Monthly Archives: February 2008

Keep it Going Amidst Pain

Last night, we went out with friends and had a nice dinner on one of the restaurants in the city. The setting was beautiful and serene. The restaurant was located in the banks of a lagoon. It was raining a bit though so the wind was quite cold.

I was starting to have a cold. Maybe it was with the drizzle the other night after the gym. Right before going home, I received a text message that asked me if I am available for interview the morning after. It was an application for a job a few months ago. It’s really a huge opportunity since it’s a multi-national company with its head office based in Europe. I readily replied with a yes, even though I wasn’t feeling any better that time. I though to my self, I have to keep going in spite of my minor cold.

The morning came and the cold I was hoping to subside went worse. I was drinking a lot of water already but my system is just weak in fighting cold viruses. I did a bit of stretching just to wake my muscles up. The thought of canceling the interview also went into my mind by the interviewer went here all the way from Manila, the capital and didn’t have enough time for another schedule of interview. So, I decided to keep it going amidst pain. My nose was starting to run too so I had to stuck menthol candies during the interview.

I was able to reach the interview venue right on time. It all went fine and well. I was trying to keep my attention while my head starts to ache. I am not sure yet whether I get the job or not at this point but at least I did my best during the screening process so far. After the interview, I started to have a fever so I decided to see a masseur. Massage has always been a relief for me from colds and flu.

After a relieving sleep for about two hours, I felt better so I decided to blog my experience. It really made me think of one thing about life. I realized that life is not always about feeling good about something. Life is full of ups and downs, one time your well running and another, you’re dead sick. But then, life must go on. Some may have experienced the loss of someone they dearly love. They go through it, they weep, they grieve. But then, life must go on. That’s just it is in life. Until we ourselves die, we will always go through the cycle of life.

Finding meaning in this cycle would then be up to us. We are deciding beings. We decide on things, what to believe and what not to believe, what to do and what not to do. Life is only as meaningful as we want it to be. If we decide to believe in a loving and caring God, then, we find meaning in it. If we decide to believe in the value of our work, how helpful we are to others in the little corner of our office, then we can find meaning in it. In whatever we decide to give meaning to our lives, let us remember that it would keep going and going until we depart from this life. Those little things were in we find meaning become big things in its full essence, in the limited lives that we have.

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Things Happen For A Purpose

I was reading my dad’s reader’s digest the other day and bumped into an inspiring story about a lady named Anya Peters. You might know her story already or even read her book. For those who haven’t done any of it yet, her story can be read in her blog at http://wanderingscribe.com.

Many of us do blogging for comfort, as a sound board and even for money but for Anya, I believe it did more than that. It somehow changed her life. Blogging became her relief, even her comfort during her ordeal in nothingness. What she went through unfolds in her blog and her book which is now available worldwide.

I believe what happened to her went about with a purpose. Could it be for her to see her life in a different light, for her to encourage others? There are many possibilities. For sure, her hardships had made thousands of readers reflect on their own lives and her blog was more than a page in the internet but a life story that has touched others.

May you continue to inspire others Anya.

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How to Place Google Adsense In Your Posts

If you tried at one time to place some adsense code in your post, you might have found out that it doesn’t work. The reason for this is that WordPress filters out your posts for programming codes and unwanted html codes upon publishing to avoid conflict with WordPress’ programming as well as for some other security reasons. This includes javascripts which Google adsense is created with.

If you want to place google ads in your posts, there are two ways to do it. One is to edit your theme and place your adsense codes right in the theme file. This requires a bit of php programming so I won’t really delve into this topic for this entry. The other option which I want to focus on for now is to install the exec-php plugin which can be downloaded here.

1. Download the extracted exec-php.zip file in your online installation using ftp in the wp-content/plugins/ folder

2. Activate the plug-in in your admin panel

3. Create a new entry to test the plugin

4. In the text editor, click the “code” tab right beside the “visual” tab

5. Copy your adsense code and paste it there (when you switch the editor to the visual editor, the adsense cannot be seen)

6. Publish the entry

7. Check if the adsense code displayed well in the front page

The plug-in actually disables the WordPress feature that filters out the entries from programming language. This allows both php and javascript to be executed even in posts.

