2008 Archives

Sitemaps are xml documents used by the search engines to index your website. it is not very crucial for your website but it will help the search engines do their job better. by pointing out the right way to index you will be like spoon feeding the contents to the search engines.

What you need

• sitemap.xml
• ftp access
• basic html knowledge
• lots of coffee

Creating sitemaps
There are many websites offering online tools to generate sitemaps, Google lists some of the sites offering sitemap generation. you can actually make your own sitemap, follow the instructions in making your own sitemap from google sitemap guidelines.


Creating a Google webmaster tool account
You can create google webmaster account at
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

Upload your sitemaps to your server using any ftp clients. You can upload them using the ftp third party tools from wikipedia.

Verify your sitemap
you can use meta tag edit or you can upload the Google code to your server then click on verify button. You can choose verify thru meta tag or via upload html file.

Via meta tag
<meta content="google verify code" name="verify-v1">

Upload an html file with the file name similar to
google6f48fdc41162585b.html

Submit your sitemap to yahoo
To submit your sitemap to yahoo open a new browser window at
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Your sitemap will be in the form
http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

Submit your sitemap to msn
You can submit sitemaps to MSN by visiting MSN webmaster tools page at
http://webmaster.live.com/webmaster

Download the verification file and upload it to your website.

its in the filename: LiveSearchSiteAuth.xml
with the contentst similar to this:
 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<users>
<user>3FF5B0C37E4EF996E38A78AB4AC8F1D6</user>
</users>

I just got my best Windows XP User Experience and i though i would share it with you. I was working while i got it, and so fat it tops all of my other great Windows XP experiences. Well, we don't see those blue screens anymore, Windows XP is so much stable now compared during the time it was first released. I'm running SP3 and so far it looks good except for the error below.












Well, its actually a MS Word error, but i wonder how i got it. "Word has encountered a problem and cannot exit", i know Word has this background task when trying to close an application but i really find the message stupid.

The default movable type 4 template does not display title, meta descriptions and meta keywords at the HTML header. This can be frustrating to some SEO freaks out there, although meta tags are not too important compared to the page content but its nice to see your descriptions in included in the search engines result page and not some random text.

I have modified my header template to use the meta descriptions based on the page content. lots of MTIf tags are needed. If you are familiar with Movable Type Tags this will be easier for you.

Here is my new title, meta description and meta keyword tag from the header template in movable type.

<MTIf name="entry_template">
  <title><$MTGetVar name="page_title"$> - <$MTBlogName encode_html="1"$></title>
  <MTElse>
    <MTIf name="main_index">
    <title><$MTBlogName encode_html="1"$></title>
    <meta name="description" content="<$MTBlogDescription$>" />
    <MTElse>
    <title><$MTBlogName encode_html="1"$>: <$MTGetVar name="page_title"$></title>
    <MTIfArchiveType type="Individual">
    <meta name="description" content="<$MTEntryExcerpt$>" />
    <meta name="keywords" content="<$MTEntryKeywords$>">
    <MTElse>
      <MTIfArchiveType type="Category">
      <meta name="description" content="<$MTCategoryDescription$>" />
      </MTIfArchiveType>
    <MTElse>
      <MTIfArchiveType like="(Yearly|Monthly|Weekly|Daily)">
      <meta name="description" content="<$MTArchiveTitle$> archive containing <$MTArchiveCount$> entries from <$MTArchiveDate$> to <$MTArchiveDateEnd$>." />
       </MTIfArchiveType>
     </MTIfArchiveType> 
   </MTIf>
</MTIf>

This is a work in progress I am still experimenting on how i could optimize it and display meta keyword in the headers as well.

I'm no local movie fan but its nice see some local celebrities especially when seeing Angel Locsin in her cowboy outfit. With local celebrities coming to a mountainous province walking around every day in almost a month is enough to give an unforgettable experience to the local townsfolk in Impasug-ong, Bukidnon and even to Angel herself.

