Femme Power

Backpacks are still one of the most preferred bags in school today due to their affordability, versatility (can be used for school supplies or for extra clothes during games, field trips, etc), durability and style.   I myself had a penchant for backpacks during my school days (Forget the number of years that passed, lol!).

So with my daughter possibly getting infected with my being bag-crazy, she asked me to look for a cute kids backpack that she could use for her dance rehearsals.  One that’s dainty and soft, she’ll want to carry and hug it.  With not much time to scour the mall for such a description for a backpack, I chose to check online if something fits the bill.  Indeed I found a stephen joseph backpack that’s cute and colorful, quilted and soft.  It’s 100% made of cotton, no worries about scratching my daughter’s skin on the bag’s edges unlike her previous bags.

This backpack can be personalized by having your child’s name embroidered on it.

I also found a nap mat that’s perfect for sleepovers and picnics as well as for daycare, preschool and kindergarten.   The good stuff? It’s foldable into a bag for easy storage, and it’s machine-washable.

After the successful releases of the books GoNegosyo 50 Inspiring Entrepreneurial Stories, GoNegosyo 50 Inspiring Stories of Entrepreneurs (Celebrity Edition), and GoNegosyo 55 Inspiring Stories of Women Entrepreneurs, comes another promising book by Joey Concepcion, as written by Dean Pax Lapid and Ping Sotto — 21 Steps on How To Start Your Own Business.

Unlike the first three books that focused mainly on the success stories of Filipinos who battled the odds to become today’s big names in business like Henry Sy (SM), Socorro Ramos (National Bookstore), and Dr. Rolando Hortaleza (Splash Corp.), among others, this latest GoNegosyo book will guide you through in setting up your own business.   Not only will it inspire you and rekindle that fire to pursue your long-forgotten dreams but it will also tell you how.  It has activity worksheets for you to write and draw on so you won’t be limited to just reading, you’ll be asked to work on it!  Plus the book is packed with snippets of success stories of Filipino entrepreneurs to add more to your inspiration.

If you have that fire in you to put up even a small business to start with, I recommend that you read this book. I got mine at National Bookstore.

I woke up this morning feeling energized to write a new entry on my Mom-Says blog.  I checked my email and saw that I had two comments to approve but lo and behold when I tried to log in, I was greeted by a strange advertisement in a totally unfamiliar page that asked me to click on a link to make the page “work.”  Helpless, I clicked on the link and it directed me to a totally different website.

I’m so pissed and frustrated!  All the months that I worked for to achieve PR2 and decent traffic for that blog, now all wasted to hacking.

Has this ever happened to you?   Were you able to restore your blog after getting hacked?  I’ll be more than glad to hear from any well-meaning bloggers around who could share their views on hacking or how to restore a hacked blog.   If you could recommend where to get help on this, I will definitely see it as a huge favor.   A big big thank you in advance!

You must have heard it or seen the show itself but I couldn’t help but echo what millions of people around the world are now talking about — the American Idol Season Finale 2010 which proclaimed Lee Dewyze, a former paint salesman from Illinois, as the winner over early favorite Crystal Bowersox.

But honestly it wasn’t the contestants that glued me to the finale but the bevy of music legends that performed especially the BeeGees.  I was lying in bed, ready to sleep because I was dead tired from that night’s shift when I heard  Siobhan Magnus and Aaron Kelly singing “How Deep Is Your Love.”  I didn’t bother to move a muscle but then I started hearing familiar voices — the BeeGees!  Could it really be them?  I turned around to see the TV which was over my head and all I could mutter was “Whoah!”

