blogging around the clock

Nifty little gadget added to my posts -- social networking stuff! Now you can directly share the relevants posts that I write to others via Twitter, Reddit, Del.i.cious, and Digg.

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I've recently updated the look of my daughter's blogsite (wherein I ghost-write, of course) with a little girl's theme courtesy of ThemeCraft. ThemeCraft is a "sister" site of FalconHive and although they only have a few templates available right now, those that are already ready for download are quite awesome. They had creativity in mind (not advertisements) when they designed those skins for Blogger-hosted blogs.

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After just one night of using the Magasin Tres template for my income-generating blog, I again changed it because I was unhappy with the "Featured Content" feature and the change-color-when-you-hover second navigation bar wasn't working properly.

So, right after I did office work and still had a couple of hours to spare this afternoon, I tweaked the blog's look again and fortunately found a simple yet awesome template called Mad Magazine from the template site Bloganol. With a couple of great ad spaces, this newspaper-styled theme is IT!

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The other blog I was talking about last night is PropertyforSalePhilippines and is meant to be (as is obvious from the title) a property / realty / house-for-sale website. It's aimed to be a classified ads for those looking for homes and property for sale as well as to be a source of information for housing loans.

And why did I start this business blog? That's because I have access now to precisely those products plus I'm looking at targetting potential advertisers to have pity on me and advertise on my blog.

Unfortunately, there are problems with the current look and functionality. So, it looks like I still have to hunt for a better template and I'm hoping to get one a little later ... after this update :)

yehey!!! the darn blog is working at last

After weeks of tweaking and tweaking and further tweaking, my supposed-to-be-income-generating blog (which I will transfer from Wordpress) is now ready. All that's left to do is cosmetics -- meaning the bells and whistles -- and that includes creating some online banners for temporary use to attract potential advertisers.

I also need to generate static content -- I've already created two pages -- About and Events -- but I don't feel satisfied with what I've written so far. So, I'll work on revising the content tomorrow. Plus, I need to up a page that will detail how advertisers can -- advertise, of course :)

Other elements that were in my previous newsblog such as links, a blog visitor counter, Twitter app and web metrics need to be setup as well. However, for the web metrics, I think Google Analytics would be enough.

I will also have to arrange the blog's domain so that although it's hosted on Blogger, it will still have an honest-to-goodness URL. Now, just need to renew the domain before it expires :)

And, of course, I need to start generating content which will hopefully translate into traffic. That means I will be trying to find time to do the actual posts. It will be difficult to sneak that in during the day-job so that means I need to probably put in a couple of hours work before or after office to make this thing work.

And then, I need to give myself time for this venture to bear fruit. I'm not expecting any income real soon but if I were to base it on experience from my previous venture, I was only online for about three months before an inquiry re advertising came through.

And oh, I just finished tweaking the other business blog of mine as well. So, that means I'll need to promote and push two blogs (to two different industries, at that). Good thing the second one won't need a daily looking-after. Just a plug once or twice a week would be ok for that.

I also did some repairs on this personal blog of mine. After Luz pointed out that she wasn't able to post comment yesterday, I switched the comments feature to pop-up rather than the comment-below-post feature. The latter feature is already fixed thanks to an update done by the creator of the Dilectio template I used but will probably stick to the pop-up-comment-box feature for the meantime. I'll also be adding more bells and whistles to this blog including a top navigation which has been absent since I've switched to this template.

Neat stuff, as my former British expat colleagues used to say.

the switch - blogwise

In terms of personal blogging, 2009 is bound to be the weakest year in terms of number of posts done.

This post you're reading is so far only #29 (when it gets pasted) whereas last year I managed 86 posts and in 2007 I did 45. In 2006, when I first wrote on this blog, I registered 54 posts. While I can blame work for the rather anemic blogging, it certainly isn't just the reason.

2009 kept me busy blogging away on my supposedly income-generating blog (which unfortunately didn't generate any income at all) writing a total of 105 news posts to date. In 2008 when I first started writing that blog - I whipped up 153 news posts and an inquiry on advertising. Sadly, being run on Wordpress.com, it wasn't advertising friendly so the ad deal fell through. It again elicited interest from a potential advertiser but then again, that didn't materialize as well.

So, rather than waste my time on that blog, my options are a) transfer it to Blogger.com (which is more friendlier to advertisements, banners, and the like) or, b) create an actual website for that.

