OUR AWESOME PLANET

Six Figure Blogging by Darren Rowse

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In 2005, I attended the course that changed my blogging life and catapulted me to the maven status in my blogging niche. I owe them this testimonial. Read more: Six Figure Blogging In Depth Review

The Day Gary Vaynerchuk Rocked My Internet Marketing World

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Meet Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library
a 32 year old self-trained wine expert who is revolutionizing the wine industry. His webcast, "The Thunder Show" on www.winelibrarytv.com, attracts over 60,000 viewers each day and his email queue typically holds 1,000 messages from obsessed fans, self-named "Vayniacs." His roots in wine tasting come honestly -- his Russian immigrant parents owned a liquor store when he was growing up. Bored at the cash register, Gary began reading "The Wine Spectator and books about wine and baseball cards collection. With a wealth of knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit, Gary spent every weekend of his college years at his parents' store, rebranding the family business as Wine Library and establishing himself as a respected expert. Inspired by sites such as youtube.com and facebook.com, Gary leveraged technology to reach an untapped audience. His daily 20 minutes webcasts caught the attention of a demographic new to wine and eager to learn. Within a short time, beer sales were outpaced by wine and Gary was spotting wine at Giants Stadium tailgate gatherings and Super Bowl parties. While his youthful following broke down barriers in the wine industry, the business world (and Web 2.0) admired Gary for creating a new generation of branding, focusing on the internet.

There is no doubt that Gary Vaynerchuck rocked the Strategic Profits Internet Marketing Conference (see New Beginnings! Strategic Profits Live 2008 Blog) . I would like to share with you my learnings that rocked my world:
1. He encourages all Internet Marketers to give ALL their content for FREE instead of ethically tricking people to share a FREE report expecting sales on the backend with higher priced products. Give value to readers, give information for FREE but market the hell out of it!

2. Content is King, Marketing and PR is the Queen and we all know who runs the household. This concept alone paid for my entire trip to the Strategic Profits event. For the next 3 years, the internet game will be a combination of your web 2.0 social media knowledge and skills in Internet Marketing. I have spent all of my time learning from the best and only from the best. I do hope I can share with all Filipinos out there.

3. Be a BIG part of the conversation. This is tough and requires hard work that not all internet marketers would embrace. You need to leave comments on all the blogs of people, answer every email, and empower readers to interact with your brand. Gary responds to each and every email that he receives ( about 1,000 messages/ day) !

4. Legacy > Currency. Live and strive to work on your legacy NOW. Don't wait to grow old and waste your time with things that are not important in life. I love Gary for this quote and this is also how I want to live my life. I want to dedicate my life in leaving a legacy in the Philippines.

5. Follow your heart. Love Everyone. This is my motto from now on and I encourage all of you to follow what your heart's desire. God planted seeds of holy discontent in your heart and I know you can hear it. It is up to you if you want to follow your heart. Make that decision today!


It was cool to see him record a live show of Wine Library TV!! Cool :) This was the end of the New Beginnings conference and thanks to Rich for inviting Gary to close the conference.


After the conference, most of the internet marketers still wanted to ask a lot of questions to Gary. I learned so much from the conversations and this shaped the way how I would run Our Awesome Planet campaign.

Paul Scheele's Hypnosis & Nonconscious Communication

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New Beginnings! Strategic Profits Live 2008 Blog

I'm thankful for being able to attend this world class event. I was the only Filipino in the Best Internet Marketing Conference 2008 and I want to share my personal insights that blow my mind. Paul Scheele is the master of how to use the 90% of your brain (which is your subconscious). Dr. Paul I think appeared in the Secret. Most of the time the subconscious is working without the conscious mind knowing it. Here are my insights:

1. There is no such thing as hypnosis. Hypnosis is the power of concentration, imagination and suggestion! Everyday we are under a hypnotic state and we don't even know it. We should be very careful of the power of suggestion to other people. Sometimes, we would often say to people, "bakit ang tamad tamad mo". Don't to that! You are actually giving a powerful suggestion to the person that he is lazy and if you repeat it 5 times within the day, you are like hypnotizing that person to be lazy. The mere fact that our media in the Philippines only reports the negative and controversial stuff, the TV is hypnotizing every Filipinos to be bad and negative. Please, please stop watching TV or anything that will highlight negativity or any persons who are negative. Thanks to Rache, she influenced us to cut our cable TV so that we cannot watch this anymore. Just imagine the influence of TV with the kids.

2. Remove "I Cannot" in your vocabulary. The moment you say you cannot do things, it will manifest itself and it will not happen. Instead, if there is something that you think you cannot do, tell yourself: My mind can do this, I don't know how long it would take, but I can surprise myself. Dr. Paul shared with us evidences that the moment you say "I cannot" the mind will abort the subconscious to even work on it. That is why the Why Not Forum is so powerful, it is a campaign to teach Filipinos do always say let's do it, why not?

3. Focus on the What, not the How. Most of the time, we focus on How to Earn Money. The fact it, that is the wrong question to even ask in the first place. You need to focus on the WHAT! Embody what its gonna be like when you are there. This is called Positive Outcome Patterning. You need to embody visually, kinesthetically, auditory what does if feel to become rich. You need to act and feel that you are rich and let the universe take care of the How.

