The two old colleagues just had a business trip at the big city, so it was a good time to catch-up on each other. They’ll be attending a training in the next two days so I was trying to schedule some time with them before they get too busy.

Well, that’s just how it is living in a place that you still can’t call home. You always look for the familiar – familiar friends and friendly faces, homey stories and the usual laughter with good old pals. Growing up and starting a new life is fun and at the same time, challenging. Often times, I long for the home I know. However, I cannot deny the fact that a lot of things amaze me in this new life I have – new cultures (some weird, some nice), new attitudes, new people. I would say, this new life of mine has brought me deeper maturity of my understanding of things.

I guess this is my reality right now. My past is all but behind me, and my future is yet to unf0ld. A lot of what lies beyond, I do not know of. All I have is my past, and the faith in my God  which helps me look forward each and every day.

Many times, I wake up in the morning wondering what will transpire before me. Smiling as the day begins helps a lot to start your day. Real joy is not something you solicit from others. Real joy is what comes from within after being greatful of what you have.

Still, a lot of times, I cannot hide the truth of loneliness. Even until now, I still long for the life I had back home. I still long for the times when I see my Switee everyday. I still long for the life I had when my world was smaller and my reality was less than what I have now. But then again, the only way to go is forward. And onward, forward, one must go through life. The last time I went home, many where very much the same. The smell, the touch, the presence at home is always the same. If there is one thing that’s  changed, it was me. Life has changed me. I might deny it now but the things you learn outside the comforts of your home is always something unfamiliar.

Unfamiliarity brings with it anxiety. But it brings a lot of good stuff as well – new friendships, new learnings, new points of view, things that are essential in growing as a person. Right now, I tend to shape what I hope to be in the future. But in reality, I do not know of what I become in the future. It is in faithfulness that one finds comfort and peace of mind in whatever the future holds. A lot of moments will be happy, a lot will be sad, and a lot are dull, boring moments. But surely, whatever the future may hold, there is only one thing that you have control of. That is the present. Making the most of it is never easy. In fact, it’s a craft. Yet in failure, you get to learn. In failure, you get to realize how frail and limited a being you are. It is in accepting one’s finite capacity that you get to see the greatness of an infinite God. Accepting that reality brings you peace.

As I was writing, I was playing this web radio and the music was soothing and calm. It’s a contempo station and the music was taking me to thoughts of the past and the future. Well, I could never take away the thoughts I have of my switee… I keep her in my prayers. Stay safe my dear… (sorry for the cluttered thoughts )

Tomorrow is another day. Monday work day. Another chance to do one’s best

Let me sleep tonight. I hope I get to see you in my dreams my dear. For now, let me embrace you there…

P. S. loving you always my switee

Well, the laptop isn’t purely mine. It’s my girlfriend’s. But I was working a lot for her on her blogs (since she was very busy with her full time job then) at the time we were thinking of buying one for her. It’s basically for the satisfaction of both of us buying our very first laptop without asking from our parents a single penny. It was mainly for her masters degree as she is still taking it as of the moment of writing. But, later on we realized how else can a laptop serve us.

For me for one, it helps me a lot during meeting with current and prospect clients. The discussion and explanations seem more easy with the laptop as a visual aid. Plus, it also makes blogging much more fun if you choose to blog on a coffee shop (like the thing I’m doing right now, hehe).

I’m in cafe called Pronto Mario. It’s a small coffee shop with really great prices for quite ample meals. If you happen to be in Davao City, you can locate it near Gaisano Mall, beside The Paper Tree Bookstore. They serve good meals at a very affordable price.

Anyway, enough of the plugging (they didn’t pay me by the way). As I was saying, having this laptop is really handy, especially for business people. Laptops and other gadgets are getting more and more affordable. I’m not sure how this one costs here. Its HP Pavilion dv271nr by the way. We got it from a family in the US as gadgets like these are way much cheaper there.

Well, that’s about it really. I got quite busy lately which explains the absence of posts, hehe. I hope to get back to my IE career but with IT twist this time as it really interest me.

I am still in this application which, when successful, requires me to work to Manila. Well, I hope so as this is a good multinational company. Still, at the back of my mind, I am thinking of the comforts of Davao City. Manilenyos (and manilenyas) who have seen Davao for quite sometime would agree with this I think. You see, Davao does not only offer a sweet comfy life, it also gives you luxurious vacation at very affordable prices. White sand beaches are only 15 minutes away from the city. Manilenyas from the company I worked at before was surprised at how convenient Samal Beaches are. They often go to the beach early in the morning for a swim and head for the office at nine, hehe (Talking about making the most out of their stay in Davao).

Most of the Davaoenyos I know who had the taste of life in Manila (or the bad side of it perhaps) always appreciate the Davao life style. If only you would have a Manila rate working in Davao, the best of both metros.

Well, we’ll see where this application heads me. I’ll be updating you soon. I hope this gets me better and not bitter, hehe! Ciao!

Soon, I was worried I might fill up too much resources on the previous site. I finally decided to give it it’s own hosting. It fully standing on its own now.

There are advantages and disadvantages that I saw in having your own hosting and sharing other domain’s hosting. First, having your own hosting helps you lessen the clutter in maintaining your sites as your files don’t mix up. You could also generate more income and more subdomains for such site. The disadvantage is, of course, you have an additional bill to pay annualy.