I must admit, I do like Angel, she has this mysterious smile in her that captivates many guys, everybody would want to spend much time just staring at her. Not because she is a celebrity but because of the beautiful scenery she has created. The Movie is to be called "Land Down Under", do not know how it is related to Australia but you can look it up at wikipedia for more info, I'm just here for Angel and the beautiful scene. Here are some pictures to brag about.
 
 

Using Greasemonkey we can download userscripts that automatically adds numbers as ranks into the search results page from Google, Yahoo and MSN live search engines.

Install Greasemonkey add on into firefox, then download the following user scripts.

Numbered Google SERP results
Place a number on the Google SERP window

Numbered Yahoo SERP results
Place a number on the Yahoo SERP window

Numbered MSN Live SERP results
Place a number on the MSN Live SERP window


You might also be interested on the following scripts below

Google 100
Show 100 results at a time in the Google SERP window.

You can tell the server to automatically append www on each query to your website using .htaccess. That is all incoming requests to a non www query gets forwarded to the host with www prepended before the domain. Although google treats them equally now, yahoo and live search may not. So its still wise to add them to your website somehow. Its a great advantage to your site especialy in terms of search engine optimization.

Here is the .htaccess script that forwards all request without www to your website having the www before the domain name.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L]

Please note that this is only possible to websites that are hosted in either Linux or Unix servers running Apache

Excel lets you share a workbook and edit worksheets simultaneously. It also allows multiple people to edit every cell or spreadsheet and track changes at the same time. Collaboration between your team will never be the same plus you will be maintaining just one workbook for the entire team which results to less confusion and an updated version for everyone. Updated data will always be available all the time. You can track changes from everybody across the network using their login names and the date they made the update. Excel also prompts you which version of the edit will be posted or you can set it to always overwrite the old ones.

The workbook however need to be in a network share. it must have a write privilege to all your team members. Using Excel 2007, sharing a workbook is as simple as point and click. Here follow these steps.

1. Open your workbook.
2. Navigate to Review on the toolbar
3. Click on the Share Workbook icon
4. Place a check on the check box that says Allow more than one user at the same time.
5. Click on OK
6. Now, save your workbook on a network share

You can use the double slash [ \\ ] to access your file server like this \\FILESERVER
Delete your local version to remove confusion and open the file from the server

You can also create a shortcut to your desktop so that it may be easier for you to open it.

This is an online version of the Monopoly Express game a derivative of the popular Monopoly board game. The original is at http://host.exemplum.com/hasbro/monopoly_express/monopoly_express.html. You will have ten dice, three of them are policeman. Any policeman you roll will placed immediately at the board until you will have three of them. At this point, your turn ends and your score will be set to zero for that round. You choose to End the round and record your score or you may keep on rolling until you get three policeman. Your aim is to beat the AI and reach $15000 first.

Go - immediately add $200 to your current score.



Policeman - Every policeman you roll will be added to the board until you collect three. Collecting three policeman ends your turn and your score is set to zero.


Property - Every property is worth the amount indicated, collecting all the colors allows you to build houses, hotels or bonuses for utilities. The change die allows you to get a random property.

I've been stuck for days with this quest, getting the code and the key from the collector is quite easy but i never have found how to come up with getting the key at the fireplace. I have wielded armors and weapons with fire resistance, even got 0 damage when trying to reach the key but i still could not manage to get it. i saw the empty bottle in the kitchen i just did not know where to get the water, was i dumb or you just wouldn't expect that the bottle should be placed into the vase.

I've been to forums and all i get is clue. its been two days until i managed to figure it out and finished all the other side quests except the Greatest thief Quest at the Collectors Mansion.

So, to end this misery, i am posting in how i managed to enter through the Collectors Mansion's vault:

After entering from the door in front of the graveyard at the Blacklake district. Go ahead straight to the kitchen, you may fight all the guards if you want or you can use your hide and sneak skill to walk past through them, i prefer to fight to get some exp.

You may want to tie up the servant or just leave them be. Get the empty bottle from the wash basin and place it inside the vase right beside the wash basin location to fill it with water.