Am I making sense? I'm not sure if I am communicating here because these are so powerful concepts that addresses some of the fundamental flaws in every filipino family, including ours.

Paul Scheele talks at length about the Structure Of Influence and the key to building rapport with your prospects…

Paul R. ScheeleSpeaker, Author, Human Development Consultant

Activating Your Brilliance
You are brilliant beyond your imagination! Paul R. Scheele has facilitated this realization in millions of lives. He guides people to achieve extraordinary results in relationships, work, money, and health. Paul is an expert on learning how to learn to tap the other 90% of your mind. He believes everyone has an inner genius just waiting to be awakened.

Paul is the designer of programs such as Photo Reading, Natural Brilliance, Genius Code, Abundance for Life, the Paraliminals, and many other courses to stimulate personal and professional success. These programs allow people to go beyond what the logical mind believes possible and break through stuck states. When you want high impact, Paul will entertain, educate, inspire, and move audiences to use their genius minds and achieve amazing abundance.

Rich Schefren's Important Elements of A Maven

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Richard Schefren has offline built, run and sold multimillion dollar businesses in the fashion industry, music industry and the hypnosis industry. He currently has over 70 niche specific product sites, and has orchestrated teleseminars with marketers like Jay Abraham,and John Carlton. Currently, Rich maintains an elite marketing coaching program, where many of today's top Internet Marketers and service providers are among his clientele.

Rich opened the conference with inspiring us Internet Marketers to be the Maven -- the friend and expert who leads and provides value to the market. One of the key messages of his speech was being different is greater than being better in this attention age. Rich inspired the people that you can be whoever you want to be .... with PRACTICE! He also shared the big idea and strategy behind the FREE reports that he has been releasing into the market. Below is a preview of his speech. It was very powerful and for me it was the highlight of the Day 1 of the Main Event.



Conference Update: 2 Important Elements Of A Maven

Green Hat SEO Practices

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GREEN HAT SEO Practices
in support of the Blog Action Day

It is NOT about the money, it is about following GREEN SEO best practices to protect the internet environment. I firmly believe that protecting the environment begins with the mindset and values of each person. Bloggers, in particular, should start with themselves and follow these GREEN SEO best practices suggestion:

1. Don't Pollute the Internet with crappy and spamy sites. Why create an adsense site that does not contribute and make a difference in the internet? Instead create websites that would live forever and people will remember you even after you die. Start an advocacy campaign on things that you are passionate about.

2. Follow the Google Terms of Service. I've been slapped once by Google for still unknown reasons and I was put on the secondary index. It could be that I violated Google's TOS and since I'm back in the SERPS, I learned not to ever violate it in whatever form.

3. Don't sell the soul of your blog for a link to spammy sites. Would you link to a crappy site for $100? Most of us would but if you can resist that temptation, it is a good way to reinforce your self discipline. Don't link or support ads from porn related sites.

4. Buy only licensed product and Don't violate Copyright. Do you download pirated software or pirated music on the net? Or maybe, you set up a lyrics site that violate copyright? Do you download all rights reserved photos and use it on your own? Do you plagiarize? It starts with you and resist that temptation to violate the natural laws of what ever you believe in.

5. Don't comment just to put a link to your blog. Why spam the comments section just to put a link back to your site? To increase your technorati ranking on your own? If you need to link, link to the permalink of a blog post. Or those people who spam the forums creating two login accounts and create a fight between the two login accounts just to create a link to your blog? Let nature takes it course. If you have good content, links will follow.

6. Be honest about your identity. Be a man and don't put anonymous identity in the comments section. If you have a point of view put a valid email address and not just a generic email like -@gmail.com, etc.

7. Support worthy causes like Blog Action Day. Evil only wins if the good people don't act. Support advocacy like Blog Action Day, Filipina writing project, Sports for a cause activities, etc.

8. Donate your adsense earnings to organization that protect the environment. It is NOT all about the money. You have to give back to the environment in your own way. Believe me it will return to you a hundred fold.

9. Don't go to porn sites. Trekkie Monster once said that the Internet is for Porn and a lot of guys would laugh. You'll just be populating your browser cache with such junk if you patronize these porn sites. This is the ultimate self-discipline test for any bloggers out there.

10. Teach your children about Green Hat SEO practices. Everything starts when you are young. By about 3+, I'm sure Aidan would start blogging and I'll start to teach him the right way to do it. He knows texting and blogging words already and he would often tell us No Text or No Blog when he wants to play with us and even close our laptop and get our cellphones.

Any other suggestions?