Nevertheless, I’m still happy to have it hosted on its own. Since this is a personal site, I feel I have just rewarded my self

Choosing a Blog Niche

The reason why one should choose a blog niche is the reality that all of us are masters of something but no one is a master of everything. If you want to develop a blog that you think would be rich and interesting, it would be a good practice to select one for your blog. There are also other benefits aside from those mentioned above in limiting your blog to a certain interest like loyal readership, better credibility and profile and even more advertiser attractive. The following questions may help you in choosing one:

Does the topic interest you? If you want to do your blogging for a long time, you would have to talk about it over and over and over again. That means you would have to explore more and more into the intricacies of it. If there is interest, there is a natural curiosity for it. If there is curiosity for it, doing a more research about it will be far more enjoyable and fulfilling for you as a blogger.

Does the topic interest others? Finding what tickles readers is really a big thing in writing interesting posts. If there is one thing that readers have very little, it’s time so as a blogger, you must give them there time’s worth, giving them as close to what they need as possible.

Can you provide ample content? Creating blogs with niches require you not just to write about what you already know but also to more research on the topic you are talking about. The resources for such research must be readily available for yo. Consider not just data available on the web but more so on books and past readings.

Finding a Blog Hosting

When you have finally decided on what topic niche you’ll have, it is highly recommended that your domain name (or your url ) would include keywords that relate to your niche. For example, if you wish to talk about dogs, a good url would be http://dogs.wordpress.com or best would be http://dogs.com. Of course, those examples are already taken for sure but the point stands out. Search engines rank you higher for words that are within your url.

A huge issue in blog hosting is whether to create a blog in free hosting sites like blogger.com or wordpress.com or to purchase a domain and hosting for your site

If you decide to create a blog in free hosting sites

the advantages include:

• usually a user-friendly blog admin interface and blog themes that is readily available upon sign-up
• free of charge hosting (except your expense in surfing the web in case you pay it yourself)
• free technical support from hosting administrator and usually documented processes
• enjoying new features and plug-ins available.

The disadvantages however include:

• less freedom to customize site
• more difficulty in developing a domain name identity as you will be tagged along the hosting site address
• less probable to receive advertising offers, especially if you are hosted in really crowded hosting sites.

If you decide to buy your own domain name and hosting

the advantages include:

• fully customizing the site to your liking
• easier monitoring of your site statistics (for strategy development) as you can avail of free website stats services for web masters
• establishing your site’s domain name with your identity as a blogger

The disadvantages include:

• the requirement to learn a bit of coding and even programming unless you opt to pay someone to do it for you (this can be an advantage however if you eye on learning more in information technology)
• features available in free hosting sites must be done manually by you or your webmaster
• payment must be made for domain name and hosting renewal (usually annually).

Placing Entries in Your Blog

This is where the real meat of blogging comes in. You would have to create entries within your topic niche that’s really interesting and read-worth for your readers. You may use humor, poetry or some other writing skills. The choice is yours.

In any web site, the content is the most thing for readers, may it be articles, poetries or images. It is because of the content that people keep coming back to read from your blog so a huge effort in creating good ones must be taken.

“Imagine that your website or blog is one of the television stations. Just as these stations earn from advertisings, so will you earn through your site.”

Please take note that from here onwards, I shall interchange the terms blog, blogsite, site or website. The term “Blog” which is actually derived from the words “Web Log” is just one of the different forms of a website.

The Dynamics of Your Site as a Channel

If you know a bit about marketing, you would agree that tv stations who have higher ratings are more likely to receive advertising offers. The same is true with your site as a channel or station. The higher your ratings, the higher offers you’ll get. ( I wonder not about fuzz over those tv ratings they are talking about, hehe). Kidding aside, the next question would be how to increase your site’s ratings. Or more importantly, how do you know your rating in the first place? Hold on to those questions as it opens us to a whole new topic springing from where we are right now.

One twist with our nutty explanation however is that, unlike television stations which do not really reach up to a thousand in number worldwide, there are millions of blogs readily open for business in the world wide web to date. So how does your eetsie bitsy tinny winny blog get recognized in the crowded blogosphere (a term used in the virtual environment where blogs interconnect with each other)? Through search engines. We’ll tackle that one too pretty soon. Just keep those ideas coming and those brains absorbing. I just really need to hit the sack.

But before that, let me tell you why I decided to create this new category. Recently, I have been asked by friends and those whom I meet online about how to earn through blogging. Some who know me personally were aware that I am earning online already. It could be by chance that they all come together in one time or maybe they saw Mel and Joey’s episode on “How to Make Money through Blogging” where, according to Abe Olandres (one of the professional bloggers featured in the segment) there was “Too much hype” about it, giving the impression that earning is too easy. I agree with Abe on this. Blogging is for everyone but earning through blogging is only for those who are willing to give all that they got for it – patience, hard work and a lot of time.

Anyway, as I was saying. With all these currently happening, I received a suggestion to blog about it. That way, I get too keep their questions recorded online so as not to miss any, especially the important ones. Thanks dear.

So here it is, launched is the category about earning online. I do not boast though of my earnings ( and i do not intend to) but I am just passionate in telling anybody who asks me that earning through the web, not just in blogging, is really possible.

Now, where do I start? Hmm…