Backtype

Backtype is a very good service for those who would like to keep track of their comments.  In an age when blog hopping seems to be the only excercise some folks get and leaving a comment is considered a social undertaking, a site that monitors all those places you’ve left a comment on comes very handy.

I have written about comment monitoring via Commented On a while back here.  Backtype however is even more easy to use.  It does not involve any sort of download or installation on the blogger’s part.  All one has to do is register and fill in the username and url you use when you comment.  Backtype will then track your tracks all over the internet and when it finds your comment, it checks with you whether the comment made under your name is really yours.

This service is now very popular with big bloggers that the big names are already in there.  Another good feature about Backtype is that you can follow your favorite bloggers and see where they have been leaving their comments.  I have followed Darren Rowse of Problogger for example and have been to some of the posts that he found interesting enough to leave a comment.  It may be encouraging stalking but hey, for those making their living on the internet, you can never have enough stalkers.

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Getting A Widescreen TV?

I have to warn you though, getting a widescreen TV can be a life altering experience.

In a fit of rebellious outrage..  Ok that’s not really it.  The truth is, I just got so bored with my life that I decided to go into debt.  Now that doesn’t grab your attention unlike the first sentence, does it?  But who in his right mind would purposely go into debt just to have some excitement?  I hate to burst your bubble but a lot more folks would do worse just for the heck of it.  But, but, but, let’s not go into that one.  this is not exactly a full-blown rant post.  There’s some lesson here.

For example.  You have already decided you’re going to ditch your old 29 inch Sony-something for a sleek 42 inch version.  Is it really just a matter of choosing how many inches and then going for whatever name brand you like?  Unfortunately my friends, the selection is much more complicated than that.

You see if you’re like me you just wanted to lay your hands on one of those really sweet and shiny little things with pictures that come alive right?  But you don’t want anything that will force you to break your trust fund.  Exactly just like me! Except that I don’t have a trust fund.

Anyway, there are two things that you need to wrap your head around before you reach for your wallet and go for that Sony Bravia Full HD– LCD and Plasma.  I will not educate you on these two.  My knowledge are too scant to pretend that I am an expert on these two technologies.  But I can point you in the direction so you will be better informed when you make your decision.  You know what, I wish somebody had pointed me to  this thread before I purchased my widescreen TV.  I actually picked the TV with the technology I am leaning to but I could have saved $400 dollars!  Gah.  What a costly mistake.  Oh well.

Here’s a very valuable tip if you happen to be a Pinoy wanting a widescreen TV.  Run as far away as you can from those big appliance centers.  Go to Theater Works instead.  That’s on the 4th floor of Trinoma Mall.  They have a price divide (compared with big appliance centers) like you won’t believe.

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“At anytime, God could take us off of this earth, so you should appreciate today and not worry about tomorrow, for nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. “

Actually, I got this phrase online through GOOGLE Search a month or two back and saved it on my flash drive. WALA LANG, I’d just realized that almost everyday of our lives we are concern of what will going to happen tomorrow with our work, etc. We always forgot to appreciate the good things that God has been given to us. We always look on the dark side. Sometimes we even forgot to thanks God for the blessings that we received each day. Maybe, this is normal because we are humans. But sometimes we should also learn to appreciate and thank God because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Yep, it’s true in a just a split of second He could take us off of this earth.

I miss everything at home… specially my Nikki how i wish to be with her na. 

Thanks, Peachy! Took me forever to do this..

{Start Copy}

What’s your shoe size? Are your feet the same size as your mom’s feet? How about your sister’s feet? Can you borrow shoes from each other?

Post a picture of your latest shoe buy. Tag the number of women of your shoe size, i.e. size 5 = tag 5 friends. Don’t forget to drop a line in this blog when you’re done.
- Jenny and Belle
- SAHMdom and Beyond
- The Journey Continues…
- Mommy Talks…
- When Mom Speaks
- Walk on Red
- Mommy Talks…
- Random Thoughts
- My Precious Niche
- My Life is Peachy
- Me and Mine

{End Copy}

Here’s Mine!

My Mom’s Shoe Size: 6
Sisters’ Shoe Sizes: 6.5
My Shoe Size: 8.5 to 9

I have a lot of fave shoes. And I don’t feel like taking pics of them right now. Instead I look up for old photos and saw this one of my fave Chanel ballet flats! So this will do. The photo was taken last year March when it’s about to go spring! And I didn’t know I was preggy with this yet:) I think it was a week after.

