Lost Forever

And it is all my fault. One of my domain names expired. I don't remember getting a renewal notice for that one. I should have had it on auto-renew but there is nothing I can do about it now. I have been out of circulation for too long - blame it on life and me. Now, I have a lot of things to do there, including one for Branson vacation package and cannot do it. What to do? I'll just get a new domain. Hopefully, it will still be accepted. C'est La Vie...

Friend Wants to Blog

I've been suggesting to my friend for months that she should start a blog. She is also a stay-at-home mom and her youngest just started school last year. Finally, she told me that she will give it a try. She lives in the other side of the country so we had to set up a chat time for me to walk her through the whole thing. We're almost finished with the layout. Next up will be to get her a domain and then do other important stuff like directory submissions so her blog will be in the search engine results. I hope she enjoys blogging. This will keep her occupied while the kids are in school.

I Need a Vacation...

Shocking isn't it? Considering I just got back from a 5-week vacation to the Philippines, why the heck do I need another one? Well, considering my schedule for the last 2 weeks of my summer hiatus, I definitely need one. Dh joined us on July 21st and it was a whirlwind but fun at the same time. We flew to Dapitan City (southern Phiippines) and celebrated my parent's 45th wedding anniversary and that one is also a reunion of sorts with relatives I haven't seen in decades. Then we flew to Cebu via Manila for our 'family vacation' and stayed in Shangri-la Mactan (the best if I may say so). Then flew back to Manila and managed to visit Hidden Valley in Laguna and Tagaytay. Considering the number of photos and videos we've accumulated, we might need a new video card for my laptop. As usual, I wished I could've taken more photos and videos. Dh would probably disagree. ha ha
Well, the hard part is over (writing this post). I should be getting my blogging groove back. Welcome back to moi.

Photobucket Maintenance

Two of my blogs are nekid today. Apparently, Photobucket is doing some kind of maintenance. Since the photos from my layout are hosted by Photobucket, all you see here is a white page. I guess some accounts are not accessible at this time. I can log in but couldn't access my photo albums. I emailed the tech support and was informed of the maintenance. So pardon my nekid blog, I hope things will revert to normal ASAP.

My Apologies to Entrecarders

I needed a breather. That was it. I took time off from dropping ECs last month. I felt it was starting to be a chore. I never strived to drop 300 a day, no way Jose. I was only dropping from my Inbox plus other blogs that were in my bookmark. I only started dropping again a couple of days ago and I dropped from my EC Inbox. I am now starting to get back to dropping regularly. I used to be a dropaholic but not anymore. Maybe I will be back in that list sometime but it won't be in the next couple of months. I even took a time off from blogging and just RELAXED. Don't you want to do that sometimes? It felt good to take time off from blogging. Now I think I'm all set to go back to the thick of things and I'll have to look for liporexall review online since my cousin asked me to look into it.

St. Patrick's Day Swag

Look what the mailman brought me. It's a box full of St. Patrick's day goodies from this company. What a nice surprise! It consists of a green t-shirt ('Show Me Your Shamrocks' printed on the front and the company name on the back), a couple of 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' necklaces, a tiny green beer mug with a green bead necklace, green clover pin, green fortune cookie (I was hoping the message inside reads "Congratulations, we will revert to the old price guidelines". LOL wishful thinking), green candies and cans of energy drink. This is a nice gesture for posties. Thank you!

Anyone else received these?

Meeting Another Blogger

Last weekend, I met another Filipina blogger at my BFF Mira's house. I've learned about Dhoy from Mira, they knew each other in the Philippines. Dhoy has a blog called Simply Irresistible. It was great to finally meet her and her family. Her daughter and my son got along very well and they enjoyed playing together. Another blogger, Lou of Louslens, was also present along with Yen, who makes beautiful handcrafted jewelry (Yen's Handmades). Too bad mareng Lanie wasn't able to make it, she was feeling under the weather that day.

A New Header for My Food Blog

Earlier today, I had this idea to make a header for my food blog. I'm using a generic template from Blogger Buster so it's just a title and description. Since it's my food blog, what better header to make than showcase some photos of the recipes I shared. So here is my new header, what do you think? I wish I can put all the yummy photos on it but there's just no space.
I'm getting tons of hits from Google for my food blog. I'm so happy since a lot of my recipes are in page 1 of Google search. yay! I just wish Google will give my food blog a page rank. I know, wishful thinking. The most searched for recipe is Pancit Palabok (a kind of Filipino vermicelli type rice noodles with shrimp sauce). Once in a while I'll get a comment from a visitor that they tried my recipe and loved it. There was a guy who said that his wife was surprised he was able to cook Pancit Palabok and it turned out very good. This is one of the reason why I keep on doing it. Can you tell I love to cook? :o)

