This should be done in less than 15 minutes.

• Upgraded to WordPress MU 1.3.3
• The Pentium-5 hubbub
• Changes to Bloggista.com and the new Bloggista.net
• Bloggista.com Page Rank
• SEO, Traffic and Money

As with previous SONA (and even on previous administrations), some people are marching in the streets protesting against the “lies” and “deceptions” and “fairy tales” contained in the SONA message. Some, as expected, delivered their own Kontra-SONA. While some were having a grand time of their lives in the “hallowed” halls of Congress on their best clothes and jewelries - in short, it was another circus on nationwide TV. Call it entertaining, boring show, horror flick, or an action-adventure-fantasy combo entertainment.

But President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo, this time, earned my admiration. Whether her actions are good for the country is one thing every Filipino will reckon with once her term is up - but the fact that we Filipinos NEED a President (and Politicians) who doesn’t care if their actions are popular or not. Now going back to the SONA details - and why those deserved a space on this blog - precisely because those decisions made by the President affect us all - the way we earn our daily wages either from business, or employment.

Got to clarify I am not a PGMA fan - I did not voted for her. But some of the things she said in her SONA were backed with hard facts - yes, interest rates are low, the Peso is still strong despite rising fuel costs. At the start of the year, inflation was low. Now going back to Interest Rates - ask those people who have availed of bank financing for their houses - the decrease in interest rates gave them significant savings/reductions in monthly amortizations.

The VAT did something good for the country - while it may be difficult to make an ordinary Filipino understand its benefits, those who are educated should be able to appreciate its value. Now I know this statement will trigger debate among the “learned” and an abomination for some - but I think its time that we Filipinos open our hearts and minds and ears a little and rally altogether for the common good - and tell precisely why we think the Government’s programs are a phony and inutile and give factual suggestions and intelligent remarks on what to do - rather than dwell on rhetorics and ride on the public’s outrage and get attention and publicity.

Politics is a business. Running the government is a business. Unfortunately, it is sad to note that yesterday’s opposition is today’s administration, and today’s opposition will probably be tomorrow’s administration. So there is no real politics yet in our country - where politicians set aside personal preferences and convenience over the nations welfare.

Will the real street parliamentarians stand up and give your factual dose for this country’s ills?

Note: Apologies for the incoherent thoughts and poor use of the English language. It just another bloggista’s ramblins and random thoughts on Philippine Politics.

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The Nursing Board Exam 2008 Results posted on Bloggista.org (my new blog site where I intend to blog about the buzz in blogosphere including current events, news - anything that a passionate blogger, or a bloggista finds interesting) generated more than 50,000 page views within the first 24-hours, and reached my personal milestone of 100,000 page views in less than a week.

I got to admit, I am still a newbie on blogging and driving traffic. I’m still learning how to write good articles - and drive regular traffic to my sites. And experiencing such traffic which is normal or even less for some was already awesome. That was more than 6 months worth of page views I got for Bloggista.com and was just achieved by Bloggista.org in just one day! Fairly unfair wasn’t it?

But that’s not the point here, but the truth about the equation SEO + Traffic = Money.  Although a bit late into the Nursing Results SEO game, Yahoo! gave it the most traffic as Bloggista.org was consistently placed in top 3 on its page one Search Results for most keywords used.  Google contributed but not as much as Yahoo!’s.

Bottomline - learn SEO, drive more traffic and earn more money. Still, Google AdSense was the biggest money maker, followed by Kontera and AdBrite. Now I could only wonder how much those guys who placed top on Google search results pages got for page views and revenue.

Next project - the Busby SEO Challenge and bring home the US$5,000.00 prize money - LOL, in my dreams!

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It’s All Geek To Me!

There is much I need to know about the strategies and programs to launch effective Marketing campaigns utilizing the internet and mobile media. And this Summit is the right avenue for me to learn, and at the same time, find potential Partners who will be interested on my current Project, and perhaps sign-up first Customers as well.

According to InteractiveSummit - “More and more Filipinos are truly embracing the digital lifestyle - with more than 60 million mobile users and close to 20 million internet users (23% of the population), engaging prosumers through these new digital media have become extremely important for brands and businesses.”

It’s All Geek To Me! will be about “Learning the latest trends and best practices in digital marketing as the world’s leading digital experts converge in Manila for the Philippines’ biggest and most prestigious annual conference in internet and mobile marketing” - as announced on InteractiveSummit website.

The group is also sponsoring the Boomerang Awards 2008 which claims to be The toughest interactive and mobile marketing competition in the world.

To learn more about the It’s All Geek To Me event, and to register, hop on to http://www.interactivesummit.com.ph/.
Oh, by the way, this is my entry to the contest of Ms. Janette - and with all luck, hopefully I’ll get a free pass to this event.

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Well they explained that they were not indexing all those trillion pages, as some of them are “duplicates” but still, the unique links they processed reach a trillion mark even after removing those duplicates. And in fact, its even more - they do not intend to count all, but only those links that are relevant to every search made on Google.

