A Surge of Realization: I CAN & SHOULD Pursue My Blogging Passion

Energized by an eventful and productive weekend, I decided to utilize my lunch break by blogging.

And as if the universe is conspiring, I got to read this wonderful article from Lifehacker that provided me a surge in realization - that I CAN & SHOULD pursue my passion for Blogging.

As I checked my favorite websites via feedly.com, I read Lifehacker's article that seemed practically appropriate for my current state in life. As if it was written exactly for me to read it today.

Your Day Job Isn't an Excuse to Not Pursue Your Passion

by Patrick Allan

Most creative minds in history did not have the pleasure of sitting around only working on what they wanted. They had day jobs—just like you—because they still had to put food on the table, but that didn't stop them.
....
Look for the moments, the brief periods of time you have to do what you like and exploit them. Instead of taking that time to think about how tired, busy, or unhappy you are, use it to move forward with what you love. It takes time to do great things. Earnestly look for time to work on what you want, but be patient. Don't quit your day job, just take advantage of it.

In a span of 23 days, I came up with 12 posts to various blogs. The posts were not pulitzer-prize winning piece or something. But a tiny sense of accomplishment fills me up to have come up with those.

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A Not So Blog Friendly Saturday

When the day started, I've already had plans how to comply with my self-imposed must-blog Saturday. Work got in the way and it became downhill from there.

It's Saturday, therefore, it should be my day of blogging.

Usually this day at the office offers minimal work. I never expected it to be otherwise especially since I was able to accomplish the hard tasks yesterday.My plan was to do the few paperworks to be passed on Monday then spent the remaining hours for my blogging.

I was able to do the paperworks just fine. But then, I needed to closed out testing, coordinate site preparedness for another different testing and contact persons involved.

Then, it was lunch time.

Drawings needed to be reviewed, concerns need to addressed. All my blogging inspiration and ideas taken away.

Finally, I need to go get out of the office because it's my special one's birthday today. At least, that's something to make this day better.

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Must-Blog Saturdays

After this post and 242 days, I finally updated this blog with the promise of regularly blogging here and designating Saturdays as my scheduled blogging day.

Ever since I was employed in the construction industry, I found little time and little inspiration to blog. Every once in a while I come up with post or two, which to put it politely, were pilit (strained).

Two years and a half working in this industry, I can fairly say that I have accustomed to its time demands. I still have to report to work on Saturdays, but mostly, workload is light.

Barring any hitches, I look forward to updating any of my blogs every Saturdays.

God-willing, I will be updating this blog again next week. :)

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Networking With Other Bloggers

No Blogger is an island. Yes, I have a blog idol/advisor/friend. But that's just about it for me.

Why it took me a long time to act on something I read about a lot for some time now, befuddles me greatly. But after last night, I finally did something about it. I now want to be a part of a network of bloggers! And grow with them.

Image from joseph-ho.com

I was at a scheduled test last night for Research analyst position. It was there that I met another applicant, Sir JR. He has this joyful enthusiasm to interact with strangers that I have no confidence of doing.

Anyway, he also shares my passion of blogging and making some money of it. In his case, he is just freelancing and wants some corporate experience preferably with internet marketing or related fields.

We chat along while waiting for the test. I found out he personally knows one of established bloggers I've heard, he is also a fellow Nuffnanger and that he regularly earns from adsense via his blogs.

One of the things that he shared was networking with other bloggers. He recommended the site www.bloggers.com which he says helped his site tremendously in terms of traffic and distribution to social media.

Just moments ago, I signed up to that site. And I hope that it would be the start of finding other bloggers who could be my blog pals and perhaps real life friends.

Hat tip to JR. And this is his site.

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National Association of Filipino Bloggers?

I am a Filipino and a blogger.

I firmly believe that no Filipino blogger should be an island. With such belief, I am very much interested in joining a Filipino bloggers organization.

What's your take on having a national association for Filipino bloggers?

Initiatives are underway to organize Filipino bloggers into one united group, to be called (tentatively) National Bloggers Association of the Philippines.

The controversial initiative has come up with a draft manifesto of which I also want you to read.

One country, one blogging community.
A Manifesto of Filipino bloggers and netizens (Draft)
March 7, 2011

We, Filipino bloggers coming from various places nationwide and those based overseas, coming from diverse backgrounds and specialties, using various new media outlets, hereby freely come together and call for the formation of a bloggers association of the Philippines that shall unite us around these common and beneficial objectives:

• Promote and defend the right to free speech and to free expression;

• Promote and develop blogging, vlogging, photoblogging, microblogging and other online creative and expressive forms in all their diverse categories, topics and types;

• Gather and share Philippine blogging’s best practices that reflect our contributions to ourselves and our online communities, media, causes, organizations and businesses, government, the nation and the world;

• Draft and adopt a code of ethics that underscore the members’ and organization’s sense of responsibility and maturity;

• Discuss issues and concerns that confront our members; and

• Campaign and work for more affordable, reliable and better internet access in the country

The association we aspire to form is voluntary in membership, national in scope, democratic in decision-making, progressive in outlook, and both non-partisan and non-profit in legal character.

