What is one thing that matters a whole lot on the Internet? I’m sure most of you will readily answer: customer support. Fast, reliable, intelligent customer service. Netizens abandon many Internet-based providers, which eventually fall by the wayside and die, because of poor customer relations practices.
I happen to like what MyBlogLog does, and I remember a time when my emails were answered quite promptly and personably by the people running it. Now it’s under Yahoo. And twice now I’ve received slow, undependable and, well, not very intelligent support responses.
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Tagged: customer service, MyBlogLog, Yahoo
If you’re using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin to follow WordPress to its latest version, here’s something that you should know. While it’s quick and thorough, the operation isn’t as complete as I’d first thought. You see, one of the new security features of WordPress 2.5, salted passwords, might not be available to you if you use the WPAU plugin.
Salted passwords, to explain simply, are passwords that are encrypted with the use of a secret key. This makes your WP install a whole lot more secure, and protects you from having your passwords hacked in case someone gains access to your database. If you were upgrading to WP v2.5 manually, you would define this secret key in your wp-config.php file.
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Tagged: blog security, salted passwords
Finally, my blogs are on WordPress 2.5. Well, at least this one and my Davao blog. The others will follow soon, and, it won’t take me as much time as I’d feared. Thanks to my friend, I’m able to shift effortlessly to the latest version with the help of a very convenient plugin that automates WP upgrading.
So far, I haven’t run into any major problems with my themes or plugins being incompatible with WP2.5. There were minor stuff, like outmoded WP template tags embedded in the themes that I had to manually update.
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Tagged: blog maintenance, useful plugins
Janette Toral, in her ongoing projects to bring recognition to various entities who are making their mark in the Philippine ICT arena, has published the next round of Top 100 Philippine blogs. Take a look here.
As you might see, MindanaoBloggers.com is again on the list of the Philippines Top 100 Blogs by Blog Juice. Janette has chosen Blog Juice to measure blogs’ ranks. Our community blog’s nutritional value is 3.6 — I gather this is pretty high. And in Janette’s list, we’re at #20!
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Tagged: blog metrics, Mindanao Bloggers
Today I downloaded and installed Windows Live Writer, and I have a feeling from now on (if I do get the hang of this), I’m going to use this neat program for posting to my 
blogs. Thanks to my friends in the Microsoft community here in Davao for telling me about this piece of software.
The most readily visible advantage of Live Writer is that I get to post using an interface that’s comfortably familiar — quite akin to MS Word, in fact. The way the editor is laid out gets you right at home the moment you start using it. (Take a look at the screen shot.)
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Tagged: blogging software, Windows Live Writer
Well, it’s finally here! WordPress version 2.5 has been released today. That prompt that has been familiar since WP2.3 is now patiently waiting on the dashboard: “A new version of Wordpress is available! Please update now.”
Not that I’m going to upgrade right away. Although I did beta-test it, and had gotten to see a lot of the bug fixes and stuff, I’m still wary of shifting to the new version. ••• Read on»
Tagged: upgrade, WordPress plugins, WordPress themes
Say hello to the new look and feel of the Davao Blogs Directory! I created this directory of blogs in February 2007, so it’s now a year old and then some. Happily, the Directory has achieved its goal: to become the definitive repository of blogs about Davao and/or by Dabawenyos.
This Directory lists blogs from all over the city and the region of Davao. Or, blogs that talk about Davao in one way or another. ••• Read on»
Tagged: blog directory, Davao
Recently I had an unpleasant — but thankfully brief — exchange of clashing opinions regarding a tenet I’ve always held high: Content is King. For more than a decade (ever since I started developing websites, in fact), I’ve been espousing this belief, which I’d previously thought everybody else subscribed to as well. Apparently not.
This blogger (!) caught my attention when he remarked that content wasn’t supreme, because it was links that ruled. I couldn’t help but be irked by this careless remark.
I don’t want to write a dissertation here, so I’ll just briefly state my case. ••• Read on»
Tagged: blogging best practices, content development
Winston of BatangYagit.com has published a video of me on YouTube! Yay! Here’s a screen-cap of the video:
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Tagged: gadget reviews, You Got Tech, YouTube
I’d long wanted to get logos for my various blogs, but other stuff got in the way (like, how to eke out a living and such). Then the other day I chanced upon an old CorelDraw file of the Davao Blogspace logo, which was created by Eric Su. Although it’s nothing new in the blogosphere anymore, personally, I still find the callout bubble design rather catchy.
It was Entrecard that’s to be blamed. After signing up months ago, it was only very recently that I got around to setting it up. And I found that people actually spruce up their 125×125s… That’s what got me hankering for logos again. So I tried to muster as much creativity as I could and came up with a concept. It didn’t pan out as I’d imagined, but a friend commented that the composition was OK. Whew! ••• Read on»
Tagged: blog promotions, logo design
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