Proceed to a room near the stairs and talk to Vania, use her as a hostage. Talk to the collector and then get the ship painting by the sea on the wall and use it to get the key from the collector.

Now, go outside and get the book Numerological Nursery Rhymes from the bookcase, it should read:

Nine are we when taken all three.
Last one slain, then six remain.
None survive our first less five.

from the rhyme you will get the code combination as 513.

proceed to the fireplace use the bottled water to put the fire off and then get the key. Use it to open the vault. 

On my way out at home, I overheard three kids singing that barney song. They were playing right outside my doorstep with this hop-skip-jump game, they are blocking my way so i stopped and listened. The lyrics are a bit different to the ones i usually hear.

I love you, You love me
Lets go out and kill Barney
With a shotgun. Bang! Bang!
Barney on the floor.
No more stupid dinosaur.

Well, I never knew children also hated barney. I myself, think that the barney show is a gay show. T-Rex Dinosaurs are not supposed to be friendly and in my own opinion they should stay extinct.

As each day passes, more and more posts are added to our blog sites. I was thinking of what if the archives will reach ten years? Well, I dont have that much number of posts, probably my blog will still survive. What I'm more concerned about is the monthly archives displayed on the sidebar. It will be displaying a very long list of months year by year. There must be some way to arrange them yearly.

I figured, there are already many MT4 bloggers who may have implemented it like Beau and his Advanced Archive Widget. Unfortunately, what i was looking is to display my yearly based archives horizontally as opposite to the one Beau has done. The main reason why i wanted to display my yearly archive horizontally is because there might be not enough room as the years go by since the list is growing sideways.

I have experiemented my version with my blog for hours and ended up displaying the yearly archive using simple methods using lists. Here is my version below:

<mt:IfArchiveTypeEnabled archive_type="Yearly">
  <div class="widget-archive-yearly widget-archive widget">
    <h3 class="widget-header"><$mt:ArchiveTypeLabel$> <a href="<$mt:Link template="archive_index"$>">Archives</a></h3>
    <div class="widget-content">
      <mt:ArchiveList type="Yearly" sort_order="descend">
      <mt:ArchiveListHeader>
        <ul>
      </mt:ArchiveListHeader>
        <li class="widget-list-item"><a href="<$MTArchiveLink$>"><b><$mt:ArchiveDate format="%Y"$></b></a><br />
        <mt:ArchiveList type="Monthly" sort_order="ascend">
          <span>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="<$MTArchiveLink$>"><$mt:ArchiveDate format="%b"$></a> </span>
        </mt:ArchiveList>
        </li>
      <mt:ArchiveListFooter>
        </ul>
      </mt:ArchiveListFooter>
      </mt:ArchiveList>
    </div>
  </div>
</mt:IfArchiveTypeEnabled>

What to do?

1. Create a Widget and paste the code above, save it as "Yearly Sidebar Archives" or any name you like.
2. On your Archive Templates, Edit the Entry Listing template
3. On the Template Options, Create an Archive Mapping of type Yearly
4. Choose your desired path eg. yyyy/index.html
5. Specify publishing option as Static
6. Hit Save and Publish
7. Navigate back to your Widgets template list at Design->Widgets
8. Choose which sidebar you wish to place your yearly archives by clicking it. I choose my primary sidebar since i want to replace my monthly archives into yearly archives.
   
9. Click on the Archives Widget at the Installed Widgets List
   
10. Place an ignore code around your monthly archive code
    

    <mt:Ignore>
    <mt:IfArchiveTypeEnabled archive_type="Monthly">
        <$mt:include widget="Monthly Archives"$>
    </mt:IfArchiveTypeEnabled>
    </mt:Ignore>

11. Insert the following code right below it.
    

    <mt:IfArchiveTypeEnabled archive_type="Yearly">
        <$mt:include widget="Yearly Sidebar Archives"$>
    </mt:IfArchiveTypeEnabled>

12. Republish your indexes and see the output at your main page.

WARNING: this is a useless post. You've been warned.

