Nap Time Rocks!

Need for speedtest

this nifty site, Speedtest.net, that tests your internet connection’s download and upload speed amuses me. for an tech-impatient person like me, there’s nothing like an official tech-o-meter that reassures you that downloading Snowpatrol’s new single will only take 1 minute.

that’s SmartBro (prepaid lang nga) for you. just average. hmm.

but i’m surfing just fine, and my restaurant is loading just as fast. =) so i wonder how the other ISPs are doing. what are you using? how’s it faring on speedtest?

nifty sites

ever had to search for stuff online such as what route to take going somewhere or what transportation mode to take? or what gift to give your bookworm friend or which restaurant serves vegetarian food and accepts credit cards?

i have. and i’m sharing some of the pretty useful sites i’ve come across:

• Munchpunch (food) – what differentiates this from other online directories is the menu that you can find per restaurant (if available of course, but most have it) and the average budget per meal. there’s also a tab for looking up caterers. writing reviews are also quick and easy, plus the site loads faster

• ParaSaTabi (travel/transpo)- galing. if you ever needed to go to Ayala Ave. in Makati from Cubao, go look it up and you can choose from 44 different routes to get there

• Lucky Marias (gift suggestions/accessories) – polymer rules! need nifty little trinkets shaped like a starbucks frappe drink as bracelet charms?

• Fully Booked (event venues) – no, no, this isn’t just because I love FB. but i also find that their Bonifacio High Street branch also has venues for mini-movie screenings, meetings, and sales launches. that is, if your budget is in the P30k and above range.

• Powertips at The Podium (event venues) – this saved my behind big time, when we had to hold a meeting outside the office at such short notice. the staff who assisted me was really very helpful and considerate (i was short of b**ching then because the Ayala triangle then was going to be closed to traffic and it was hard to book a venue at that time). the place has one big conference room (classroom type) and several other smaller ones that can be used as training rooms. every table row had their own sockets, and believe me for laptop junkies like we are that’s such a plus; and free wifi access. oh and did i mention it’s inside the mall?

• Yugatech (technology)- now who hasn’t heard about this one? i found good reviews for a cellphone i planned to buy. pretty good reviews for anything tech related.

• POBox.ph (online shopping) – sure you can pay for purchases via Paypal now wherever it is in the world, but not all US merchants ship to the Philippines. POBox solves that problem (check out their website for details) by letting you address deliveries to their delivery point and when they’ve gathered enough stuff to fill a scheduled shipment, they send it home. it’s just a bit pricey, but you be the judge.

this list too, i’ll update from time to time. for questions, leave me a message!

Free Wifi Hotspots in Manila

well, at least where I’ve been.

• Gloria Jeans Shopwise (Araneta Center, Cubao QC) – EYP provided, you just need to register, but I got 24 hours free so what the heck
• Gateway Mall (Cubao QC) – take your pick: Starbucks (there are 2), Coffee Bean and Tealeaf, or Figaro. the only downside is that per router, only about 20 users can access the internet, and there are only 2 routers
• Starbucks Julia Vargas (Home Depot, Ortigas Center, Pasig)
• Fraser Place Makati (Valero St.) – it’s a full-service residential hotel but access is limited to LAN
• Robinsons Galleria (Ortigas Center, Pasig) – yes, the entire mall
• Blenz Coffee – SM Cyberzone building (if i’m not mistaken, near Savory Chicken) beside SM MOA, free wifi access and the staff provides the network key
• Pizza Hut @ The Fort (beside Jollibee along Rizal Drive) – network key-provided, but unless your laptop runs on everlasting battery power it’s really just good for lunch stay
• SM Malls – all major malls now have complimentary wifi. finally. but so far I’ve only been able to try out Megamall, Marikina and North Edsa. works so far and it’s fast.

i’ll update as I go along (i can’t remember all). but if you have comments/suggestions/questions, do let me know.

The best web host

Please greet my blog a happy 7th monthsary. Yey! I just renewed my blog hosting subscription last month and I’ve amassed about 400+ posts “contained in 34 categories and 98 tags”. One of the things I’m actually grateful for when I flew out of my good friend Pao’s nest for the first time 5 years, is the great tech support I got from her. I didn’t know the first thing about self hosting and FTPs! Lucky for me, she referred me to a good web hosting company. I was fortunate. I didn’t know there was an entire database of web hosting outfits made available by Web Hosting Geeks! So what if you’re new to this entire thing like I was months ago? Not much to worry about because here you can sort through web hosting sites, know which ones are the top budget hosts, the top forum hosts, the best multi-domain host, the top e-commerce host, etc. Now ain’t that grand?