Awesome Bent Art

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Check out these Bent Art photos from  the BENT OBJECTS Blog. It is really cool and it made my day :)

 
Salad is Murder!!!  -- It would be hard to eat salad again without having this mental picture in my head :)

 
The Pear Said, "Honey, Am I Fat?".  -- no comment :)

 
Sew Much Drama. -- Hilarious Scene :)

Hotdog Rejection. -- I'll always remember to eat my hotdog on a bun :)

The New 7 Wonders -- I'm Zero out of 7 in 7.7.07

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(The New 7 Wonders of the World)

Finally the new 7 wonders have been announced yesterday July 7, 2007.  I have been to the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, Statue of Liberty in US, Stonehenge in UK, and Sydney Opera House, Australia. After the announcement, I was disappointed that the Pyramids, the last surviving ancient wonder, was not included in the list.  I'm glad that there are two sites which are close to home, The Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal in India. Now is the best time to go to Beijing which has a lot of travel promotions before the Olympic games.  So after 7/7/07,  I haven't been to any of the new 7 Wonders of the World.

So what's next? New7Wonders launches the nominations for the New7Wonders of Nature -- The Natural 7 Wonders of the World.

Have you been to any of the new 7 Wonders of the World?

Related Posts:

7 new wonders of the world chosen
UNESCO slams seven 'new' wonders of the world list

Technorati Tags: 7 Wonders

Steal That Look

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StealThatLook.com is an interesting fashion site concept developed by a Filipina, Pam Siao where she offers suggestions on how can have the same fashion look as some popular celebrities. Most of the clothes and accessories are available in the Philippines. Check out the look that you can steal today....

I got a chance to know them when they featured me in the Blogs that They Love. I checked out their site and I wasted my time in browsing through interesting fashion on what real girls are wearing this summer. Such a refreshing site and interesting concept.

Wunderground.com -- Best Weather Service Online

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Just wanted to share with you another weather service secret. I don't rely on PAG-ASA reports anymore and in fact, I don't use TV anymore to help me predict typhoons in the Philippines. The MOST reliable weather service that predicted Hurricane Katrina in the US is www.wunderground.com. In fact, the local officials during the Katrina was saying that they did not get any warning but wunderground.com has been predicting it already. It is very critical specially for travelers and people who wants to go on road trips like me.

Let me share with you as an example. Ivan and I with friends were planning to go to Mt. Pinatubo on Dec. 1 friday and we arranged this way back. As early as Monday, I told Ivan that we will cancel it because wunderground.com is predicting that Super Typhoon Durian (locally called Reming) will hit Manila on Thursday afternoon. At this point, there were no news about it in the media. Ivan kept on asking me when I can confirm it and I just said to him that I'll keep on tracking the typhoon via this online service.

In fact the photo above is the latest tracking of the typhoon. It will hit Philippine shores by 9am today. In the afternoon, it will hit Category 3 status (111-130 mph) similar to typhoon Milenyo. Originally, it was forecasted to be Category 5 so fortunately, it slowed down a bit. If it remained as a Category 5 and hit Manila, I would be staying at home definitely and pray.

Another story. We were suppose to go to the Bulacan Sale this afternoon, but I insisted that we go this morning. The typhoon is predicted to get soo big in the afternoon. that we might get stuck in the floods of North Luzon highway. So, I was able to convince my wife and friends to go first thing this morning.

The internet is so powerful that you just need to know how to seek the right information. I do hope this tip could save lives and your family in the future. Btw, we use this weather tracking system in our company and we plan accordingly based on this. This usually gave us 1-2 days lead time and planning ahead of any weather warnings from PAG-ASA.

Thanks Wunderground.com!! You guys save lives :)

Technorati Tags: Manila, Philippines

My First Blook (Blogs-turned-Book)! Thanks to Blurb!

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Wow! I finally got my invite for the new innovative beta Blurb service that converts a blog into a bookstore-quality book!! They are currently running the beta blog-to-book service for 600+ typepad blog users and I got one of the invites :) I've been dreaming already of converting my blog (just the Awesome Pilipinas category) to a book in its raw blog form. I intend to use it as an ultimate back-up for our 20 months family adventures with my son Aidan. This serves as an autobiography for my son, so that he can read it someday. This is the main reason I started my blog and if you look at my first month's posts, it is about the birth of my son, Aidan :) Secondly, I'm thinking of selling it to people who would want to travel to the Philippines and who would need an offline version of my blog. This would be good for that long trip from the US to the Philippines :) Also, this would discipline me to be careful with my grammar and for dotting my "i" and crossing my "t".

Also, I'm hoping that this would be one of the first Blooks (blog turned into a book) in the Philippines!! We'll share with you the picture once I get the Our Awesome Planet Blook! Also, all your comments on the restaurant posts will be included! You guys will be part of this blook, so keep the comments coming!! The only catch right now is that each book could cost from $30 to $80 (ouch!). BTW, I can share another invite to another pinoy typepad user who would have the passion and energy to convert their blogs into a book. The only one I know that also uses typepad is Bryan Boy. Check out the Blurb Invite email below.

Related Posts:
From Blogger to Published Author, for $30 and Up
Blurb.com Gets Book Smart

Technorati Tags: Manila, Philippines

From: Blurb Community <community@blurb.com>
Date: Oct 12, 2006 10:15 AM
Subject: Convert your blog into a bookstore-quality book, compliments of Blurb
To: anton@diaz.ph

Dear Anton,

Thanks for your interest in Blurb, the creative publishing service. We're hand-picking TypePad bloggers to beta-test Blurb's new service that lets you turn your blog into a bookstore-quality, hardcover book.