Its past midnight but I can't sleep despite not being able to sleep last night. I'm with the graveyard shift but there happens to be a scheduled office drill today that I was not invited but rather, I was being mandated to attend.

Still, I managed to attend to the office drill and of course I was late. I placed two toothpicks between my eyelids to prevent them from closing and dropped some Visine to get the red out in sixty seconds. Gee it did not help. A lesson not to believe everything you see on television.

 Everybody noticed when I arrived; it's like walking in an isle when you're getting married. It's a feeling that is so inspiring until the facilitator started to mention my mistakes and failures in the office. I felt I was pushed into a tub full of soap water. I consider it to be one of my most embarrassing moments. "I should have left earlier", I said it to myself, if I had some clothes to put on. But because I forgot to get my laundry yesterday which I believed my uniform was with it. To my surprise when I came home, it turned out to be placed right inside my closet. At that time, I had a feeling that my moronic side is starting to overpower me.

Then lunch came I'm still wet with soap all over my body and  I thought everybody forgot about my tardiness  but it seems I was wrong for I was again called to lead the prayer.  I don't have that priestly look; it's more of a punishment for being late. I tried to hide, not that I do not want to say the prayer but I don't want them to notice my eyes. So no more bath soap, this time it I was soaked with detergent.

The office drill didn't go along smoothly as planned.  Office drill is not a drill about digging something in the office or preventing fire accident but it was more of like a protocol drill to freshen up our team and getting the respective jobs done. The result was a successful failure, we totally sucked. It was expected anyway; otherwise we won't be having that sort of drill.

The afternoon came; the toothpicks between my eyelids were removed not because I'm not sleepy anymore but because they broke. Apparently, they can no longer handle the weight of my eyelids. So I got these 3 sachets of Nescafe instant coffee 3-in-1 mix in a single mug and drank it. It was so effective that up until now at 3AM, I'm still awake. 

some times seminars can also be interesting at least for me most of the times i find them boring and a waste of my time. A recent seminar i joined made me think twice with some of the seminars i missed before. the last task we had from the seminar which i enjoyed the most is the testing the leadership skill you have learned from the seminar. The task is to solve the puzzle called traffic jam.

Setup
2 groups of five with each team having their own uniform color. All 10 individuals setting in front of each other, each team facing the other team. an extra chair placed at the center of the last two persons. See illustrations below, ill name the first team as alphabet and the other as numbers. everybody is facing the empty chair.

  1 2 3 4 5
@
  A B C D E

Objective
The objective of the game is to switch places with the team by following some rules. The ending arrangement should be.

  E D C B A
@
  5 4 3 2 1
Instructions

• a person can move in a space (blank chair) beside him
• a person can skip a person or move around a person
• a person can only move forward
• only one person can move at a time

Well after an hour, i was able to crack this game. it was very frustrating not to be able to get the solution in time because the speaker place a timer on the board and it was just 45 minutes. anyway here's my solution:

The Solution to the Traffic Jam game
Team Alphabet moves first, Person A move to the blank chair.

A12ABC1234ABCDE12345ABCDE2345CDE45E

I always forget this basic image hover. Im posting it here in my blog for future referrence and for you my readers as well. Making hover images is fairly simple and very straight forward. It only needs a couple of css lines using the anchor element and its hover by manipulating the background image. Hover your mouse pointer to the image below and see a working sample of the image hover using CSS.

Home

 Download image hover resources if you want to try it on your own.

 

 

Below is a simple HTML code used to display the image hover.

