Bisaya Bloggers

The Cure For Blogging Burnout

Blogger Conversations

As my interest in updating this blog started to wane, I had the good fortune of talking to two fellow bloggers who so unselfishly shared their blogging experiences with me. Over cups of the usual overpriced coffee, we talked about our attempts at making money (in my case, not making money) online. Bloggista is very excited about a couple of products that he will be launching soon. I can’t be very specific about these products at the moment but once he’s released those, I will be one of his rahrah guys and will blog about them here. Ceblogger is unflappable as usual, but as we go back a long time, we exchanged a few war stories (before Bloggista joined us) which only served to remind both of us how mellowed we have become over time.

I must say that talking to these two outstanding bloggers have, in a way, reinvigorated my waning desire to regularly update my site. Bloggista’s enthusiasm is just contagious! This post is a testament to that.

Small World

Who would have thought that Bloggista would turn out to be an old mate? One that I haven’t seen for ages! I couldn’t believe my eyes when he approached our table and introduced himself. I didn’t realize that he’s into blogging as well and that he’s actually the guy behind that very catchy domain name. What was supposed to be a first time meet-up with him turned out to be a reunion instead.

Cure For Burnout

I believe that having a conversation with our fellow bloggers is a salve to the blogging burnout that eventually every blogger will experience—considering that blogging is such a solitary activity. Conversing live in a language that every party to the conversation understands is very refreshing, a far cry from dialogues with non-blogger friends whose jaws tend to drop when you mention words such as dofollow, or phrases like ‘link baiting’.

If you’re in the same situation as I am, and you feel the strains of a burnout creeping in your blogging psyche, I would suggest that you schedule a meet-up with some of your blogger friends. After all, we are still human beings, and as social animals we have a primal need to connect with other human beings.

Sure, we talk to our cyberfriends and blog visitors all the time, but if you pause and think about it, all our instant messages and tweets and comments– these activities are poor excuses for actual dialogues where you can exchange smiles (not smileys) and laughter(not just typing lol). Remember, communications over the internet will always and forever be, just a conversation between you and your computer.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Blogging Burnout, burnout

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The Cure For Blogging Burnout

Blogger Conversations

As my interest in updating this blog started to wane, I had the good fortune of talking to two fellow bloggers who so unselfishly shared their blogging experiences with me. Over cups of the usual overpriced coffee, we talked about our attempts at making money (in my case, not making money) online. Bloggista is very excited about a couple of products that he will be launching soon. I can’t be very specific about these products at the moment but once he’s released those, I will be one of his rahrah guys and will blog about them here. Ceblogger is unflappable as usual, but as we go back a long time, we exchanged a few war stories (before Bloggista joined us) which only served to remind both of us how mellowed we have become over time.

I must say that talking to these two outstanding bloggers have, in a way, reinvigorated my waning desire to regularly update my site. Bloggista’s enthusiasm is just contagious! This post is a testament to that.

Small World

Who would have thought that Bloggista would turn out to be an old mate?  One that I haven’t seen for ages!  I couldn’t believe my eyes when he approached our table and introduced himself.  I didn’t realize that he’s into blogging as well and that he’s actually the guy behind that very catchy domain name.  What was supposed to be a first time meet-up with him turned out to be a reunion instead.

Cure For Burnout

I believe that having a conversation with our fellow bloggers is a salve to the blogging burnout that eventually every blogger will experience—considering that blogging is such a solitary activity. Conversing live in a language that every party to the conversation understands is very refreshing, a far cry from dialogues with non-blogger friends whose jaws tend to drop when you mention words such as dofollow, or phrases like ‘link baiting’. 

If you’re in the same situation as I am, and you feel the strains of a burnout creeping in your blogging psyche, I would suggest that you schedule a meet-up with some of your blogger friends. After all, we are still human beings, and as social animals we have a primal need to connect with other human beings.

