Archive for the 'Blogging' Category

I have to admit it. I’m a blog junkie. The other day, I was trying to change my blog template for my blog for mothers (new and not so new mothers). I was still using the old blogger because, well, simply because old habits die hard (or rather because I am afraid of change).

I finally got round to switching and finding a new template which I liked and then…..just as I started the change, I could not access Blogger. Arrrgggh! Thumps Chest! Pulls hair! I was incensed! I could not get to continue to do the changes to all my customization. Meaning, I had a plain blog without all the scripts and codes I had put in over time.

I kept on checking but still I could not access Blogger and I was really frustrated. Hahaha. What a silly blog junkie I am. I finally went to sleep and did the changes the next day. I don’t think I’ve finished putting in everything but I wonder how many people are like that. When you do a change to your blog, do you have to complete the changes in one session or go mad thinking about all the codes that are no longer running on your blog? (Like I did) Lol!

Saya hanya seekor Pelanduk, lagi pun Pelanduk betina pula, jadi apabila Gajah (Google) sama Gajah (PPP etc) berjuang, saya pun mati lah di tengah-tengah. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Kesiannya Pelanduk betina ni. Literally translated, this Malay idiom means that when Elephants wage war against each other, Deers die in the midst.

Enuf said. Thats my view of the World Wide Web World War going on right now. Google the big brother on the internet, in its action to slap all sites with paid links by taking away their PR has declared war. In response, PPP is charging on ahead with its first frontline defense, ie. RealRank and later on SocialSpark, come January.

Amidst this great war, the poor “Pelanduk” (Deer=Small time blogger trying to earn some moolahs) dies a quick death (if you surrender) or a slow death (due to lack of jobs). Take your pick. Neither sounds like a good choice. Even if you choose to sit back and do nothing but watch the war (as I have chosen to do), there is still the dark cloud of King Google removing you completely from its index handing over your head. (Horror of horrors!) Then you are kaput for good.

Well, my PR is gone now and I’ve just got my RealRank so now I sit back and see what’ll happen next. Will PPP be able to convince advertisers that RealRank is the real thing? Will Google take the next step that is feared by all ie removal of sites with paid links from its index? Will I get more jobs, assignments, campaigns or whatever it is you want to call it again?

Izea has this to say about its RealRank.

“Your numbers may change from increased participation and competition, however your numbers aren’t going to change because we decide we don’t like the content on your blog or the ad units you are serving from a competitor.”

Taking a stab at Google perhaps?

We don’t really know what Google’s real intention is. Are they really trying to maintain their search relevancy or are they just taking out ad units served by competitors? Maybe both but dear Google you are hurting a lot of real people like my goodself here. I work really hard at trying to become a WAHM from a SAHM (meaning housewife trying to earn some little pocket money to supplement her one income family). I work really hard at keeping my blog content fresh and original. Even my paid links content are original, fresh and new. That deserves a good PR.

If you want to go after sites, go after those that have nothing accept paid links within their content. Go after the content stealers, those that steal my blog posts just as soon as it is published. Those are the ones with duplicate postings that hurt your search engine results with duplicate content and are nothing but spam. But who am I to say anything. I am just a small “pelanduk betina” and you are the big “Gajah” so I just sit here and blog as usual and wait for things to improve or die a slow death.

BTW, my RealRank for my blogs is around 1-2k. These numbers will change daily as it is calculated daily. What does this mean? At the moment RealRank is open only to PPP registered users but it will be open to the public eventually. So if 50,000 PPP users have real rank installed, that means I am doing fine but if say only 3,000 has RealRank then I am somewhere near the bottom, something like that. What is your RealRank?

“If you have nothing nice to say don’t leave a comment”  This should be the silent rule of blogging but it is not. One of the bad things about having a blog is the fact that you open yourself up to uncalled for criticisms. You don’t get that in a personal diary but you get that on an online personal diary.

In my 3 years of blogging I have never received a negative comment probably because I am usually careful about what I write. I have also never left any negative comments on anyone’s blog because I believe that if you have nothing nice to say then don’t say it. 

Yesterday an anon called me selfish.

Here is what she said in response to this old post of mine.

