What Simply Works!

(Kung hindi dahil sa tema natin ngayong linggong ito, hindi ko malalaman na kaunti lamang ang litrato ko na kuha sa may dagat. Malamang, pupuntahan namin ang maraming beach dito sa Sydney pagdating ng tag-araw sa Disyembre!

Ang litratong ito ay kuha sa Carrs Bush Reserve sa Sydney. Napansin ko ang mga ibon na parang nakatitig ng matagal sa kawalan na di alintana ang malakas na hangin at ang mga batang naglalaro sa paligid.)

If not for this week’s theme, I would not have gone through all my online albums and realize how few my beach photos are. This calls for a major beach hopping in Sydney when summer comes in December!

This photo was taken at Carrs Bush Reserve in Sydney. I took note of the birds “looking” at the horizon that they stayed unfazed by the wind and the kids playing around.

One of the plugins I find really useful is wordpress’ comment thread plugin. It allows the blog owner to “nest” his/her reply to readers’ comments with ease. I used to log in to my WP account and edit the comments to add in my reply but that can be troublesome if you have a lot of comments coming from three blogs to manage.

So, this is the answer. This is proven and tested to be working on my three blogs. Here’s the source:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-thread-comment/

More blogging goodies, here.

It is a fact that many families are going through financial crisis today. Here in Sydney alone, many homes were foreclosed by banks and most of the families have left the city to settle in the country side. The increasing oil prices, weak US dollar value and even sickness or accidents in the family can all add up and result to financial setbacks to any family.

Also, along with it are the rising commodity prices that add to everyone’s worries. People are encouraged by the government through various media, to manage their finances, spend wisely and to make it a goal to save.

Even young couples are not spared. With the lures of credit cards, some have declared bankruptcy at their early age. With a combined household income that used to give them freedom to spend for both needs and wants (of course with the help of their credit cards), now they find themselves in major financial trouble.

Good for them, there are many credit consolidation companies that have sprung given the demands for such service. Debt Free 24 is one company that helps people achieve financial freedom by assisting them to manage their loans. All it takes is just a phone call and the company will be ready to provide debt assistance.

I was never interested in gaming save for the free online games like miniclip.com (and I’m not sure if it qualifies as a “game”). However, I know a lot of guy friends who make “gaming” a serious hobby. They not only spend a lot of time on their PCs but spend money as well to sort of nurture their past time. I have heard of World of Warcraft (WoW) from these guys and at one point, they hooked up the game into the company’s network, which allowed them to play after office hours.

This game, being a multi-player online role-playing game, requires the player to buy WoW account, choose a character and play with thousands of other WoW enthusiasts. In a way, getting an account is like tapping into a new social network because you get to meet people and make friends along the way.

To my surprise, WoW’s website is so extensive that it has its own forums, multiple pages of gaming rules and guides and workshops even. The monthly fee is a bit expensive but as the website claims, there is so much work put in to build the WoW gaming community, which in return is enjoyed by the gaming addicts.

The characters in the game definitely do not appeal to me but I guess it’s the adventure and thrill that make it so popular and loved by many gamers.

I’m beginning to feel the “pains” of maintaining three blogs. My posts or topics overlap, the photos which I use for my photo memes are spread on all blogs and in days where I am in no mood to write, I have site traffic on three sites to worry about.

Once more, I’m thinking of streamlining my blogs. Maybe keep a minimum of two or decide on a blog theme that will prevent me from posting overlapping entries. Sigh. I think I will need acne treatment just thinking of my blogs.

Since my webhost move to Dreamhost a few months ago, I contemplated to blog about my hosting experience to help out non-techie users like me. So now, this will be the first of a series of reviews, which I hope I can complete within a few weeks.

Although my first blog set-up was a bit tricky, I have begun to appreciate the features offered – like the quick installs. I don’t need to upload wordpress files through ftp anymore. I just need to log in to my control panel and click on the One-Click installs menu. The best thing is that I can do my version upgrades there, too. Isn’t that grand?

Like what it says on the Dreamhost website, it’s Fantastico, shmantastico!

More blogging tips here.

I hear many people say that success in marriage can be achieved with love, commitment and faith in God. While I do agree in that framework, I think it is also critical that the couple is surrounded by friends and family who can provide support when the rough and tough times come. And in situations that call for professional help, there are experts in the field of counseling that couples going through a “rough patch” can consult with.

The internet has a wealth of information on counseling clinics, the type of counseling required and of course, the counselors. Theravive.com is a good example of an online directory where these types of information can be found. The clinics’ location is mainly in the US and Canada. If you hop to the Counseling Oakland page, a thorough list of counselors, registered psychologists and areas of practice are listed.