Sure, we talk to our cyberfriends and blog visitors all the time, but if you pause and think about it, all our instant messages and tweets and comments– these activities are poor excuses for actual dialogues where you can exchange smiles (not smileys) and laughter(not just typing lol). Remember, communications over the internet will always and forever be, just a conversation between you and your computer.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, burnout, meet-ups

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Fred Jordan Mikhail T. Carnice
The Weekly Sillimanian
June 25, 2008

Last May, as if the Fates had been playing with my literary ambition of getting out of my post- emotional impasse, I became a fellow in the 47th Dumaguete Writers’ Workshop and 15th Iligan National Writing Workshop, for fiction and poetry respectively. Admissions to these gatherings, consisting of 15 carefully chosen aspirants from across the nation, are not determining indicators that one is excellent at the craft. I have always believed that everyone is a practicing writer, therefore, when it comes to workshops for budding writers, pride and ego are the least needed things.

Writing is just too guarded. In a publication, there are editors. In classrooms, there are professors. And supposedly, in the home, there are parents. A comma has to appear at the right place and a period has to feel like something has come to an end. Writing seems to be so sacred that with the influx of internet, when online writing or blogs started booming, every aspiring writer applauded. In this now-favored outlet, no one directs, no one hinders. For in cyberspace, there are no editors, no professors, and no parents. As blogs (which are usually known for narcissistic writings) prevail and become more popular, a lot of the discreetly self-proclaimed thinkers rise up and contradict their content due to its popularity.

There is no need to further elaborate what narcissistic writing is. Writing, in itself, is downright masturbatory, a lonely line of work wherein one has to enjoy it firsthand before everyone starts to love and appreciate the results. It’s kind of stupid to separate “self” from “writing.” Everything starts from the self. Blogs are diary or journal alternatives.

There’s too much pa-concern kuno in this time and age which makes for the pa-scholars to project television-quality concerns on high-brow issues of the world. Due to the dreariness of political, spiritual, and even metaphysical brouhaha, some (such as me) succumb to express write-ups in depressing tones, or perhaps an emotional pitch (which is then condensed into “emo,” as classified by the hypocrites). At least there are people who really feel, unlike those who have an emotional capacity of a paper clip. Thus the discussion about the smallest of things, may it be the dirt on a sleeve or a new music video, may provide the essential buffer to make life bearable.

Those who try to create a glossy impression still fail, even though they sugar-coat their statements with supposedly academic and mind-stimulating thoughts, because they’re just the ones who are trying to be someone else. This bunch of societal A-list wannabees is just overly-decorated with jaded eyeglasses, armed with a battery-powered mouth, clouded in an air of cerebral superiority that they’d just rant off direct quotations from the book of Immanuel Kant or Karl Marx for loss of things to discuss about someone’s personal opinion concerning Boy Abunda’s latest get-up.

If these people define what’s being sensible by conversing about the mysterious smile of McDonalds, the evolution of criticism, or the economic instability of our nation, well they’re better off at Fort Santiago’s dungeons with Beethoven’s deathly sonatas playing endlessly in the cold air. On the other hand, though their sixth degree synonym of an adjective—transforming “particular” to “circumstantial”—really impresses me for knowledge that exceeds a chimpanzee’s, I retain my composure and don’t mind. Clutter in cyberspace, eh? Besides, I think what’s only important in blogs is Google AdSense anyway.

If these writings are truly revolting and pathetic, how much more is that egotistical response of describing such kind of personal writing in the first place? Don’t people have the right to talk about a drinking session like an ode, or play with words about the afternoon rain like a poem, or transform the idea of hatred into a compact vignette? Well, those who do, go on! I have been doing this in my very own public blog and if someone comments that I’m like a high school drop-out who reads nothing that goes beyond the thickness of an Archie Double Digest, I’d slap in their faces the tome of The Great Critics or Science Explained. The alleged ludicrous writing, I hypothesize, grants online balance: light and heavy, funny and serious, important and the not-so-important-but-relatively-worth-knowing.

We have our own words to say. On the web, there’s no intellectual copyright but only intellectual arrogance. Since my intellectual faculties have already been mashed into pulp by the likes of Rowena Tiempo-Torrevillas, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Butch Dalisay, Leoncio Deriada, etcetera (know your literature kid), attacks toward my being too self-centered especially in blog writing are somewhat ineffective by now. As what I have said earlier, pride and ego are the least things needed.