“ I think your comment about not asking grandparents to help out is rather selfish. My mum lost my dad three years ago and all she lives for now is the grandchildren. She loves being with them, especially when it’s just her and them, and if I didn’t ask her to help out from time to time her life would be pointless. I know lots of grandparents who live far from their kids and it tears them apart. It’s good for the kids too to know their grandparents really well before it’s too late. “

I think that it is an uncalled for comment and the anon obviously did not understand my post. I did not say that children should not interact with their grandparents.

Oh well, I guess that as a public blogger, you will always be open to these kinds of remarks when someone reads your online journal. A blog is afterall a personal diary and as in any personal diary, you will put in your own views which may sound self righteous to others who do not know you or follow your blog.

Those who follow my blog will know that I do not like the idea of leaving kids to be cared for by maids and elderly parents. By this I mean to allow maids or elderly parents to take over most aspects of child caring like feeding, washing backside or changing dirty diapers, wiping vomit, bathing, toilet training, and dealing with whining, pleadings, tears, endless questions, temper tantrums etc etc ie the hard part. To me, the hard part of child caring should be over for our elderly parents. They have done their part and now their part as grandparents is to play with and interact with our children ie in doing the fun part of child caring and dote on the grandchildren and NOT look after them fulltime.

Those who follow my blog will also know that I understand that sometimes personal situations may not permit any other arrangements. But then here comes an anon who does not follow my blog, who reads only one blog post and then calls me selfish based on my personal view which she obviously did not understand. I am irked. Yes I am. I guess this is the part of blogging which is not so fun.

So everyone is affected by the recent google page rank revamp. Semua kena demotion. Lol! Nevermindlah, sama sama turun. It merely means that everyone has come down a step or two. It would matter if you were the only one affected though but since everyone, even the big boys are affected, its really no big deal.

I tried to check my page rank using a page rank checking tool so the first thing I did was to google “google page rank checker”. These are the top 3 that came out from my search results.

1. Blogflux
2. PRChecker
3. Checkpagerank

I tried to check my google page rank for this blog using all the 3 tools above. The first one showed a PR of 4, the second one showed a PR of 2, the third one showed a PR of 3. Hmmm… I guess some of them are not quick enough to adjust their formula to show the latest results. They showed varying results for my other blogs as well. Was happy for a while thinking that I was not affected when I tried the blogflux tool. Lol!

Previously, I used to have one blog with PR4 and two others with PR5. After a revamp was demoted to PR4 for all. Now it looks like another demotion leaving me with 3, 2, 2. To me, this second round of revamp does not make a difference to me. It made a difference when I went down from PR5 to PR4.

PR is just a number. So who cares? I’ll just blog on as usual. How about you?

Sometime ago I read in 5xmom’s blog about why do you blog ie whether its for yourself, for the glory or for the money. I can’t remember which blog post was that or what she said exactly but it was something to that effect. That lady churns out blog posts, one after another, like a factory production unit, I don’t know how she does it.

Anyway, that got me thinking about where I’ve been and where I am in my blogging. When I first started blogging, I blogged for myself. It started out as my personal online diary. I blogged about myself for myself. In it, I wrote things I wanted to remember and I included useful links that I could easily search for when I needed it instead of stuffing them all in my favourites folder.

After a while, I started having readers who left comments on my blog. Having readers changed my writing style a little. I was no longer blogging solely for myself but for an audience. I started blogging for the glory of it. Its nice to have a growing base of readership and to have people dropping by leaving you comments. Nice, fun and quite ego boosting too if I may say so.

Then for those of us who began to monetize our blogs, we started blogging for the money and we no longer cared about the glory. Hahaha. Ok. Ok. We still cared about the glory but when you blog for money you lose some of the glory. Some glory but not all. You have to be careful how you manage your blog so that its still you.

After a time, you start to become bored with writing for the money so you start writing for yourself again. Thats what happened to me. I’ve come one full circle. I’m back to writing for myself again. Writing about the things and people I love, the things I observe etc, I also write a little bit for the glory and some for the money.

This way, blogging is 3 times more fun then when I first started. What about you? Which stage of the blogging life cycle are you at? For some good fun and a good laugh, you can read this - Lifecycle of Bloggers. I am sure that most bloggers can identify with it. I believe that Once a Blogger, Always a Blogger and sometimes one blog is not enough to feed the addiction.

A Reader’s Toolbox: Nowadays, blogging is trendier than making a website because, you don’t need web development courses and blogging is possible without any script based web design layout . Though making a personal website too is no more difficult with the help of free website templates that include css templates as well as flash templates.