You might think I’m that old, LOL, but I’m a huge fan of great artists from the past and that includes the BeeGees.  If you happened to miss that part of the show, here’s the video courtesy of YouTube:

I was having my time surfing the Web when I came across John Chow’s blog.  I’ve heard a lot about this popular blogger’s name and reputation many times over in the past but I never got to visit his site until today.  I used to associate the name John Chow to a busy social life that’s mostly partying, spending huge sums of money for anything money can buy.  I had this impression basing on the fact that this guy is said to be making over $40,000 a month through blogging alone.  So I was surprised when I saw John Chow’s video with his little daughter in the park having a quiet bonding time together. He called it the Dot Com LifestyIe. I was even more surprised to learn that he’s just like any of us, wanting to make money and yet have the time to spend with our family.

The only difference is, he has achieved it — by making money online.

John made a good point when he said that some people are earning a lot of money but they don’t have the time to spend it because they’re always caught up with work.  Some people, on the other hand, have a lot of time but they don’t have any money.  Me, I’m one of those people who long to have both time and financial freedom.  But is it really doable?  Many so-called financial gurus claim that it is.  As per John, he was able to achieve it by making a killing through his blogs.   He said the monetary rewards were just secondary but the ultimate price he gets from blogging is having time freedom — more time to spend with his family by not being tied up at work for 40-60 hours a week.

How happier this world would be if a lot of us can spend more time with the family while earning more at the same time.   The thing is, not everyone can duplicate what John Chow and other high-paying bloggers have achieved.  It’s not as easy as 1-2-3 and it surely needs time and effort to jumpstart your blog until you get lots of quality traffic and backlinks.

But to start with, I’ll be reading John Chow’s free E-Book and learn from it.  You may click on the link as well to get a copy of his E-Book for free.

How about opening our minds first that both time and financial freedom can be achieved?  For starters, We can learn from the man who has done it.  Then maybe we could finally get the Dot Com Lifestyle too in the long run — that’s making money and having more time with the family.  Isn’t that what we all want?

Today is a historical day for us, Filipinos. Today, we cast our votes on the first-ever national and local automated elections.   Gone are the days when we had to manually write down our candidates, and wait for several weeks for all the votes to be counted and tallied manually by our modern-day heroes we call teachers.

I don’t wanna delve on the countless lives sacrificed in the name of protecting the sanctity of ballots or those lives wasted to crooks wanting to cling to power during the past elections nor do I wanna delve on the possibility of the automated elections to be rigged (or being rigged) by the powers that be.  I would like to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Just last week, a few days before the elections, Smartmatic and the Comelec recalled thousands of defective compact flash cards after a series of tests in various precincts showed blatant glitches.  The total number of votes counted by the pcos machines did not tally with those of the manual count results.  Candidates with no votes during the test appeared to have votes in the pcos machine, and vise versa.  It was a glaring proof that the compact flash cards, which were blamed by Smartmatic for the glitch, could indeed be programmed and could make a non-winning candidate win and make winning candidates lose.  Though the said compact flash cards have been recalled and reprogrammed, there is already a cloud of doubt hovering the veracity or reliability of the automated elections.

I’ve voted for the candidates that I believe could and would bring positive changes to this country.  Those who have the track records of working for the benefit of many Filipinos sans the press releases.  Those who have the credibility, political will, and morality in governance.   I just pray that my votes and those of my fellow Filipinos will be counted appropriately and don’t go to the wrong names, as what happened during the tests last week.   God save the Philippines.

I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries from friends about the earning potential of blogging and how it works.  I figured that I should finally write about it to spare my friends from my usual lengthy monologues.  Hence, the next time someone gets curious about blogging again, they could use this post as a reference to (hopefully) help them start a blog and monetize it in the long run, if they choose to.

I’ve been blogging for almost two years now and it’s been giving me a steady stream of extra income while doing what I love - writing.  However, sorry to burst your bubble but blogging doesn’t offer any get-rich-quick sort of game plan.  It can pay for your utility bills and your groceries plus some not-so-expensive wants (I was able to buy two camera phones, some clothes and shoes, among others).  For the most part, it’s going to eat up a considerable chunk of your time and depending on how you view it, it could either be draining or rewarding.