* this is a revision of an old post
____________________________________________________

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I just wanna share new pics of my baby in the gallery. No new things goin’ on lately so I decided to upload more pics of my baby and I’ll probably add more soon.

Cheers…

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Today was blog cleanup day for me. Actually I started mucking about late last night with this Structure theme by Justin Tadlock. I’ve seen it on other blogs and I thought it simplified the layout and presentation of a blog.

But one thing I have learned in the past few hours is NEVER to update my blog’s template less than 24 hours after Chelsea loses to ManUTD, never after having had less than the adequate number of hours of sleep after watching the bloody game, and absolutely not on less than 3 cups of Basilan Coffee, ASG blend.

I had practiced on a local wampp installation of my blog and thought I could upload the new theme once I had the template settings down pat on my local computer. But what I didn’t realize is that my lousy categorization was going to create havoc on this theme.

I renamed some categories and removed ones I thought I didn’t need and now I’ve got posts showing up in category tabs that they’re not supposed to be in. I’m going to see what I can do about that from my wp-login but its starting to look like I’m going to get my hands dirty mucking about on phpmyadmin.

Wish me luck. And leave a comment please, on what you think about this new do.

This post is my entry to a blog competition over at FuelMyBlog sponsored by Tsheets.com.

Given my predisposition to blog at all times of the day, one would think that the first 5 minutes of my working time would be spent hunched in front of the computer, checking the previous night’s blog stats. While this may be a likely scenario (after all, my computer is just beside my bed and is running almost 24/7), this is actually not the case 99.99% of the time.

My working day's first 5 minutes is usually spent doing ceiling patrol. I scan my bedroom ceiling with my eyes, taking note of every crook and crevice while reviewing the previous day’s happenings and planning the things that I want to accomplish for the day. Of course at the back of my mind, I’m already itching to see if somebody has left a comment on my latest blog post, but I try to keep that urge under control.

Sometimes during these 5-minute reveries, I wonder if I’m not missing out on life with the kind of lifestyle that I lead. For most folks, a life lived 90% of the time in front of the computer is a terrible waste. But as we say in blogging, we have to find our niche, and this – blogging, being in front of the computer almost all the time – this is my niche. It may not mean much to some but this is where I believe I am happiest.

My daily 5-minute contemplation only serves to confirm that belief.

This post is my entry to a blog competition over at FuelMyBlog sponsored by Tsheets.com.

Given my predisposition to blog at all times of the day, one would think that the first 5 minutes of my working time would be spent hunched in front of the computer, checking the previous night’s blog stats. While this may be a likely scenario (after all, my computer is just beside my bed and is running almost 24/7), this is actually not the case 99.99% of the time.

My working day’s first 5 minutes is usually spent doing ceiling patrol. I scan my bedroom ceiling with my eyes, taking note of every crook and crevice while reviewing the previous day’s happenings and planning the things that I want to accomplish for the day. Of course at the back of my mind, I’m already itching to see if somebody has left a comment on my latest blog post, but I try to keep that urge under control.

Sometimes during these 5-minute reveries, I wonder if I’m not missing out on life with the kind of lifestyle that I lead. For most folks, a life lived 90% of the time in front of the computer is a terrible waste. But as we say in blogging, we have to find our niche, and this – blogging, being in front of the computer almost all the time – this is my niche. It may not mean much to some but this is where I believe I am happiest.

My daily 5-minute contemplation only serves to confirm that belief.

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It’s good to know that in this commercialized world there are still sites that aren’t all about making money. Oh, you still get to spend (or not spend) after seeing these sites, but only after a very thorough presentation of the good, the bad and the alternative.

One such site is ShopWiki.com, their Toys and Games Buying Guide in particular. It’s like a search engine results page for toys and games for kids, with drill-down, cross-linked pages that will keep you enthralled for hours. There’s even a section called Classic Kids Toys, where the Classic and Retro toys may make you relive your own childhood days in the backyard.

While other online shopping malls feature only stores and products that have bought advertising space, ShopWiki.com links to almost every online store, whether these stores are advertisers or not. When you have drilled down to the actual item you’d like to buy, the final step takes you straight into the online store’s website.

ShopWiki.com lets you explore your options as a buyer and gift-giver, and the bottom line is you end up with an item that you have really taken the time to evaluate and pick out.

