Seeing "green" on the Dumaguete website

My Internet browser of choice is Firefox.Not long after I started the Dumaguete website I installed the Google tool bar onto the browser.With it, I am able to see the page ranking of the sites I visit.It's a little bar space that defaults white but becomes different levels of green to show the ranking....the more green you see the higher the ranking.For the longest time, the page ranking for the website has been pitifully white with no green what-so-ever.Today, I noticed that after the last "crawling" but the Google robots, a bit of green has started to appear.I'm even starting to see green on the sorryalltheclevernamesaretaken blog and the meditation blog too.Sadly, the blog you are reading now isn't showing any green at all.

Another blog added to the Dumaguete website

A few days ago, I came upon an interesting blog written by a woman-a wife and mother- in Dumaguete. The blog is entitled Losing Maia. I've commented on her blog posts one of my other blogs and today I added a link to her blog on the Dumaguete Blogosphere page.I hope everyone enjoys reading what she has to say.

On the recent fire in Dumaguete

On this page and on the website as well, one will find links to other blogs about Dumaguete that I find worthwhile reading. It's impossible for me to have any idea just how many of my visitors read these other blogs. In two of these blogs there is mention of a recent fire in Dumaguete on the corner of Perdices Street and Silliman Avenue .For those of you who haven't read these blogs or have not heard about this fire, I'd you to go to archive pages for villageidiotsavant and jaydejaresco to read their respective commentaries.There are "before and after" photos in Jay Dejaresco's blog.You can also read about the fire in Visayan Daily Star.

External links on the Dumaguete website

Maintaining a website can be challenging and frustrating.I want to keep the site fresh with links to keep the visitors entertained.Sometimes in this effort,I will include links to sites that are outside of my control.This is the case with the Live Radio link on the index page and ,of course,most of the blogs on the Blogosphere page.The radio link doesn't always do as it should and I'm still having problems with the negrosislandonline blog.I'm going to wait until this weekend before I decide about removing them.The Internet is wonderful but sometimes it seems like it has a life of it's own.

Sending text messages to Dumaguete

I want to say from the beginning that this is not an advertisement.I am not getting paid or compensated in any way for this post. I am merely expressing my opinion.Anyone who has had any contact with someone in Philippines knows of the widespread use of text messaging as a means of communication.Unlike in the U.S., text messaging in Philippines is relatively cheap......especially compared to what they'd have to pay to call and talk to someone.One of the best ways for people in other countries to stay in daily contact with friends and loved ones in Philippines is to send messages from your home PC to their cell phone in Philippines. I highly recommend to everyone that they go to chikka.com and download their messenger.We've been using it for years and are very pleased with the speed and reliability. I know that there are other messengers that you can use and I'm sure they work very well but I am very familiar with this one and have no complaints with this company.It's a lot cheaper than international long distance phone calls and since they don't have to be in an Internet cafe, you can chat more often.It's free from the PC side and the rate for the cell phone user is reasonable.

Always a lot of work to do on the Dumaguete website

As can be seen from this photo, I am always hard at work.I noticed yesterday that this new radio station on the main page was having the "singing chipmunk" problem so I've changed the link. Same station coming from different site.I took another look at the  Blogosphere  page after yesterday's posting and found a few problems that have now been corrected.I also added a few more links to that page and made some re-arrangments.As always,it's a good idea for return visitors to refresh the pages.

A missing blog from the Dumaguete website.

When I first put the blog " negros island online " on the Dumaguete Blogosphere page the url was http://negrosilandonline.blogspot.com . A day or so ago I looked at the blog and learned that the domain had changed to http://www.negrosislandonline.com/. Today I find that using either url results in an ERROR 404 page not found.I don't know what the problem is but I will continue to leave the link as is for awhile. Maybe someone will let me know what's going on with the site.

Radio on the Dumaguete website

Even before my wife arrived in the U.S.,I would listen to Yes FM radio from Dumaguete over the Internet.When she came here she liked hearing radio from her home and the stream was a bookmark on our Winamp player.When I put together the Dumaguete website, I included a link to Yes FM but,as I mentioned in an earlier post,I had to remove the link because the station is no longer on the Internet.Sadly,we haven't been able to find another Dumaguete radio station.We've been listening to stations out of Manila and Cebu, but lately there's been a problem with those too.The music seems to be streaming very fast and the voices sound like chipmunks.We finally found a suitable station to put on the website....90.3 EnergyFM out of Dagupan.You'll find the link on the main page (it's the Marconi jpg).The station will open in a media player and you can continue to surf the Internet while you listen.Needless to say,it'll be best if you have cable or DSL.According to the Google Analytics,that shouldn't be a problem with most of the visitors to the site.

A blog review from the Dumaguete website

One of the new blogs listed on the Blogosphere page is humour and last laugh.A few days ago, a comment from a blogger was left on an earlier post. It’s my habit to look at websites and blogs of those who comment on my pages. I found his blog interesting enough to share with others. He is from Kathmandu,Nepal.The image used for his link on the Blogosphere page comes from here. It is of the Swayambhunath Stupa. In his profile, he mentions two authors. V.S. Naipaul and Samrat Upadhyay. Both are new to me, but after doing a Google on them, I decided they were worth looking into as well.