Boo Hoo Hoo. I just turned down USD65 worth of work. Thats about RM220. Can go shopping in Robinsons with that. I was so happy to open my mailbox and see the offers this morning but then….

I was supposed to write about online casino and online gambling but I just couldn’t do it. I don’t believe in gambling because I think it causes problems for families. Many gamblers can become addicted to gambling. Its even easier to become addicted when it comes with the privacy of being online.

Waahhh. I could easily have submitted this very post and put in the link to the online gaming site and earn it but……….. Sob. Sob.

Nevermind, to comfort myself, I shall go and write more of my own posts and look for other work.   

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of starting another blog. I don’t have the time but I can still dream, can’t I? Now, what shall the blog be about? Shall it be a food blog (nyah I’m a so-so cook), a finance blog (I could get hubby to give some input), a beauty blog (I’m not very beautiful, so errr… hahaha), a Marketing Blog (I’m not a marketing person, I’m too straight), a hobby blog, a household tips blog, a review blog or…..

Please excuse me for dreaming but having blogs and collecting blogs is an irresistable hobby. After you’ve been blogging for a while, you will realise that one blog is not enough. Its so exciting to start new blogs and build your cyber real estate. Besides, the lure of $$$ is hard to resist. Once you’ve got a winning formula, duplicating it is easier than when you first started.

Anyway, the reason why I’m dreaming about a new blog is because I only have one dot.com (this one) and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to fill all the advertiser orders in it. I have to turn down many offers to write. Although this blog is newer than my Parenting Blog, has less readers, page load etc, its doing better in Alexa rankings and is definitely preferred by advertisers. So here I sit dreaming of another dot.com to grow and nurture. Now, if only I had the time………

It happened to me again this morning. I didn’t have to press “accept” to have the amount credited into my account. I wonder if this is just temporary or a new thing. If it is, it’ll be good, no need to keep on pressing “accept” for each and every transaction.

Anyway the good folks at Paypal has replied to me. This is what they said.

Hello, I will be happy to assist you with your question
regarding your PayPal account.

Understand you concern about the two transaction.

By checking your PayPal account information, I found that the two
payments have been instant credit in your PayPal balance on Oct. 1,
2007. You do not need to accept them manually Please log in your PayPal
account for the double check. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,
PayPal, an eBay Company

So those who also had the same trouble can rest assured that your account is not being played around with by anyone with unauthorised access.

This morning when I logged into my Paypal account to accept my payments I was surprised to see that out of the several payments from various sources that I received today, some showed the status of “complete” even though I hadn’t pressed the accept button yet. So I immediately wrote to support.

However as I was accepting my first payment, upon completion, I saw that the rest turned into the “complete” status even though I hadn’t accepted them yet. So I had to write another email to support.

I read that Malaysians can now receive Adsense payments via direct transfer to our bank accounts and Paypal payments with the  use of debit/credit cards with some local banks. That is great news. As usual, I will wait for the big big tai kor and tai soh to carry out their transactions before I try out. Hehe.

Anyway, back to Paypal, has anyone had this problem before? I wonder if there is a bug in the system or there is unauthorised use of my account. What a lousy way to start a day.

Independent Note: Several web hosting services, especially the popular ones like ix web hosting offer the personalized accounts for the webmasters where they can take or receive payments. It’s good to read webhosting reviews of powweb or other hosting companies before you decide for the best web hosting service that provides a personalized account service or at least a pay pal support.

1. I will not open more than 10 website pages at one time
2. I will not refresh those pages more than 10 times an hour
3. I will limit my blog hopping to 10 blogs per day
4. I will not write more than 10 posts a day
5. I will spend not more than 10 minutes on those 10 posts
6. I will not spend more than 10 hours in front of the monitor without a break
7. I will try to reply to at least 10 comments a day
8. I will not add more than 10 tools on each of my blog template
9. I will not let my ToDo List grow longer than 10 items due to my blogging
10. I will not walk back to my PC every 10 minutes to check on my pages

Well, those are my new blogging resolutions. Ok. I may have exagerated somewhat but the gist of it is the same. I will not let blogging rule my life. I will organize and prioritize. I will be better at time management and I will type at the speed of lightning. All because I want to blog but I still have a responsiblity of looking after the family and the home.

Whats your Blogging Resolution?