You got blogged!

How’s that for review-a-blog competition slogan? (coined by Migs)

“You got blogged” is a project of the awesome Mindanao Bloggers group. All you have you to do is blog about any one of the Mindanao-based blogs listed here and get a chance to win a cool $150! The main objective of the contest is to highlight and promote blogs made by Mindanaoans. This is part of the Mindanao Bloggers Summit to be held here in Davao City in October 27, 2007. If you happen to know a blogger from Mindanao who isn’t listed in the directory, by all means ask him or her to register so you can review their blog! Even though you are asked to review only Mindanao blogs, you do not have to be from Mindanao to join. No wait, everyone of all nationalities can join just as long as you do your review in English!

To sweeten the deal, check out the prizes:
Read Full Entry

I’m hearing from CNN about all the hype surrounding J.K. Rowling’s final installment for her outlandishly popular Harry Potter series. The 7th book, called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is eagerly awaited by millions of bookworms around the world. In fact, two little rabid girls in Alaska had lined up at a bookstore for 11 days and counting!

I’m also thoroughly amused to learn that Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury, is putting all the stops at keeping the book’s contents a secret that it had locked up all its copies in a cage! Well, thing is, my friend RJ of Comicgasm had already posted a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Spoilers post on this blog. It not only tells you which major characters die (RIP Hedwig), but includes what looks to be photographs taken of each page where the deaths happen. I also know someone who is currently reading the book from photographed pages!
Read Full Entry

I’m tweaking Ratified.org’s ranking algo. This may still change as I add more kinds of statistics that will help in ranking our own corner of the blogosphere. Most likely you’ll either see your blog drastically rise or crash abruptly in the rankings. If you experience the latter, I apologize in advance. Really, I’m sorry. Besides Technorati incoming blogs, I have included Pagerank and Feedburner subscriptions as part of the criteria. How they factor in the rankings is a secret!

I highly recommend that you submit your Feedburner feed URL (ex. feeds.feedburner.com/AllebaBlog) so I can update your site profile.

Update: I found that some of the Feedburner URL’s I received do not allow access to their API. That means I cannot get your number of subscribers. To get around this, login to your Feedburner account.

1. Click on the appropriate feed and choose the Publicize tab.

2. On the left menu, click Awareness API.

3. Then, click on Activate.

4. Done!

Please do inform me once you’ve done this so I can update your numbers as soon as possible.

All your Pageranks have been recorded thanks to an Excel file sent by my contacts at Mountain View (kidding).

Singing in praises? Boiling in anger? Please do leave a comment!

Thanks to Janette for reminding me.

Need to solve a simple mathematical problem with no calculator in sight? Well, fret no more! Google’s search engine can transform into a calculator if you tell it to! Ok, that was a stretch, but watch:

Let’s say that you just got your Google Adsense check worth $123.45. And you wonder … How much is this in Philippine pesos? Simple! Go to Google.com and type:

123.45 usd in php

And you’ll get something around 5,651 pesos.
Read Full Entry

Great news for Filipino would-be nurses! I read that Pearson VUE, a computer-based testing provider for certification and licensure exams, will be opening up a testing center in Manila. This means that nursing graduates who aspire to work in the USA need not go to Hongkong for the NCLEX examinations.

From the website:

The National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN®) authorized Pearson VUE to expand testing availability for the NCLEX® examination to Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Exam delivery begins at the Pearson VUE-owned and -operated Pearson Professional Center in Manila on August 23, 2007 and exam scheduling opens Friday, July 13, 2007.

Read Full Entry

I’m a big, big fan of Christine “Happy Slip” Gambito for her funny videos depicting the typical goings-on of a middle-class Filipino family living in the US. I found Christine’s latest video through Aileen’s blog, wherein her parents and an aunt are gossiping about her cousin Mimi’s new boyfriend played by another apparently popular Youtube celeb named Kevjumba. Anyway, I wonder if there are other Filipino vloggers I’ve never heard of besides her. Well, the reason for my ignorance is I’m not a Youtube regular. I find myself going there only when I’m seriously bored.
Read Full Entry

I’ve finally come around to investigating the various issues many are having with my Wordpress Guestbook Generator plugin. The one major problem is the page ends up not having a form where users can input their details and actually sign the guestbook. That in itself defeats the purpose of the guestbook!

Let me try to answer each predicament one by one:
Read Full Entry

If you’re using Feedburner, I’m sure you’re aware of an option under Publicize called Pingshot that “pings” all the major aggregators whenever you make a new blog post.

From Feedburner:

PingShot is a quick notification service that enables your feed to be updated in the widest variety of places as quickly as you add new content.

There are a lot of different aggregators, search engines and like services with more coming on the market every day. Each of these services follows a different schedule when polling for new content. Without PingShot, it can take between 30 minutes and six hours for content to be updated everywhere it is consumed.

Read Full Entry

Recently, Google Country Consultant Aileen Apolo spearheaded the uber-successful Taste Asia event, which gathered more than 150 Filipino bloggers in one big food festival at the Taste Asia restaurant at the SM Mall of Asia. SM leveraged the power of blogging to promote their new resto and their spacious Hypermart grocery. Clearly, all their efforts have paid off. Bloggers are one of the most difficult groups of people to please. Well, at least I am. But judging from the amount of blogs buzzing about how much fun they had and how they loved all the free food, I’d say SM pulled it off quite well. Unlike marketing campaigns done on television, radio or SMS, an online marketing campaign like this costs much less but has deeper multiplying effects. When a blogger posts something on his blog, that is permanent advertising right there. Then, when his/her visitors read it, they will be encouraged to try the product and write about it too, if they have a blog. And then there’s the word-of-mouth factor to consider. Even though bloggers don’t get to talk much in the offline world, instant messengers (i.e. Google Talk) bridge that gap very easily. And you can’t discount Friendster, Multiply and other social networking sites where people rave just about anything.
Read Full Entry

I found out I’m not that addicted to blogging after taking this nifty quiz. I’ve seen much higher scores from Abe or Jayvee or Aileen.

58%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

58% is pathetic! Tsk. Read Full Entry

Many people hate my guts, I know. But my last post on link trains was done in good faith. I did not mean to hurt anyone in the process. I read from Abe’s blog that John “Googlebomb” Chow was banned from Google. Even if you search for his name, his blog won’t show up. That’s right.. it won’t.
Read Full Entry