February Updates on the Dumaguete Website

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've had to make some changes involving a web hosting company for my website, dumaguetecity.net.

As I write this, I've published 20 pages highlighting hotels and resorts in the area, and spas in Dumaguete which provide massage services. For the most part, most of the information posted online comes from my earlier website. However, I have added two hotels which were not on the previous incarnation of the Dumaguete website and all the information pertaining to the spas is newly acquired.

One lesson learned from yesterday's mission. At my first stop, I asked for permission to photograph one of the hotel rooms for a website. I was turned down......manager's approval was needed and blah, blah, blah. At the next hotel, I simply asked to see a room and took photos while there - without asking.

Although the themes to the website and this blog "> are similar - and the background photo is identical - there are some differences in the two themes. The area for posting within this blog is narrower than the space in the website posting area. Because of that, I can attach larger Google ads on the website compared to the ads I can post here. I have posted duplicate entries on both locations but have had to adjust the script for the ads used.

Today being Sunday, I won't be making any trips into town for the website. I do plan, however to visit a number of businesses Monday for information and photos. That information will go online probably Monday evening.

Updates on the Website

I've managed to get a few posts involving hotels and resorts in the Dumaguete area onto the dumaguetecity.net website. My plan is to get more hotels listed before moving on to another category. Catering to visitors to Dumaguete, rather than locals, I will try to develop Labels and categories which might appeal to foreigners.......not only Hotelsand Resorts, but Restaurants and Spas (where massage is available).

During the last few days, I've been unable to start on this project due to a SNAFU with Immigration. Fortunately, I should be able to start working on this tomorrow.

New Website Up and Running

For several years, I've owned the domain name dumaguetecity.net. For the first few years, I had the web hosting done by the same company that registers my domain name. However, when company A began charging too much for their web hosting, I changed over to company B for the hosting while keeping the registry with company A.

I recently received an email from company B letting me know that my current billing cycle would end March 15 - the dreadful Ides of March, no less. The price to renew was much more than I was willing to pay to continue having the hosting done by company B.

My original goal with this website was to try and make a few bucks with Affiliate ads and Google AdSense. For a couple of years, this was breaking even. I was getting enough revenue to, at least, pay my web hosting fee. Unfortunately, the web site has not brought in any money in quite a long time.

To make matters worse, my web design capabilities have not kept up with the upsurge in mobile web surfing. I was never able to get the hang of designing a site that was "mobile friendly".

I looked at the situation, and decided to cancel my hosting account with company B at the end of the current billing cycle and use Google's blogger.com (where this blog is located) to host the domain name as a "blog".

It's free....and free is good.

After setting up a new blog called dumaguetecitynet, I was instructed by Google to go to the domain registry site and change the DNS (CNAME) in order to redirect traffic from dumaguetecity.net to the blogger.com address.

Easier said than done.

I went onto company A's website and made the changes as given by Google. I was told changes could take 24 hours. After 36 hours, I began a live chat with a rep from company A. I was told that I'd have to contact company B to make the changes. I was to contact the hosting company not the company that registered the domain name.

After a couple of on line chats with Ron, the tech from company B, I was finally able to get everything up and running.

Now, when you go to dumaguetecity.net, you're led where I want you to go.

Fortunately, the website is now mobile friendly.

Upcoming Changes to the Website are in the Works.

I have had difficulties with my website, www.dumaguetecity.net.

For the most part, I've been trying to design the website myself with my limited knowledge of html. Unfortunately, with the rise of mobile usage and the overall decline of desktop pc surfing, I've haven't done such a good job keeping up. Google has let me know in uncertain terms that the website is not mobile friendly.

It will be three years in March since I last renewed my account with a web hosting company and the agreement expires on March 15. I've decided that rather than renew the account, I will cancel my business relationship with Webhostingpad  and use Google's blogspot site to host dumaguetecity.net from now on. I've been using a different company to keep my domain name registered. I'll continue to use that 2nd company.

Using the blogspot site with their themes, I'll be able to have the website both mobile and pc friendly, although I'll need to made a few adjustments on how I manage the pages. That will take some thought.

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.

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

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.

Button, Button. Who's Got the Button?

Having just recently learned how to make a proper html    I spent a couple of days re-doing the nearly three dozen pen-pal affiliate pages. The work wasn't difficult, but merely time consuming.

