I really used to not care so much for page rank and SEO rankings. But it’s been several months already and verabear.net is still PR0. There must be something wrong. I’ve seen WordPress templates tagged as SEO friendly but I don’t really know what that means. Is there anything I can do, or a plugin I can use that will help me to raise my PR?
I am not losing sleep on this. I still blog mainly for personal reasons, earning from my blogs are only secondary. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have bragging rights for high PR right?
Before leaving work today, I promised myself I would not turn the computer on. But I noticed that I had stray black pixels on my new header and the knowledge of it just nagged at me – I simply had to get it right.
So I cleaned it up.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to credit Caneelia for the moon shot/image used for it.
You know how they keep on repeating the headlines at CNN until you just about memorized them? Well, this morning, another form of China Melamine Scare was up – this time, on eggs!
How on earth could eggs get tainted with Melamine?
It couldn’t be industrial transfer, that’s for sure. And it’s not middlemen adding melamine to up protein content (just how would they do that?). So how does it happen?!
My mom bought the Bathroom Special of this magazine called Condo Living so we can find inspirations for our units that have been waiting for us for months.
Instead of being inspired though, I think it got me depressed! The featured spaces were just so lavishly furnished, and the surroundings so much more beautiful than what we’ve got. The faucet line alone – true steel works of art – made me cringe. They looked so modern and elegant – but most come with a heavy price tag. Oh, I’m sure there’s something there for the budget conscious too. I just can’t wait for the time when I can have the home I would grow old in, with resources enough to not worry about costs. 😉
Over the weekend (and still ongoing) my site has been through changes! So for my seventeenth edition of Thursday Thirteen, here are both subtle and obvious changes to verabear.net:
1- The main theme/template. From bright to dark.
2- Changed the default logo that came with the theme. I might be changing that one again this weekend though.
3- Removed the About the Author and Ads sections of the Sidebar
4- Added ads under the Header and under the Footer, but only for the Main Index page.
5- Changed the way Archived posts are displayed. The default display only listed the contents but I wanted the actuall posts shown too when you clicked on a Category, for example.
6- Edited the appearance of the Threaded Comments Plugin to match the template.
7- Removed the “author” property (e.g. posted by verabear) for each post. I don’t feel that I need it because I’m the only one who posts here anyway.
8- Added a gallery plugin – NextGen – which I may not be able to use after all because I’d have to pay per additional 8M of PHP memory.
9- Changed the color scheme for my Bidvertiser and Google Ads.
10- The Subscribe area. I never had one although the previous template also had an RSS link by default. Still looking forward to changing/adding the rest…
11- A photo gallery that’s hopefully integrated with WP
12- Top Commentors plugin
13- I might add an Instant Messaging Control box so we can chat real time when I’m online 🙂 I had one back when I was still blogging at my Blogger address but the only one that ever chatted with me was Tracy and we chat on Messenger all the time anyways. Haha. Maybe I’ll get to know more blog readers next time I set it up, or at least I am hoping too. 😉
Feedback has been generally positive about the new look. More importantly, I am quite happy with the changes. 😀
It starts off my weekend, the last workday of the week. I get to relax after uploading all of my required monitors for the week. I can spend time to speak to my agents – and really talk to them instead of being in a rush.
Of course I’d rather spend Saturday sleeping in or going out to enjoy the day with friends or Alfred or with some of the kids. But it being the last day of work is just fine by me too 🙂
Oh and it’s also Scrapbook Saturday! I almost forgot about that, I haven’t scrapped a new page this week! Hmm.. So it’s going to be a belated SS post for me again this week.
Tomorrow, I’ll be seeing one of my best friends. We haven’t seen each other in maybe three years. She’s got a little boy now who turned one this year, and I still haven’t met him!(links will open to the pages I scrapped of him) So that’s something to look forward to.
Ohh and I’ve been spending time up and around the Net as usual and I came across software for Text to Speech Voices. I remember trying software like that back in college. Our professor for Science, Technology and Society (STS) told us about it and since we had SO much to read for that course, I thought I’d give it a try. The one I tried was too robotic for my tastes. Didn’t help in the comprehension department at all. So I stopped and went to conventional reading. But the ones on that site I linked seem to have a variety of natural voices download that are more close to being human.
With e-books now gaining more popularity, specially with new reader products coming out, it doesn’t seem strange that more people are also looking to Download Text to Speech Software. It will, after all, allow one to “read” conveniently.
I also found this template (or did it find me?) and am now thinking of using it. I’ll have to back everything up first, of course, so I guess I’ll switch templates after upgrading to the latest WP version too. Goodluck to myself on that. Is it really necessary to upgrade, by the way? I really prefer my blog to have a black/dark background for some reason. And then a couple of months ago, I read about Blackle and figured, that’s another reason right there.
Blackle is basically Google, but in black. Using it as your homepage and main search engine (it is powered by Google anyway) can save a lot of energy in the long run. There you go – an a eco-friendly way to search I guess. 🙂 So if my site has a black background too, then I help save energy don’t I? 😉
The band that we so loved since gradeschool is back in the headlines.
When I first heard the buzz about an Eraserheads reunion concert, I was thrilled. It shook the Pinoy Rock scene when front man (and my ultimate crush) Ely Buendia announced that he was leaving the band, many years ago. The remaining three members, Raimund, Marcus, and Buddy, decided to continue and even enlisted a new vocalist – a girl. That was shortlived though, because the Eraserheads would never be the same without Ely.
Then the news died down, I never really knew whether there was going to be one or not. Two days ago, I was shocked to learn that the concert was slated for Saturday, August 30. Shoot. I won’t see them. The most awaited reunion concert, and I was not going to witness it.
So I was sulking last night. And it didn’t help that Alfred couldn’t care less. He’s not a big E-heads fan, you see. He would go see Sandwich play (which former E-head Raimund now fronts) but he couldn’t care less about the band that started it all. He even had the gall to tell me that it was fortunate that I had missed it because the concert was cut short.
My first reaction was, where’s your humanity dude? We’re talking about a person who possibly had a heart attack! And not just some person either– it’s Ely Buendia for pete’s sake! It is alarming news, specially because he had already undergone a heart operation just last year.
When I heard about what happened (that was also the first thing my mom and dad told me when I woke up this morning), I felt all the more that I should have been there with the other 60,000 fans. I don’t care if they didn’t finish the concert, the thought that it could really have been the last time I’d see them play together…
Anyhoo. Ely’s at the Philippine Heart Center, but is already in a stable condition. His fans are all praying for his fast recovery. His mom died on the 28th, but the true rock icon that he is, the show must go on. Imagine the stress that he was under. But the people who were at the concert say that the band still performed well together, and they don’t feel that they were shortchanged. They got 15 songs anyway! That’s not too bad at all.
Hopefully they’d give in to the fans and perform again when Ely is fully recovered. I’d definitely won’t miss it.