Hotel Reservation is necessary when you are seeking the right place to stay. Whether you are seeking a place to hold a business conference or are simply passing through town, you need to have the very safest and most comfortable place to rest your head. You can easily find the hotel that you need. Enjoy the ease that comes with booking hotel reservation online.

Booking hotel reservation online Don’t risk going to a town without having the hotel reservation that you need for accommodations. When you need group bookings, family reunions, or short staying time, you can easily find the proper hotel accommodations right here on this site. By perusing the various hotels and locations throughout the nation, you will gain access to the many options that there are concerning your stay. Enjoy the booking process as much as you enjoy the hotel that you choose to stay at!

Online search hotels Search the wonderful hotels that there are throughout the nation with this site. When you book your hotel online you will be able to travel with ease. Know that you have a safe place to rest your head as soon as you arrive at your destination. Hotel reservation online is one the best aspects of the web technology. Safely arrive at your hotel and enjoy yourself. Beginning booking your hotel right now.

There are movies that restore your faith in human nature, even as they show how little faith other people may have. Films like The Green Mile, Syriana, Munich show the evil that men do, and what good men have done to counter it.

But when evil does not have a face, or too many faces that it becomes difficult to know where it is and how to stop it, things happen that make you wonder if having faith in human nature is a good thing in the first place. There are films that make you wonder what human nature really is.

I first heard about Untraceable while on the dnsstuff.com website, on my daily tasks at work. It touted the movie as having used the dnsstuff.com services as part of the movie’s technical background. The movie was shown in Manila last February without much fanfare. I suppose that’s primarily because Diane Lane really isn’t the typical Pinoy’s leading lady, not in the Anne Hathaway/Angelina Jolie/Cameron Diaz mould at all. But I have faith in Diane Lane and she’s never let me down, not in Murder at 1600, not in Unfaithful, and certainly not in this movie.

The movie also features Colin Hanks, whose voice is starting to sound more and more like his famous father’s. I’d only seen him twice: as Lt. Jones in Band of Brothers (ep. 8 The Last Patrol), and as one of the kids in That Thing You Do. I learned he was also in the later version of King Kong, but I haven’t seen that. Colin Hanks is one of the most underused actors in Hollywood, in my opinion.

Here is the synopsis from imdb.com:

A secret service agent, Jennifer Marsh (Lane), gets caught in a very personal and deadly cat-and-mouse game with a serial killer who knows that people (being what they are - both curious and drawn to the dark side of things) will log onto an “untraceable” website where he conducts violent and painful murders LIVE on the net. The more people who log on and enter the website, the quicker and more violently the victim dies.

Untraceable made me wonder about what human nature really is, apart from curiosity and the general belief that man is inherently good. That there are people that upload videos of unfortunate events on the internet, such as actual beheadings and snafu movies, there is no doubt. But the realization of how many people actually watch these videos and how they react to them made me think of what the internet has allowed people to become.

The website featured in the movie, www.killwithme.com is actually a site that not only promotes the film, but gives one a brief insight on how curiosity can actually kill more than a cat. When you load the site in your browser it warns you that proceding may cause harm to a human being, but knowing that it was a movie site, I clicked Enter anyway.

The second I did, I wondered what if it weren’t a movie site, what if I had been one of the anonymous surfers who had logged into the fictional site. Would have I clicked on, despite the warning?

Dear blogger, ever wonder who visit your blog? And where they come from? Or even what they visit in your blog?


Sitemeter can be a credible source enough to learn about them. Especially if your blog is pretty much like mine, where unique visits are few and far between. Currently, I get a little less than 40 unique visitors each day.


One or two are quite regular visitors, like fellow blogger PhilippinesPhil, and thus would not be representative for why a typical or casual visitor decides to open up on my site. Phil visits almost all blog entries I write, whether serious, fanciful, or even those which may be woefully adjudged by some as bordering on inanity.