This led me to do an update to the Dumaguete Photos page, and an over-haul of the index page.

Of course, now I'll have to update the Hotels and Resorts page. That section is probably the most frequently visited section on the website, and it's really in need of work. I should be able to get more information on the hotels in the area now that I'm here in Dumaguete full time.

Bud and Billy Ray Not "Buds".

For those who have been following the adventures of Bud Tugley and Miley Cyrus: we have Bud and Billy Ray Not "Buds".

Bud Tugley Weds Miley Cyrus.

After Friday's blog post, where I wrote of my parody news article reporting the the man from Alabama winning the Georgia lottery, I've posted a continuation of Bud Tugley's story and his recent marriage to Miley Cyrus.

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I wish the lovely couple all the best.

Alabama Man Wins GA Lottery.

One of the cool things about having my own website is that it gives me the opportunity to experiment and be a bit creative. Even though this website is primarily devoted the the actual city of Dumaguete, it is my website after all, and I can feel free to do with it as I like.

Over the years, I've used the site to try my hand at design.......making my own parody web news site, where I could fool around.

One of those parody pages was called Alabama Man Wins Georgia Lottery. I got a few laughs - mostly from myself - when I used the link on my other blog, Sorry, All The Clever Names Are Taken.

It's been a long time since this parody page has been online. I've had to update it a little. Now, I suppose it's as ready as it will ever be. So, here you have - Alabama Man Wins Georgia Lottery.

St. Paul University Dumaguete Founders' Day Photos.

I've made a number of updates on the DumagueteCity.net website over the past few days. One of the more subtle changes was the use of a new background image for the menu. I had been using a dark, navy blue image, but after seeing a red gif. on another website, I thought I'd swipe the red one, and put up on the website.

The most productive updates, I think, are the updates to the photos section. I've updated the old pages and added another photos page - St. Paul University Founders' Day -.

A few of the older photos pages are in desperate need of additional photos. Needless to say, the current section of the boulevard is pitiful. That's a project that can be taken care of, hopefully, within the next week.

Additional Buglasan Photos on the Dumaguete Website.

In my seemingly never ending effort to keep my website, dumaguetecity.net up to date, I've added 30 Buglasan Parade photos to the website's Photos area.

A dozen of the photos have already made their way onto, an earlier post on this blog. In my latest series of updates to the Photos area, I've also made changes to Around Quezon Park,St. Paul University, DowntownDumaguete, and Mary Immaculate.

At present, the Photos area has 10 sections - or pages. Five have been updated within the last few days, with five more to go.

All I can say is, stay tuned.

Today's Updates.

Continuing along with the changes mentioned in yesterday's post, I've updated the index page to the Dumaguete website.

Among the changes, I've removed the links to Philippine radio stations and replaced those with links to the websites for the Dumaguete City government, Silliman University and St. Paul's University.

I've also removed everything on the index page referring to the now defunct Blogosphere page. That page just wasn't working. I still need to go to other pages on the website to eliminate any other references to that page as well.

I've also created a Facebook page for this blog. The link to that can be seen on the right.

Updated Photos on the Dumaguete Website.

Having gone far too long without creating any updates for The Dumaguete Website , I finally spent time today making changes to the Photos page and the assorted links on that page.

The updated pages are:

1)Mary Immaculate Parish Church
2)Around Quezon Park
3)DowntownDumaguete
4)Our Mother Of Perpetual Help Redemptorist Church
5)Saint Catherine Cathedral
6)Along the Boulevard

In addition to these six updated pages, I've added three new pages to the Photos section.The three are:

St.Paul University
Silliman Parade 2014
Buglasan Parade 2014

I'm planning on adding more photo page links in the near future.The website needs a good going over. Expect more updates soon.

Further Updates on the Dumaguete Website.

It's been two years since I've done any serious updates onto the Dumaguete website.

One of the top affiliate advertisers for the site, Cupid Media, recently informed me that there would be major changes to their ad links. If I wanted to continue my affiliation with the company, I'd have to update my links.



This is a major undertaking.

I'd have change links on all the Hotels & Resorts pages, the Affiliates page and several pages in the Pen Pals section.

Thankfully, I've completed most of the work. There are still a few loose ends to tidy up, but I should have it all completed by Cupid Media's deadline.