• We draw inspiration from and ask the participation of the city-wide, provincial, regional and island-wide associations, summits and conventions initiated by bloggers across the country. We also pay tribute to overseas Filipinos and their blogging organizations and events.

• We want an association that makes decisions based on democratic processes, consensus-building and mutual benefit.

A long time has passed since the first blog posts and first blogging events. We are now a bigger, stronger and influential community. Businesses, causes and government have started to organize themselves to interact and engage with us. And we also face challenges within and outside our growing community.

The Philippines, our country and people are also expecting more from us, and we bravely and fearlessly say that we want to do more and achieve more

In view of all these and more, we declare that we are joining as founding members of what we hope would be a most awesome bloggers association for our country.

And the idea that the manifesto can be improved upon brings me a lot of optimism.

It would be a source of pride if my blogging can contribute to achieving a common good. That's why I joined.

Are you a Filipino blogger? You are welcome to join us, too!


The Thinker image from Brian Hillegas' Flickr.

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Get Extra $50 or More out of your Blog's Content thru INFOLINKS

Admittedly, the reason that finally made me decide to seriously blog about things is additional income. Who doesn't need extra bucks these days?

As part of that goal, I am incorporating Infolinks in this blog. And netblot has just been approved today and have the chance to make extra $50 or more.

Infolinks is an In Text advertising service: they take my text and create links within it. If you hover with your mouse over these double underlined links, you will see a small dialog box containing advertisement related to the text marked. You can choose to either move the mouse away and go on with your browsing, or to press on the box and go to the ad page which is relevant to the text.

For the visitors of my blog, I do hope that the hyperlinks, dished out by Infolinks, can provide you with additional relevant and useful information. But in case you don't like it, you have the option to turn it off. To do so, visit this Learn about Infolinks page.

For my fellow bloggers out there, may be you should consider infolinks in your blog monetization strategies. It is very easy to incorporate in one's blog or website. You just need to join and add your blog. Once approved, you only need to insert a bit of code and that's it. You just blog away and infolinks will take care of links and when visitors get interested, you get to earn.

The minimum earnings is $50 dollars to get paid. The little downside is that you get to wait 45 days long after the last payment period before receiving payment. This means that if you earned $50 in January you will receive your earnings by March 15.

This advertising program is more advantageous for blogs or websites with lots and lots of text content. They do not have a referral program yet, but I wish you take a serious look on Infolinks. You may do so HERE.

To better blogging with earnings! Cheers!

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Blogger Template Change

Blogger template change is a big decision to make especially when your blog already enjoys regular traffic, established a good follow or you are quite comfortable to seeing such design.

I decided to change the Blogger template of my Prepaid Cellphone Portal blog and I'm sharing a few things that crossed my mind while doing so.

• Don't change the blog if its template ain't broke.
  If it's doing well in traffic/revenue and there is no functionality issues, it's better to leave it alone even if you find the newest premium template better looking.
• The replacement Blogger template should be better than the previous one.
  I believe there is no perfect blogger template but there may be one that perfectly suits your blog niche or topic.
• Why spend when you get a good Blogger template for free? Okay standing out is a good thing but if entails cash you can spend with sommething else more necessary, then think again. I recommend eblogtemplates.com and ourblogtemplates.com for free blogger templates.
• Download Full template before uploading the new blogger template.
  Even if you're the best xml/html coder, things can sometimes mess up. Murphy's law even affects Blogger template changing you know.
  
  
• Adapt the Same Color for your new blogger template.
  If color theme is not the main reason why you're changing your blog template in the first place, it may be best to use the same color scheme in the new one. Your blog followers may also be turned off by the sudden colorfulness of their favorite blog - yours.
• Remember the effective parts of your old Blogger template and try to incorporate it on your New one.
  Of course, only if the new one don't have it. Whether its the read more truncated option, ads beneath the blog title, analytics code or etc. It would give you and your regular visitors some continuity. The downloaded backup serves this purpose.

I am far from being a blog template creator or expert. This post is just putting my thoughts about the subject out in the open. Changing blogger template is as subjective as every blogger/designer. Achieving your blog's goal is the only measure to know if your decision to modify the template is a right one.

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Make money blogging thru Adgitize

Here's another great motivation for me to make money blogging.

ADGITIZE, is an alternative advertising platform that is aiming to bloggers get “World Class Advertising on a Blogger’s Budget.”

As I understand it, ADGITIZE can help me make money because it encourages blogging actively and visiting other blogs on the network.

I have seen an adgitize widget as I was dropping Entrecards. And I decided to give it a try. A few days after I displayed an adgitize widget on this blog, there were visits and points.

I don't know yet how the points will be translated into cash but I will blog about its progress as I go along.

Click the link below if you are interested in joining. Thanks! ;)

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