Are you game?

If yes, we'll send you a complimentary copy of your finished book as a "thank you" for your feedback in this invitation-only program. All we ask is that you make a blog book between now and October 31st, and send us your thoughts and suggestions before we officially launch into the blogosphere.

Turning your blog into a book won't take long - the process takes just one evening with Blurb's BookSmart software. Our Blog Slurper automatically imports your blog into a professionally designed book template. Once the content is there, you can call it a day or add finishing touches to the cover, page backgrounds, fonts - the works. It's up to you.

Want to share the fun?

You can extend this same offer to one TypePad blogging friend - just send an email request to blog2bookbeta@blurb.com with your friend's name, blog URL and email. But choose carefully - this offer is only good for one friend (no fighting). Once you receive your complimentary book, you may want additional copies. No problem. Just place an order and we'll print more books -- but remember, only the first is gratis.

If this sounds good, click here to participate.

Then download BookSmart software, create your book, and order your complimentary copy. We have generated this coupon code specifically for your blog: OAP1012 (not transferable). Please enter this code on the order form and your bookstore-quality book will be delivered in about 7 business days. Afterwards, we'll ask you what you think of this new service.

We think you'll be pleased. Ecstatic even. You may even feel compelled to blog about the experience. But don't take our word for it - here's what a couple bloggers had to say about Blurb recently:

A-G Spot: Hard Memories
Eoin Purcell's Blog: Blurb.com upgrades, gets commented on in Wired.com and generally attracts attention

If you need any help along the way, just email us at blog2bookbeta@blurb.com and we'll get back to you pronto. Keep up the great blogging, and we hope to see you soon in print.

The Blurberati

Please note:
Replies to this message will bounce back. It's nothing personal: this email message was sent from a notification-only address that can't accept incoming email. (Thanks for understanding.)

And the first Phil SEO Star is Gio! Congratulations!

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Congratulations to Gio (Guy in red shirt) for winning the first ever Philippines SEO Contest for the term "Isulong seoPH"!  Thanks to Marc, founder of SEO Philippines for taking the lead to make this contest a reality. Thanks also to lakeside technologies founder, Boris for supporting the event and for the free food during the awarding night in Pier 1 last Saturday. 

Nice to meet all of you guys! Check out the pictures during last Saturday's event.

And the winner is... 1st Prize - Gio of sulongseophil.com

"Magaling lang talaga akong spammer... " -- 1st Prize winner, Gio of sulongseophil.com

2nd Prize - Whin Clores of bicolbusinessdirectory.com/isulong-seoph

3rd Prize - Rostum Hernandez of isulongseoph.org

4th Prize - Zaldy Dalisay of kontrapelo.com

5th Prize - J. Angelo Racoma of go-ogle.com.ph/isulong-seoph

Find the nametag Ice Breaker

SEO Specialist from CEBU!

Wilson Chua, One of the Sponsors with J. Angelo, Tech Evangelist

Mr. SEO Phils, Marc Macalua cheers! Congratulations for a success Awards Nights!

Do it your own 3d Paper Craft and Origami!

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1. Do it your own 3d Paper Craft from Canon for Free!

2. Printable Origami Paper for Free!

Bahamut (Divine Dragon) and duo gunmen Origami creations.
Originally uploaded by Chosetec.

Yehey! Got in as an alternate contributor to Pinoy Tech Blogs!

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Finally, I'm now part of the Pinoy Tech Bloggers (PTB) family as the New alternate PTB Blogger! I'm happy that among the dozens who expressed interest I got chosen :) along with Mike Abundo who I met in one of the digital filipino eyeball, who is a great tech guy. Frankly, the reason I wanted to become a contributor in PTB is I want to channel all my technology posts into that group blog and keep Awesome Planet focused primarily on awesome stuff in the Philippines and things that makes me happy in our family life.

By the way, I'm also blogging at Litratista.org about photography and Pinoy Travel Blog about travel in the Philippines.

My Articles in Litratista.org
Essential Photo Backup Strategy
Top 5 Photo Sharing Website!

My inaugural post at Pinoy Travel Blog
Overnight Options @ Tagaytay

PS. Not sure where to put this Marc but anyway here's the link to your SEO experiment The Quest for Diana Zubiri

Roadmap to becoming a Project Management Professional (PMP)!

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I was reminded by my wife to complete my series on PMP when I passed the certification last Sept. 23. Instead of doing five separate series, this post would be comprehensive on the What, Why, When, How much and How to become a Project Management Professional.  PMP is a professional certification much like Engineering board exam, Nursing board exam, or any other professional course. But unlike our board exams here, PMP is globally recognized by 20 countries.

As of Sept 2005 PMI Factsheet, There are only 128,328 PMP's around the world with 62% in the United States and 26% (about 33,787) in Asia Pacific. Imagine, I'm the only DIAZ certified PMP based in the Philippines according to the PMP registry. This is increasingly required by US companies and you to can be a PMP Certified project manager if you are in the IT/ Consultancy Project Management Business. The best part of it, you can already add a suffix to your professional name!  ( I wonder if there would be a problogger certification course in the future? )

Engr. Jose Antonio Diaz, PMP

1. Apply for Eligibility for the PMP Certification.
For me this is the hardest part of becoming eligible because you need to dig down your files and get all the relevant information. Once you are past this, exam preparation is the next hurdle you will take.