Updated pages on the Dumaguete website

I've finally gotten around updating the Dumaguete blogosphere page.I moved all the files from the Comcast server to Host Monster.I added a couple of links on the page as well.While I was at it, I made a couple of changes on the main page of the website.Those of you who've been there before may have to refresh your browser to see the differences.There doesn't seem much point in moving the pen pals page until the whole project is finished.I know the photos page needs work too but I haven't decided how I should approach it.I'm sure I'll be doing further updates as time goes by.

Occasional server problems on the Dumaguete website

It's been brought to my attention that occasionally,when trying to get to the website an "under construction" page will come up instead of the proper page.Corey sent a screen capture to me showing me the page.This was the page that originally came up before I contracted with a web Host.I'm thinking this error page is coming up when Host Monster's servers are down. I'm going to call them ASAP to find out what the problem is.Of course, the results of that exchange will appear on this blog. ( Thanks to Corey for the heads up).

Looking for blogs for the Dumaguete website

A few days ago I transferred the Hotels and Resorts page on the website from my ISP account to the regular website server.While I was at it, I added a couple of hotels to the page.Soon, I'll be transferring the Blogosphere page as well and I want to add a few more blogs to that section while I'm doing all that work.There are lots of great blogs to choose from.I'm not going to limit my picks to Dumaguete blogs. Because of the set-up of the Blogosphere page,I want to put in an image with the link to the blog.If the blogger has an image in his or her profile I can use it.....but some folks don't use any.It that case I'll have to put in an image that I think fits.I'd hate to omit a blog because there wasn't a suitable image.I just hope that whatever image I use is OK with the blogger.

Dumaguete blog versus the Dumaguete website

From it’s inception, I’ve looked at this blog as an extension of the dumaguetecity.net website. Its purpose is basically twofold. I hope to use it to drive visitors to the website and also, as a way of giving those already going to the site an update as to the progress being made on the site. Thanks to the wonder folks at Google and their Analytics program, I’m able to keep track of the hits going to the blog and the website. I find it interesting that the blog keeps getting fewer hits than the website. I’m not complaining….I am happy that so many people have gone to both places but to my mind, it seems that the blog has a bit more to offer when compared to the website. I try to put something new here as often as I can. There are incremental changes being made on the site but those changes are less noticeable. I’m not able at this point to do as much on the website as I’d like. The pen pal section has become a great disappointment to me. I can’t see how I can fix it until I go to Dumaguete. I’m not happy with the photos section either. I have more photos that I could add but these are pictures of family and friends…I don’t think the average visitor would be interested in them. One of my wife’s friends in Dumaguete has promised to send new photos but he has yet to do that. I guess I could troll the Internet looking for other folk’s photos but I won’t go that route. I hope that Cathy, J.P. & I can go home around Holy Week. I’ve been in Philippines during the Christmas season and arrived there once on Easter Sunday….but I would like to be there to experience Holy Week.

We really did test the waters at the Dumaguete website

It's not as if I don't have enough to do.Between my 3 blogs,the web site, my regular job and helping out at home I don't have a lot of spare time.Yesterday,I started doing a little experimenting with photo imaging effects.After working with a jpeg, I wanted to see how the photo looked on my 2 blogs........there are different backgrounds, after all.I didn't have anything in particular to write about.I started with the sorryalltheclevernamesaretaken blog.I entitled the entry "testing the waters".I uploaded the photo,wrote a bit of nothing. I published the entry;After seeing how the photo looked on the white background,I deleted the entry.I went over to this blog and did exactly the same thing.Later,out of curiosity,I searched the blogs for Dumaguete blogs.The sorryalltheclevernamesaretaken listing was shown correctly, but the search results showed my last entry on this blog as "testing the waters"....the deleted entry. Of course,when I clicked on the link it took me to an error message.I'm not quite sure why this one was wrong while the other blog was right.It seems to me they should both be wrong or both right-not one of each.

Dumaguete Website: Inside Baseball

Within the next few days,there will be a number of changes on the Dumaguete website.Most of these changes will probably go unnoticed the average visitor.This entry might appear to some as being "inside baseball". When I first put the site together,several of the pages were put on my ISP's free space with basically just the front page on my host's server.From a visual or content point of view,it really makes little difference on which server these secondary are located.But,I began to see some of these pages come up on a few search engines and the thought occurred to me that it would be better if all the pages were on the main server.This idea was confirmed by an email from Corey.I'll also make a few changes in the content while I'm transferring all this.I started working on the Hotels & Resorts page yesterday and the work involved is more than I anticipated....especially since I'm tending to my 1 year old while I work.

Happy 2007 from the Dumaguete website

We want to wish a Happy New Year to the hundreds of people who have visited the website and blogs in the past few months.We hope everyone from Arizona to Uzbekistan....from Cebu to Cincinnati have a glorious and fulfilling 2007.May God's blessing come to each one of you.We know that some who come to our website who are away from their loved ones.We truly wish that these people can be re-united soon.To all of you we say pag ayo ayo and we hope you will continue to stop by.