Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady of Maravillas. Part Two.

In my last post, I included six photos taken outside the Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady of Maravillas, and inside the chapel.

The Monastery is located in Sibulan, directly across from the Dumaguete airport.

Here are the six additional photos, along with a Google map showing the location of the Monastery.

Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady of Maravillas. Part One.

Just as one passes the Dumaguete airport on the National Road, there is a small road on the right - sorry, but I don't know the name - where you'll find the Carmelite Monastery of Our Lady of Maravillas.

I don't know for certain when the Carmelite Monastery was built, but a plaque commemorating the 1977 completion of the chapel implies that the Monastery was built nineteen years before.

I recently went to the Monastery to take photographs. I was free to walk about the grounds, as well as inside the chapel. I did not attempt to learn if I would be able to take photos inside the actual Monastery.

Here are six of the photos taken that morning, along with a Google map showing the location. I will add an additional six photos in my next post.

New Blog Theme.

As those who have been here before can see, I've made some major changes to the theme of this blog. It isn't that I had great problems with the old theme - I rather liked it - but I felt that I needed to personalize the background with my own photo. Unfortunately, the theme I was using wouldn't allow for a background photo.

Part of this change is motivated by a need to make some drastic changes with the Dumaguete Website. The site is not "ready for prime time" when it comes to being mobile friendly. Even when viewed on a desktop PC, the website is less than stellar, but it's a disaster when viewd on a mobile device. I'm not a web designer; I know a little html, but when I try to follow Google's advice on making the website more "mobile friendly" I'm in way over my head.

I can't make heads or tails of it.

I own the url www.dumaguetecity.net and I tempted to create another blogspot blog designating that url as the destination. It would involve quite a bit of work......and thinking. The contract with my webhost still has about a year left. There isn't a deadline looming. Just my own sense of aesthetics.

Harolds Mansion - Dumaguete.

During my most recent walk about town taking photos, I took a couple of photos of Harolds Mansion.

I thought it was about time to change two of the photos used on the website. The photos that I had been using were not two that I had taken myself, but rather two photos I found on the Internet. These older photos had the outside of Harolds Mansion painted pink. As one can see from these new photos, Harolds Mansion is currently a light bluish green.

Not only did I replace these photos, but I removed a link to a website, which is no longer active.

In addition to these updates, I've included a Google map to Harolds as well.

Our Mother of Perpetual Help Redemptorist Church

As chronicled in yesterday's post [The Rollin' Pin] I spent a good deal of time last Tuesday, walking around the city, taking photographs for the Dumaguete website.

In that post, I mentioned my stopping at a little cafe for coffee and pastry. Later on in my journey, I also stopped at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Redemptorist Church for another respite. This is the Catholic parish where my wife, my son and myself attend Mass. We enjoy this particular church because, not only is it a beautiful building in a beautiful location, but many of the Masses are in English.

Several years ago, I took a few photos of the church which made their way onto the website but I didn't really take enough photos to do justice.

While I was at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Redemptorist Church Tuesday, I took 20 additional photos. I've added those photos to photo section of the website this morning. Clicking on the individual JPEGs will take one to a larger image.

In addition to the photos, I placed a Google map on the page to lead folks to the church should they desire to visit. I've also placed the map below.

The Rollin' Pin.

Tuesday, the day after writing my last post on this blog, I went into Dumaguete to take photographs which might end up, in one way or another, on the Dumaguete website.

Starting on Rizal Blvd., I made a snake-like path to Harolds Mansion, then a left on Amigo, left on Mango Ave. to Aldecoa Dr. by Silliman Univ. Hospital up to Real.

This was on foot.

Before Cang's, I took a tricycle back to Perdices. It was quite the exercise.

Early in my adventure, I took a left off Flores - which up until now, I believed to still be Rizal Blvd.-. This little road had no name that I could find on any Google map of the area. For those familiar with the area, you'll find the Charles Bachelor Building and Calderon Hall.

It was on this little road - next to DSS Fireworks- that I came upon a cafe called The Rollin' Pin. As one can see by the photo, The Rollin' Pin specializes in coffee, pastry and snacks. I couldn't resist the urge to stop in for said pastry and coffee.