I’m tagging, Arlene, Faye, Eds, and YOU who feels like doing this!

I just got a talk with my bro the other night that most of the house renovation is done. I’m kinda happy already! Part of the renovation was the Double Glazing of the windows! I wasn’t sure what that was the name of those things but it was a little expensive on our budget! But I saw the photos of the result and it was what the constructor was said it was! I can’t wait for the whole things done. It would me be much fun if we were still there though but of course we need to go back here! I’ll post photos when all is done but not sure if I can really. The husband won’t let me;)

Anyway, if you ever considering changing your windows, maybe office or your own business office then you might check out that site that I saw! They’re there to help all your glazing less hassle. This is good if you don’t want to overspend with the changing and all. Because you can compare prices and check what’s best suit your budget! After you have the quotes it’s much easier where to look rather than checking each of the stores. This company will help you look where to go! Easy,right? Now go ahead and check it out;)

Free Adsense Optimized Blogger | Wordpress Template

Brian Gardner’s Revolution Theme is absolutely amazing. I’ve been using this template for a couple of months now and there’s nothing about it that I can complain about.

Sooner or later a blogger will want to think of ways to make money off his blog and usually the most logical step to make is to start introducing Google’s Adsense.  The only problem is that there is such a few number of free blogger templates out there that can successfully integrate adsense into the template.  Alright so there may be a few but then again something always comes up that you end up tearing your hair in frustration.

Usually it’s all about the design.  You look at a particular template and instantly get infatuated with it.  You like it’s form, how it incorporate the latest design trends and how widgetized it is.  You can even put in adsense.  The problem however is that when you view your blog/site using a different browser, it breaks!  And this usually happens after introducing a lot of your own modifications.  I’ve fallen prey to this a lot of times.  

Usually the site breaker is Internet Explorer.  Although Mozilla Firefox is the bomb, a lot of folks are too set in their ways to really leave Internet Explorer behind.  And if we’d like to increase our reach, we have to think about the IE users as well.  And this is precisely why I like the Revolution Theme.  You can view this blog using Firefox, Safari, or IE and you will see the same thing.  Not for Flock though, something’s off with that browser. 

Revolution is completely widgetized, has a very nice color combination which is perfect for Google Adsense.  And, it’s also available for Blogger/Blogspot users.  So you have Brian Gardner’s Revolution Theme for Wordpress, and somebody was kind enough to port the same theme for Blogger.

You can download Revolution Theme for Blogger | Wordpress below.

Wordpress - This is just the landing page where you can select whether to download the 2 or 3 column template.

Blogger

Enjoy!

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Quick Tip For Creating Custom RSS Feed URLs

I’m sure almost everyone knows this already, but if you’re one of those who have yet to encounter this one, let me spare you some pain.  Our basic understanding of RSS feeds is that these are bits of posts or news that can easily be syndicated.

More often than not we look at feeds as a very static thing; i.e. if you want to be constantly updated with the latest gadgets, for example, you subscribe to Engadget’s or Gizmodo’s feed.  But what if you want to specifically subscribe to the latest update on the Apple iPhone for example?  It’s going to be a hit and miss if you continue to do what you’re currently doing.

Good thing we can now create our own RSS feed URL’s based on keywords.  Yep any keyword at all.

For the latest news there are a lot of sources.  But for this article, let’s just focus on Yahoo! and Google.

With Google creating your keyword based RSS feed is relatively easy.  You just have to choose where you’re going to source it; from their Google Blogsearch or Google News.  So the choice is just with blogsearch.google.com and news.google.com.  To create your keyword based RSS feed, let’s say ‘Apple iPhone’ for example, you just type those words on the search bar.  If you want those two words to be beside each other, place those words inside “quotation marks“.  When you click on search blogs or search news buttons, there automatically comes up a sidebar in the left of the screen.  Just look for the RSS link and click it.  The URL that shows up in the address bar is your RSS feed.  Pretty nifty isn’t it?

Unfortunately, this is not the case for Yahoo!  But fortunately some really cool dude, Jeremy Zawodny, created a little something so we can still come up with a keyword based RSS feed from Yahoo! News.  The link to his little creation is here–> Yahoo! News Search RSS URL Generator.

