Category Archives: blogging101

DYJHIW means…

Texting or sending sms has changed the way people communicated with each other. No, not only that, it has changed the way family dynamics has evolved. No, not only that, texting has changed the way personal relationships, friendships, business partnerships, and whatever kind of relationship that needs constant communication.

As a matter of fact, the texting frenzy as well as the chat culture has in itself a whole new language that adults will surely have a hard time understanding.

Below are a few chat symbols that represent something else to the trained eye. Are you ready to take the challenge to guess what these are?

Let’s see if you can guess these three samples of commonly used smileys:

:’-( or :-} or %-D

Here are some love expressions cyber style:

:-X or [] or (:-….

Can you guess who these favorite characters are who have become smileys?

3:-) or *<:-) or =):-)

Meet new friends in cyber space:

Q:-) or B-) or 8=:-)

What animals are these?

:3-< or :@) or OOOOO<

Ok, enough said. For those who want to know what these letters mean, read on:

Mobile1: WU?

Mobile2: YKW? OTP

Mobile1: CUL

Mobile2: SYS

Too easy? Try this one:

HO. IHAIM. BRB.

Ok, for now, TTFN. MNC. %-D

Here is a useful guide: Webopedia.
Read an interesting New York Times article.

Hazards in Blogging

Blogging is the new media. A blogger can disclose as much personal affairs as one feels comfortable doing so. Or a blogger can choose to be discreet.

A blogger can fabricate lies and weave stories he believes in his mind are true. Or just state facts and real events and people.

A blogger can talk about his past and future plans. Or choose not to.

Speaking of which, there are several blogging hazards that a blogger can get.

For example, Kazuyoshi Miura. He is a Japanese blogger. He blogged about going to Saipan. But when he got there, he was arrested. Why? Read the story here, here, here and here.

Splogs

Splog or spam blogging is a menace. Sure it links to your posts and may even up blog’s links. But in truth, these are fake blogs. These fake blogs copy the first few sentences from blogs and post these in their site with some links going to where the posts were copied. Some popular topics covered are about gambling, poker, home mortgage and even parenting.

Here is an example of splogging which I have removed the link attached to the permalink (the permalink is linkless 😀 ) :

I Wear My Sunglasses At Night » Zenni Optical Glasses | iwearmysunglassesatnight.sunglassesbargain.com/2008/02/22/zenni-optical-glasses | IP: 69.41.230.6

[…] unknownnHBifocal lens, tinted sunglasses, sunsensor, progressive and single exteroception lense are offered. The Best Thing Found: Zenni Optical add sells internationally and candid to the customers the drug eyeglasses so the prices are not … […]

When I clicked the link, the splog site was gone. Instead, I found this:

The website you are trying to view has been suspended due to a breach of our Acceptable Use Policy.

Anyway, what can be seen when the link is clicked is my post. Yup, this is a repository of posts written by other bloggers, aiming to achieve high search engine result through the use of keywords and links found in posts written in blogs. These rake in money from pay-per-click ads.

Click these articles to read more about splogging:

 

The Guardian’s Cashing in on Fake Blogs

Wired’s Spam + Blogs = Trouble

Mark Cuban’s A Splog Here, A Splog There…

Maria Langer’s Google, Adsense and Splogging

Underground Text Link Seller

First day of February, this email came:

 

—– Original Message —–
From: A___ K____
To: abcdefg@teacherjulie.com
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 12:19 AM
Subject: can i buy an ad on your teacher julie site?

Hey ______,

Your list of “you might be in Education” is really funny…and true. I like #14

Say, I was wondering if I can place an ad on this page http://teacherjulie.com/2006/08/05/you-might-be-in-education/
for someone who runs an online learning site?

I don’t have much, but I can pay $___ for an ad there. If this works for you let me know and I’ll send you over the ad and the payment.

Thanks,
A___K____

This was the reply I made:

 

From: abcdefg@teacherjulie.com
Sent: Thu 1/31/2008 2:28 PM
To: A____ K______
Subject: Re: can i buy an ad on your teacher julie site?

can i buy an ad on your teacher julie site?

A____,

Thank you for the interest in putting an ad in that particular page. I am skeptic though because you see, the post I made was not my own since the source can be found below it, www.teachingheart.net. I think that that would not be fair to the site where I got the article.
I am sorry I think I have to refuse your offer, even if it sounds so tempting because your $____ is a lot of money where I am.

I hope you understand.

Best Regards,
http://teacherjulie.com
http://homeschooling.teacherjulie.com
http://greenbucks.teacherjulie.com

P.S. #14 is funny, yes, I am a teacher but I do homeschooling.

To which the man replied again:

Magandang Umaga!

Thanks for getting back to me so soon. Great News – I took another look at your site and found 6 pages that I’d like to get ads on. I can offer you $_____ for advertising on these 6 pages.

Here are the 6 pages I’d like to get ads on:

http://homeschooling.teacherjulie.com/2007/11/11/sibika-mag-anak-family/
http://teacherjulie.com/2007/11/23/amazing-blogger-award/
http://homeschooling.teacherjulie.com/2008/02/01/science-centrum-field-trip/

http://homeschooling.teacherjulie.com/category/photo-hunters/
http://homeschooling.teacherjulie.com/2007/09/07/bodies-of-water-anyong-tubig/
http://homeschooling.teacherjulie.com/?s=fruits

On this page http://homeschooling.teacherjulie.com/2008/02/01/science-centrum-field-trip/, here’s the ad that I’d like:

—————————————–
http://www.dimacc.com/users/Alex/teacherjulie.html
—————————————–

Please avoid using the words “ADS” or “SPONSOR” as this actually decreases clicks.

If this works for you I’ll send you over the other 5 ads for the other pages. Once they’re live, I will pay you through PAYPAL or a CHECK (whichever you’d prefer).

Thank you for your time,

A____

I don’t know but I didn’t reply back.

Then in a group mail subscription that I am a part of, JMom included a link that made me think about this harder.

Were those offers I got were from underground text link server?

Photo Resizing 101

Photos make posts more interesting. But if there are many photos to accompany a post, or if one is posting a series of photos to describe a place or show a series of events, there should be modifications done to the photos.

What specific modification?

Have the photos resized. How? Resize the photos by reducing the pixels. Instead of just uploading the photos from the camera and posting these in the blog, resize them by utilizing the different software for photos available in the market.

Why the need to do these?

For easier viewing and loading of photos. Not everyone has a fast internet connection and when photos are not resized to a smaller size, it would be painfully slow to have these appear. It looks funny sometimes when the photo even goes beyond the margin where the posts appear. Interest in viewing blogs like these are not sustained.

Even when emailing photos, it is best to have these resized. Ideal size would be anywhere from 500-800 pixels, ideal for viewing purposes.

I use 300 pixels in width for photos in this blog.

Below is a sample of 300 pixels x 400 pixels, resized from the original size of 1200pixels x 1600 pixels.

img_1201b.jpg

Below is a sample of a 400 pixels x 534 pixels photo.

img_1201c.jpg

The second photo looks huge. In my opinion, the first one is better. What do you think?