<a id="nav-home" href="#"><span class="nav-hide">Home</span></a>

The span tag allows us to hide its content using the display:hide; command in CSS. The nav-home value will define how our image will then be displayed. See below for the CSS code.

a#nav-home {
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
width: 120px;
height: 20px;
margin: 0 auto;
background-image:url(images/hover1.gif);
}

a#nav-home:hover {
background-image:url(images/hover2.gif);
}

.nav-hide {
display: none;
}

#nav-home img {
border: 0;
}

I have seen tiny sized pc but the Space Cube tops them all. Its dimension is 52mm x 52mm x 55mm, very close to the size of a rubik's cube, smaller than the size of my palm. Its Compact Flash Card allows the installation of the Redhat Linux as its operating system aside from its builtin 16MB internal space. Processor speed is clocked at 300MHz maximum with an 16MB DDRSDRAM memory. The space cube include a USB port which maybe used to attach a hub for keyboard and mouse installation and other USB 1.1 enabled devices. A DB15 port for display, a RS232 port and an ethernet port for network access. It also has a builtin phone jack, Speaker out and Mic in for audio. This is obviously a desktop pc that could be used mobile aside from a laptop. Its price is around $300, not bad for a portable computer. This pc is very good for my interfacing expirements which would allow me to do testing outdoors. More info about the space cube on their website at the maker homepage Shimafuji Electric Incorporated.

While looking unto my blogs categories, i have noticed the browser based category to be empty. I guess, i just can't update my blog about the event on the games i play. When i play, i usually spend all of my time on it, that's also the reason i may not be able to blog often.  There are a couple of browser based games i have enjoyed playing, in fact i prefer them to those installed versions whereby we could check my mails, chat, and at the same time surf the web while playing.


Blogshares - I played blogs shares for more than a year, got myself into the top 50 rich players but stopped then they changed some rules in the game which i think they made it to gain more money than by making the players enjoy. there was also a bug on the game which made a major roll back. that was enough to convince to stop playing. i still have my account though i think my chips are gone, i lost the interest in playing so every blog i moderated is approved.


Neopets - I still play neopets from time to time. I dont find it boring, even if the target audience are supposed to be elementary kids but i think alot are adult players. Lots of built in games to choose from not to mention the battle dome wherein you could challenge neopets players to fight against your neopet.


Adventure Quest - Its been almost 3 years since i last played Adventure Quest. I only played this game in about 4 months. the free version is very hard to login. it made me decide not to continue playing. My character just reached level 40 when i stopped playing.  


Tribal Wars - I was addicted to this game. it made me stop working, blogging, even skip meals, and other online activities. it was almost a year when i realised how i became and eventually stopped. i missed playing TW. I cant go back anymore probably because my villages may already be overruned. I managed to raise my points to 400k when i stopped playing. If i were to recommend which game i like the most, my answer would be tribal wars.


Unification Wars - Its a game similar to tribal wars but its setting is in space. The reason i stopped playing unification wars is that its too hard to comprehend and is very hard to manage. I mean we could read the documentation but i cant bear its complexity as i could compare it to tribal wars.

When i disabled the anonymous comment on my blog, people also stopped placing their comments. It might be because the people who commented were actually bots? Maybe or maybe not. Now, i got freaked because people really stopped commenting, as in zero comments. So, i started to look for ways to make post some comments again. I tried installing some plugin that allow users from other blogs like WordPress or other sites to use their login to comment on my blog using the OpenID technology.

Here's the list of plugin that i have installed in addition to the builtin options:
AOL/AIM
Yahoo
WordPress

But still, only a few commented. Now, I'm trying to enable reCaptcha hopefully people might come back and start to comment. If you are using MT4.1, you might need this. Otherwise, if you are using an older version then visit josh carter's blog for a workaround.

Enable reCaptcha on your Movable Type 4.1 blog

1. Get a public and a private key from the reCaptcha website
2. Get copy of the reCaptcha plugin from your mt4 installation folder. Its located at /extras/examples/plugins/reCaptcha from your mt4 folder
3. Paste them to the plugins folder at /plugins/reCaptcha inside your mt4 folder
4. There is a README file read it for instructions. 
5. On your blog go to Preferences > Plugins
   
6. Click on the the reCaptcha and enter your Public and Private keys you had when you registered at their website
7. Click on Save Changes
   