• You need to have a College Degree
• 4500 hours of having a responsibility in leading and directing project tasks not necessarily a project manager role (about 3 years)
• 36 months of project management experience. (3 years essentially)
• 35 hours of training (this translated to 5 days of PM training -- either PM training in the company / university plus the PMP preparation course )
• It should be within 8 years from the date of the application.
• Be prepared to provide proof by certified authorities for each of the qualification when you are audited.

If you think you're eligible, apply online now.

>> More information on PMP Certification Eligibility

2. Become a PMI member ($149)

• Apply online to become part of the globally recognized Project Management Institute.
• Individual Membership ($119), PMI Application Fee ($10), and Chapter Membership ($20)
• Why? (a) members can avail of certification discounts, (b) get connected with latest PM information globally, and (c) download PM BOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge (PM BOK) - 3rd Edition

3. Attend a PMP Certification Training ($1,300)
This is essential because each company or individual has its own project management methodology and terminologies. You might be brainwashed by now and you need to reprogram your mental model to speak in terms of the global standard for Project Management contained in the PM BOK 3rd Edition.

I attended a PMP Bootcamp course certified by the Boston University and with our instruction to less than Luis Alvarez, PMP, CEO of Aldion Consulting. This is a compressed version of the 5-day course into 3 full days and costs ~$1,300 per participant.  For our company, Luis' track record is 100% passing rate. He normally gives this course in Singapore but we had 15 or more critical mass to invite him over in Manila. Look for PMI Certified Education Partner.

4. Schedule your PMP Exam ($405).

You should schedule your exam within 2-4 weeks after your training so that the concepts are still fresh. The CBT exam would costs you $405 with PMI membership discount already (if not it costs $555) . Your should received your eligibility ID before you can schedule your exam within 5 days from your application.

>> More information on preparations for the 2005 PMP Exam.

5. Study for the Exam ($56)
Just study two books:
1. PMP Exam Prep by Rita Mulchany (Fifth Edition) $56 from Amazon
2. PM Body of Knowledge (PM BOK) Third Edition (download from pmi.org members section)

This is tried and tested approach. I crammed my PMP exam within 1 week and Rita Mulchany's book saved my life. The key to studying is that:
-- You need to understand the sequence of the processes and what are the inputs and outputs
-- You need to learn how to answer the PMP certification multiple choice questions. Most of the answers are right and you need to choose the best one.
-- Read the PM BOK so reinforce your knowledge and understand PMIsms.
-- Learn by heart the PMP Code of Professional Conduct.
-- Also, practice answering 200 questions and time yourself. You need to get the hang of answering 200 questions before the actual exam.

6. Take the Test!

As usual, sleep early, don't burn the midnight oil before the exam. Bring your exam confirmation and passport, then take the test confidently. You need to clear your head and take your time. Answering 200 questions in 4 hours is just about 1 minute per question. So you won't have time to review all of your answers so use the markers for the question adequately.

Passing score is now 81% which is you need to get 141 questions right out of 200. They raised the bar last Sept 2005 from a passing rate of 70%. That is why I took the test on the last day (sept. 23)! Although, based on my scores, I could have still passed at 81% except for the PMP code of conduct section :)

Overall ~$2,000 investment to become a PMP and two months of preparation. Leave a comment if you have some questions.

How beautiful are the Pinays?

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One of my past time is flickr surfing, flickr never fails to amaze me. Check out zchendevlemh tribute to the pinay beauty in her pinay photoset. Well there are criticisms that they are friendster rip offs but you got to agree with me that they are still beautiful (although some are bordering into girls in bikinis :) I got this from the Pilipinas Flickr group -- Thanks!  By the way, if you are into fashion photography  zchendevlemh has tons of sets on other beautiful women and you can learn from the poses and lighting impact. I've subscribed to her photostream.

UPDATE: (10/27/05) Due to the controversial nature of the source of the  picture, I decided to remove it.

If you have not realized that "The World is Flat", your missing on the most influential concept in modern history.

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This is the Bible of IT in our company and if you are in the IT field, this is a must read for you. I'm trying to read the hard bound book but, there is a video speech published in MIT. I'm glad the MIT is leading the globe in free and open course materials via their OPENCOURSEWARE initiative. No need to pay that expensive tuition fee :) Thanks to Aldrin for the MIT lead, I'm downloading the video now.

8 Essential Blog Tune-up Tips

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As the car needs a tune-up, your blog also needs one. In my case, this is the first time after almost a year, since I started to modify the design of the site. I decided to tune it up based on learnings from pro-bloggers based on Jacob Nielsen's Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes and Darren's problogger tips. This is for newbies and intermediate bloggers blogging for less than a year who needs a quick start-up on blog tuning their sites.

