Literally, Philippines is already on Google map and now it became more prominent when Wayne Dell Manuel bested 700 other contestants to become the winner of the first Google Map Maker Global Competition.

Google’s first Global Mapping Competition ran from December 15 – January 31, 2010.  The scope of the competition was simple, the user who added the most universities, schools, hospitals, and medical clinics, with an emphasis on accurate data

According to Wayne, his dedication to mapping his homeland is motivated by helping others: “After the devastating typhoon Ketsana (local name Ondoy), a volunteer group used Google Maps to map distress calls, among other things, to facilitate rescue operations. I was so happy to see the roads that I’ve helped map were used to locate the houses.”

For his remarkable mapping efforts, Wayne has won a $50,000 UNICEF donation to benefit projects empowering young people through technology in the Philippines.

Please bear with me while blogdemanila.com is getting a facelift.  It has been ages already since this blog was given a makeover. It won’t be an extreme makeover but just simple upgrading and tweaking of the layout.

I’ve promised that I will use a custom theme for this blog, but due to unforeseen new projects that came-up, I don’t have the luxury of time to create my own theme anymore.

If you find anything unusual or awkward in this site, like broken links, missing posts and images, please be calm and patient.

If you have noticed that I seldom post here at blogdemanila.com, this is due to some offline projects that I’m doing . It doesn’t mean that I’m going to quit blogging. No, never!  It won’t happen.

In fact, I’ve already lined-up some topics that I’m going to post like basics of blogging, link building, adsense tips, seo techniques and services that blogdemanila will offer.

So, please stay calm while I’m  fine-tuning and adjusting the layout of blogdemanila.com.

This is another cool free application guys. If you have small and home-based businesses, Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2009 can come in very handy for you.

Why 2009 and not 2010? It is for the reason that Microsoft is no longer distributing this very handy and useful software after November 2009, but you can still download it from other third-party websites such as download.cnet.com.

Microsoft Accounting Express

Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2009 is an easy-to-use accounting software that works with any of the existing Microsoft Office suite of applications, with which you can easily create invoices, track expenses and banks, and do a wide variety of accounting works which can help you easily manage your business.

Importing data from Office Excel, etc. is also pretty easy which lets you start from where you are. Just check out this Office Accounting Express 2009 – You won’t even have any difficulty working with its features and tools.

With the help of step-by-step wizard, you can even get your accounting tasks commenced immediately, and best of all, this Microsoft Office Accounting Express 2009 can come to you 100% free of cost!!

All it takes is just download Office Accounting Express 2009, and you can get started! This free version works with Windows XP/2003/Server/Vista.

However, of note, this free version is designed for US and UK based small business only and does not support requirement outside of these two countries.

Sometimes you come up with a great blog story. You know it will drive you a lot of traffic but you have a problem. No one knows about your great blog post.

In order to get maximum attention you need to spread the word around. This is where the social / bookmark networks come handy.

Bill Gate is using the technology. Mircosoft is taking advantage of this new marketing strategy. What about you? Are you harnessing the power of social networks?

Social Network Logos

What is a social / bookmark network?

It’s a place where you can share your stories or blogs and network or bookmarks with others. Take Digg and StumbleUpon for example. You submit your blog story to the network, allowing other members to vote and comment on it. More popular stories that receive a certain number of votes get promoted to the front page. Most social networks are different. Some even allow you to export a large number of bookmarks straight from your browser.

Why social networks?

1) Social networks get a lot of traffic due to their nature. Users often return to read the latest stories and share their own.

2) Readers are usually only one click away from your blog. A popular submission can bring you thousands of daily visitors.

3) Most social networks are free and take seconds to register and submit your first entry.

4) You will be surprised when you see the amount of other websites that use feeds from various social networks. A good story can spread across the network like wild fire.

5) If your story will not get to the front page you can always submit another one. In most cases there is no limit on the amount of stories you can submit.