After the walk home yesterday, I've decided on Option A which I think is more cost-effective. Option B can be considered once that blog of mine starts generating income (as the blog is supposed to be doing when I first conceptualized it). Option A is also a more amiable solution given that I already have an existing Blogger blog of the same nature (so it's basically re-activating the Blogger account and redirecting old viewers to the new) and Blogger allows you to use your own domain for your blog (which is great because I also have already bought the same domain sans the ".blogspot") thereby making life easier as I am no web designer and totally idiotic when it comes to coding.

Next steps right now are to find the right design and start writing and generating visitors. The latter is actually the easier of the two next steps. Last night, I've been ogling Blogger template sites and by trial and error trying on templates with the blog. The problem arises in that there doesn't seem to be that many Blogger templates around as compared to Wordpress templates.

Nevertheless, I might be settling on either this, or this, or this (thanks to eblogtemplates and Falcon Hive) largely because I want to adopt a magazine-newspaper style for my blog and the ability to host ads (which is a big consideration why I'm switching from WP to Blogger in the first place).

I hope to launch the new blog site by early next week and then move on to two other online blog sites that I hope will also be causes for financial joy. Until then, I've got to work on the bells and whistles.

surf's up -- a list of sites frequently visited

In the daily course of your internet life, whether you're sneaking personal surfing during office hours or leisurely abusing your unlimited internet connection at home, there are some sure sites you're bound to visit regularly. Obviously, the website lists on the right side of this blog indicates mine but let me go deeper as to why they're there as my top sites to visit. Please note, that this listing is in no particular order, weight or preference although I will state most likely what sites I devotedly visit.

Inquirer.net (www.inquirer.net)
Inquirer.net is the number one Filipino website when it comes to news and it remains to this day that. So, it's only normal that this becomes a daily habit with me. It's much more comprehensive than the print version (thanks largely because the press and photo releases don't get published anymore) but like its mundane form, is cluttered with ads. However, like the printed form, you can choose to ignore the ads (hopefully they're not intrusive like those new rich media types offered nowadays).

Yahoo Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/)
It has become a habit for me to check the latest sports news via Yahoo's sports pages (normally NFL, NBA, boxing (if Manny Pacquiao is fighting), and tennis; and on occasion F1 and horse racing as well) since I first worked for a sports betting company way back in 2005. That was the first time work required me to online for all the ten hours I was at the office and part of the work required that I routinely check what's happening in sports-dom. That habit has stuck until now.

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org)
The true encyclopedia online, I wouldn't be surprised if this website was single-handle reason for why many roving encyclopedia salesmen lost their jobs. While there are still questions and critics regarding Wikipedia's open-to-all writing and editing policies, it has fast become a popular (albeit not always reliable or credible) source of information. I first encountered Wikipedia during my first online marketing work and it since then become an indispensable go-to site for quick information. For me, it's also a great way to pass the time as you learn a lot and you just find yourself browsing topic after topic. You start off looking and reading one topic and then some eons later, you find yourself a zillion topics hence.

Facebook (www.facebook.com)
There's no doubt that Facebook nowadays occupy a big chunk of my internet time. There's just so many things to do on that social networking site that I've virtually abandoned my Friendster account already and devoted whatever online time I have to FB. Chat, email, play games, send virtual gifts, join causes, connect with long-lost friends -- the list of things that can be done on FB is outstanding that in my opinion, it easily outruns MySpace in terms of activity. My fave things to do on FB currently? Farm Town, FarmVille, and Mafia Wars.

Penmanila (www.penmanila.net)
If you simply admire writers and authors who can write eloquent English but who can still be so Filipino then Penmanila might be worth your while (it is for me). Penmanila is the website and blog of Jose "Butch" Dalisay, one of today's more prolific Filipino writers and academician and in it, you can read about things and issues that are close to Sir Butch (yes, he was a professor of mine back in college for one CW subject) including literature, the English language, travel, politics, writing, the academe (and teaching), fiction and his love of fountain pens. Updated weekly so this doesn't qualify (technically) under my daily web surf but it has become so much of a habit that it deserves to be put in here.

Komikero Journal (http://gerry.alanguilan.com/)
Accessible via Komikero.com, this is the blog of comic book writer and artist (and video-blogger and podcaster) Gerry Alanguilan whose credits include Wasted, Timawa, and more recently, Elmer. He is also well-known in the comic-dom for his work with DC and Marvel titles including Superman, Batman, New X-Men and Wolverine. Through his blog, find out how he lives his life as a comic book artist making ends meet, his chronicling of Philippine komiks, and his advocacy of uplifting the local comic book industry. His latest adventure has taken him taking a stance that Carlo J. Caparas is not qualified as a National Artist for Visual Arts (find out more through his blog posts and you'll be enlightened!).

