Thursday, August 26, 2010

Signing up for Tomoson.com

I received an email yesterday, inviting me to sign up for a site called Tomoson.com. It's still in Beta, but they've been open for registration for bloggers who want to earn by reviewing products.

Registering is free and easy, you just have to provide some information like your name, email, blog URL, and the address where they'll be shipping the product to be reviewed. According to the site, Tomoson will send the products for free, though I think the shipping fee will be handled by the blogger/ reviewer.

On the site, you'll see a list of products that are ready for review. When you click on the hyperlink, you'll see the details of the product and the duration of the application for review. You can click on "Apply To Review Product" when you like to give your own opinions on it.

I've just registered but haven't chosen a product to review. The site needs a little more details on the FAQ (though they look legit because from their Facebook page, it says they're based in Minnesota). Well, I'll see in a few days if there are more updates for the site.

Till then, I encourage you to check out Tomoson. Who knows, this may be a great opportunity for us.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Mexico wins Miss Universe 2010 crown

Miss Mexico Jimena Navarrette
Yeah, I know I'm no model employee for getting online updates for the Miss Universe 2010. But I can't help it.

And after some hours of checking Tweets and updates from friends, I got the news: 22year-old Jimena Navarrette, Mexico's representative for this year's Miss Universe, won the much coveted crown.

The runner-ups are:

1st runner up: Miss Jamaica Yendi Phillips
2nd runner up: Miss Australia Jesinta Campbell
3rd runner up: Miss Ukraine Anna Poslavskaya
4th runner up: Miss Philippines Maria Venus Raj

Go, Venus!
Venus, even if you didn't get the crown, you're still a winner. You made it that far, so congratulations!


Thursday, August 19, 2010

Got my EON Card today

Yep, exactly a week after applying, I got my EON Card from Unionbank. I've also enrolled an online account so I'd be able to check the funds I have in my EON.

Thing is, I haven't put money in my EON account. So that means I can't link it to my Paypal yet. I believe that the EON Card should have some money in it before I can link it to Paypal. Oh well, guess that would have to wait until Monday.

After that, I'll be able to lift the limitations of my Paypal account. Woohoo!

PS: That's not my actual card. Got that one from the Unionbank site.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Applying for an EON Card

I guess I've been putting this off for quite some time (yeah right, it's actually been months), but I felt I needed to do this to lift the limitations of my Paypal account.

Yep, I have applied for an EON Cyber Account in Unionbank. Good thing there was a branch a few buildings away from where I'm working. It only took me about 30 minutes to fill up the form. The preggy lady in the customer service said that I'll be getting my card after 5 working days. By that time I'll also have to pay Php350 for the annual fee.

So I guess that's on top of the amount I need for Paypal, right?

Anyways, I was told that with the EON card, I am given 2 free withdrawals every month. If ever I withdraw for a 3rd time within a month, they'll charge me for that. I don't know why there is such limitation, but thinking that I"ll be using that to withdraw Paypal funds, then I'd probably need to withdraw just once a month (or even less).

Prior to my application, I've heard stories about Unionbank's not-so-helpful customer service. I've had a not-so-good experience with them, too, a couple of years ago when I had to transact with Unionbank to pay for NSO-related stuff over the counter. The service at the main branch in Ortigas was irritatingly slow. Comparing it with BPI, BDO, and HSBC (which has, by far, the quickest and best over-the-counter service in my opinion), Unionbank's was running at a snail's pace.

I kinda consider myself lucky that the application here in the Unionbank branch near the office was quite a breeze. They only had a few customers, and that was probably because it was just 1:00 PM. Anyways, I hope the activation of my card will be smooth.

We'll see when I get my card next week.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Trying out Infolinks

Most bloggers want to earn through their blogs, right? I'm no exception. So when I stumbled upon Infolinks while browsing the Web, I decided to give it a try.

So what is Infolinks? Basically it's a site that allows you to earn money through in-text ads. These ads appear in the content of a website, usually marked with a double underline. When a reader hovers above the in-text ad and clicks it, you earn from it.

Registering for Infolinks is quite a breeze. And it's free, too. All you have to do is to put the Infolinks code they will give you in the HTML of your blog and that's it. You can earn when your readers click on the in-text ads.

By signing up for Infolinks, you are allowing the site to review your blog or page. Then they will send you an email telling you if your blog or site has been approved or not. I got the notification email just last night, and it has been approved by Infolinks. So starting today, you will see some hyperlinks in my blog posts.

I guess to earn here, it would help if you have high readership for your blog. Well, I'm hoping I do and I hope that also earn from Infolinks. I have no disillusion, though, that I will rake in big money in just a month's time. Realistically speaking, the money I earn through blogging is just an addition to my regular income.

Well, signing up for Infolinks is part of my quest to earn online. Hopefully this will be something good for my blog. Will update you soon.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Team Carnival asks: What's my best blog post?

For this round of the carnival, the bloggers were asked to revisit their old posts and share what they consider their best.

I've been blogging for more than 5 years now. But I've never really thought of looking back at my posts until Team Carnival said so.

Well, I won't consider this my best blog post ever because it was written compellingly and with absolutely flawless grammar. I make mistakes once in a while, I admit. But I consider this post one that has made an impact in me because it added by knowledge in what we call search engine optimization.

My blog post on the Valley Golf incident, of which the names Pangandaman and Dela Paz became well-known (or infamous, perhaps?), was a testament on the power of links and SEO. In this post, I linked to news reports and other blogs that stated their story. Apparently, days after I posted this, I saw my URL on the first page of Google Search Results for the terms "valley golf" and "nasser pangandaman." My readership also increased by then, though I was also actively exchanging links with other bloggers that time. But the surge in readership, as attested by the analytics in Wordpress, was something that caught me by surprise. People were reading my blog! Yay!

The same thing also happened in other posts like the one about the Jejemon. A day after, I saw a great increase in readership. My blog link also appeared as a related topic on Chico Garcia's blog once. Even Global Voices quoted a portion of my blog. Wow!

From those posts, I learned that linking and tagging is a powerful tool in blogging. Of course, having keyword-rich posts (and original, mind you) also helps in promoting your blog in Google. That's what makes them my best posts for the past years I've been blogging. And they push me to write better, too.

Emma Watson's new pixie 'do

Fans of the Harry Potter franchise will forever remember her as the smart Muggle Hermione Granger. We've seen her when she was still a little girl starting out her first year at Hogwarts with Ron Weasley and, of course, The Boy Who Lived. We've seen her evolve to a pretty young lady who's got a great sense of fashion.


She's reinvented her look via a hair cut. A really short one, in fact.


Her pixie hairdo has sure earned mix reactions. But personally, I like the hair cut. It shows more of her pretty face. And I admire her adventurous and edgy take in fashion and beauty as well. With this kind of look, it paves the way for her to get out of the goody-two-shoes roles and into meatier, spunkier, and more mature personas (which I think she should have, with her age). So to Emma, you go girl!

How about you, what can you say about her new look?