But many (and I say that relatively and advisedly given my blog’s miniscule reach) span the entire globe – from Finland, to different African countries, to Palestinian occupied territories, to most Asian countries including the old homeland Philippines, and even to unfamiliar places like Stoke-at-the-Trent, UK. I have been introduced to so many unheard of places that Google had only been too happy to oblige. And for me it is addedly exhilarating to note that certain things I write about, which admittedly have some profound importance to me, are also sufficiently interesting to other people in the globe.

But what things?

When I wrote a little piece on Cartesian logic, really just a passing reference and a little exposition of its meaning, little did I realize that to this day I continue to get visits from different parts of the world, but more likely from France and neighboring European countries. Of course, this type of logic is oft described as a national trait of the French.

The same thing happened when I started the series on food recipes of the different regions of the Philippines. In any given cluster of visits, I could depend on one or two visits looking for recipes of regions they originally came from, that is, from Filipinos who are now living abroad pining for the local cuisine of their youth.

One time I wanted to find out what could make my blog garner more visits. And early on had decided that writing about a breaking news scoop could be a good vehicle. Try I did about a grisly suicide of an accused husband to a murdered Philippine actress, and immediately tripled my readership. Unfortunately, the spike did not correspondingly elate and elevate my spirits. It was sort of an empty victory. Don’t they refer to this as Pyrrhic victory? I wanted more, more in terms of what I felt was important for me too.

So immediately reverted to my usual tack, writing mostly about things that meant something to me, and as much as possible giving them a positive spin. This way I felt good about myself, and thus motivated me to regularly go back and reread the stuff I had written, not so much as an ego-trip but to try and relive the warm feelings engendered by my writing the entries.

Writing about the genealogies of my father, my mother, and my wife’s mother have also stirred continuing interest. Right now, the genealogy of my father’s family continues to get hits from around the globe which I suspect come from possible relatives who want to learn more about their past and relations.

But beyond this, and more like the wayward but equally delicious crust of a favorite pie, it also made me feel fuzzy to discover that strangers from some distant corners of the world, populated by people who do not even share commonly my background and predispositions could find some of my writings interesting enough to go and visit for a few minutes or so. Like entries about credit unions, some hobbies and pastimes, even deeply personal things such as sketches and drawings.

All these have helped make regular blogging to this day a sustaining effort for me.

Thanks to all visitors. You are most welcomed.

Yeah, I joined SocialSpark. SocialSpark comes from the same company as PayPerPost - Izea. It also provides several opportunities to earn from your blog. Another advantage of joining is that you can...

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Want to earn money? Meet and greet online friends at the same time? I’ve found a new way to do those things in one network! Join SocialSpark! Another innovation and is owned by IZEA, the same people who brought you PayPerPost! It’s the newest and the hippest online community where bloggers and advertisers meet!

So what makes it different from other blog paying sites? Aside from helping you monetize your blog, it would also help you build your own community – meaning gain online friends! And this will result to increased web traffic and increased web rank. Vote for your favorite blog by dropping “props”.

Other SocialSpark features:

100% Audit-able In-Post Disclosure – To prevent “conflict of interest”, in every post that you will take from SocialSpark will require you to paste a code at the end of your post that will serve as a disclosure badge.

100% Transparency – You will be able to see the advertisers profile!

100% Real Opinions - You can leave a comment on the advertiser and vice versa for the blogger!

100% Search Engine Friendly – This time you’ll never lose another page ran for writing a sponsored post! Why? Each sponsored post that you’ll make for SocialSpark carries a “no-follow” tag to protect YOU(bloggers) and YOU (advertisers) from getting penalties in search engines.

Isn’t it amazing? Monetizing and having fun at the same time! For as long as you have a blog that is 3 months old and has 10 posts in 30 days, you can join us and monetize your blogs now!

Convenience is one of the general features of the new WordPress 2.+ versions. Adding stuff to your sidebar has never been easier. Stuff that had been handled by external plugins in the earlier versions of WordPress are now built-in. They can also be added into your sidebar through drag and drop.

One of these built-in drag and drop features is the RSS feed widget. I’ve just added it myself on the second sidebar, which now features an RSS feed of Randy David’s columns in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

If your WordPress installation is at version 2 and up, you should be able to see the RSS widget when you click on Design > Widgets on your WordPress administration screen.