8. Go to your blog Preferences > Blog Settings > Comment 
9. Scroll dow below to the Comment Display Options
10. Change the Captcha Provider from None to reCaptcha
11. Save Settings
12. Go to your blog Preferences > Blog Settings > Spam
13. Check if the spam slider is at zero. If its not return it to zero, otherwise you will have to moderate all the comments again.
14. Go to Design > Templates
15. Click on Template Modules
16. From the README file: Edit Comment Form template, so it renders MTCaptchaFields unconditionally.  In practice, this means replacing these lines
        <MTIfNonEmpty tag="MTCaptchaFields">
        <MTIfCommentsAccepted><MTIfRegistrationAllowed><MTElse><$MTCaptchaFields$></MTIfRegistrationAllowed></MTIfCommentsAccepted>
        <div id="comments-open-captcha">
        </div>
        </MTIfNonEmpty>
    to these lines:
        <MTIfNonEmpty tag="MTCaptchaFields">
        <div id="comments-open-captcha">
        <$MTCaptchaFields$>
        </div>
        </MTIfNonEmpty>
    
17. Click on Index Templates
18. From the README file, Edit Javascipt index template, to remove these lines of code which calls delayShowCaptcha:
        <MTIfNonEmpty tag="MTCaptchaFields">
        captcha_timer = setInterval('delayShowCaptcha()', 1000);
        </MTIfNonEmpty>
19. Save and Rebuild you blog.
    

Thats it you have enabled reCaptcha on your blog.

Setting up virtual hosts with XAMPP is very straight forward and could be done in less than 5 minutes. Although, your local XAMPP server will still work even if virtual hosts are not configured. You might want to ask, is there a need for my local XAMPP setup to configure virtual hosts? Apparently, virtual hosts are needed when

• your on multiple domains
• your need to test your projects with same configuration with the server
• test your projects without touching your public server
• your just organizing your projects into groups
• or setup a local copy of your blog or website

What do we need?
This document assumes that you are working with Windows XP with XAMPP. If you don't have XAMPP, get it at their XAMPP for Windows download page. Just execute the exe file and follow the onscreen instructions.

Configuring Windows XP to accept hosts
Hosts is a file under Windows XP that is used to map IP addresses to a custom list of hosts or maybe domain names. The IP address should be placed in one line. The first column should contain the IP address and on the second column its corresponding hostname. The IP address may be separated by a space or by a tab. You can place comments by prepending your line this symbol '#' (pound sign). Initially the first line is added. Now lets add our domain tildemark.com

127.0.0.1       localhost
127.0.0.1       www.tildemark.com
127.0.0.1       tildemark.com

you can check your work by doing a ping to your configured host.
 

Configuring XAMPP to accecpt Virtual Hosts

1. Got to your Apache folder in XAMPP and locate the conf files. The are usually located at <<local path>>\xampp\apache\conf\extra
2. Open the file named httpd-vhosts.conf with a text editor
3. If posible read the instructions so may have the idea on what you are doing
4. Now paste the following code at the bottom of the file without touching the document.
   
   NameVirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80
<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
  DocumentRoot E:/xampp/htdocs/    # change this line with your htdocs folder
  ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>


5. Edit the line DocumentRoot with your own document root folder
6. For each domain you are to configure paste the following lines below, just replace my domain name your corresponding domain:

<VirtualHost www.tildemark.com>
  DocumentRoot "E:\www\www.tildemark.com"
  ServerName www.tildemark.com
  ServerAlias www.tildemark.com

  CustomLog "E:\www\www.tildemark.com\www.tildemark.com-access_log" combined
  ErrorLog "E:\www\www.tildemark.com\www.tildemark.com-error_log"

  <Directory "E:\www\www.tildemark.com">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

What is RSS?
RSS is a document format for reading frequently updated websites in the internet. Similar to other document format like the MS Word documents or the PDF documents, the RSS also needs an interpreter called the "RSS Reader" as the MS Word Application for your MS Word documents and acrobat reader for your PDF documents. Each RSS document is called a "feed" or commonly as RSS Feed. RSS feeds are seen with the icon having an orange background with arcs usually found on the side bar of a blog.

