Just drag and drop the sidebar widgets around, and instantly you can have fun stuff in your sidebar.
WordPress.com has a feature called “pages” which allows you to easily create web pages. For example, you could add an “about me” page with your biography, and a link to that page would be automatically added to your sidebar. You can even create an entire web site using pages on WordPress.com, with a custom home page and your blog as one of the sub-pages.
And this is an Open source.
The only thing that you are not allowed when using these platform for free is that "NO ADS WHATSOEVER IS ALLOWED" or they will delete your account with them. The free account is intended for serious and purely blog only, but if you want to monetize your blog you can use there platform in another web hosting sites that is compatible with Wordpress or accept these platform.
I use this in one of my blog about technology and life.

technology | computers |

How to act in case of an Emergency

Do you know how to act in case you've witness an emergency? Like you've seen someone collapse. I want to share this to everyone just in case you've encounter such situation in your workplace or in your home.
In case of an emergency the best thing you must put in mind is "DON'T PANIC", be calm and assess the situation.
If you see a victim collapse the first thing you must do is:

1. First assess the situation around you. Is it chaotic, hostile or dangerous.
2. Call for help or call your local emergency alert number, like 911.
3. Assess the victim's response. Is he responding to your voice, your tap or no response at all.
3. If the victim is responding to your voice or your tap ask him the problem and assure him of your presence and assistance.
4. If the victim is not responding to any stimulus. Assess the airway if it is patent or there is no visible obstruction in the mouth, if there is any and you can see it try removing it by hand sweeping. Then try to grab the head and the chin and push them up in synchrony as if you try to let the victim look up, but do it lightly.
5. Assess the victim if he is breathing or not by moving your head close to him look for the chest if rising, listen if there is a breathing noise and feel if there is an air rushing out and in.
6. If you don't see all this things place your hands one over the other in the center of the victim's chest and push hard 1 1/2inch for a cycle of 15 compression and then give the victim a two breath and repeat the cycle again, until the ambulance and medic arrive.
By this you can save lives and prevent the further deterioration of the victim's condition.

Getting traffic to your blog or website

Lots of bloggers have already written about how to get much traffic to your blog or website. And I do follow suit of writing my own how to get traffic to a website or blog. So here we go:

1. If you have a blog try signing up to the following social networks and RSS readers.
-Blogcatalog.com perhaps everyone is familiar with this social network site to register your blog and be seen.
-AboutUs.org. This is a collaborative website. Feel free to make constructive edits anywhere you see fit. Here you can upload your blog or website and let others view and edit it is a wiki page.
-Feedburner.com. You know about feedburner it burns your rss feeds and let others subscribe to it.
-Netvibes.com. A web 2.0 application where you can have an all in one user interface, resources, other blogs, news and your own blog RSS feed.
-Technorati.com Technoratize your blog with this blog catalog.
-Digg.com Let your blogs and website be digg by others and digg something for yourself too.
-Stumbleupon.com.Channel surf the internet with the StumbleUpon toolbar to find great websites, videos, photos and more based on your interests. StumbleUpon learns what you like and makes better recommendations. Connect with friends and share your discoveries, meet people that have similar interests, and check out what other people are discovering.
These are just a few of many other tools to get traffic to your blog.You can discover it yourself and perhaps you are more knowledgeable than I am on this matter.

About getting traffic to your website what is necessary is that
First let Google, Yahoo or Altavista index your site by creating a sitemap you can use Coffeecup.com Googlesitemapper tools that they have for trial. By placing a sitemap file on your Website, you enable Google and other search engines to find out what pages are present, which have recently changed and have them spider your Website accordingly. Using Sitemaps allow you to inform and direct Google and other search engines what content you have available on your Website.
Or try and join this linksharing sites:
Linkreferral.com
Trafficswarm.com
I personally have an account with this two linking site it is not an autosurf but a manual surfing for other advertisers on there system. It is fun and free.

That's all folks! If you have some other sites to recommend just leave a comment and I will try them myself. Let's share resources and information.

How to make money from your blog or website

As I post this "How to" here the rest of the blogosphere is relishing there share of income from the giants of web advertising the likes of Google, Yahoo, Chitika, Overture and other PPC advertising. and maybe someone has already blog about this scheme but I still want to share mine hoping that I still have something to share about this topic. Here I go:
First you have to have a blog or website in order to start earning.
Next you have to create an account in one of this PPC company or whatever you may call them.
Try them at your own discretion:
1. Sign up and create an account if you have none with Google.com to monetize your blog or website using Adsense. And then try one of this revenue sharing websites:
PayperPost. Get paid to blog about the things you love or just refer others and earn $15 per referral.

Earn $$ with WidgetBucks!
Widgetbucks.com With WidgetBucks' Referral program, affiliates can earn a 10 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people you refer. Affiliates receive this 10 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins. And you can also earn from using there widgets just like Google but it is more than text ads it uses widgets and more appealling to the viewer where they can rate the products being displayed.





Bidvertiser.com Use this PPC website if you are ban from using adsense to monetize your blog or website a good alternative for Adsense if you are banned from using it.

That's all folks. These are the programs and sites that I use to monetize my site and blog.

Delimma of a New Blogger

I have been blogging since 2006 but I can not make up my mind what particular kind of blogs and topics to blog. I am not a good writer perhaps and been too pessimistic about what I have written and posted on my blog whether it is informative or just a musing of a desperate blogger in order to have just a post and earn a meager income from a blog. But anyway I still pursue and try to post anything that I've gather from the internet any information that I think is beneficial to anybody I try to post it. Now here I am again trying to create another blog just to make up my mind what really is my niche in the blog world. I have created this blog to try to earn a niche and income from what I have posted so here I go again.