Toys for the boys… and the girls too

It’s one of those lazy weekends again, after one long, crazy work week. And crazy is such an understatement. So I just didn’t have the heart to bring out my laptop on a nice Saturday morning and borrowed my brothers’ Sony PSP instead.

Since I couldn’t win over this German girl on a clay court (even if I was Sharapova) on Virtual Tennis 3, and the other games were too violent for me, I discovered that I could still surf the net with the PSP. Grabe, junkie talaga. I just had to configure the thing to browse the Internet.

So this replaces my Asus laptop, which by the way has been adopted by my youngest brother, on my computer table. It looks kinda lonely…

How was your weekend?

The Pepperjam Revolution

I just signed up with Pepperjam, an affiliate marketing program online, and I’m saying it’s perfect for me since I am not a stay-at-home mommy like most of my blogging friends are. I need something to work for me even when I’m not logged in all the time to post about products and services. It’s a bit hard for me to always be checking on opps to take since I can’t even stay seated in front of my laptop for a long time these days since work has really been really hectic.

Moreover, I don’t have to clutter my blog with irrelevant ads that my visitors, regular readers, and friends won’t even find useful or interesting. What’s more, there’s no waiting time for post approvals and things like that because there’s none needed. You only need to be visible in the right places, to the right people.

I also like the fact there are loads of advertisers available for your choosing. You don’t get limited by what’s available and if you’re qualified for it. Like just today, I got an affiliate opportunity to advertise for Levita, a really cool and funky site for accessories and jewelry. So I love it now.

Are you in the same boat as me? Join the Affiliate Revolution with me!

Social Spark

I’ve noticed how fast paid and sponsored blogging programs have spread throughout the web and among bloggers, but there have been only a few for me that actually works really well. I guess it would depend on your blog ranking and your blogging habits too but in general, my advice to start up bloggers (especially WAHMs who are interested in working even at home) is to get started with the simplest, quickest and easiest to use, which are (for me) Pay Per Post and now, SocialSpark which is still under the Izea banner.

I’m currently loving the SocialSpark web design More »

Return of the Mac

Asi The Asus Laptop is getting old… And the savings isn’t improving either. I want to buy myself a new toy but there are certain things that need to go first. But in the event that the heavenly bodies decide to align for the sake of granting me a new laptop, I think I want to try out the Mac.

Yup the Mac. Because

• it’s stylish. Have you seen the black ibook? Gwapo!
• it’s safe from viruses and worms and fungi and bacteria. ’nuff said.

And actually that’s it. I know there should be more reasons than that, but right now, Mac has yet to convince me fully that it is the ultimate notebook. So any opinions from Mac users out there?

I want home service, now!

You never know when you’re going to need a home computer repair service. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing to be so technology-reliant when everything you do involves a computer one way or another. Like last Friday when I was in desperate need of an express embroidery service shop and I had to email soft copies of the logo I had to have made to suppliers. These days we have things made and delivered without meeting the people on the other end of the line. It’s crazy because that means I can access my email at home and I am definitely on call anytime. But it’s crazier when your ancient laptop doesn’t cooperate. Like yesterday. Hmp. There are just times that ctrl+alt+del does not do the job anymore and a real live human being at your service is the only way things will get back to normal. On-site tech support is still better than talking to a Help Index who can’t understand, “Just get my computer back up, !@#!#@!”

Partay Again!

You are cordially invited to a house party

At my (web) place

Starting today until whenever!

Earlier last month, I had small house partay to welcome everyone (and myself) into my new domain, NapTimeRocks.com. This time around, I just found a new reason to celebrate

Yup, you got that right. My blog just got GooglePR 2! All those weeks of hard blogging-work paid off. Hehe. So grabe a champagne flute and toast with me. Yey cheers!

Add to my cart!

A good navigation is a website’s potent tool. This is one valuable lesson I’ve learned in putting up my own domain. If readers can’t find their way around, it’s an easy turn off. Why? Because if I am my reader and I get confused with so many ads and navigational buttons to who knows where, I won’t stay long in that website.