And by how many webpages the internet is growing everyday? Google estimates it to several billion pages a day! So its look like the world wide web is going to be a universe in itself for a few years from now.

Amazing, isn’t it? That’s a lot of potential money too - only shows the internet is so vast making money out of it still has promising outlook for the coming years.

Google knew the web is big - and to understand their challenges and how they’re making Google an effective search engine for everyone, better check their official blog.

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Although this have not been verified yet, but there seems to be some Page Rank Update in progress today. My 3-month old Wordpress-powered Free blog site, Bloggista.net, suddenly displayed a page rank of 1. I went over PRChecker.info to verify and indeed it has a Page Rank of 1 from N/A. You can check the Page Rank of any website using the Page Rank (PR) Checker below:

Check Page Rank of any web site pages instantly:

This free page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service

Further checking of several new sites of my blog friends, they got some changes too. So perhaps the much anticipated Google Page Rank update is imminent and for sure it will bring joy to some, heartbreak to others.

Check back for more updates. What have you noticed lately? Better check it out!

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This simple (although about 8MB plugin) enables you to display your featured posts or popular posts in an animated flash presentation. As stated in its website - “Featurific is a FREE website plugin that displays featured items in a beautiful and professional looking flash gallery. Those who are serious about blogging, e-commerce, and web design can’t afford to miss out on this hot new trend in web presentation.”

The Featurific Featured Post Plugin for Wordpress Blogs includes several presentation designs and widget templates - in various color schemes and sizes. Installation is easy. Just upload all files to your Wordpress Plugin folder. It makes use of your Post Images as image thumbnails - and it also has built-in well designed images for additional thumbnail displays on the widget. You can select which posts, or categories you want to be featured, and control how many posts are included in the featured post widget.

The plugin already works without doing any custom configuration - but you can tinker it and modify or customize if you’re knowledgeable with PHP and HTML. I haven’t made any customization - however, I’m still trying to figure out how to make it appear on the sidebar (check out Bloggista.org to see a live demo).

If performance is okay, will also try this out on my other sites. You can download the Featurific Wordpress Plugin here.

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MANILA, Philippines—A total of 27,765 or 43.07 percent of the 64,459 who took the nursing licensure exam last June passed it, the Board of Nursing of the Professional Regulation Commission said Thursday evening.

More than 100 examinees made it to the Top 10 , said BoN member Dean Marco Sto. Tomas.

Aira Therese Salamanca Javier of the University of Santo Tomas topped the test with a rating of 86 percent.

“Congratulations to those who passed,” said Sto. Tomas.

He said the top colleges with 100 or more examinees are:

• Trinity University Of Asia and University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center

• University of Sto. Tomas, St. Louis University, Cebu Normal University, Chinese General Hospital College of Nursing, West Visayas State University - La Paz, St. Paul University – Dumaguete

• Dela Salle University - Dasmarinas, Cavite.

Those with 30 to 99 examinees are:

• St. Paul University - Iloilo, University of the Philippines - Manila, University of San Jose Recoletos, Philippine Christian University - Mary Johnston College of Nursing;

• Mindanao State University - Marawi;

• St Paul University - Manila.

Source: Inquirer.net

For complete list, check on the following:

Download Nursing Board Passer List

Also check out 2008 Nursing Board Exam Passers in Alphabetical Order if you prefer browsing online.

Nursing Board Exam 2008 Top 10 Examinees 

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Last January when I registered this domain Bloggista.com, I didn’t have any idea what to do with it. I just loved the way it sound - bloggista. And I thought the word Bloggista exactly describes a blogger, a passionate blogger at that. If Fashion is to a Fashionista, then Blog is to a Bloggista. So I decided to make Bloggista.com a newbie blogger’s blog - about his journey towards making money online. In a span of 6 months, I have grown my website network to more than a dozen of websites - each slowly giving nice returns on investment.

Then several people nominated the Bloggista to the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs in 2008. Exactly why I avoided this contest - Bloggista doesn’t want to put himself in the limelight - even for a few seconds. I was already having fun browsing through blogs, finding bloggers to idolize, spending so many hours a day thinking what to blog and how to blog. Bloggista just don’t want complications. Bloggista just want to exist in his own share of the blogosphere.

But then some nice people “wasted” a vote for a blogger who doesn’t want himself included - I am already happy with what I am doing… But should those votes be wasted? After some deep thinking - I decided to reconsider and instead recognize those people that made me buy my own domain, and made me prefer blogging over hours of online games, billiards and bar-hopping. And of course I should be giving justice to those kind enough to give me a vote.

So, in return, here’s my list of the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs in 2008. The first 3 blogs are those blogs that influenced me to start my own blog. I have already visited their blogs even before I started blogging. Not included, unfortunately are the other blogs that influenced me a lot but are disqualified from being nominated because of the rule that says blogs nominated should be created between July 1, 2007 up to present. But still I want to mention them, they are: Pinoyambisyoso, Manilenya, Misyel and Unwritten Thoughts.