Once you’ve added it to the sidebar of your choice, you can then edit the widget to show the RSS feed that you would like to appear on your sidebar, in my case it looks like this:

When you’ve entered the necessary data, click on “Change” and then “Save Changes”. When you go to the front end (homepage) of your site, you should be able to see something similar to what I have under the Communities Badges on this site.

You can have more than one RSS feed on your sidebar, just keep dragging that RSS widget into the spot where you want them to appear and presto!

A couple of weeks ago I was at a client’s site on a meeting. The place was just across the Paco Park so I couldn’t resist skipping over to the historic park when the meeting was over. Sad thing was it was a Monday, and the park was closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Serves me right, I said to myself, after having lived in the Paco area (area of Merced and Herran) for the first six months of my solo return to Manila in 1999, and not having made the rounds when I could.

Similar regrets are not having gone up to Marawi City in the year that we lived in Lanao. I’d been to what was formerly known as Dansalan in 1995, when the Iligan National Writers Workshop scheduled a session there, but I’d never been back in the entire year that our new family lived just a couple of hours drive away. Not having gone to Cagayan de Oro to walk on the hanging bridges. Not having gone up the grotto in Baguio when we were there three summers ago, just to test myself if I could still make it to the top, where I once had my picture taken as a little girl.

Now that I’m (a lot) older I tend to not let opportunities that present themselves go by. Hence this quickie stop at the Paco Park. Bad timing, but good pictures, nevertheless.

When I was reading my article feeds in bloglines an image catches my attention from Copyblogger. I was wondering what the article contains so I got surprised when I read it. It says:

It sounds great and idealistic to just be completely yourself online, to strip naked on your blog and hope people will love you. In practice, it’s not just scary, it’s a good way to give yourself a ferocious case of writer’s block. Not to mention making life easier for the occasional wacko or stalker. Read more here.

The writer really points a good way of showing nakedness in blogging. So, let us all be naked.
Am not saying the usual way of being naked but being naked to get more attention of your readers and get a greater traffic also being as competitive like others.

For photo artist please visit Stockbridge Consultants

If you are one of the bloggers who have recently joined the Entrecard network and are now displaying that nifty widget (preferably above the fold) on your blog’s sidebar, congratulations. You have just opened your blog to a new universe of visitors.

There have been claims that entrecard dropping can be addictive. I think that all depends on how much time you have to go blog hopping. I have been on entrecard for almost a month and have received visits I would not have ordinarily received otherwise. I have also, through the Entrecard dashboard, have had the opportunity to visit other interesting blogs I would not have stumbled upon otherwise.

For the Entrecard noob these are the three most important screens on your administration panel, which you see when you are logged into your Entrecard account:

1. Your Dashboard - all activity on your account summarized on one page
2. Your Drops inbox - clickable through a tab on your dashboard, it contains the cards of Entrecard users who have dropped their cards on your widget.
3. Your advertisers - two columns on the left side of your dashboard, of Entrecard users who have put in a bid to advertise on your widget, and those whom you have approved.

Basically you get Entrecard points by visiting other blogs and dropping your card on their widget. You do that by clicking on the word “Drop” on an Entrecard widget. You will need to click on the word itself, as clicking just beside it may not give you any results.

You also get points when you approve advertisers on your widget. You can accumulate your points and use them to buy your own advert space on other Entrecard widgets.

There are numerous Entrecard strategy experts who can show you how you can use Entrecard account/widget/presence to its fullest potential. Two posts on Turnip Of Power are a must-read for one who has just signed up for an Entrecard account:

1. Top 5 Entrecard Tips and Tricks
2. Becoming an Entrecard Click Master

You will eventually read stuff about how Entrecard is actually bad for you as it raises your bounce rate and things like that. But I don’t want to treat Entrecard as just another way to search engine optimize my blog.

I see it as thousands of doorways that have been opened to me, into a blogging universe that I can explore, one card at a time.

One interesting thing related to links is the idea of a PR leakage. The PR theory is that a single link to another site counts as one editorial vote. Editorial votes are the building blocks of Page Rank. Accordingly, the higher the PR of the site doing the voting the bigger will be the impact come PR upgrade time. This also has a bearing on a particular site’s SERP standing.