And how is this going to rock your boat again?  Auto blog content man, laser-targeted auto blog content.

That’s it.  Hope that was helpful.

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1. Do you know anyone by the name of Dennis? Yup. Dad and my bro.
2. Where is your pet(s) right now? Phils.
3. What color phone do you have? Now? I might settle for a new iphone! hehe
4. What color are your eyes? Brown
5. Does a heartbreak feel as bad as it sounds? Yeah. Specially if it’s because acne treatments! haha I’m just kidding:)
6. Have you ate popcorn in the past 48 hours? Nope.
7. What happened at 10:00 am today? We’re in the plane.
8. Do you need to say anything to anyone?
9. How do you feel? I am soooo tired! Really.
10. When was the last time you cried? I can’t remember when.
11. Where is your biological father right now? Phils.
12. What is bothering you right now? The ever messy house!!!
13. Ever seen somebody get shot? Nope. and I wouldn’t want to.
14. When was the last time you saw your grandpa? 6 Years this September. He died a few weeks after.
15. Do you fight with your grandparents often? Nope. I love them!

Players: Chikai | Yen

Some of this questions sounds familiar. I think I was able to answer them ages ago..:) Snag if you likey!

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve no longer updated this blog. It’s not that I’m too busy but because I don’t have internet access on my PC, huhuhu.. how sad I am, out of this world na kaau ko. It’s been almost a month since I’ve transfer to the new company where I am in right now. I don’t know if they have plans to put internet on my PC L.

Anyway, at least I have my new work now, new boss, new people / friends. I am happy naman to be here. Most of the time we are busy with our work but its ok at least mabilis ang oras when you have a lot of things to do.

Tagged by Kathy Thanks,sis!

Players: buhaymisis | kathycot | whenmomspeaks | kathycotcooks | Me and Mine | Creative in Me | For the LOVE of Food | Little Peanut | Pea in a Pod | your site here!

1. whats your latest addiction?
:: Taking photos, blogging and the husband! bwahaha

2. What are you listening to?
:: the person talking in the TV..

3. How late did you stay up last night and why?
:: around 2am.

4. Who were you with last friday night?
:: Hmm..the boys.

5. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 months from now?
:: I am in a relationship for the rest of my life:) Happliy married!

6. When is the next time you’ll see your close friends?
:: Husband-tomorrow! 2 of my other best friends are in Japan and Canada

7. What were you doing this morning at 7am?
:: SLEEPING. lol I was awake around 9:30am.

8. What radio station do you listen to the most?
:: I dn’t listen to one.

9. What was the reason you last cried?
:: I can’t remember when.

10. Have you ever talked to someone when they were high?
:: High of?

11. What’s the fifth text in your inbox say?
:: I don’t text. Seriously. And if someone text me, I usually erase it after answering.

12.Where was the last coffee shop u go?
:: Kangaroo here in Davao

13.Whats ur outfit right now?
:: Shorts and t’s

16. What were you doing at 11pm last night?
:: Blogging and surfing the net.

17. Who was the last person you talked to last night before bed?
:: The husband.

18. Will you be driving in a year?
:: yeah

19. Is there anything that you are craving right now?
:: I missed Baskin and Robbins Ice Cream!!!

20. When did your last hug take place?
:: the little boys, just now!

22. Have you ever started a sentence with “No offense, but…”?
:: Yeah…I do that to a person I am close to:)

23. Do you drink tea?
:: Yeah.

24.Have you ever been arrested?
:: Nope

25. Have you rode in someone else’s car today?
:: Nope.

26. Have you made a mistake this past week?
:: Yeah…we all do that sometimes.

27. Who was the last person you texted?
:: nothing.

28. Are you happy with your life right now?
:: Very much so;-)

29. In the past 72 hours have you been under the influence?
:: of LOVE..lol yeah!

30. What’s the connection between you and the last person you texted?
:: I don’t text.

Tagging C.A. , Abby, Francine, jhona, Nice, Racel, and Rowena.

Kizuna (Winds) Satellite Internet Update

Looks like the Kizuna Satellite Internet project is moving along as planned. According to Jaxa, they have moved the Kizuna to a regular operation phase. A little more longer and this will become a reality for the entire Southeast Asia. Not sure about the Philippines though.