Notes from the Peanuts Gallery (www.deanalfar.blogspot.com)
As a budding writer for the fantastic, it's only natural that I try and find out as much as I can about the local science-fiction and fantasy scene here in the Philippines. Stumbling upon the blog of businessman and writer Dean Francis Alfar instead introduced me to Filipino speculative fiction. Dean is one of the more stalwart advocates of Filipino spec-fic and has championed its cause by winning numerous awards for his spec-fic works. His (and his wife Nikki Alfar's) annual anthology of speculative fiction by Filipino writers is a much-awaited release. Unfortunately, Dean hasn't been active of late with his blogs as his other interests (I think) are demanding more of his time.

Twitter (www.twitter.com)
Do you tweet? I do. So, it's only natural that I visit Twitter daily to tweet. And I've linked my Twitter and FB accounts so that whatever I tweet also gets pasted as my shout-out on FB. They call Twitter micro-blogging and indeed it is. It's a fast way of updating your readers and followers on what you're doing, what's occupying your time, and whatever (mis)adventures you're undertaking. Blog posts like this one takes time so Twitter is a life-saver. And I think we Filipinos will have no probs with using Twitter because it's exactly like texting -- your message in just 160 characters. If you want to follow me, just hit the "Follow Me on Twitter" on the upper right corner of this blog-site.

Bibliophile Stalker (http://charles-tan.blogspot.com/)
Another daily source for anything spec-fic, fantastic or science-fiction(istic), writer Charles Tan's website directs you to lots of links related to subject, and also contains interviews, book and magazine reviews, and his personal thoughts on relevant matters. It's a daily, Monday to Friday, compilation of the latest news, views and issues related to the speculative fiction realm and has been cited by even American author and editor Jeff VanderMeer to be a daily resource of his as well.

Other sites that I frequent although not on a regular (as in day-to-day) basis include:

Jeff VanderMeer's Ecstatic Days
For the entrepreneur-to-be-in-me: Entrepreneur
Adobo Magazine Online -- the local ad industry's magazine
BoardGame Geek - all about playing games unplugged
Gamespot - counterpart of BGG, this one is all about video games
Concept Ships - for fantastic drawings and designs of airplanes, spaceships and just about anything that can fly or has a rocket engine
Mental Floss - for the knowledge junkie in you and me
DC Comics - always been a DC fan so out of nostalgia I chance upon this site every now and then

I also am a regular visitor to online bookstores like Fully Booked, Powerbooks, and National Bookstore as well as international bookstore site Borders (which is incidentally also a fan page of mine on FB). I also frequent PC retail sites especially when I was still agonizing whether to upgrade my busted desktop or buy a laptop (and before I bought my latest rig) like PC Corner, PC Express, and TipidPC to check out prevailing prices. And oh yes, I also frequent CDR-King's website as well.

Ikaw, what sites are your regular haunts?

monday mumblings: new work, new rig, new gadgets, new possible writing submission

My apologies for being away for quite some time and not updating my blog.

This has been the same story for my other blogs, namely The Diabetic Daddy and my income-generating one (supposed to be generating anyway). My marketing and advertising blog, Pinoy Marketer Observer, hasn't received an update for over a year now so I'm not including that one in the list of blogs that need updating.

I have been quite busy lately ... busy adjusting to the new work and the culture shock that came with. It's a welcome culture actually. From the fast and frentic pace at the old work, the new work is a bit relaxed and laid back, harkening back to the earlier days at PJ Lhuillier when I was a pioneer at the company's marketing team.

I'm still in the midst of trying to understand how they do business in the new office. Obviously, being corporately stiff to the bone, there's a lot of paperwork that need to be done to get things done and to get people to move. And I'm still busy learning the system. But I'm getting there.

It can get frustrating at times especially since for the last three years I've been used to getting things done right away. Now, when I send out my request, I just need to sit back a bit and wait and hope that in three days or so, my request will somehow get signed off (first) by the approving body before it gets passed on to the actual fellow who'll be doing the actual work.

In any case, it's been fun so far. Re-learning stuff and re-orienting myself to the structure of the new company is quite a challenge. I really have to exercise my patience here because getting frustrated will only affect me. Like I said, the mantra in the new company is sit back and relax. Chill out a bit.

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As my Facebook and Twitter friends will have known, I've not been with the company for a month yet and I've already made my first out-of-town business trip. Just a couple of weeks back, I was in Dagupan City in the north to handle some branch marketing stuff. It's great to be travelling again even if it's for work. The last time I travelled was way back in 2005 when I was still with the Lhuillier Group and we attended the 2005 Sinulog in Cebu.