Google Analytics, Bounce Rate, etc

While dropping ECs, I read some posts where people complain about their blogs' high bounce rate. I didn't know what they were talking about so I turned to Google of course. I discovered Google Analytics and I'm still learning how it all works. If blogging is just a hobby for you, then the data collected by Google Analytics is not that important. If blogging is your business and a source of income, then I suggest you read up on it. You'll also learn about conversion rate optimization or CRO, the art and science of persuading your site visitors to take actions that benefit you, by making a purchase, offering a donation, or subscribing to a newsletter. You should also check out Google Webmaster Central, it has a lot of tools you can use for your blog.

1st Blog Anniversary

Happy 1st Anniversary to my blog! yay! It was a year ago when I made my first post. It was titled 'I'm Lost with Lost' and I talked about my frustrations with the tv show Lost. My first commenter is Carlota of My Web-Log Designs. :o) I'd like to thank Amy of Kalidadis and Lanie of I Thought So for convincing me to go back to blogging. *wink* I owe you some tuba and danggit. LOL

Anyway, I was thinking of ways to celebrate this anniversary. After hearing about the headache that comes with organizing a huge contest, I decided to have a giveaway each month. I'm still deciding on what it will be, probably a gift card, cash or promotional items. Watch out for the details. I promise it's going to be easy and you don't have to jump hoops to join. LOL

Btw, hats off to the Cardinals for playing a good game yesterday. I'm glad they rallied and tried to win the Superbowl. It was close but no cigar. :o( Congratulations to the Steelers. :o)

Poll Closed

I'd like to thank all those who voted on my poll "Rewards for EC Top Droppers". There were 102 votes and 41% voted for a one month Do Follow link on my sidebar. The next closest vote is for 100 EC credits for the top ten. So that means, I will continue what I have been doing for the past two months. I've been posting the top EC droppers for the previous month on my side bar and the links are followed. Thanks again to those who drop their ECs on my blog, it's very much appreciated.

The Right Webhosting Company for You

Are you happy with your webhosting? I've been looking at different webhosting options for my blogs. I've been blogging on and off for three years now, always with a free hosting company and just lately with my own domains. So far, I am content with it but I have been hearing about other blogging platforms which offers more flexibility and options. I am considering moving to another webhosting company but am not sure of which is the best for me. Since I will be considered a newbie if I move to another platform, then I want a webhosting company that has a good customer support, email or otherwise. I came across this webhosting blog which is owned by webhostinggeeks.com. I like the article "Three Webhosting Mistakes You Can Avoid" and "What Kind of Hosting Do You Need". This website also have many articles that will help you in choosing and starting your webhosting of a website or blog. It also has ratings for different webhosting companies, best budget hosting, best domain hosting, best dedicated hosting and many more. Not only do you get to read and compare different companies, they also have reviews from actual customers. I like this feature since this gives me an idea on what to expect from each webhosting company. If you are like me, looking for the right webhosting for your blog, visit webhostinggeeks.com and start your search.

EC Outage

I was about to drop from my Inbox but got a message that EC is temporarily offline. What a bummer! I wasn't able to drop from my Inbox yesterday. I only dropped ECs from my bookmark folder. I have about 70 sites on which I regularly drop on. I'll have to add more to that list, I know. :o)

Please Visit...

UNO ALLA VOLTA (One at a Time - A Busy Mom's Life)
http://www.LifetimeMom.com

An Unknown Page Loads Instead of this Blog

Boy, was I in a panic ten minutes ago! When I went to this blog, it redirected to a page that was not mine. This is the screen shot of the unknown page that showed up. I checked Blogger and all my blogs are listed. The HTML showed my template so I was at a lost as to what caused this problem. I checked the page source and found this script:

SCRIPT LANGUAGE='Javascript' SRC='/babettesblog.com.js'>/SCRIPT

My daughter saw the photo of this unknown page and informed me that it is the same page that showed up when she went to a Pokemon website a month ago. Has anyone experienced this same thing? Help! What is going on?