6) Most social networks are search engine friendly. Not only your story will be picked up by major search engines in no time, in most cases you will also get a reciprocal link. Some social networks have very good google page rank (PR)

Tips and tricks:

1) An interesting, catchy story is often a must. Your main target is to get promoted to the front page by getting enough votes. You need to convince other readers to vote for your story. Strange, shocking and controversial stories often do well.

2) You can always ask your friends to join and vote for you in order to get more votes. Don’t create fake accounts because you will simply get banned.

Secret tip: Form an alliance with other bloggers and vote for each other’s work.

3) The more stories you submit the better. If you want a steady flow of traffic you will need a steady flow of submissions.

4) Just enjoy your experience. I certainly find it more interesting compared to other methods of blog promotion, such as link development.

Social networking sites are useful, aside for their marketing potential,  but as a way of keeping in touch not just with your friends but with your universe of friends.

There are a lot of various social networks around. Simple search on google should do the trick.

Entrecard recently opened it’s network to virtually everyone. I’m sure most of the Entrecard members are already aware of this changes. According to Entrecard’s announcement, they are opening the system so bloggers can also network with regular website owners too.

I think one of the reason for this is that, by opening the network to regular website, they might also be looking for “other opportunities” to make the site profitable. I can’t see nothing wrong on this. It may even bring positive outcome later on, not only to Entrecard owners but to the whole community as well. This is what Adgitize is doing and I’m not against it. Let’s face the fact, business needs to profit too! Without a profit then there’s no business at all.

One of the  advantages of Adgitize over EC is your points (credits) are automatically converted to cash.

Entrecard is an advertising exchange network for bloggers (and non-blog too, now)  which holds the promise of boosting traffic by visiting other sites. Blogs or normal sites doesn’t matter because when you really want to gain more traffic in Entrecard network, you are suppose to reciprocate a visit.

Be a paparazzi and win at least Php 20,000 Cash + 1 Year’s Supply of Real Leaf!

Real Leaf launches its Paparraz-Tea blogger contest, open to all the bloggers of the Nuffnang Network!

Mechanics of the Contests:

1. This contest is open to all Nuffnangers and will run until January 31, 2010.
2. To join, bloggers must take a picture of a person drinking Real Leaf and create a blog entry about it explaining:

• Why the person was drinking Real Leaf
• The situation the person was in

3. Each blog entry must have the uniform title: “Real Leaf Paparazzi”.

4. Once you’ve published your entry, drop an email to realleafteacontest@gmail.com with a link to your post so we can keep track of it!

5. Entries will be judged by the following criteria:

• Creativity of photo: 30%
• Creativity of write-up: 30%
• Popularity of blog post: 30%
• Brand fit: 10%

6. Only one entry per blogger will be allowed for this contest.

7. Winners shall be notified via email and phone call.

Cash Prizes :

• First prize: Php 20,000 Cash + 1 Year’s Supply of Real Leaf
• Second prize: Php 15,000 Cash + 1 Year’s Supply of Real Leaf
• Third prize: Php 10,000 Cash + 1 Year’s Supply of Real Leaf
• Consolation Prizes (blog entries ranked 4-10): Real Leaf Product Bundle + Premium Item

Catch a Real Leaf now and be your own paparazzi!

Imagine a world where all of your questions about making money online are addressed one by one, in a series of full-length videos.

Jeremy Schoemaker’s ShoeMoney System is about to be released to the public and he’s got some incredible content to share with students.

Check out his story: http://www.shoemoneysystem.com/its-coming

Jeremy has been releasing great content every week towards the launch.  One of my favorite videos is the one where he talks about the 6 ways to make money online: http://www.shoemoneysystem.com/6ways

I love how Jeremy breaks things down and explains it in a way anyone can follow.

The real Bill Gates is now on Twitter.