8 Essential Blog Tune-up Tips
1. Write a great "About Me" section.
2. Make your post scannable.
3. Make your links descriptive and link link link!
4. Highlight your favorite posts.
5. Use comments to increase traffic by interacting with readers and other bloggers in your area.
6. Implement blog post tactics of using photos and posting 50% original/ 50% based on other probloggers.
7. Decide if you will implement Adsense or Not.
8. Own your domain and platform.

1. Write a great "About Me" section. This is very important because blogs are conversations and you need to build credibility with your blog readers about who you are and what is your personality. I changed my photo with my recent taal volcano conquest and put in the blog-a-rama interview which really gives the essence of what my blog is about.

2. Make your post scannable. You need to realize that readers scan your post first and decide whether they want to read the entire text. Given this I decided to implement the following:
(a). Use post excerpts in the home page and not the entire text. So I implemented a continuation/ read more link on every post. This would also force you to write a great summary paragraph for what to expect in the entire post.
(b). Write a clever post title. The title should convey the summary of the post and should attract the readers to read more if they want to. I'm trying to read 100+ blogs and I just scan the headings and click the ones that is interesting for me or if it appears a couple of times in a number of blogs. This is an art and you need to spend alot of time thinking about this title. It should energize you and your readers as well.
(c). Create bulleted lists or if you can summarize the whole post into key ideas. Write your conclusions first and energize readers to read some more.

3. Make your links descriptive and link link link! This is one of the search engine optimization techniques where you should provide adequate description of the webpage/ blog post that you are linking to. Instead of saying "check out Anton's roadwarrior gadgets here", just say "Anton's roadwarrior gadgets ". This outbound links are very important to the webpage that you are referring to and essential for the page rank of that site. Laws of Karma applies here: You have to give alot of outbound links before receiving alot of inbound links yourself.

4. Highlight your favorite posts. A lot of the blogs of my favorite blogs do not highlight either their favorite post or the most commented ones. If you don't they get burried in the archives and only the search engines would be able to see them assuming you have the right key words and page ranking. Also when I visit a blog I first check out who the person is, and what are the things that he/she writes and the quality of writing based on the latest posts. So ensure that you have a Favorite posts link list, refer to your past posts via linking to them in your latest posts, or resurrect them by re-posting them again and updating them after a few months.

5. Use comments to increase traffic by interacting with readers and other bloggers in your area. One of the beauty of being a young blog is still you don't receive alot of comments and you can entertain and talk to each and every one of your readers. It's sad to go to the state where you have to turn off your Blog comments as Steve Pavlina did. Also, you can use comments to start a conversation with other bloggers in your area and continue discussion via email, IM or texting in the case of the Philippines. You can also use comments to start a new thread. Lastly, put the latest comments section in your side bar for other bloggers to see and if they want to participate.

6. Implement blog post tactics of using photos and posting 50% original/ 50% based on other probloggers. This is one of the tips from Arieanna to increase blog traffic which I'm trying to implement now. I'm starting to use alot more headline photos to convey the meaning of the posts in visual terms which could be more powerful that just using headlines or summary paragraph. The only downside to this is that you really need to have a DSL for your bloggers to read them efficiently and without waiting for it to show. Then again, if you don't have DSL and still use dial-up you might not be the target audience for this blog.

7. Decide if you will implement Adsense or Not. There are alot of potential for your website to generate money for you on the side and research shows that google adsense enhances your post as long as it is relevant. One way to help you decide is check your pagerank, if your pagerank is 5 or greater and check your backlinks if it is significant already. Use technorati and Yahoo linkdomain: search to check your backlinks data and benchmark it versus other bloggers. Once you also decide to use Adsense you can send me email on how to maximize it efficiently based on Darren's Six Figure Blogging techniques.

8. Own your domain and your platform. This is a mistake that I made and the dilemna for me is that the anton.blogs.com is owned by typepad. If I decide to go to a wordpress setup when I realized that it was a better platform vs. typepad then I'll screw up all my pageranking built in my anton.blogs.com . I should decide if I will use anton.blogs.com forever or start my own domain already with uydiaz.com for example. For the newbies out there this is a real consideration specially if you want to be stuck with the blogspot.com address.

Hierarchy of a Technology Freak

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As I was taking a picture of all my travel gadgets and writing my inaugural post in litratista.org about Photo Backup, I was scared that I was a gadget technofreak but I also realized that there is a higher level that one transcends to. You realize the essence of technology and suddenly, I had an epiphany on modern technology. Based on my corporate experience and own technology adoption, here are the hierarchy of Technology Freak:

Hierarchy of a Technology Freak
1. Dinosaurs
2. Practical Tech Consumer
3. Early Adopters
4. Technology Freak
5. Tech-inspired Artists

DINOSAURS. These are people who no matter what you do, they don't want to adopt technology. I've seen a lot of these in the corporate setting where an executive even refused to use a laptop or delegates all his technology-related activities to his admin assistant. Typically, these are people born in the 50's and 60's. These are survivors who don't want to change and in the verge of becoming extinct.