How can RSS feed help me?
RSS are designed to help us read frequently updated websites in just one neat and simple application called the "RSS Reader". I use these programs at home to read my favorite blogs or forum and at work to read the messages from my projects. With this, i do not need to go to each of the websites i often visit just to check for any update but instead the RSS Reader does this for me. RSS Readers really made my life more easier as RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication

How do i get RSS?
You will need an RSS Reader, there are lots of applications that enables you to read RSS documents. Personally, I use the Google Reader but you might prefer some other applications. Lets just use it because it the only reader use for now. If you have a Google account then you can use it to read RSS feeds from there. Just click on the "add subscription" link and paste in your RSS feed. Now on the blogs that you read look for the RSS Logo, copy and paste the URL to your favorite RSS Reader in my case its Google Reader. Some feeds are marked private meaning you will need a password before we could read the contents. Some readers accepts authentication, at the office is use Sharp Reader Software.

How do I know the link I got is RSS?
The RSS reader is written in plain text, if you will try to open an RSS document with a text editor, you can actually read it but you might have a little more time understanding because of the way its written. The format the RSS document is written is called XML. XML is like an older brother of the other common technical word called HTML. XML and HTML are not the topic here so lets just ignore them for now. You will know its RSS because every RSS feed has this somewhere at the beginning of the document: <?xml version="1.0"> and it has an orange icon with a arcs in it. You can try using Tildemark Blogs RSS feed to use is as a sample or maybe subscribe to it.

Its been months since I had my PC with a video card. I got my old GeForce 7300 GT removed and placed on a PC without a video card. I tried to tweak the PC and ended up messing its video capabilities. So, since my PC works without a card, I did a generous donation and give away my only graphics card. Now, imagine me with my PC without a video card. Finally, after 6 months, I was able to buy the Palit GeForce 7300 GT Sonic video card. It's actually an old card considering I was once using 7300 GT but I'm out of budget and I really need a video card. GeForce 7300 GT Sonic still is using Direct X 9c shader, so no Windows Vista games for me since Windows Vista is using the new Direct X 10, but I don't like Windows Vista yet so i guess its ok for now. Maybe next year I'll upgrade my OS then I'll upgrade my video card. Anyway, GeForce 7300 GT Sonic is the overclocked version of the GeForce 7300 GT Card its a bit faster with a core speed up to 500MHz and memory speed up to 1000MHz at 256MB. The GeForce 7300 GT Sonic comes equipped with DDR3 instead of the DDR2 from the 7300 GT version. All the speed I need to max out the graphics quality of the games I play right now. Not really bad for a $50 video card, I wish I had some more and I could have bought the GeForce 8 series video card.

I reinstalled the game Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and started playing it the whole day. I wasn't able to finish playing the game before because of the video card experiment I did. So, this time I'm going to finish the game with maximum graphics quality. I'm now playing the Normal mode but after i finish this I'll start again with the hard mode. I just love the Mammoth Tank with its Rail Gun Upgrade its almost unstoppable in the battle field. With this tank, you only need about 3 or 4 to finish a mission. Its very powerful and its huge, just don't get hit by an EMP or they just be sitting ducks. I also like the dig skill for the Rifflemen but it costs 300 credits and the Shadow soldiers could easily kill them in one shot even if their rank is already star.


Every time I get to the mission briefing, I have noticed that GDI Lt. Kirce James is so familar to me. I tried replaying the mission briefing just to recall her. Then i realized she was Jennifer Morrison or Doctor Allison Cameron from the TV series House. Why didn't I noticed her before, I was really surprised to see her doing the mission briefing. Well, she didn't have that military look but I like her being a doctor.

I hate spam and its everywhere, in the forums, in my comments, emails, and even in blog posts. Email spam is so hard to stop if you don't have a good spam blocker. Once your in, there's no going back. I don't recommend you clicking on the link that says 'click here to unsubscribe' because it only confirms that the email address you are using is indeed active which results to more spam.

