To Comment Or Not To Comment

Now where is my comment box? AJ left a message in my chat box saying he could not find my comment box. I too searched for it. I checked my settings and I found out that it's fine. But still, the comment box is missing.

When I first started out blogging, I was too hesitant to leave a comment in someone's else's blog. I felt like I was invading someone else's property and maybe, the blog author was only rambling for his/herself, not expecting a reader to stumble on his/her private world.

Then came my first commenter. I could not exactly describe how I felt. Nah, I did not feel it was intrusive. But it was more of gladness that someone actually dropped by.

That was more than three years ago, and that first commenter had quit blogging. Her last entry was prayer a dated January 2008. I wish her well. The bloggers we've connected with for a long time had become part of us.

Leaving a comment is not just for SEO sake. It is to establish relationship. I know some uses it as a strategy to draw more traffic to their sites. But damn their strategies. The well-meaning comments are most welcome, and these are what inspires us to continue blogging.

For the new bloggers, please don't hesitate leaving a comment here. To the spammers, go to Mars. While I still want to figure out how to resurrect my comment box, maybe, it's now time to change template. I haven't done that for a while.

P.S. To the football fans, USA vs Brazil at the Confederations Cup finals today. USA is looking for another possible upset.

Still No PageRank

Of course, what do I expect? Google had changed its algorithms many times. And I can see that this site no longer enjoyed the traffic and readership it once had. Moreso, I also have few updates here. For this month alone, I only have one update.

Last month, I was surprised I had an opp with PPP. That was pretty tempting task, few words requirement, and the dollars enough to pay for 2 domain names. So I took it. You obviously know what the task is as it is in one of my latest posts.

Pageranks had updated many times already, leaving this blog with fat zero. But I had long ago accepted it. How many times had I posted about it? I'm getting annoying, am I? Haha. But if you know my other blogs, go check it out and read my updates there! I had already stripped my anonymous masks little by little. And besides, I have PR2 in both of my domain blogs. :)

Barcelona Wins UEFA Champions League 2009

Barcelona wins over Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League 2009. The newly-crowned Spanish Champions have shown their class and masterful football by foiling all attempts of FIFA World Player of the Year, Ronaldo, and breaking the Red Devils' defense in their brutal yet fluid attack. Eto'o provided the first goal at the 9th minute. Later in the game, Messi headed the ball beating Van der Sar.

My predictions of the Barcelona vs Manchester United game went to naught. The 2-0 score at the end of regulation was too much for the English Champions. I was really hoping for a comeback, but the I knew the game ended with the first shot that hit the back of the net. Ronaldo and Rooney wasted too many opportunities. Too bad.

I am in a hotel room watching the UEFA Champions League finals. I didn't rent a room. I had no budget for that. I just hitched room from an officemate who came from head office and was billeted in a hotel nearby. I'm so disappointed that the game wasn't even close.

Congratulations to Barca for winning in 2006 and now in 2009! It was really beautiful football!

And So They Banned Blogspot Too!

First it was Friendster. With the Social Network’s popularity, IT administrators thought that they should ban it because those with internet access might just abuse the system and consume internet bandwidth by logging on to the site every minute, browsing the profile of others and/or uploading pictures.

Those with Multiply account initially got away. But then, it did not take long for the site to be blacklisted. Then people went crazy with Facebook (FB). I just don’t understand the difference between Facebook, Friendster and Multiply. Their functionalities look the same to me. Anyway, people joined the FB bandwagon.

Two weeks ago, when I happened to be back at our head office, I noticed some people were opening their Facebook accounts. I recently opened my own FB account but limited my network to only a few of colleagues. Most of them in my friends’ list are my relatives, ex-colleagues and offline friends. Maybe two or three officemates I can tolerate. I checked a profile of an ex-colleague and from there I gathered a long list of current officemates who have FB accounts. Wow! I hope they won’t see my profile. But as of this writing, I already got three invites.

I really didn’t mind FB getting banned. But along with FB, they also banned Blogspot, Flickr and Twitter. My twitter addiction was curbed before it even started. And my race to a million followers will no longer be launched. As to Flickr, I only open the site when I remember it. But most of the time, I don’t remember it. My sites on blogspot, including this one, have very rare updates so the ban is still fine with me. Blogs at wordpress.com are safe. That, I don’t know why.

Who knows maybe next time, they’d ban any domain with the word “blog” in it.

On The Lookout For Another Web Host

This site of mine is using blogspot. I can’t just leave behind something which has over 200 posts and somewhat becomes a part of me over a period of three years. But I have other sites which are self-hosted. I made a decision a year ago to buy my own domain and find a web hosting. It was because of the perception that you’ll have more earning opportunities if you have your own domain. I thought it was just a rumor but I found out that it’s true.

And so I hopped into a host recommended by a friend because it’s cheap. Although I read the reviews from Webhostinggeeks.com, I took a risk. The downside of not following reviews, I experienced plenty of downtimes and lost opportunities. Imagine three weeks of site inaccessibility!

Oh, well! Patience is one of my virtues, though I am just ranting in silence. I am now on a lookout for a second web host, once that is unmetered, has excellent reviews, and can host multiple domains. I am also looking at the best budget hosting there is, the best value at the best price.

For the meantime, I am looking for a shared hosting until I get plenty of traffic. A dedicated server hosting are for sites which generates plenty of traffic daily. A few bloggers I know are on dedicated server hosting because of their enormous traffic. Downtimes are almost nil. Traffic equals money, if you know the tricks of doing it. I might reach that one day. But for now, I have to make the first steps.

And you too should read reviews before jumping into your first or second paid webhost. Check out Webhostinggeeks.com for very excellent reviews of various web hosts.