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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

Ayon sa http://www.tagalog-dictionary.com:

slender
slender adj. 1 long and thin, slim, not plump: balingkinitan, patpatin 2 slight, scanty: kaunti, kakaunti, munti, bahagya, babahagya, maliit, mahina

Ito po ang timbang ko noong ako ay dalaga pa. Ang timbangan na ito ay matatagpuan sa Discovery Centre, Singapore.

Mayroon pa akong isang lahok. Maraming pang litratong pinoy dito!

Taken in Brisbane, Australia 2004.

I have another entry here. More wordless(ness) here!

Since I started doing sponsored posts, I find it challenging to maintain a 2:1 ratio between personal and sponsored posts. That is why I wanted to have a widget that will list my featured posts. That way, the few people who drop by this blog (and my other working blog) will not be totally put off with purely paid posts or fillers.

Thanks to James Lao, author of the Category Posts widget. He wonderfully coded that piece of beauty that you now see on my sidebar.

http://jameslao.com/2008/04/18/category-posts-widget-13/

More blogging tips here.

(This yummy ice cream flavor is called Chocnut. Originating from the very popular chocolate candy in the Philippines bearing the same name. Its creamy, peanut-buttery taste just makes you come back for another serving and another and another.

The original chocnut flavored ice cream can be found at Uva restaurant in Makati (not sure if they have other brances in Manila). Selecta, a commercial ice cream brand, joined the bandwagon and is now selling their own version of this yummy treat. But I tell you, nothing compares to the original.)

Ang ice cream na ito ay Chocnut flavor. Galing ito sa isang sikat ng tsokolate na gamit ang tinurang pangalan. Ang ma-krema at peanut butter nitong lasa ay makaka-kumbinsi sa iyong balikan ito ng paulit-ulit.

Ang orihinal na Chocnut ice cream ay mabibili sa Uva restaurant. Ang Selecta ay tumulad sa kanila at gumawa rin ng sariling bersyon ng ice cream na ito. Pero sa totoo lang, walang makakatulad sa Uva chocnut ice cream.

May isa pa akong lahok dito. At marami pa dito!

I personally don’t like to use watermarks on my photos. I find that it sorts of ruins the whole image as it steals the viewer’s focus away from the subject/s. But lately, I’ve been uploading tons of photos on my blogs and now I’m concerned about other people possibly downloading them for personal or worse, commercial use without my permission. I have no choice but to use watermarks.

I once shared my photos to a magazine contributor and was sad that the copies went out without proper credit. I don’t want to encourage people to do that to me again. I am not a professional photographer or a hobbyist thinking that my photos are ‘worth stealing’. But stealing is stealing and it is wrong, no matter how you look at it.

As I surfed the net last night, I eventually landed to this Wordpress plugin page by Marekki. I immediately downloaded it and used it on my two blogs. I still have a lot of re-uploading to do because the auto-watermarking (sorry, I couldn’t think of a better term) will only kick-in once you upload the photo. Imagine not editing your photos to add your watermark or logo? Cool, huh.

Marekki did a great job in putting up a site solely for his Wordpress plugin complete with detailed instructions and a screenshot. Here is his site.

http://www.wp-watermark.com/

My sample photo using the watermark plugin:

You can change the font, its position, opacity and you can even upload your own logo through the Wordpress Admin panel.

More blogging tips here.

I have another wordless here and more wordless(ness) here!

I see a puppy with one arm raised upwards. How about you?

I have another wordless here and more wordless(ness) here!

Not the kind of spam I want for breakfast. (This is a screen cap of my sql database when Akismet was deactivated.)

If my memory serves me right, it was just a year ago when my former blog hostees raised an issue about Akismet “eating up” many of their valid comments. They had to fish each of them out, which of course is time consuming to do.

So, the solution we came up with is to replace it with a different anti-spam plugin. A plugin that allows the commenter to fill-in a key word in the hopes of driving away the spam robots that automatically inserts nasty comments and trackbacks.

Unfortunately, I recently discovered that the new plugin is not completely eradicating the spam from our blogs. When I moved web hosts, I was surprised to see my sql file with tons of spam comments! I was in the middle of migrating the last of the 6 blogs I am hosting when I opened up the file and saw a lot of spam keywords that refer to gambling or drugs! I had to change the DNS midway and clean the sql file from my old host before importing them to the new host.

It was then that I decided to put back Akismet on my plugin list and let it do its work and that is to protect my database from further mess caused by these spammers!

More blogging tips here.

Maintaining three active blogs is no joke. Aside from filling them up with new ideas for contents, I need to be conscious of SEO and readership. It doesn’t help that a simple thing such as ‘dressing’ up a blog can be a tedious thing to do (this blog is a good example in itself– i still haven’t found the ‘right’ template!). There are hundreds upon hundreds of wordpress templates that are both free and premium but the question is often, which design fits my overall theme?

In my attempt to help fellow bloggers in this long and winding search for free wordpress themes, I have listed some links that I have come across in my own hunt for a suitable theme.

Compilations:

1. 21 Fresh, Usable and Elegant Wordpress Themes
2. 100 Excellent Free Wordpress Themes
3. WP Theme Spot
4. BG Themes
5. Best WP Themes
6. CSS Juice
7. WP Theme Viewer (of course!)
8. New Wordpress Themes
9. Wordpress Start
10. WP Snap

Straight from the Author

1. Fahlstad Design
2. Poxline
3. Shattered Pixie
4. Ericulous
5. Brian Gardner
6. Solo Stream – mostly premium
7. Magnus Jepson

If you have other links in mind and would like to share them here, please leave me a note and I will add them on the list. Thanks!

More blogging tips here.

Taken at a Pewter factory in KL, Malaysia, 2005

(Father’s Hands.

These hands do not only work to support the family.

They also cradle their babies to sleep.

They also feed. They embrace.

They love.)

~~@~~

Ang kamay ng mga ama.

Hindi lamang naghahanap-buhay para sa pamilya.

Nagpapatulog rin ng mga anak.

Nagpapakain. Yumayakap.

Nagmamahal.

May isa pa akong lahok dito, sana ay makapasyal kayo.

Don’t they look pretty?

Taken at a shop in Singapore, 2006.

I have one more wordless here, hope you can also visit! More wordless, here!

This error occurs during image uploads. It is kind of irritating when you are in the course of creating a post and at the point of adding the image/s, it suddenly won’t load!

The first time I encountered this, I searched high and low for answers from wordpress.org forums to many, many techie blogs. Some offered work-arounds that really didn’t work for me. For one, changing folder permissions to 777 is not safe (at least that’s what i know), second the error is intermittent.

So I formed another work-around. Although it is not solving the problem (hey, that’s why it’s called a work-around), it works for me each time. Just log-off (save your drafts, okay?) and log back in. Presto! I was able to upload images again.

I’m sure the Wordpress guys have this on their list of bug-fixes so this work-around will do for now.

More blogging tips here.