The most efficient way to battle spam is to avoid them. Don't got to p0rn site, sites that offer pirated software or any illegal stuff. another way is to change your email link into an image. In that way automated programs that harvests email address may not be able to pick it up. A web site that provides an image for your email address called email icon generator might be useful for you. See some samples below

Not being able to see the differences between colors is a bit trouble some. Imagine yourself looking at the traffic light and not seeing and red color. These people will see yellowish brown color instead of the red color. Red-green color blind is also called Protanopia, people that are less sensitive to red light and Deuteranopia for people who are less sensitive to the green light.  Some study determined that about 10% of the male population are color blind. I am happy I do not belong to those 10%.

That is why link urls should stay underlined to help people with color blindness see it immediately. since we are not able to adjust CSS being used on the website we browse, we will just instead use our own CSS page by specifying it on our browser. if you are color blind, this page will help you a lot. If you are not color blind, i don't recommend you using it because it would be weird.

First lets create our own CSS file and specify it via our browser settings later.


* {
  color: #000 !important;
  background: #fff !important;
}

a {
  text-decoration: underline !important;
  color: #fff !important;
  background: #000 !important;
}


the !important specifier must be present on your CSS codes to tell the browser its important and must override the other CSS codes.

Using Internet Explorer navigate to 

• Tools -> Internet Options
• Click on the Accessibility button
• Place a check on the 'Format documents using my style sheet' option
• Browse to the location where you saved your CSS file above.
• then click OK

If you are using Firefox go to your profile folder and edit your userCrome.css file of your userContent.css file. just copy-paste the CSS code above to the bottom portion of the file.

Stompernet just released a firefox extension that displays the rank of a site on the top 3 search engines namely, Google, Yahoo and Live. I'm a fan of the StomperNet videos myself and i believe this tool is a good addition to most seo professionals. Stomper Ranker tool allows you to easily see your competitors in ranks in a graphical view based on the search keyword we use. The green represents Google, Red is Yahoo and Blue is Live. Just hover your mouse pointer to each dot to see which site is currently performing well on the ranks. The line denotes the same site url.

You may download the Stomper Ranker extension at the StomperNet site.

Its rainy season here and it rains everyday. Downtown is flooded, i guess Davao needs a better sewer system. Yesterday, i wasn't able to go to the office on time due to the flood.

Anyway, i was in the office when the rain came. it was hard and noisy so took a glance unto the office window to see if its starting to flood.

Across the building i noticed 2 female high school students at Ateneo de Davao removing their shoes (still on uniforms). Then suddenly, they ran into the rain towards a nearby shelter. At first, i thought, they were just happy it rained and they try to take bath. But they were still carrying their shoes?

How come you are more concerned about your shoes than what could possibly happen to your feet? Getting hit by something sharp or maybe something dull with tetanus is much more costly compared to a wet shoe. I really doubt if those girls only have 1 pair of shoe considering they are enrolled in an expensive school. In the end, i closed the windows and said to myself, "those girls are just plain dumb".

Sky Rider! That's what they call it.

When i first tried it, i must admit it's kinda scary. I mean, you can see tall pine trees below you and all the people as tiny as ants as you make your way across. If you'll try to shout, you will find yourself running out of voice for the distance between the two towers is i think equivalent to 200 meters long.

The Sky Rider! zip line is situated outside the Eden Nature Park opposite of the main gate just beside the soccer field. It has two 60 foot tower facing each other with two suspension cables mounted on the top of each tower going to the other.

Each ride costs PhP150, that is a ride from one tower to the other and back. Each ride is an approximately 20 seconds of heart pounding and a breath taking adventure. For safety reasons, you will be equipped with a helmet and a set of body straps that is then attached to the cable. As you make your way down going to the other side of the tower, you will hear the rolling and the ripping sound of the cable as you move along the line.

For a more enjoyable ride, try not to close your eyes. If you can stretch your arms wide, then do it. Just try not to touch the cables.