The new work entails a lot of travelling aside from the regular desk work. From the past meetings I've had, probable travel itenararies for the coming weeks include Cabanatuan, Lucena, Antipolo, Pagadian, Tagbilaran, Cebu, and San Fernando. And that's only for this year. With about 15 branches to open this year and several branches to re-locate in the provinces, I'll probably need to ensure my travel bag is always packed.

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So, what have I been doing so far, you may ask.

Well, my new boss and colleagues still have to figure out how to maximize me and my skills, my experience and my talents given my mixed marketing exposure.

For the meantime, while I still try and gauge how the business is being done in the company, I am tasked with ensuring our website and our intranet portal are updated and upgraded. The website has last seen a major upgrade way back 2005, and the update at least a couple of months back. In fact, a total rehaul is in the offing and I will be commencing work on that one soon as I've just about finished the back-work needed.

The intranet was launched this month, same day as I first reported for work. Since not everyone in the office had internet access (as I'm told, only assistant managers up are plugged to the 'net), the intranet portal is the employee's link to what's happening in the company. And at this early, the proponents of the project would like to see changes and I will be on hand to ensure they happen.

I'll also be engaging myself in the first online marketing foray of the company as it will promote a product online. Not purely online though, but an integrated one. However, the online marketing component will be key so this is my first chance at proving to them I'm worth the salary I'm being paid. Wish me luck.

Aside from that, I'll be busying myself getting involved as much as possible with ongoing projects and projects assigned to us as a team. I'll let my other colleagues take a lead on those as they've been doing them for quite some time now but I'll make sure to be a solid contributor on all fronts.

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Last week, I've finally bought my new rig.

After months of agonizing whether to upgrade my P4 or buy a laptop, I've decided on the latter and purchased a Compaq Presario CQ40 AMD Turion X2 from the CoolTOYZ branch in Dasma, Makati (the shop is at the Petron station on the corner of EDSA and Pasay Road).

Why buy a laptop and AMD at that when I've been Intel for the last so many years? Basically, the sales pitch, the price, the service at CoolToyz (thanks to Merwin) got into me. Read all about this laptop and its specs here and see if you don't get attracted to purchase one as well.

As can be seen from the photo, the 2.2 kilogram laptop is quite handy. It's not so bulky nor too heavy to lug around. And as I intend to bring it along with me in my travels, the weight and dimensions factors come into play beneficially.

It also features a 75% dedicated graphic card, with the remaining 25% graphics capability working in tandem with the processor. Since AMD and ATi are essentially one and the same company, this laptop features a seamless graphics interface that according to CoolTOYZ's Merwin will enable it to run the latest Crysis videogame (at low-medium GFX quality). So, that means, the Sims 2 will run seamlessly here. I have yet to install Sims 2 but when I tested GTA III (circa 2002) which already called for a powerful graphics, it ran well with no problems. I intend to test this machina with Photoshop and CorelDRAW soon.

I'm sure Zeus: Master of Olympus (circa 1999) will run so smoothly on this rig :)

At around Php 26K, this laptop (given its features, specs and graphics capability) is a bargain. As I intend to use this not only for play but also for my sidelines (designing and writing), if it proves to be as powerful as it is supposed to be, this'll last me for the next three years most.

How about the old P4 rig? As soon as I get my bonus, I'll upgrade that one as well (motherboard, memory and HDDs) and still use it for my personal works.

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Speaking of gadgets ...

My father recently surrendered to me my sister's PSP. He reasoned that his eyes hurt after he plays it but I'm guessing it's more because he's getting tired of playing Luxor over and over again.

With just a 2GB mem-stick, this PSP unit needs a serious upgrade. Aside from the mem upgrade (how much is an 8GB memory stick PRO duo anyway nowadays?), the firmware needs to be upgraded to be able to play all those ISOs and CSOs that I've managed to download. I guess this calls for a trip one of these days to Edmon the hacker for his PSP services.

In other notes, my sister's old Ipod is now officially dead. She bequethed the Ipod last summer during her last vacation and the old thingy ran well for the next several months. About two months ago, it started acting up -- freezing actually, and when it ran, it garbled the songs. I tried restoring and restarting it (relying on online instructions on how to do those two acts) but failed.