PRACTICAL TECH CONSUMERS. These people who adopts technology for practicality purposes because it is needed. For example, my dad who were forced to learn to use the mobile phone and to text because everybody has one. Also, he realized the benefits of the technology because he can now communicate to his relatives in the province. On corporate terms, these are the people who started to use a laptop or PC because he needs to do his monthly letter or powerpoint. Some would realize the benefits of having email anytime anywhere with the use of blackberry. These are people who starts to blog and releases there writing works over the internet. Lastly, these people also wait for the hype of a new technology to die down or wait for a new model to be released before buying one. Most of the people in this planet belongs to this category.

EARLY ADOPTERS. These are people who buy and use technology to be the first to have bragging rights that he is a tech savvy person. There are a lot of these people in the philippines who would change mobile phone every 6 months. We can also blame this to Apple who releases an Ipod Nano and Ipod Video in a few months time after releasing Ipod Shuffle and Ipod Photo. More and more people are elevating into this stage and takes advance of the newest technology specially as they upgrade their phone, PDA, laptops, PC or digital camera.

TECHNOLOGY FREAK You know that you belong to this if you start naming all your gadgets. You manage them as a portfolio or a family where you decide to collect them. There is no end for you to get satisfied and you constantly upgrade not for the sake of bragging but to take advantage of new functionalities. You begin to fully leverage technology, know to make them work together and betting on future trends (web 2.0, wireless technology, SEO, etc.). You don't consider technology as an expense but a value contributor to your overall work or business in the web. I belong to this stage and starting to evolve to the next stage.

TECH-INSPIRED ARTIST. You realized that technology has an inherent issue on its archival nature -- will your technology last 100 years? are you sure that your digital photos will be there after 100 years? Would your blog entries be forever archived in your blog database? Also, you realized that technology is used for collaboration, networking, reinventing productivity, and content-based business. You start to explore to keep your ideas in a moleskine journal instead of a PDA, you start to backup your digital photos by printing photo arts / mosaics, you start to value antique technology (Nokia 2100, toy cameras, old photographs ) and you are attracted to film based photography like lomography. You start to write in your blog precious thoughts and covert them in a novel or a book. You are attracted to the camera tossing photos and you think its brilliant and call it an art.

There's no right or wrong stages, it is just an awareness of where you are, and where you want to be. So where are you in the hierarchy?

What's in My Roadwarrior Bag?

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I've always wanted to do a what's in your bag post. I want to share with you my roadwarrior essentials:

1. Cath. Blackberry 7100 (Phone with email connectivity)
2. Wilma. Apple Airport ( Portable Wifi)
3. Angelika. Apple Ipod Photo 60GB (Music, Photo and backup needs)
4. Sierra Wireless Aircard 775 / Cisco Wifi Card ( Connectivity anytime anywhere)
5. Sandara. HP Tablet PC TC 1100 ( awesome laptop )
6. Moleskine Reporter Journal ( my idea journal )
7. Katerina. Canon 20D (digital camera -- I used a Canon Powershot A400 as a representation :)
8. Melissa. Creative Muvo 256 USB Thumbdrive and MP3 Player
9. RSA Secure ID card (connectivity to our company's network)
10. My blog cards

How much are the pinoy blogs worth?

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Just for the fun, I was curious to know how much the popular pinoy blogs would be worth based on Tristan Louis' valuation methodology using the AOL-Weblogs Inc. allegedly $ 25 Million deal and technorati metrics. Nathan Weinberg also made a benchmark value of his favorite blogs based on $564 per inbound link (based on technorati)

* Engadget: $7.54 million
* Google: $297,000
* Microsoft: $148,000
* Blog Maverick (Marc Cuban): $1.082 million
* Jason Calacanis: $646,000
* Scoble: $6,990,780
* Steve Rubel: $4,290,348
* Jeremy Zawodny: $2,500,212

Pinoy blogs

Yugatech $ 333,888
Macalua.com $ 28,564
Sassy Lawyer $ 234,060
J Spot $ 47,940
Carlos Celdran $ 40,044
Wysgal $ 11,280
Viloria.com $ 14,100
Annalyn.net $ 34,404
PCIJ $ 52,452
anton.blogs.com $ 564 (sigh)

10/26/2005 UPDATED! : Finally there is an automated way to do it!

Check out How Much is your Blog Worth?

Anton's Awesome Planet -- BLOG-O-RAMAed :)

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At some point in your blogging career, you know that somehow you have touch some people's lives and your voice is worth listening to if you get Blog-a-rama-ed by AJ (Annalyn Jusay) blogging @ www.annalyn.net for Manila Bulletin. She's becoming the fast defacto authority for blogger profiling in the Philippines. Check out AJ's appreciative inquiry on Anton's Awesome Planet in MB's technews both online and on print this week (10/17/2005). I did not realize that the blog-o-rama's printed edition would contain half a page of MB's technews. At least this was a personal awesome moment for me :) Thanks AJ!

On Being Discovered:

Pinoy Big Blogger: Online Food Critics

I love Ecto -- my new blogging client

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Finally, I found the blogging client that I am looking for all my personal blogging and group blogging needs!

I'm an Ecto convert and it's interface with my typepad blog (anton.blogs.com) is excellent.

