Papa Ces

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I was driving my aunt's car this morning to do some errands. I stopped at a gasoline station, filled the car's tank and then the gasoline attendant brought my attention to one of my tires.

It was flat. No wonder the steering wheel was veering to the right while I was driving.

There was a nice shaded spot within the gasoline station's premises where I decided to park while I change the tire. But lo and behold! When I opened the compartment and brought out the tool box, there was no tire wrench.

Now how can anybody change a tire without a wrench? I asked around the station if they have one I could borrow, but there wasn't. Instead they pointed me to a vulcanizing shop that was just a short drive from there. So with a flat tire I drove away.

Good thing there was a vulcanizing shop nearby or else I would try to ask a fellow driver if I could borrow his wrench.

Lesson learned. Always check if you have the necessary equipment for your car whenever you go out for a drive.

:)

As if the Queen doesn't already have enough blings, Nintendo has given her a gold-plated Wii.

While I am not a Wii fanatic, I do however envy Queen Elizabeth II for two reasons.

1. She already has all the good things in life.
2. And yet she gets free stuff!

Life is just not fair.

:)

Back in the '80s up to the early '90s, my favorite video game console was the Sega Mega Drive or what we call here on this side of the globe as the Sega Genesis. I remember the debate that was going on at that time that the Mega Drive was superior, in terms of computing power, compared to the Nintendo SNES. I used to believe that until Donkey Kong Country came out. The graphics on that game was superb and Sega had nothing on its shelf to match it.

Anyway, I preferred the Mega Drive and I'm not really sure why. Perhaps because it was cheaper than the SNES.

I'm a strong believer that Firefox is the best web browser right now. Sure, each of the browsers has its own merits but overall, Firefox is the winner. It can be the relative speed, the plugins or addons, the frequency of updates or its top-notch security.

So I am asking everybody who happens to drop by this post to please use Firefox. Spread the word.

:)

I'm considering getting Diner Dash again, either here on my laptop or on my PlayStation Portable. I first played it about 3 years ago and I really had so much fun with it. I was playing it at the office during break time, together with another addicting game: Worms Armageddon.

My Asus Eee PC has just celebrated its first birthday. We've been together through thick and thin, and I've learned a lot of things while I was using it, both personal and professional.

Anyway, I blogged about it at my other blog, PinoyCopywriter.com.

http://pinoycopywriter.com/?p=269

I play only one online game and it's Dofus. Before I was skeptical about these games thinking that they are just a major waste of time. But a friend who has been playing Dofus for quite some time asked me to try it. So I thought there's no harm to it, it's just one try. But what did you know? That one try got me hooked!

My other blog, PinoyCopywriter.com, now has a new home. By home I meant a new hosting company. The previous one I have been with for almost a year already but their service was turning into worse the past couple of months.

My other blog, a self-hosted blog, has been down for the past days. I have already submitted a support ticket to my hosting company but they still have yet to reply to it. Needless to say, I am very much disappointed.

Then early today I received an email from them. It's an automatically generated email informing me that my domain registration for that blog will expire 2 months from now.

Did you get that? Two months from now. I still have two months to register and they have the 'kindness' to tell me this early. But my blog is still down and they haven't fixed it yet (or even replied to my support ticket).

I am still very much disappointed.

Well, not completely but it's getting there.

I just realized that almost every day that I go online, I use one or two of Google's services. Like when I make a search, of course, I go to Google...

...when I write a document and I'm in an internet cafe, I use Google Docs
...my email is Gmail
...I talk to some of my friends through GTalk
...heck, I blog on Blogger

I think there are a lot more things that I do online that uses something that Google owns. Even my favorite pastime which is watching videos on YouTube, now that's Google's too.

Should I cut back on using Google's services? But how can I when usually these services are the best and the easiest to use.

Call me nostalgic, old fashioned and every synonym you can think of, but I'm really not a fan of this new Yahoo! look that is being forced unto me.

Now every time I launch Yahoo! on my browser I get this purple thing for an interface. I don't like it.

If anyone from Yahoo! happens to stumble upon this post, please revert to the old look. I still like it best.

:)

I'm starting to enjoy Facebook more than Friendster. Don't get me wrong. I still like Friendster, it's just that Facebook's layout is more intuitive, I get things done faster and, at least in my opinion, Facebook has more interesting apps and features.

A friend of mine, who is so much into Twitter, argued that Twitter is starting to kill blogs. He gave me these points:

• It is very popular today. There are already millions of users worldwide.
• The 140-character limit forces you to be creative and to make you write down your thoughts more effectively.
• You get faster comments / responses to your Tweets than when you make a blog post.
• Your Tweets instantly reaches as many people as you have followers.

I can understand my friend's points there but I completely disagree that Twitter is killing blogs. With blogs, you can expound on your thoughts and even write about it in as many words that you want or need.

You may get faster replies on Twitter, but the comments made on your blog is more properly documented. You can always go back to your comments section and ponder upon the interaction that happened there.

A lot of people use Twitter as just a tool to support their blogging. They would usually announce a new post on their blog or engage in communication with other people, trying to get them interested enough to go visit their blogs. If just for that, I believe Twitter is indeed a great tool.

But Twitter is not a replacement for blogs. In its current state, Twitter cannot kill blogs.

People who are into marketing, who are trying to attract people to try out their own services or products should not rely too much on Twitter for those purposes. My point is this: why invest the majority of your marketing efforts on a platform that you have no control?

With a blog, at least a self-hosted blog, the platform is yours for as long as you want it. You own the domain. You own the hosting space. It is all yours from whatever angle you look at it.

I'll repeat what I've said earlier. Twitter is a great tool, but as of today it is not a blog killer. Perhaps more than anything else, Twitter is a blogging tool.

I have survived the rest of 2008 without taking part in the phenomenon we call, Twitter. Why you might ask? I'm not really sure. All I know is that nobody I know have invited me until this time.

And I had to be invited before I even took time to give Twitter a try. I'm weird.

Anyway, so my friend told me how wonderful Twitter is and how well you can make connections with other people, especially with people you haven't even met (in person or online). I followed her advice on trying Twitter so I created my account and started sending out Tweets (did I spell it right?).

I found out it was really very fun to use Twitter. In just 4 hours, I already 5 followers including my friend. I have also downloaded and installed Twhirl, a Twitter client, as I've read quite a number of great reviews about it.

So here I am, a Twitter newbie still learning all about it while the rest of the world have made Tweets like a thousand times.

:)

New Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz will be getting a $1 million annual basic pay.

This question is for people who monetize their blog. By monetization it can be from any means such as paid posts, link ads, etc. 

Do you use Digg? I seldom participate and I only Digg an article when I find it really amazing, when it makes me sit on the edge of my seat.

Digg is currently having grave financial difficulties. This is because up until now, they still can't generate enough revenues from their advertising system. They are still spending more on operation expenses. With little money coming in, it definitely spell disaster for this company.

There are rumors that Digg will probably be bought by either Google or Yahoo!. But will they? Yahoo! is having some problems itself and as far as I know, is still looking for a CEO to replace Chief Yahoo! Jerry Yang.

Digg actually has a nice service and I would hate it if they fold up. Perhaps they just need an innovative marketing strategy to help monetize their site. It is after all a problem shared with the likes of YouTube and other popular sites.