The former boss but still  part-time chairman of Microsoft has officially joined Twitter and becoming one of the most popular members.  On his first tweet,  Bill Gates only has 241 followers in three hours and swelled to 150,000 followers after 13 hours.

One of those who officially welcomed was actor Ashton Kutcher – the “unofficial” ambassador of Twitter.

“Thanks to you and all the other people who have welcomed me,” Gates tweeted to Kutcher. “I’ve got a lot to learn about Twitter but look forward to sharing more.”

There have previously been numerous fake accounts and impostors attributed to Bill Gates.  His Twitter account, if you want to follow him, is @BillGates.  According to  Twitter,  @BillGates — is noted as being “verified” and real.

@BlogDeManila is now following Bill Gates too!

Mye,  a blogger friend of mine informed me about the Wordpress scheduled post problem and asked for my help.  She experienced it when she installed the latest Wordpresss 2.9 version. The installation was successful except that, her setup of scheduled post were not publishing.

I know how important scheduled posts are specially for those who are into Project 365 (it’s a project wherein you post about your daily activities or take a pictures of what you are doing) , and don’t forget the members of Adgitize who are trying to post every day in order to get more points ( and more earnings).

For those who haven’t experienced a missed Wordpress post schedule, here’s how it looks like:

The normal status of a post are published, scheduled, pending review and draft . As you can see from the captured screen the status of the post is “Missed Schedule”.

How To Fix The WordPress Scheduled Post Problem

1. Good news! Wordpress developers were alerted of this bug as soon as they uploaded the 2.9. If you installed this version, all you have to do is install the Wordpress 2.9.1. It fixed this missed schedule problem and more.
2. If you are not using WP 2.9 and yet you are experiencing this problem, I recommend that you use a plugin.

2.1 Scheduled MIA – a Wordpress plugin that looks for posts with a date in the past and that still have post_status=future.
2.2. Missed Schedule – It runs automatically every 15 minutes and will publish “future” posts in database.

I just want to tell you my dear readers, that not all bugs can be seen by the developers of Wordpress.  Remember that Wordpress is an open source application written by hundreds of contributors. The least we can do is be patient  and report the bugs encountered. Wordpress needs your help too!

Best WordPress Theme

If you rely on your blog for the food in your table, I highly recommend that “never upgrade without doing a local test”. Setting up a local test is very easy, but this is not our topic for today. I might just blog about that in the future.

Happy Blogging 2010 everyone!

Just arrived the other day after spending a vacation in a paradise with my wife and 2 kids. We had so much fun traveling in the country side,  seeing various landmarks and spending our time mostly in the sun.

We trekked a hidden falls, time traveled to an old community, rode a horse drawn carriage ( or calesa), crossed various streams of water, hiked a lighthouse, basked in the sun and MORE!

Let our travel photos tell the story!

Our first stop over (after driving for almost 1o hours) was actually riding on a horse drawn carriage or what we call in the Philippines, calesa.

As you can see from the picture our tour guide or coachman is actually a lady! I asked her why is she the one doing the job and she told me that her husband is sick.

First, we visited this old bell tower wherein a popular Philippine movie (“Ang Panday“  or The Blacksmith in English) was shot . We entered this tower and went up to see the giant bells. From the top, you can see  360° picturesque view of the town .

And then we went to view this art of making pot (burnay is the local term they are using).

Next in our “time travel”, we walked along this historic town passing through centuries old buildings. The whole city is declared a Unesco World Heritage City. It is well preserved and exceptionally intact.

Since it’s already past 3PM, we decided to embark on our next journey which  will be our real destination before it gets dark.

After driving for 2.5 hours, finally, we’ve found the paradise (at least for me and my family).  The sun is about to set when we reached the place,  just the perfect time to catch a glimpse of the sunset.

BlogDeManila.com is not  a travel blog BUT I just want to share the beauty that my eyes have seen, and so, I hope you don’t mind if I’ll share more pictures of the paradise that my kids called “our temporary home” for almost a week.