• What I love about it is the WYSIWIG and html editors that you won't have it available on the typepad web interface version if you use a mac browser.
• Blogging is so easy and I'm able to control the categories, tags, time, and all parameters.
• Also, I started to post a summary short version of the post and people who wants to read more, can just click on continue.
• This is so liberating. Also, now I can blog for all my other group blogs litratista.org and www.pinoytravelblog.com with one easy interface. Soo cool :)
• You can create custom tags so that you can easily put in your signature example at the bottom of each posts.

The only set back is you need to pay a license cost of $17.95 dollars. I still have 20 trial days to think about it :)

Flickr+Qoop and Blogcards Experience

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Early September, I tested out two online services of QOOP.com and Streetcards.com. I finally got my orders and you will be surprised that our Phil Mail system still works :) Qoop.com is a digital to print web service currently running beta printing products to two of my favorite online photo service: Flickr and Buzznet. Streetcards.com offers a service of innovative business cards and I use it for ordering blogcards with gapingvoid designs. Here is my experience on cost and reliability of the service.

flickr+Qoop Poster (13.5x19 in)

Order Date: Sept. 2, 2005
Arrival Date: Oct. 5, 2005

Poster cost = $ 9.99 (P 572.57)
Shipping via International First Class Mail = $ 5.15 (P 295.17)
Total Cost: $15.14 (P 867.73) (landed cost)

Effectively, the exchange rate using my AMEX platinum card was P57.314=$1

The Verdict:
I'm very happy with the overall quality of the printing including resolution of the pictures as well as the quality of the paper. It is still too expensive since the landed cost of P867.73 would be P3.38/in. As a comparison if you print two 8x10s in fuji/kodak, it would costs P100 which is P0.80/in. So essentially, you are paying for the ease of creating a photo collage from your flickr album sets and printing it. Lastly, it took 30+ days to arrive which is too slow and is a normal leadtime expectation for internet orders. Would I order again? Definitely, although I do hope that the delivery leadtime should be reduced.

Blogcards from Gapingvoid Streetcards (50 pcs. Matt laminated cards)

Order Date: Sept. 3, 2005
Arrival Date: Sept. 12, 2005

Blogging Cards cost: $44.75 (P 2,600.90)
Shipping: $3.42 (P198.85)
Total Cost: $48.17 (P2,800.75)

Effectively, the exchange rate using my Citibank Visa was P58.143=$1

The Verdict:
The quality of the calling cards met my expectation although, the colors are subdued. I ordered a black background card on one side and the black is like grayish black. It almost arrive after 10 days from order and this is indeed exceeded my expectations. It is too expensive though at about P56 or $1 per blog card so I had to use it and give it to people that matters :) Would I order again, maybe not because it is way too expensive if not for the copywrited gaping void cartoons I would have not ordered it.

Wordpress.com Golden Ticket

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"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away you entered your email address on http://wordpress.com/

We're now inviting small groups to use WordPress.com and your email address was selected today!

Visit this address to get started: http://wordpress.com/invite/c6ca510cdec7f29f52cb9bc055800a6d

While you're on a string of good luck it might be a good day to buy a lottery ticket. Better move fast though, because this invite will expire in a week.

Cheers,
The WordPress.com Team"

I finally got my own wordpress.com golden ticket yesterday! What's cool about it is that I still got anton.wordpress.com -- fantastic! This really means that somehow I was still early in the invite food chain. Thanks wordpress.com and my 40 days search for this coveted golden ticket has ended (which started on my blog post last Aug. 26)

My Sex ID -- Gay or Lesbian Brain?

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Now I know why I cannot comprehend Chocolate = Love according to women. Thanks for the explanation from  BBC's SEX I.D.  Let me know if your profile matches your expectation :) hehehe

Can you resist not to click?

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Interesting proof-of-concept on "zero clicks" user interface. I thought this cannot be done, but this website have been able to achieve the dream of most users to have a simplified web application interface. Although, after some time, I can't resist clicking :) can you?  try it out here.

My Latest Awesome Stuff on the Web

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I've been reading alot of blog feeds lately (190+) and here are some of the awesome stuff in the web that interests me over the last few days:

1. HK Disneyland Review. A disappointing review of the disneyland experience in HK which opened to the public last Sept. 12 by littlecardnoodles. The review provided a warning on long queues and potential health hazards for people planning to visit: Sunburn, Dehydration, and Injury by umbrella spoke. Not to mention, entrance fee costs (HK$ 249 on a weekday, and HK$ 350 on a weekend) which is about P2,000 per adult!!

Photos courtesy of chehzhaimeen's

2. Awesome Jessica Alba. Simply awesome :) Paparazzi photos of Jessica Alba in bikinis in these posts Jessica Alba White Bikini and Jessica Alba wears bikinis to beaches via theSuperficial.com

3. Framer (flagrantdisregard's new flickr tools). Another cool flickr photo tool from flagrantdisregard.

4. SLIDE!! A personal broadcasting service. I created one here --> aidan.slide.com and you can download a slide desktop client and I use it to get feeds from engadget and gizmodo.

5. Meebo.com -- cool new AJAX Application which is basically an instant messenger on the net! You can now access your Yahoo Messenger while traveling :)