Supposedly, PR leakage occurs when a certain blog has way too many outgoing links. When this happens that site’s voting power becomes less potent compared with others of the same PR but with way lesser outgoing links. That’s the general idea behind this concept.

Now whether you believe this concept is entirely up to you. I have read about this in several authoritative blogs but I have yet to read about a concrete example of this. Although this makes a lot of sense to me, I still wonder how this actually pans out. Will a blog with too many outgoing links be downgraded in the subsequent PR upgrade?

It seems improbable however that a blog, not a directory, would have that many outgoing links, unless you participate in one of those viral blog link thing, or you’re engaged in excessive reciprocal link exchanges. Now that’s something that you don’t want to be caught red handed now that you know better.

One interesting thing related to links is the idea of a PR leakage. The PR theory is that a single link to another site counts as one editorial vote. Editorial votes are the building blocks of Page Rank. Accordingly, the higher the PR of the site doing the voting the bigger will be the impact come PR upgrade time. This also has a bearing on a particular site’s SERP standing.

Supposedly, PR leakage occurs when a certain blog has way too many outgoing links. When this happens that site’s voting power becomes less potent compared with others of the same PR but with way lesser outgoing links. That’s the general idea behind this concept.

Now whether you believe this concept is entirely up to you. I have read about this in several authoritative blogs but I have yet to read about a concrete example of this. Although this makes a lot of sense to me, I still wonder how this actually pans out. Will a blog with too many outgoing links be downgraded in the subsequent PR upgrade?

It seems improbable however that a blog, not a directory, would have that many outgoing links, unless you participate in one of those viral blog link thing, or you’re engaged in excessive reciprocal link exchanges. Now that’s something that you don’t want to be caught red handed now that you know better.

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This is a tired subject for anyone who has been in the blogging business for a long time. This has been discussed at least a hundred times in webmaster forums and in blogs all over the internet. But to those new in the game, especially those who have aggressively sought link exchanges, here is a Google policy to ponder on;

Link Schemes

Your site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

• Links intended to manipulate PageRank
• Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
• Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
• Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

--source: Google Webmaster Help Center

If you remember your blog history, the last bullet point was what precipitated the first of many Google PR purges. But this is not the point of this article, the third bullet point is.

In the earlier days, the word ‘excessive’ was not included in the policy. Perhaps thinking that a puritanical view towards unnatural link development may be a bit unreasonable, Google added this term later on. Even then, the guideline is not that specific. There were no clear examples as to the application of this policy. A few quarters, for example, would have liked to peg a number to the term ‘excessive’.

Today, I see a lot of bloggers who would bloghop like crazy all over the internet in search for ex-links. Some can be quiet smooth about it while some can be really brazen. I am not privy to their motivations but some of these folks are only out there to increase their PR; link relevance be damned.

I have to a certain extent linked to other blogs that are not exactly related to the things that I write. Most of the time these are links to sites that I really like and/or whose owners are familiar to me. Still, I try to limit these instances to as few as possible.
Nevertheless, reciprocal linking is a tricky thing. On the one hand you have a surefire inbound link, something that every blogger desires, and on the other there’s the thought of violating Google’s webmaster guidelines on excessive link exchanges.

My opinion is that one has to exercise judgment when it comes to responding to those who would request for reciprocal link exchanges. The question that should come to everyone’s mind when deciding is – is this site relevant to yours, and would the site actually add value to what you offer your readers. If not (or even if it is, depending on your mood), then you can just flat out refuse.

Keep in mind that the best kind of links run on a one-way street, preferably those where the arrow point directly at you. Having good, quality content in your blog almost always ensures that you get a lot of these kind of link.

Got this about an hour ago from my cousin who normally doesn’t send me serious stuff. I’m supposed to forward this by email as well, but it may get more exposure here.

I took the test before I put this here, deciding to do so after being encouraged by the results. I didn’t realize how much I’d changed over the years. If I had taken this test five years ago I would have answered so much differently.

How you gonna see me now
Please don’t see me ugly babe
‘Cause I know I let you down
In oh so many ways

Albert Hofmann, father of mind-altering drug LSD, dies at 102

GENEVA – Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery grew into a notorious “problem child,” has died. He was 102.

Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris Stuker, a municipal clerk in the village near Basel where Hofmann moved following his retirement in 1971.

Hofmann’s hallucinogen inspired – and arguably corrupted – millions in the 1960s hippie generation. For decades after LSD was banned in the late 1960s, Hofmann defended his invention.

“I produced the substance as a medicine. … It’s not my fault if people abused it,” he once said.

I’m on my way, it’s you I turn to
How many days have I to love you
I got to say this is inside me
I’ve got to have someone to guide me
Hate it when you leave, hate it when you leave
Hate it when you’re leaving me

Hofmann himself took the drug – purportedly on an occasional basis and out of scientific interest – for several decades.

“LSD can help open your eyes,” he once said. “But there are other ways – meditation, dance, music, fasting.”

Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
What did her daddy do?
It’s Janie’s last I.O.U.
She had to take him down easy and put a bullet in his brain
She said ’cause nobody believes me. The man was such a sleeze.
He ain’t never gonna be the same.

Even so, the self-described “father” of LSD readily agreed that the drug was dangerous if in the wrong hands. This was reflected by the title of his 1979 book: “LSD - my problem child.”

In it he wrote that, “The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug.”

Ako’y may kaibigan
at sya’y nahihirapan
handa na ba kayong lahat
upang sya’y tulungan
Ang himig natin
ang inyong awitin
upang tayo’y magsama-sama
sa langit ng pag-asa

Hofmann’s last public appearance was at a Basel ceremony honoring him on his 100th birthday.

“This is really a high point in my advanced age,” Hofmann said. “You could say it is a consciousness-raising experience without LSD.”

We're all alone, avers a song. But now that connectivity is just at the tip of our fingertips in this Age of the Internet, isolation takes a common and ironic turn.

Along that line goes the gist of one of my recent columns "So To Speak" in the op-ed page of Sun.Star Cebu (April 24, 2008). Hereunder is the reprint:

Forgive my immodesty dear visitor, but if you will kindly direct your attention to your google toolbar, the part where they show the page rank of this blog, you may notice that there are far more green there than you may have been accustomed to.

That's right, google's at it again. The PR ranking system has been updated and I am, proudly and unabashedly, happy to say that my little PR 3 was given a little bump in the posterior. I thought it was just one of those residual PRs from other far more significant blogs, but when I checked it at prchecker.info and domainpr.com, my hopes were confirmed. This blog's page rank is now at sweet number 4.

Now what does this mean? Absolutely nothing. lol. Except when people start pounding on my doors wanting to advertise on my blog(as if that would happen) and in which case, I may be forced to provide premium pricing-- this being a PR4 blog and all.

Oh well, this is wishful thinking but hey, it's always nice to dream.

I first fell in love with Robert Downey Jr in Heart and Souls, with a coterie of souls with unfinished businesses as his guardian angels. I almost went over the top when I saw him sing with Sting in Ally McBeal. He made deadpan hilarious in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and now Robert Downey Jr. is Ironman.

So while some people may think that Robert Downey Jr may be too old to be playing a superhero, I think he fits the bill just fine. This is probably going to be the movie I wouldn’t mind spending a bit to see in a real movie house next month. Oh and yes I am going to buy the DVD as well.

Iron Man Exclusive Trailer

I’m sure you’ve all seen this trailer before, but I couldn’t resist.

Other links I found while looking for photos of Robert Downey Jr. as Ironman are:

• Marvel.com’s Digital Comics Site - where you can browse through a few comics online for free. There is a subscription fee for unlimited viewing though.
• Domestic Bliss: Ironman US Media Buzz - where you can find even MORE links to all the media buzz that has been generated about the movie, the actors, the comic superhero etc.
• The IMDB Trivia page on the Ironman movie - did you know that both Tom Cruise and Nicholas Cage wanted to play Tony Stark?
• Ironman Tony Stark - just about the most comprehensive website about anything Ironman and Robert Downey Jr. as well as other members of the cast.
• The Ironman Wiki Page - where you can find even more links to other Ironman stuff, whether movie or comic related.
• The real Ironman - The website of the Ironman World Triathlon Championship,

There, that should keep any Ironman fan like me happy for hours.