KIZUNA moved to regular operation phase

JAXA has been carrying out the initial functional verification of the onboard equipment of the “KIZUNA” in cooperation with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology for about three and half months since the KIZUNA was injected into its scheduled geostationary orbit (East longitude of about 143 degrees) on March 14, 2008. After we confirmed that all functions were normal, we completed the checks on all the equipment on June 27. On June 30, a review was held to determine if we should move onto the regular operation phase, and we decided to shift from the initial phase to the regular operation phase.

..full story here..

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The Best Free Premium Wordpress Templates

Blogging Fashionista

As a blogger, I am always on the lookout for the latest and the coolest blog template—whether it’s a theme by wordpress or blogger. And when I say cool, I mean those templates that do not only have really awesome premium design; they don’t cost anything as well. As intimated in this blog before, I have an unnatural taste, a passion if you will, for premium blog templates. My blog must change its look at least once a month otherwise I’ll grow tired of it. Does that make me a blog fashionista then? Probably.

This is why purchasing a premium WordPress template is out of the question for me. I will only be wasting my money over something that I’ll grow weary of in no time. I will have to make do with whatever free blogger template I can find on the internet. But that’s too hard a phrase; making do I mean. The internet today is replete with awesome free blogging templates that, depending on your orientation and tastes, you can actually change the look of your blog every week or everyday depending on how much free time you have.

Searching For The One Free Template

The only problem with this approach is, the internet has so much data that if you don’t know what you are looking for, you could end up settling for the first free template that makes sense to you. Or worse, you’ll be so discouraged that you’re forced to dig deep into your pocket and buy a couple of premium wordpress templates. Which is a shame considering the number of hours you must have already spent scouring the alleys and backroads of the world wide web.

If you want good results in your search efforts, you need to wizen up and do your search properly. And proper searching should have an equally (if not more) exhaustive preparation. Ask yourself what it is that you are looking for. If you just think of free templates and type it in directly in google’s search box, the world wide web will throw everything at you including the kitchen sink. Thus it’s very important to be as specific as you can when you do your search. Don’t write a novel in the search box though. This guide may be of help when trying to refine your search.

Here’s a tip for finding great templates.

If you see a great looking blog, check out the footer credits. Chances are the designer’s site (if it’s a free theme) will be down there. Just click on the link and go directly to the designers site. He’ll probably have a couple more of cool blog templates in his site. This is also true for those advertising premium templates. Check out the premium template site and more often than not there will be some free templates there as a come on to would be customers.

The Best Free Wordpress Templates

But why bother? When I have already done the preliminary searches and I’m posting here the shortlist of the things that I’m sure you’d like.

There are three factors that I look for when I decide to change my blog dressing.

1. Simplicity
2. Function
3. Customizability

I don’t like complex designs. More often than not they tend to really mess up my existing structure. I like themes that automatically adapts to whatever content that I already have. When it comes to functionality, I like 3-column templates. It allows me to put in those Adsense banners and also place some affiliate buttons that are potential money earners in any of the sidebars. In terms of customizability, some themes are not widgetized and there are those that have a lot of things in the source code that trying to assert my individuality becomes a pain in the ass.

See part 2 for the actual list.

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As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, the last time I was here in Cebu was eons ago. I don’t even remember much of how Cebu looked like then. But how it looks like now — wow! It’s pretty amazing.

I went to Ayala Center to meet with a friend who’d arrived from Manila yesterday, and we had lunch at a nice restaurant in the mall (place called oh georg! — good food, I must say). The whole place felt like Makati or Ortigas… but not really.

There are high-end boutiques and shops that we don’t have in Davao… people are more stylish in the way they carry themselves… there are more foreigners around who look like they live here… And, of course, the Cebuano language is quite pervasive.

Some say that Cebu is trying to be like Metro Manila. But I seriously doubt that. This metropolis is like the national capital region in that it is an amalgamation of several cities, but the similarity ends there. Cebu has a character all her own.

I meant, one more getaway before we head back to Tokyo in less than a month! hehe I asked the husband if it’s possible and he said yes! He always does;) But I’m kinda skeptical again because we’ve spent too much with this vacation already. So, I’m not sure if we are good to go! We still have to prepare for the Christening of peanut. But part of me really want to go away again one more time! Although, my inlaws have a lot of plans for our family getaway around the city when the husband will be here. Not really sure but if ever, I am thinking of staying in a condo hotel for a lesser budget! We’ll see;)