Note: Google adsense a maximum of four ads only within a page. This could cause the remaining adsense exceeding the number not to appear.

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How to Add “Read More” To Cut The Post In the Front Page

One way of budgeting your front page space is determining when WordPress should cut the post in display. In posting an entry in the text editor, this can be done by placing your cursor right where you want it “cut”. Then click this icon

break icon in wordpress

By doing so, a page break is automatically inserted. In HTML code, it would look like

< ! – - more – - >

which WordPress interprets as simply, a page break.

Then, continue with the entry.

Upon publishing, the word “more..” (depending on the theme used) should be displayed right where you placed the page break.

Please note that this only works for non-single/non-permalink web page such as front page, archives, categories, and searches where the post is shown as an excerpt to the more point.


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I’m a Human Being, Not a Tree

We grow up being told about what we are. During childhood, we may be told how noisy we are or how reserved we are. During teenage years, we have heard other people saying how friendly we are or how introvert we are. Through the years, these comments, suggestions and opinions about who others think we are accumulate. We filter these things out until ultimately, we create our self-image, the image that other people have helped to design. We then go on with our lives bringing this image with us wherever we go.

Then comes a time in your life that this self-image we are projecting becomes the very thing that cages us from our potentials. I didn’t realized this until recently.

I grew up through my teenage years and into my adulthood thinking that I am an introvert. True to my thinking, I became one. I don’t go to parties unless I need to. I sometimes dish out invitations to what could have been a nice and fun celebration. Soon, being with a crowed stresses me out. I always looked for excuses not to be there.

When I entered the professional life, that self-image of mine did a huge part in my decision making. I declined offers to jobs that deal mostly with people. I often say “that job is inviting but I’m not that good with people.” Because i say so, then i became so.

Just this morning, I received a text message from a local company to be in their office by 2pm for a job interview. I was delighted to have such opportunity but knowing that the position available is that of a project coordinator, I was having the idea in mind how difficult the job would be for an introvert like me (self-image doing its thing again). I knew that the job would entail me to deal with clients and handle the team doing the projects. I arrived and we went on with the usual interview process. The bottom line, the job didn’t fit me as I always had excuses locking me up in my mind.

Some time during the interview, he asked me if I have any personal messaging account and I answered that I only have one and its with Yahoo Messenger. At the back of my mind, I was asking myself why should I have more than one private messaging account. Thinking that having more than one account for personal messaging is absurd, I was again caging my self to such belief. “Why not?” I ask my self now. “It’s just an account anyway.”

I would like to give credits to the book Follow Your Heart by Andrew Matthews. I am reading it now and I highly recommend it. Just start reading and you’ll know why its a best seller.

The book was subtitled Finding Purpose in Your Life and Work. Andrew mentioned something in it that really struck me. He said “Whoever you are, you aren’t STUCK – you are a human being, not a tree!” He was absolutely right for the situation I was in. I was stuck in something that bore me all because I decided to disconnect with people, for the simple reason that I believe I am an introvert. I was depriving my self of excitement, of discoveries and of learnings that I could never experience when I lock my self out from everybody else.

If there is one lesson I learned today, here it goes: I am a dynamic person very much capable of change and adaptation. My self-image should not be one that’s as stiff as a metal rod, unbending to the changes of time.

Those who adopt, survive. Those who don’t either left frozen in the ice age, left alone in an island during the continental drift or get eaten by predators who have changed well enough to run faster than you.

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Neon Lights or Lamp Lights

Have you come across the poem “Crossroads”? If not, here is it:

Crossroads

Shall i follow the stream
or cross the sea
Strive for a dream
or let life be?

Shall it be on neon lights
that spell success?
Or flickering lamplight
for happiness?
Read more »

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My Day Has Just Ended

What I really mean is that my birthday has just ended and another year is ahead of me. I hope this time, I could find more things to do, things to learn, avenues for work and earning and more income for saving. I may be young now but I won’t be so forever. I need to save for my future and plan wisely.