My top 3:

1. Mapiles.com| Your Partner Online
2. Mga Kwentong Kengkay
3. Making Scenes, Cents and Sense

Bloggers that influenced me to strive to write better and inspired me to improve my blogging skills, contents and blog ideas - I also discovered their blogs when I already started blogging.

4. Blog From Cebu To The World
5. Humane Blogging Tips
6. Pinaymommy Online
7. WPThemeDesigner

So my list still needs 3 more to be complete. I intentionally left 3 slots for my readers to nominate someone. The 3 bloggers who got the top 3 nominations by 31st of July will complete the 8th, 9th, and 10th spots.

Which blog you would like me to nominate?

8.

9.

10.

Special Thanks to those who nominated me!

Jan Alvin, SoNn, Scotty’s Princess, Juler, Pinaymommy… Did I missed out anyone?

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One best way to get a Call Center job is to visit Job Fairs and Expo that are organized by the prospective employers themselves. From July 23-24, 2008, the Contact Center Association of the Philippines, or CCAP, is holding its Annual Call Center Conference and Expo at the SMX, Mall of Asia in Pasay City, Metro Manila.

Better check it out, and make sure to bring your latest CV/Resume. You may also be interviewed ON-SITE, as told by the CCAP organizers during this morning’s Umagang Kay Ganda TV program on ABS-CBN. So be ready for a job interview as well.

Below is the announcement posted on CCAP website:

Watch out for the CCAP Annual Call Center Conference & Expo 2008, the international mega event that combines an industry conference tackling the major issues and trends, a training and development program for contact center professionals, an exhibit of the latest products and solutions, and a job fair for industry professionals and fresh graduates.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:

• Directors and executives
• Site directors
• Call center managers
• Operations managers
• Customer service heads
• Investors and entrepreneurs
• HR directors and managers
• IT and network managers
• Workforce managers
• QA managers
• Shift managers
• Supervisors and team leaders

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU:

• Learn from call center veterans and industry experts
• Get updated on trends and issues
• Listen to best practices and case studies
• Discover the newest products and technologies
• Get the chance to network with movers and shakers

Click here for more details.
Click here for the conference topics.

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Will a blogger be a better Politician? Click the frame below to play the video and see the latest and the hottest Presidential Candidate that will blow this year’s elections to wild proportion.

This one’s one nice prank stuff from PalTalk. Try it out yourself. Have fun!

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But the road to success is long, winding one, full of humps and bumps, and crossings and intersections and obstructions. Adding the fact that you are not alone in going there, others do dream too, and the opportunities may not be enough for everyone.

Do you feel sometimes you just need to talk to someone and hear those words you already know, but hearing it from somebody gives you a different push, a different perspective, a different reaction, and a different action?

During those times when you are planning to do something, where you have lots of things to do to achieve your objectives -  you need to pause for a while, gather your thoughts, assess your progress and take the much needed boost to go on. You can talk to someone, or if there is no one to talk to, you can be creative. I do this by writing what I have in mind, giving myself a few doses of inspiration and comforting words. Thanks to blogging, I can share you my thoughts. And in this post I am talking about NOT giving up… Persistence.

This post may not be of interest to you anyway. These are just raw ramblings of a blogger, a dreamer, a persistent person. So you may want to indulge yourself anyhow. However if you come here to see the latest update on the 2008 Nursing Board Exam results, you can follow that link to get out from this page as fast as you can.

But if you choose to stay, read my mind. You may react - violent or not if you disagree.

Persistence is the key to endure failures and challenges. Just like a calm before a storm, you have to endure the storm and hope to see a brighter day afterwards.

Persistence gives you direction. You cannot be persistent when you’re not clear of your goals. And start small, easy goals that will lead to your ultimate objectives. It is surprisingly easy to achieve when you break them into small goals. Small victories - be persistent, but this keeps you on track of your direction.

Persistence gives you the will to go on. And the will to go on… not giving up is called Determination. If you feel your bored at what you’re doing, be persistent in looking for ways to improve yourself - like do something new.

Persistence is the key to Patience. And Patience is the greatest virtue of all. If you feel nobody is reading your blog, be persistent in posting good articles. Probloggers started from nothing.

Persistence is what makes a person “good” and more responsible. Insistence is not - it is more subjective. There is no shortcut to success and fame - well infamy, there is, but when people get bored and tired of you, they will simply forget you.

So if you have Grand Plans, remember that no matter who you are, even if people don’t believe that you can do it, even if you’re just a “small-time” dude, you can make it big as long as you believe you can do it and be persistent.  Remember great things came from small simple thinking.

If you see the opportunities are slim, and that everyone is on the same direction - be wise. Don’t compete, instead collaborate and work with others - if they don’t understand why, be persistent and they will eventually.

Lastly, afraid of making decisions? Today I stumbled this little note while I was assessing the significant decisions I made over the past week.

“Your decision is almost right”. Is there such a right decision? I believe there isn’t. It’s how you work on what you have decided upon that will spell the difference between success and failure.

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