Mikko is back. Mikko, the owner of this blog. Conrad Miguel E. Gozalo’s nickname since birth.

Despite the fact that I regained my laptop and Internet access three days after I posted my Internetless post, it was no enough reason for me to immediately return to blogging. I still had a lot of other things in my priority. And for the first time in my life, I spent more time in my academics more than ever.

Although I get to cut some few classes, my attendance in class is now a lot better than the previous semester. I realized that it’s not as hard as I thought. Last semester, I always pitied those people with 7am class – now I have one every Tuesday and Thursday. It’s the class I never wanted to miss.

Reorganizing my laptop also made me busy. There was this one afternoon that I devoted my time reorganizing the 6 (logical and extended) partitions I have. I reduced it to four – one for my Windows OS, one for Linux, one accessible by both Windows and Linux and finally one for my laptop’s recovery system. It’s a good thing that I have Ubuntu Live CDs, I can edit my partitions using Free and Open Source Software. There was no need for me to download a proprietary software and a keygen to make it work, ilegally.

Not only did I reorganize my partitions, I also reorganized my files. I placed most of my personal documents, photos and videos, installers and music library in my largest partition. It was fun since I rediscovered some long lost files – files I forgot to acknowledge that they existed. One thing I discovered during the cleanup was that I had hundreds of photos of myself in my laptop. It made me remember of the days when I still had moustache slash facial hair as seen above. Months ago, I trimmed them off as a response to my siter’s request. Below are my pictures after I shaved (or shove) them off.

Another thing that bugged me was my attempt to migrate from Photoshop to GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a Free and Open Source Software. It was not easy for me, being a Photoshop user for 5 years. Gladly, my will to go open source helped me a lot in the process. I think of it as wearing a new apparel, of course you don’t expect that the pockets are on the same exact place. They could be on any other place.

Some pictures from the fitting room

Now that I’m back, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. UPCAT Results 2009 is expected to be out this January. I’ve got a lot of optimization to do. I’m also planning of making a new theme for this blog, nah nah. Another thing I learned during my blog hiatus was that it gave me passive income. Not so big, but decent — for doing nothing.

Recently, I’ve noticed the trend that more and more bloggers (including me) post sizzling-hot current events to increase their blog traffic. These events include heinous incidents (the RCBC Cabuyao Bank Robbery), board and college admission examination results release, controversial controversies, among others. We optimize our pages a lot to top the search engine results page. We tend to overlook the fact that this traffic is short-term, as short as a day – on lucky instances may even extend to only up to a week.

The tips I’m about to give you is how to convert your short-term traffic increase to long-term. These tips doesn’t guarantee success as I myself haven’t tested them yet. I’m still planning to shift to this traffic-increase model scheme this coming months.

• Make your pillar articles (your best content) as accessible as possible. Even if their reading a board exam result post, make sure that links to your pillars are visible. Once they get a chance to read your impressive and good posts, the more chances that they’ll return to your blog and subscribe to your feeds.
• Reduce the number of advertisements on your page, or make them less-likely to look like one. In the short-run, this might hurt your earnings a bit — but surely the short-run trade-off would bear even bigger fruits. Personally, I’m less likely to return to a blog which slaps advertisements on my face.
• RSS feed buttons and email subscription fields should be strategically placed. Usually, a reader expects an RSS feed button on the “above the fold” (top) part of the page. Also, putting an email subscription field at the end of an article is also effective especially for the techy ones who doesn’t understand RSS.
• Reply to comments. I rarely do this, but I’m planning to make this a habit. A visitor is more likely to come back to your site if they see that you reply to comments. Should they have questions, they’ll surely watch out if you’ve got them a reply.

That’s it. Just four short tips. Should you have more, just put place them on the comments and I’ll add them with a link back to you (instant link).

So the next time you’re posting a sizzling-hot current event, don’t forget to follow my tips. I bet their effective as they sound. Good luck.

Hey guys, I’m very excited for the upcoming WordCamp Philippines 2008 this September 6, 2008. I feel so privileged to attend such an event – not all countries had the chance to hold a WordCamp. Thanks to Mindanao Bloggers Inc for having the guts in organizing one.

The event will be held on De La Salle College of St. Benilde. This means another trip to Manila, weeeeee.

Before I end this short post, I’d like to thank the WordCamp Philippines 2008 sponsors for supporting the event:

• i.PH: the Domain for Individuals
• Free Online Flash Games
• Wazzup Manila Philippines
• Real Estate CRM
• Real Estate Website Designers
• Orange County Real Estate
• Auto Insurance Quotes
• Lane Systems Inc.
• RedMedia
• Orange County Business Lawyer

That’s all.

Bloggers are greedy. Greedy are bloggers.

Most of the bloggers I know except my very own sister who have tried monetizing their blogs are greedy. Sorry for the generalization but I bet its true 99% of the time.

And since I am tired of structuring good sentences and paragraphs, I’ll bullet the rest of this post.

• At one point of a blogger’s life, he (can be used in refering males/females) sees himself drowned by sponsored post. If not by sponsored posts, with so much advertisement blocks around that’s occupying much of the space.
• Most bloggers find it hard to blog a long and fun experience to the extent that they never post about it. But a blogger can easily make a paid review given a certain price.
• Cruel bloggers aka modern-day civilized bastards like me, have thought of starting a “fight” with other more famous bloggers. Personally, I have thought of writing an article on a local blogger in the Philippines who is claiming to earn more than he does. Shame to him that his blog is driven by pornsters looking for Pinay scandals! Another hint: he’s not blogging lately.
• I can’t explain how the above item is related with greed.
• A blogger that receives his earnings in cold cash starts to become anxious of his earnings in the succeeding payouts.
• There’s more, it’s also the time projections for next payout’s earnings are projected; which are usually higher. (A Blogger’s Proactivity)

Oh know, I’m crapping this blog with this post. Okay, I’ll stop now. Add things on the list. Discuss them in the comments area and have fun.

Yes I’m greedy. But as famous Jun Lozada said, “moderate your greed”.

Ui, binasa niya ang post. Pacheeseberjer ka naman! Cheeseburjer, cheeseburjer. Plug ko lang: watch these Davao Bloggers on their cheeseburger video.

After reading Enrico Dee of Byahilo ‘s experience (a TV station used his photos for a TV show segment without permission) and hearing a lot on fair use and copyright during the iBlog 4, I decided to read the RA 8293 or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines.

Enrico Dee’s follow-up post on the issue inspired me to be vigilant on these issues. It reinforced my “do not publish copyrighted materials” instinct in posting blog posts.

Just this afternoon, I read a blog post from a blog (obviously) which was written very well shall I say. I admit that I am a prejudicial person for doubting the blogger’s (behind the article) writing skills to write such an article. And so I decided to google (in lower case cause it is used as a verb) a part of the content and learned that the article posted in http://pinoyteens.net/2008/05/02/no-domestic-unrest-from-rice-problems-2/ was actually copied from an ABS-CBN news article page. Continue reading “On Posting Copyrighted Material” »

Hey guys, in 10 hours I’ll be flying to Manila. I’ll be going there to attend some blogger’s events and work on my enrolment in UP.

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I had this cool new logo from a guy from UIC, ragingfx.com. He sent me three variations; but the one at the top is what I like most.

Here are the two other variations.

I’m now working on my header; got to add it.

Also, please check out my super-cool 404 page. You can access it thru this page http://conradmiguel.com/i-want-to-see-a-404-page.