Me and the Computer

Google offers two mapping services. They are Google Map and Google Earth. You might be asking - What is the difference between the two? In terms of data, I could say none. But in terms of how to use them, here are their differences: 1. Google Map is a browser based program. You can now use Google Earth using a browser via plugin. But it is generally a stand alone program. 2. Google Map is 2D while Google Earth is 3D. Using Google Map is pretty straight forward. It felt like using a map. :) Using Google Earth is more interactive. You will feel like you are God looking down from heaven. Weird huh? It is very interesting to see how your house looks like from the satellite view.

Google provides a lot of tools that will help websites perform better with their Search Engine. One of these tools is the Google Webmaster Tools. For this post we will talk about Geographic Target: 1. If you are logged in to Google, click My Account 2. Then click Webmaster Tools 3. In the Dashboard click Site Configuration 4. Then go to Settings 5. On the right side of the page you will find a drop down list and a check box labeled Geographic target. 6. In my case, I am getting most of my traffic from the US so I set my target to that location. What is the purpose of this setting? As you know Google has many localized domains. www.google.ca is for canada. www.google.com.ph is for the philippines, www.google.com is for the US. Google displays slightly different results depending on the target region. Changing this setting will help you rank better in your chosen region.

By default Blogspot will display your pages Blog Title + Page Title. For SEO purposes we would want our post to display the Page Title first because the first keywords get more weight with the search engines. So how do we do this? 1. In your Blogger account dashboard, locate the blog you want to edit. 2. Click Layout 3. Click Edit HTML 4. locate <data:blog.pageTitle/> 5. replace it with <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'> <title><data:blog.title/></title> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageName/></title> </b:if> 6. Save your template. That's it. :)

July 22, 2009 partial solar eclipse in Manila. I used a filmstrip to filter the sun's glare. This one was shot using a neighbor's lung x-ray as filter. Hehe.

You might be wondering what it is like to attend online classes. Typically you will go to the website of your school. In the website they will give you access to their online training software .Using the software you will have access to lessons. These can be in a form of video, audio, or pdf documents. You will also have a chat software so you can attend live classes with your professor should you want to. There is also a forum where you can discuss with your classmates, do assignments and projects together. There is a web based software also to take your exams. This is how a typical online school operates. I have dedicated a site dedicated to this subject. Should you be interested in learning more about this topic, you can find my site at Distant Schools .

Maybe you thought about moving your career forward. And one of the way you could think about is by taking further studies. But at the same time you think it would be difficult; You are just too busy with your work. But Thanks to the internet, it is now very possible to attend a school even with a busy schedule. How? By way of online classes. All you'll need is a computer, an internet connection (preferably broadband), and an internet browser (I recommend mozilla firefox 3.5, my favorite). Here are the Advantages of Attending Online Classes 1. You can attend a course anytime. If you are busy with work during the day, no problem! You can attend class at night. 2. You can attend course from anywhere - Perhaps you want to earn a degree from MIT but you live in Asia. This is now possible. You can even attend classes even while you are on vacation - in an exotic resort or you are traveling outside your country. As long as there is an internet connection, you will be good to...

I created some new blogs this week for experimental purposes. They have already been indexed but their absolutely getting zero traffic. I created some links pointing to them. But still same result - no traffic. Then I tried to recall when this blog first gained traffic, as well as my Kubuntu tutorial blog. For this blog, I recall that I got traffic ( without any promotion and linking building) after about two weeks. What happened was I started to receive visitors that were searching for "bad side of the internet". But it would take a couple of months more before it gained considerable visitors without me doing anything. My Kubuntu tutorial (which was my very first blog), I got traffic about a month. But I could say it really started to tend for itself after six months. And now I have this 3D Modeling blog, which I have almost given up on. Yet suddenly, it is starting to get traffic this past week. It has been seven months since I started that blog. I have never pro...

I noticed that most of the visitors I get here are from the US and European countries. If you are near retiring or perhaps planning for the future, it might be wise to consider my country. With the global economic crisis upon us and no clear end in sight, you'll never find a better place to get more bang for your buck. Check out this blog, Retire in the Philippines , to help you make a decision.

You might think that my activity here starts and end with each post. Actually, it is just a start. I still do a lot of other things after I have posted. I wait and observe different variables . I experiment what type of post gets visitors. And those that don't. I experiment which types of promotions are effective and lasting. And those that are not. I think I have already figured out what I need to do. And so it is time for me to apply what I learned into practice. In the past I tried to limit this blog to technology. But now I will no longer do that. I will still post articles about technology but I wont limit myself to that as consciously as I have done in the past.  Actually, you might have noticed that I have been doing that since a couple of days ago. My recent post were mostly about opinions. To give you a hint of what I learned: The hardest promotion to work for is the social media kind. It can give you a burst of web traffic but it only for a very short while...