I find it amusing though that the website offers an “E-counseling” option. With just a few clicks, the website will display a page where the available E-counselors are listed together with the means of communication, whether by phone, email or instant messaging. I admire how the field of counseling has widened its reach through technology.

I guess there shouldn’t be any reason for anybody to feel alone or left out when going through marital, personal or career issues. Theravive.com is a good source of counseling and support.

I once read a story on the Reader’s Digest about a teenager who died after taking ecstasy. What struck me was that the girl was not a party girl type who is into drugs but a decent and smart girl well loved by her family, classmates and friends.

In a nutshell, the girl was “dared” to take the pink pill by another group of girls in her school. Not long after she took it, her heart went on overdrive and she stayed at the hospital in a coma state before she died.

Whenever I hear or read stories like that, I can’t help but worry about my daughter. We can go on and encourage her to be a good kid but we have no control on the people she’ll meet, the friends she’ll make and the environment she’ll be in.

It is always my prayer for the Lord to guide her and keep her safe all the time. We can only do so much as parents no matter how we try. In one of my conversations with my husband, I jokingly said that maybe we should have a GPS tracking device on her so we know where she is all the time. But that’s just an exaggeration of course.

One of the highlights of our trip to the US in 2005 was our visit to Las Vegas. Whenever I see the colorful lights along the strip on TV shows, I tell myself that we should plan for Vegas vacations in the near future.

I remember playing the slot machine for the first time and I won 80 dollars, they call it beginner’s luck. Also, there’s this restaurant that serves really cheap but yummy steak and eggs (just thinking about it makes me drool). Best of all, I miss the beautiful sunset, like the one I captured above during our drive from Vegas to San Diego.

It is no doubt very tempting to spend for things and not worry about shelling out cash at that moment. I’m talking about the lures of credit cards. I heard of people go bankrupt because they max-out the credit limits oftentimes of not just one but several cards.

However, credit cards are not all that bad. In fact, we can make them work for us and not against us. If we do maintain timely payments in full and earn points in the process, we can even get airline mileage and receive gifts from the company’s rewards system.

In detail, we can achieve that by: One, spending within our means. Two, avoid paying on installments (because this is where we make those credit card companies rich). Third, keeping one or two credit cards at the most if you know having more than that can only drag you close to bankruptcy.

At one point in my career life, I started receiving pre-approved cards in the mail. If I remember correctly, there were at least five that were sent to me. At that time, I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I was much younger and less mature, I might have kept all those credit cards and used them to my heart’s content.

But knowing how hard it is to earn money, deciding on whether to live credit-free or otherwise was not a tough decision to make. Looking back, I have no regrets.

I wish I am an investment-savvy person. That way, our hard-earned savings will not be ‘sleeping’ in the bank. I have met a few financial consultants in Singapore and they helped a lot by way of explaining the ins and outs of making investments. It was enlightening to know that even for insurance policies there are programs that allow the insured to allot a portion of the premium to a choice investment.

One investment type that is very popular among our circle of friends is Forex. Well, they say that this is pretty high risk but it goes without saying that the gains have high potential, too.

A friend who participated in online foreign currency trading shared with me that one of the downsides is that she has to be up on US time (opposite time zone in Singapore). Despite this, when she got a feel of how online trading works, she immediately got hooked. Also, she had to be up to date with current events and latest business news and was therefore always on the internet day after day.

I think foreign currency trading is for high risk takers. I prefer to be on the ‘safe side’ when investing and therefore Forex trading is not for me.

There is a non-profit organization that aims to assist uninsured patients to get free medication through their patient assistance programs. Patient Assistance.com is a corporation located in the US and has helped so many people through their programs.

I wish something like that is available for our fellow Filipinos back home. With a big chunk of our population living below poverty line, it will be greatly beneficial for patients to get free assistance in the form of medications. There are so many pharmaceutical companies back home which can sponsor the programs. I’m not sure if we already have something similar to this but I hope we do.

One of the most important considerations before my husband accepted his job here in Sydney is the insurance coverage. With Australia’s economy booming, it is expected that the standard of living will go up as well.

With our objective to experience a change of lifestyle and still be able to meet our target savings here, we had to go through the insurance coverage offered by my husband’s company thoroughly and checked if there are areas to upgrade based on our needs.

Since we are here on working visas, it is vital to choose a good private health insurance. So far, we have no regrets in the company we chose. We are comfortable with the coverage we chose especially with our child in mind. For permanent residents, however, Medicare will cover hospitalization or medical needs.

Our friend here who got the same coverage said that her plans for baby #2 are well underway since the insurance will take care of her delivery/ hospitalization expenses.

My husband has been asking me to make appointments with the dentist, chiropractor and optometrist. He said that we should maximize the benefits before they lapse. I guess the next opportunity I get; I will definitely make calls to schedule all of these visits.