So, about a week ago, I took it down to a repair booth but even there, the technicians (whose skills I seriously doubted) failed to repair it (even with their bravado that they can fix everything). First, they spent 3 hours trying to restore it. Then, I had to return the next day because they reasoned they had to jumpstart it from inside. Then, they reasoned they had to send it to their main repair office since the problem was internal. After allowing them four days to try and salvage the Ipod, they returned it to me and said it could not be fixed.

Ah, well.

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Now that the work pressure is lessened (and with a new rig available), I hope to get some creative writing done. Calls for submissions are aplenty and one particular interesting opportunity would be to submit a story to our very own Filipino speculative anthology -- Dean and Nikki Alfar's (and co-editing for the upcoming anthology is Vin Simbulan) annual Philippine Speculative Fiction.

Deadline is in October 15 for a February 2010 publication date. Guidelines here.

purely gibberish and excuses why there has been no post

With Up Dharma Down playing on the background, I write this long-overdue post to explain why The Coffee House Chronicles has been silent for over a month now.

Basically, the reason things have been quiet here in the Coffee House is primarily because of work.

For the past month or so, there just have been too much work to do and by the time I get home after logging in a daily average of 10 hours in the office, my mind is sapped, my body is spent and whatever energy left is to be spent to be the family man.

Weekends have been quiet busy as well, a blend of social obligations, family commitments, and personal projects -- all of which have contributed to my neglect of a simple "hi" or "hello" on the three blogs that I keep.

Yes, guilty as charged.

Believe me I would've wanted to write more often in my blogs as blog-writing is the only creative release I have at the moment. But I didn't just have the time.

In between thoughts on how to nudge designers to get going with their projects and managing projects demanded by demanding internal clients, I find bits and pieces of ideas to write about in my blogs. For instance, a good friend of mine just got married last weekend and it would've been something great to write about ... never got the time to work on it. I would've ranted about the unfair way my ISP is treating its customers ... never got around to working it. I could've announced to the world that I'm now in my 3rd year with the Company ... but Company work prevented me from having the spare time to do it.

Yes, excuses, excuses ...

IN OTHER THOUGHTS ...

I now have a new life goal, in the career level terms (one of my life goals is to be rich hah!) -- I want to become a CMO.

Quite lofty, but heck, that's the way to go.

When I first started my marketing career more or less a decade ago, my life goal then was to become a Manager ... a Marketing Manager or an Advertising Manager or something ... a Manager. I guess, that was the zenith of my professional achievement back then thanks largely to parents and their friends who climbed the corporate ladder for more than 20 years before becoming GERs.

In ten years, I've managed to do that and though it seems to be a rapid climb (I know a lot others who became GERs in lesser years than I did) it was turbulent, humbling, stressful, learning-filled, and a definite reason why my hair has thinned out. Marketing has got to be one of the most stress-filled job. Fun, yes. Stressful, yes.

So, after a year as a freelancer ('97-'98), as a specialized media practitioner ('98), traditional marketer ('99-'05), and online marketer ('05) ... I am now a GER.

Sometime in one of those sleepless sessions in bed, I just thought I've achieved the GER life goal, what's next? I recalled the letters C-M-O and it hit me that that was a new life goal for me.

However, CMOs are not yet a fad here in the RP. CMOs are a special breed and it takes more than 2 years of GER to become a CMO. It means continuous learning and while I may be equipped with the marketing skillset, I know I'm far from being dubbed a CMO quality marketer.

Hay, kaya nga life goal ... you need to work on it and persevere and continue to grow.

I do hope I can find the time to write more often even if it's just myself talking to myself. A friend back in college once sent me a letter starting off ... it's nice talking to paper again ... in this case, it's nice talking to the LCD screen again.

ONE SIGN that I've been working too much is when work invades my dreams.

Last night, I am aware I dreamed at least twice and in both instances, the setting or the people involved were from work. When that usually happens, I also tend to "work" in my dream and when I awake I feel more drained than refreshed.

I went to work this morning feeling like I've just been on a 24 hour shift thanks to those two work-influenced dreams.

Sheesh!

sportsblitzer blog launched

To satiate my penchant for sports and to house my personal views on the goings-on in sports, I'm happy to announce that Sportsblitzer, a sports-focused blog by yours truly, is now available for reading.

It will contain news, info, opinions and comments on the people, the places and things who make up the colorful world of sports here in the P.I. and abroad.

Visit Sportsblitzer by clicking the appropriate link from the list of websites on the right sidebar.

And speaking of blogs, please don't fail to visit PMO: Pinoy Marketer Observer as well over at Word Press blogs. PMO is a marketing and advertising-oriented blog and its link can be found in the sidebar as well.

And nope, Dating Taga-Peyups is not yet live :(