So here’s the list of questions I usually get from some blog-curious bunch:

How do you earn from blogging?

1) Paid posts - There are many ways to monetize one’s blog but in my case, I’m comfortable about writing paid posts.  I choose the topics and sponsors that I write about. I don’t accept offers to write about products and services that I don’t believe in.  Average rate per post I get is $10.  If your blog is more popular, chances are you’ll get more and higher offers because advertisers put weight about your Page Rank.

2) I also earn from Adgitize by simply displaying their ads and clicking ads displayed in other members’ blogs. This way, members not only earn revenues but traffic as well.  Talk about hitting two birds with one stone!  And this is the only program I know that pays you to advertise and rewards you for updating your blog.  Click on the link to sign up for free and see your traffic rise when you participate actively.

3) Other bloggers earn big from Google Adsense (web-based, content-sensitive marketing) depending on the number of ad clicks and page impressions on your blog.  Meaning, it is primarily dependent on traffic hence the more traffic you have, the more moolah you get.  But if you don’t have much visitors in your site, then Adsense is not for you.  In my case, I still haven’t reached my pay-out target of $100 but I don’t wanna remove it just yet.  I’ll wait till I get there however slowly. You may also try other alternatives like AdBrite, Bidvertiser, Kontera, Text Link Ads, CMF Ads, and several other alternatives.

How do you generate traffic to your blog?

I get traffic mostly from Entrecard, Adgitize, and other social networking sites I joined including Facebook.  I also get traffic from curious surfers who search for keywords that are found on my blogs.

Who will pay us to blog?

If you want to get paid for writing posts, below are the programs you could sign up with.  You can find a lot more in the Web but these are the programs that have actually paid me since I started monetizing this blog:

1) Blog4Reviews - Established by Filipinos Janette Toral and Gary Viray, this is one of my favorite pay-to-blog programs because it is country-specific as to the sponsors and target market.  Hence, I’m more familiar with the products and services and can relate to them much better.  They also pay through PayPal two weeks after your post is approved.

2) Blogsvertise - They give out 3-4 tasks in a week, depending on your level of participation. Register your blog and once you get accepted, you’ll start getting tasks. You may accept or decline the tasks. Write about the tasks any way you want according to your own editorial perspective.  You may either write a review about the advertiser’s products and services or simply mention them in your post or better yet, relate them to your own personal experiences.  Create at least three links to the advertiser’s website and then submit it within the time frame allotted to you.  They pay through PayPal 30 days after your post has been approved.  Yeah, it’s quite a long wait but it’s better than nothing.

3) Payperpost - I liked the old version of it because I didn’t have to wait for tasks to be assigned to me. I could take on any available opportunities from my dashboard, choose the advertisers myself, then write about their products and services.   But now that they’ve changed their platform where advertisers choose the bloggers and then negotiate the price, etc, I rarely log in to it.  Most leads that I’ve been getting lately wouldn’t match well with my blog or simply not the kinds that I’d want to blog about.

4) Blogtoprofit - This is the program that gave me my first blogging income almost two years ago.  They give out assignments in bulk and pay you through PayPal or your bank account in two weeks.

Other programs that have paid me to blog were Sponsoredreviews, ReviewMe, Buyblogreviews but offers from these three were scarce.

One thing is for sure, it’s not a walk in the park if you intend to blog for money or to put it bluntly, if money is the only or main reason that you’re blogging.  Blogging is a fun outlet to express one’s self.  Sometimes, even if you have wonderful people around you who are willing to listen to your thoughts, it’s quite overwhelming when you’re able to express yourself in writing and drown yourself in words.  Sometimes the writer in you just comes out, whether you’re being paid or not.

So if you love writing, go on, start a blog and if you choose to, monetize it.  It’s a matter of choice.  The most important thing is, be truthful to your readers and to yourself and you gotta love what you’re doing.