John Ibanez

I’m going to make this very short. These past few weeks, one-by-one my online accounts (may) have been compromised.

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Valid Markup = making sexual intercourse with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and etc.. Worry free.

Seriously. I’ve read in a web design irc channel :

“robotsdemise: having a valid markup is unnecessary. just a complete waste of time fixing those errors if your design shows up well”.

Here’s to you Mr. Robot. You are a complete nincompoop. Here is why : click here.

I never thought I’d join Earth-Hour. But after watching “An inconvenient Truth” (by Al Gore), my perspective on Global Warming turned around. So I thought I’d find a way to be part of the millions who helps save the earth (or humankind) from Global Warming and Earth Hour was my 1st choice and first move.

Exactly 8:30PM (GMT +8:00.00 Philippine Time) I switched off my lights, TV and all the appliances at our Condo. And not only that, I also switched my blog to “Earth Hour Mode”. It is not intended to conserve energy or something because basically, it’s still online. However, its the perfect way to spread the word and remind my countrymen and all the people around the world to participate in Earth Hour. Here’s a snapshot of My Blog in Action:

Although I did not finish the 1 hour ( I was 7 minutes Shy of the 1 hour target because my Analog Clock was set to 7 minutes advanced of the exact time), I’m still proud of myself for taking part of Earth Hour 2009.

When I got home today after enrolling, the front desk clerk at our Condo called my attention before I entered the lift and handed me an envelope. And when I opened it, I was surprised that I received my ReviewMe Debit Card.

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Update: Gurble 2.0 is now available for download.

Simple, SE Optimized and Polished Typography. Gurble is the name.If you’re looking for a semi-minimalist theme with elegance on the side, then you’ve come to the right place.

Gurble is built with some helpful tools like Adobe Photoshop, Notepad+ and Color Code Generator. One thing thats good about Gurble is that it is checked as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. That means that Search engines can read your blog precisely.(refer to the image below)

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When the 2.7 Version of wordpress was released, we we’re astonished and electrified by how the Dashboard/ Admin Panel Layout and functionality has changed. Shabby and worth a holler, as I say.

But after a couple of months, playing with it is no longer a trek. In fact, when I opened my blogger.com account, I actually enjoyed posting with the Blogger Dashboard/ Admin Panel. That would fairly describe how bored I am with the new WordPress Admin Panel.

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No, It’s not kissing your readers after leaving you a comment on your latest blog post. Neither is it a Dark Jedi Master Guide of kissing someone using the force. K.I.S.S. as defined by Wikipedia is “Keep it simple, stupid”. And further googling gave me another definition, “Keep it simple and straightforward”. K.I.S.S States that simplicity should be a key goal and unnecessary complexity avoided.

To us bloggers, writers, designers and almost everyone. Many of us are guilty of putting too much of unnecessary mess on our work. At times, we put too much emphasis on the complexity and we forget about the usability and outcome of our work. And after pulling it all together, you realize that its all cluttered and messy. Lets just put it this way, its like ordering your Venti Hot Caramel Macchiato at your local Starbucks coffee house. Now if the barista wasn’t trained and he wanted to please you (maybe for being a loyal customer). What he does is Put 5 Shots of espresso and 6 pumps of vanilla syrup on your Venti cup. Now would that please you? I guess not. Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s once said “It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.

For blogging and design, what I notice these days is that people tend to put so much clutter on their site. Even I am guilty of this one, that is one of the reason why I took away most of the badges I have on my sidebar. Instead, I replaced them with google ads which I think would be the best way to give reference links to my visitors while monetizing my blog. If you may notice the 125×125 Ad Blocks on my sidebar, I’m not paid to post those ads and neither am I earning a percentage of every sale that my site leads. I have those as references to my readers. Moving forward, I want to show you some sites which practice K.I.S.S. knowingly and/or indirectly:

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I have read an article about visitors who click and dont click on ads at Yahoo! Shine. And the article states that It’s a proven fact that visitors who click on ads are most of the time the visitors who come from search engines.

I’ve also read that Google AdSense uses “Smart Pricing”. That means that the click-through rate (CTR) is low and your earnings per click is divided by from 2 to 10, depending on your stats. For Instance, a click would normally give you $0.50, with smart pricing your earning on that specific click could give you a very low $0.05 at the lowest. Harsh, Right? Dont worry, You’ve come to the right place. I’ve found a perfect solution for this problem at Smashing Magazine . What is it? Show the Ads ONLY to Search Engine referred visitors ONLY. This way, you can increase your CTR. Read the rest of this entry »

You have your hands over the keyboard and you try your best to avoid looking at the blank page you have on your screen just to realize that you need to work on it because you have readers who are already having an idea that your blog is dead.

And you dont know where to start. You dont even know where you are. Aint that a bitch?

You are not sleepy neither tired of writing. You just find yourself wishing that everyone who wants you to publish something could go away on a vacation.

Well, not to worry. You’re just stuck. You have your goals figured out however, you cant seem to pull off a good starting point.

What could possibly work for you is that you must keep in mind  that what you’re writing is a draft. A rough, stinky and ugly draft. You wont pull off a perfect article the first time. Trust me. (Unless you’re Obama or something)

You can try a lot of things, some work best used in combination. Here are some approaches that I work with while writing articles;

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In any industry, advertising is one aspect to consider if you want to sell a lot. Even if you have some kick ass products and unbeatable services, you have to put in mind that they will not be sold if people dont come to know about it. You have to advertise so that people will know of its existence. You got to let people know that you have this kick ass business that will give them this and that and *insert you selling line here* and why they should buy from you.

In reality, we have the Television, Radio, Billboards and Print ads as primary medium to market products and services. However, if you have an online business and you wish to bulge in to the sea which is the internet. Then thats another story.

Yes there are lots of people surfing the internet everyday but you have to keep in mind that there are also a lot (and im talking about millions) of websites that are similar to yours that might be even a step ahead on the competition to gather clients. So, how can you tell everyone about your products and services? Unfortunately, theres no megaphone out there cowboy.

The good news is, there are a lot of strategies you can dwell on and utilize.
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