Some hate it, some don’t. Some think that removing the Blogger navbar violates the terms and conditions for Blogger’s free hosting. Others say that there’s no clear statement from Blogger to keep the navbar permanently.

Well, whatever your feelings are about this topic, the code to remove the navbar is there for the taking. Here’s the link to the blog that shows the piece of html code that you just need to copy-paste on your blog’s template.

Easy-peasy, I should say.

http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/2005/01/remove-navbar.html

More blogging tips here.

(Ang cyclone na ito ay “simulation” lamang na makikita sa Discovery Centre sa Singapore. Bagaman nakamamangha ang luntiang kulay habang patuloy ang pag-ikot ng tubig, mababatid rin natin kung gaano kalakas na kalamidad ito.)

This cyclone simulation can be found at Singapore’s Discovery Centre. Even though I was in awe of the bright green color produced by the whirling water, I realized how strong and powerful a calamity this is.

More Litratong Pinoy here!

When a good friend of ours got hospitalized for a serious illness, one of our major worries for him and his family is the hospital bills. We feared for the worst financial setback possible. This is where health insurance plans play a major role. My husband and I are so happy to learn that their health insurance will cover all the medical costs. It is a big relief that now they can focus solely on the patient’s recovery.

As we get older, we realize how important life and health insurance policies are. Especially when we have dependents, we are given the financial security when we get proper coverage for the earners in the family.

I’m sure there are still some people that are cynical towards getting insurance coverage. Some on the other hand think that as long as they have a good cash flow, they don’t need to get life or health policies.

In this case, it helps to think of a possible worst case scenario. Having a good cash flow is fine but who wants to use it up for health or emergency cases? How would you want your children to end up when either of the earning parents could no longer work?

There are many financial agents out there who give free assessment and advice on this matter. If you don’t have coverage yet, I strongly encourage you to consider getting one.

Searching for the right frame for eye glasses can be a pain to some people. There are things to consider like comfort, the style of the frame should suit the wearer’s facial shape and even the shade or tint of the lenses matter.

Zenni Optical shop has a one-stop online shopping site that offers a wide selection of eye glasses for both children and adults. They even have a promotion called $8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglasses.

What’s nice about being able to shop online is you can already narrow-down your search such that you won’t have to spend a lot of time going around the optical shop browsing through the selection. You can note down the frame style you prefer and if it the price fits your budget, you just need to drop by Zenni Optical and make a purchase.

A lot of kids nowadays wear spectacles and in Singapore alone, they have campaigns to help children battle myopia or near-sightedness. It must be the early exposure of kids to television and video games that contribute to this eye condition. It helps that there are optical shops that offer discounts for parents who have kids that need corrective eye glasses.

When we were planning for our New York City trip in 2005, we knew that spending less than a week there is not enough. However, due to time constraints, we compressed our schedule so that we can visit most of the highlights there.

It was tiring to say the least. It was like every hour was critical for us that we should spend it wisely. There are a lot of buses offering NYC tours but we chose to tour the city on foot.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. I took as many photos as I can and I didn’t even let pass taking a shot of the door of Donald Trump’s office. There is so much history in every corner and every spot in that city. There is so much color and life to the structures and parks that I can sit contently while I watch the busy New Yorkers pass by.

Next time we get the chance, I will be more equipped to plan for our trip there. I’m sure that we’ll have a grand time again. We will not only visit the places we missed but we can also visit my in-laws in nearby New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Not really wordless today, but I can’t help but share about New York! I have one more wordless here. More from the other participants!

Shopping for babies’ stuff can be an overwhelming task for first-time parents. Aside from the budgeting aspect, there’s the challenge to come up with the list of must-haves. First, there’s the tendency to exaggerate and buy nice to haves thinking that the baby “might” need it. Second, who can tell what the exact needs of the baby are when it comes out.

A friend of mine shared that she bought a pram, carrier, wooden crib with matching crib beddings and a playpen. Only to find out that her baby dislikes being latched to a pram and staying in a playpen. That’s already a lot of money put to waste.

It is safe to have baby’s basic needs available. Anyway, it’s always easy to buy if and when it’s needed.

I may have been blogging for over four years but it’s only recently that I’ve started to gain interest in knowing a bit of the technical side of setting up blogs and the importance of SEO. There is so much available information out there that spending a few minutes or hours a day is definitely not enough.

So to share bits and pieces of my blog finds, let me start by sharing this tool called Website Grader. I stumbled upon this site a few months ago but never got around to writing about it until today. This tool lists the important aspects of SEO and you’ll see how you can improve on them.

There is still so much to be done to improve all my blogs’ grades but I’ll get there eventually. So why not give it a whirl now, here’s the link:

http://www.websitegrader.com/

More blogging tips here.