Lately, I realized that there is a great difficulty in letting go of things that you are accustomed to. Just as a butterfly who earns its strong wings by breaking through the cocoon, so does a person who is able to get out of his or her comfort zone to explore and see things for himself. Money earned is way more fulfilling than money given. Self preservation however is innate and getting out of that thinking requires determination and maturity.

For now, I would have to do with the best way I could with what my hands find to do. Little meaning is given for lives constantly spent on yearning for something not yet achieved for humans would always find something that is lacking, whatever it may be. Plan ahead if you must. Dream for reaching the top of the mountain but don’t forget to smell the flowers and hear the birds singing along the way.

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How To Start Blogging

As an abstract of this article, the steps in starting a blog are the following: choose a blog niche, find a blog hosting, place entries in your blog. For sure, many of you would say that there are a lot more “in-betweens” within the three but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll stick with those for now.

Choosing a Blog Niche

The reason why one should choose a blog niche is the reality that all of us are masters of something but no one is a master of everything. If you want to develop a blog that you think would be rich and interesting, it would be a good practice to select one for your blog. There are also other benefits aside from those mentioned above in limiting your blog to a certain interest like loyal readership, better credibility and profile and even more advertiser attractive. The following questions may help you in choosing one:

Does the topic interest you? If you want to do your blogging for a long time, you would have to talk about it over and over and over again. That means you would have to explore more and more into the intricacies of it. If there is interest, there is a natural curiosity for it. If there is curiosity for it, doing a more research about it will be far more enjoyable and fulfilling for you as a blogger.

Does the topic interest others? Finding what tickles readers is really a big thing in writing interesting posts. If there is one thing that readers have very little, it’s time so as a blogger, you must give them there time’s worth, giving them as close to what they need as possible.

Can you provide ample content? Creating blogs with niches require you not just to write about what you already know but also to more research on the topic you are talking about. The resources for such research must be readily available for yo. Consider not just data available on the web but more so on books and past readings.

Finding a Blog Hosting

When you have finally decided on what topic niche you’ll have, it is highly recommended that your domain name (or your url ) would include keywords that relate to your niche. For example, if you wish to talk about dogs, a good url would be http://dogs.wordpress.com or best would be http://dogs.com. Of course, those examples are already taken for sure but the point stands out. Search engines rank you higher for words that are within your url.

A huge issue in blog hosting is whether to create a blog in free hosting sites like blogger.com or wordpress.com or to purchase a domain and hosting for your site

If you decide to create a blog in free hosting sites

the advantages include:

  • usually a user-friendly blog admin interface and blog themes that is readily available upon sign-up
  • free of charge hosting (except your expense in surfing the web in case you pay it yourself)
  • free technical support from hosting administrator and usually documented processes
  • enjoying new features and plug-ins available.

The disadvantages however include:

  • less freedom to customize site
  • more difficulty in developing a domain name identity as you will be tagged along the hosting site address
  • less probable to receive advertising offers, especially if you are hosted in really crowded hosting sites.

If you decide to buy your own domain name and hosting

the advantages include:

  • fully customizing the site to your liking
  • easier monitoring of your site statistics (for strategy development) as you can avail of free website stats services for web masters
  • establishing your site’s domain name with your identity as a blogger

The disadvantages include:

  • the requirement to learn a bit of coding and even programming unless you opt to pay someone to do it for you (this can be an advantage however if you eye on learning more in information technology)
  • features available in free hosting sites must be done manually by you or your webmaster
  • payment must be made for domain name and hosting renewal (usually annually).

Placing Entries in Your Blog

This is where the real meat of blogging comes in. You would have to create entries within your topic niche that’s really interesting and read-worth for your readers. You may use humor, poetry or some other writing skills. The choice is yours.

In any web site, the content is the most thing for readers, may it be articles, poetries or images. It is because of the content that people keep coming back to read from your blog so a huge effort in creating good ones must be taken.

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