Clean and Blog by Using Dragon Naturally Speaking

Being a full-time mom and a blogger takes a lot of scheduling to be able to get things done. Time is at a premium and I try to use different things that help me do chores faster. When it comes to blogging, I am not a fast typist and I welcome anything that will save me time on writing my posts. I've gotten better over time but it still is not fast enough. This is where Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard fits in. This software can write 150 words per minute, meaning I will be able to make more posts without getting tired from typing. I will also be able to make a post while doing household chores. How? My notebook has Bluetooth technology so I am able to use a wireless headset and microphone. By using Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Preferred software, I can dictate my post and do laundry at the same time. Now we all know that folding clothes takes the longest time and it is impossible to do it along with blogging. With this software, my problem is solved. This software filters out background noise so you do not have to worry about that, you can even use this while watching your children's soccer game. This is most useful for bloggers with disabilities and for those who have athritis. They can use this software and speak into the microphone and see their words in the screen. This software has been so useful that a major newspaper, the New York Times printed a review which you can see here:NY Times Review of DNS10.

Are Your Links Reciprocated?

Have you checked your bloglist lately? Do you know if your blog is still in their list of linked blogs? If you haven't then today is a good time to start checking. I visited a site in my bloglist this morning and saw that my blogs aren't listed in her bloglist. That's not fair. So what did I do? I took her off my list. I thought that she just made a mistake but both my blogs aren't listed. I didn't ask her why or how, why bother? If my links aren't reciprocated then hasta la vista baby!

Confidential to Ms. Goody-two-shoes from Caloocan, Philippines:
Don't judge me because of just one post. You do not know who I am. So you really think I deserve it? Ha! I am living comfortably without it. I do not need $ as bad as you do. So go ahead, keep on leaving nasty comments and pass judgement on people you barely know. You are a coward for hiding behind a made-up name. Obviously you do not have good breeding. I pity you.

Updated Entrecard Rules

This past week, I wrote a post about my frustration with dropping ECs. There are blogs out there with no EC widget resulting in repeated visits. I am posting here the new Entrecard rules which I copied from the EC blog. If you come across a blog that does not have an EC widget, you MUST report it. On the page of your dashboard, at the bottom is a window, write the URL and name of the blog there along with the date and time. Hopefully this will stop that practice.

Updated Quality Standards for Entrecard
Written on September 16th, 2008 by Graham

Greetings everyone,

We’ve just updated the Quality Standards for participation in Entrecard. I will post them here so you can all refresh yourselves. Do note that if your blog does not meet these standards, it can (and will) be removed from the Entrecard Network without warning.
Rules
No nudity: Entrecard, and its members blogs, are generally family friendly. Blogs with images containing nudity are not permitted. This includes nudity in advertisements.

English only: Until we develop the infrastructure necessary to facilitate non-English language blogs, English is the only language allowed in Entrecard.

Minimum 5 posts: Blogs with no posts, or less than 5 posts, will be removed.

Content must be original: Unoriginal content provides no value to the reader. A site that consists only of posts from “free article” sites, copies of articles from news sites, stolen or scraped content is not allowed.

No full-screen ads: Blogs that include a “Skip This Ad” popup or other full-screen ads will be removed.

No illegal file downloads: Blogs that link to illegally shared files, such as music, movies or software, will be removed. By “illegal” we mean content that you do not have the right to distribute. Linking to free, legal music and software is permitted.

Entrecard widget must be present: Including the widget on your site is a requirement if you wish to participate in Entrecard.

No redirects: Sites that use a URL that goes to another location (such as tinyurl links) will be deleted.

No duplicate accounts: If you have more than one account for the same blog, the duplicate account will be deleted.

URLs must be valid: Sites with URLs that do not work or are wrongly typed will be deleted.

No autoplaying audio: This includes music that plays automatically when you visit the page, or short audio ads that come up unannounced.

Content must be recent: Sites that have not been updated in six months will be removed.

Looking for a New Web Hosting Company

I've been using Blogger for my blogs and while I am satisfied with it, I want to explore other options. I have seen a lot of blog using the Wordpress platform and was amazed by the options they have in designing and running their blogs. Of course if I ever decide to migrate to Wordpress then I need to find a new web hosting company. This part I am worried about since I do not know any good web hosting companies. Since I don't consider myself an expert in this area, I need a hosting site that has a good technical support and is available 24/7. Luckily, there is a website called webhostinggeeks.com and they have customer reviews of different companies. This is what I've been looking for. I'm able to read their experiences and find which one has the most number of satisfied customers. This site also has the web hosting company categorized into different groups: from Best Budget Hosting to Best Dedicated Hosting and everything in between. Another plus is they have a lot of articles to help you like SEO information to Web Design. If you are looking for a new web hosting company, the place to start is http://webhostinggeeks.com

New Layout

I'm thinking of changing the layout of this blog. There are a lot of templates to choose from although the choices are not as varied as Wordpress. I still don't know if I'm sticking with the same color combination. This whole process can be easy but it ends up to be tedious for me since I want to add some personal touches. It'll probaby take me a while to complete a new template. I'll have to design a new header or maybe just stick to my current one.