Also an advanced Happy New Year to everyone!

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I just learned the news that Friendster recently had a facelift. It is actually refreshing to see a hippier, more attractive Friendster Layout and Design. When Facebook was out, I wasn’t totally hooked to it instantly and still checked my Friendster profile once in a while. But when Restaurant City arrived, I forgot all about my Friendster account.

It actually took me quite a while to remember the email and password I used for my Friendster profile. After thirty minutes, I was successfully logged in. Here is the new profile page of Friendster:

It is clear that they are aiming at a Facebook-ey feel. Its not really bad actually. I like color green – feels more breezy. I haven’t roamed around my Friendster friends list yet, its been like 2 years or so, but my wife was checking my account once in a while.

So, what do you think? I think it still has its share of market in the vast internet. I had my Friendster profile since I was highschool, and I think Friendster’s new look is not bad. After all, its where all my social networking life started. :)

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• computer upgrades – I’m not yet aiming for a new box. My computer has 1 gig of memory, and about 80 gigs of hard drive storage. But for production use, it can’t keep up anymore. So I wish I had more storage and memory in my work / play / media PC. But more importantly, more RAM will certainly equate to increased productivity. Also, a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium wouldn’t hurt! ;)
• more screen real estate – I love my work as a web designer & developer. But one thing that I feel is hindering my professional growth is a 17-inch monitor. Its like you want to draw a map of the world but all you have are five sheets of Post-it notes. It is very limited. I really wanted to go for 20-22 inch monitors if I had more moolah. I want to see a more in-your-face Photoshop workspace and less scrolling down when working with code. I can’t afford yet so I’m putting it in my wishlist.
• a decent office chair – I spend the whole night sitting in front of my computer, I just don’t want to be a hunchback guy in 5-6 years. More back support and comfy cushions under your butt are nice home office upgrades. :)

How about you? What’s included in your Christmas wishlist?

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Its been a very busy month for me – we’re doing some major stuff with my bosses’ websites so I had to crunch my time and lay-off blogging for a bit. And lately, I’ve been inspired to blog again because of the recent blogging events me & my wife just attended.

My wife’s blog, Pinknote’s Diary, was a finalist for Best Blog Design in the Philippine Blog Awards (PBA) 2009 held last October 9, 2009. We weren’t really expecting it to be included in the list, so we were really glad when we were notified that her blog was listed as one of the finalists. We got the invite for the event, and even if her blog didn’t get the the award, it was still a great experience for us. Next year, I’m also planning on joining that category, haha. Congrats to the winners!

freebies from the event sponsors and souvenirs

Last week, October 15, we also attended the first bloggers event held by PLDT together with Nuffnang. Its the launch of their latest online service: PLDT Watchpad. We got to try it out in Mag.net cafe at Bonifacio High Street and I think this would be a hit for those who would like to watch TV and exclusive films online for free! Right now they have a few channels available like HBO, GMA7 and MTV. The event was really fantastic – there was great food, I got to see some known bloggers in person, good music with the band The Johnnies (not sure if that’s spelled correctly), Rhian Ramos was there, my music idol Jay Durias was also present to share some of South Border’s hits, and of course, freebies! Here’s some photos of the event:

me eating while trying out PLDT Watchpad

Ianne with Rhian Ramos... and a photobomber at the back

with Jay Durias and his guitarist

PLDT Watchpad freebies

I need to do some more changes in my blog. I’m still deciding what to do with it – personal blog or dedicate it to web design topics only. But come to think of it, maybe I’ll just make it a combination of both. I’m also planning a fourth redesign of the blog, but not in the very near future. I’m just inspired to blog more because Pinoy bloggers are becoming more recognized and their blogs are having a bigger voice nowadays.

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I stumbled into Dave’s post about 10 plugins you can install on WordPress to make it a better CMS. Here is the list from his entry:

1. Page Link Manager – If you’re using WordPress as a CMS, it’s quite likely that you’ll be using pages instead of posts. The Page Link Manager plugin installs a simple menu that allows you to check which pages you want included in your main navigation.
2. My Page Order – Often, you’ll want to display your WordPress page navigation in a list, and you’ll probably want to have some control over the way those menu items display. My Page Order allows you to move pages around the list. It can also be used to move child pages around the navigation menu.
3. Widget Logic – This plugin allows you to display different widgets on different pages. So now you can display a specific set of widgets on your blog, another set on your home page, and yet another on your product pages. The plugin uses conditional tags to trigger the logic bit.
4. Yoast Breadcrumbs – Since the early days of the Internet, breadcrumbs have been used to show visitors where they are on your site. This simple plugin installs above your content and can easily be styled to suit your theme’s look.
5. Search Everything – The default WordPress search function searches only blog posts. On a CMS, you want both pages and posts to be searchable. Search Everything gives you this added functionality.
6. Analytics360 – I wasn’t going to add this one to my list, but 2 days into it, I’m loving having a Google Analytics system right on my WordPress Dashboard. Not only does the plugin display Google stats, it also shows when you published blog posts and can be integrated with the Mail Chimp e-mail management app. This one is great for blogs and corporate sites.
7. WP-CMS Post Control – Even though WordPress has a simple page editing interface, it can still get cluttered, especially for new users. The WP-CMS Post Control plugin lets you set which write panels appear in your editing pages, de-cluttering it beautifully.
8. Widgets Reloaded – 2 words. GET THIS. Justin Tadlock has created a widget set that pushes WordPress further than anything anyone has ever done before. In a nutshell, the plugin gives your widgets the ability to do anything. They’ll even make you coffee. OK, not really.
9. Flutter – I haven’t quite got to grips with Flutter yet, and the video tutorials on the Flutter site leave a lot to be desired, but the idea is brilliant. You can set write panels to do pretty much anything on a post or a page, including adding images, file uploads, video or content. So, for a company CMS with loads of repetitive page structures, the Flutter write panels could be a massive time saver.
10. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu – This neat little plugin converts the WordPress admin panel’s navigation from the left of the page to simple drop down menus on the top of the dashboard. The result: All the plugins you’ve installed in steps 1-9 above are a heck of a lot easier to find.

I’ll definitely be using some of these plugins in the next website I would be making. Thanks Dave for the tips!

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If you know something that I can do to solve this problem, PLEASE please let me know. :)

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It was a fun night, with lots of food and of course, cakes for everyone. Juddha Paolo was also there to host the awarding. The grand winner of the ASUS laptop is Ms. Noemi Dado. Congratulations, madam!

All in all, I think it was a great night. We saw a lot of fellow bloggers (and we ate a lot of food, haha!) Congratulations to all the winners and hopefully another Nuffnang contest to join and another blogger event to attend! More photos of the event after the jump.

waiting in line…

yummy… food…

the announcing of the winners

my wife just got a new boyfriend

everyone had a Goldilocks cake as pasalubong

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My short-term goals:

1. Earn my first $100 from Google Adsense.
2. Earn $500 in one month (with Adsense and other money generators).
3. Get my first 100 subscribers.
4. Make 100 blog entries.
5. Achieve at least 300 visitors per day.
6. Other short-term goals I might think of in the future.

My long-term goals:

1. Constantly pay our utility bills with the money I earn from blogging.
2. Buy something big (car, house?) with my online earnings.
3. Get my own private server.
4. Earn $1000 monthly or more from blogging.
5. Keep on earning online until I die (hehe).

I’m not an expert with SEO or blogging, but I hope to accomplish these goals in the future. What do you guys think? Any tips from the ‘masters’?

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