I had the coffee, of course and a deliciously flaky pastry that looked a like a cinnamon roll - without the cinnamon. It was called a Norwegian something or other. I can't recall the exact name.

My little snack was very enjoyable. However, the most surprising thing about The Rollin' Pin was their choice of music playing in the background.

Voodoo Chile from Jimi Hendrix' 1968 Electric Ladyland  LP.

For anyone interested in finding this wonderful little cafe, I've included a Google map showing the location of DSS Fireworks. I've since learned that the name of the street is Cantada St.


Update:  I just learned that the cafe has it's own Facebook page.

Dumaguete Map Generator.

I'm sorry to say that I haven't been doing such a good job updating this blog or updating the Dumaguete website either.

Today, however, I came across something online which should spur a bit more activity on my part. I've located a source online which will enable me to add Google Maps to my web pages.

Below, you can see a Google Map showing the location of Silliman University.

Now, let's get to work.

On the site from maps-generator

Philippine Independence Day

In celebration of Philippine Independence Day (June 12), Google has incorporated the Filipino flag onto the search page for google.com/ph.

For today, at least, you should be able to see it by clicking on https://g.co/doodle/zhqyeg.

As the Earth Spins 'round.

In my never ending attempt to improve my assorted web pages, I've managed to learn a little trick using GIMP.
From time to time, I've fooled around with little satirical news reports - attributed to Internet News Network (I.N.N.) and subsequently posted onto dumaguetecity.net. One such example is my Nashville Woman Injured In Cop versus Donut Truck Chase web page.

Up to this point, I had been using an image of a globe as the I.N.N. logo. The original is seen below.

Fooling around with GIMP today, I've figured out how to turn the original logo into a spinning globe, and create two globe logos spinning in opposite directions. Those two globes are below.

The new logos have already made their way onto the page linked to above. As I write this, I haven't yet put the new I.N.N. logos on all the I.N.N. pages.That's work for another day.

Dumaguete Website on Google Plus.

I received an email from one of the companies with which the website s an affiliate. - Hotwire.com.

The email was to inform me that Hotwire would soon disconnect their affilation with Linkshare and if I wanted to stay with Hotwire, I'd need to sign with another program. I attempted to do just that, but the company working with Hotwire (impactradius) would not accept my application.

I sent an email to the Hotwire rep, letting her know about my correspondence with impactradius and my decision to remove all Hotwire ads from my website, not waiting until the official transfer date. Removing all their ads was no picnic, but it's done.

On another note, I've one of my Google email accounts to set up "Dumaguete City" on Google+, which I'll be using to upload photos and promote this blog - which in turn, is being used to promote my website.

The link to the Google+ account can be found here.

Further Modifications.

Yesterday, I began to make changes to the Dumaguete Website following some of the suggestions from Google Webmaster Tools.

After a bit of trial and error, I was able to alter the index page to suit viewers using Androids. I wasn't completely happy with the page as seen from a desktop PC, but I was willing to compromise one for the other.

A problem arose when I looked at the site using Google Chrome, rather than Firefox. The Home page was a disaster.


I had to go back again, and try to make changes that would work on both browsers.

Some of the web pages will be more difficult modifying for viewing on mobiles; particular the pen pal websites. It's recommend that the buttons on a webpage should be large enough to accommodate fingers on a mobile phone screen. That was easy enough on a page with relatively few buttons, but the pen pal page, as it's designed, has 35 buttons.

I'll have to give serious thought to how I'll set up the new page.

Modifications on the Dumaguete Website.

This morning I received an email from Google Webmaster Tools informing me that -

"Google systems have tested 61 pages from your site and found that 100% of them have critical mobile usability errors. The errors on these 61 pages severely affect how mobile users are able to experience your website. These pages will not be seen as mobile-friendly by Google Search, and will therefore be displayed and ranked appropriately for smartphone users."

I inspected the mobile issues and I've corrected some, but there are too many (according to Google) for me to fix all the errors right away.

I'm not even certain that I can fix them all.

At any rate, I've resized the buttons on index page, re-centered the page, and compressed a few images. That has helped some of their "desktop issues", but not all the mobile ones.

I'll have to work on this a bit at a time.