This is particularly a necessary tip for businesses, especially those online. I recently raved about one of my favorite websites, a known specialty bookstore. What I didn’t rant about, however, was the fact that the buttons on the sidebar were pointing to different sections of the site (and books!), the archives search didn’t turn up anything yet, and there were only product details but NO ‘shopping cart‘.

Cardinal rule #1: Never lose the opportunity to close a sale. More »

Seeing double

i am now a temporary sucker for dual-sim phones. what is it with my lifestyles these days that require me with 2 phones anyway? but i can’t hate it, can i? i require them. i need my Sun cell phone because of the unlimited call and text feature. can you imagine i save up to P4k in a month because of it? and i need my Globe phone for when the other has no signal. that simple.

i am about to get a third phone (company issue) but i am resolved to keep my life less techno-stressed and keep just 2. so goodbye muna to Globe. and as far as i’m concerned, i want a phone that has bluetooth, a 3G feature, has a really good camera resolution, a big memory space, and has FM radio. but most importantly, it has to be dual-sim. what’s the point of simplifying if it’s not, right?

fortunately for my impeccable taste (yeah right), i found a candidate it in the new Verzio Duplii. Verzio is a singaporean company whose engineers and designers were pirated from giants Nokia and Sony Ericsson. (now I don’t know where i got that last bit).

nevertheless, i think i’m going to like it. there’s also the Twinn, the touch-screen version of Duplii, but i heard that the latter is better in terms of performance. what i like most about this phone probably, is that the navigation and call buttons are well defined and easy to use, unlike on  myPhone.

now i just need to go and find me one a good deal. anyone who knows where there’s one?

For more info on Verzio and Duplii:

• http://www.verzioworld.com/
• http://www.verzioworld.com/products.html

nooninoo update #3

My ka-OC-han has struck me again. I’ve just updated my sidebars (cleaned it up a little bit) and my Link page. I have now segmented my blogroll and links into:

• My other sites (where you can find me photo-whoring)
• Blood is thicker than water (which only means my family ties)
• Friends (who are people who have been on my blogroll since the beginning of time. no really, they’re the ones who’ve been there since i started blogging and most of them are UP friends)
• Pretty awesome sites (that caught my interest, the highlight of which would be the master writer himself)
• Techies (who have at least made tech-speak understandable and interesting, as some of you might already know by now that it’s my handicap)
• Moms who rock the blogosphere (yeah, rock on!)
• Food blogs (ooh yum! people on a diet should stay away from these. hehe kidding. that’s bad for business)
• WP Pinoys and genius bloggers (link love anyone?)
• Fashion and design blogs (fashionable polymer, oversized glasses, designer emergency kits, japanese pop art, whatever suits your style)
• Photographers and Artists

Check them out. If you’re a regular reader here, let me know if I haven’t included you in my blogroll yet.

And just in case you’re wondering what the other pages up there are for, Me the Writer has all my short stories and essays so if you’re bored why don’t you critique my writing; Mia’s Milestones would be, well, documenting her milestones as she grows up; Princess Diaries would be my story about how Mia came to be, and it should be an interesting one; and the rest are, well, self-explanatory.

Ok, ’nuff with that. nooninooninoo…

Avoiding waste

One of the major key performance indices of any company, especially manufacturing (like where i work), is maximizing profits. And profits are made when, among others, wastage of raw materials are minimized. I, for one, have to be always conscious of stock levels and production efficiencies of my brands. It’s a good thing that my company has evolved so much in terms of processes and business systems that our support groups are very independently conscious of their jobs. I really don’t have to worry much about spillages or wastages in the plants where my products are made. For companies where these things are taken very seriously, there are certain business solutions that must be applied to keep things in efficient running order. I’m no expert in industrial engineering, but consulting companies such as Six Sigma Consulting can work around a lot of industrial issues. It’s better really to leave that kind of work to professionals, so people like you and me can be confident that things are just as they should be.

Pinoy Entrecards

this is great. 134 Pinoy Entrecard users and still counting! I copying this list from Isulong (while blog hopping thru Entrecard, nonetheless) who got it from Joanjoyce. I’ve really been able to expand my blogging horizon, thanks to this new raket. If you’ve recently joined and you’re not on this list, please do leave me a message More »