Detour
noun

1. a roundabout way; deviation from a direct way
2. a route used when the direct or regular route is closed to traffic
3. departure from an established ideology or party line

Yes, my dear readers, BlogDeManila is deviating from it’s mission.

BlogDeManila was established on September 2008. After 3 long years of” blogging for bloggers,” I decided to deviate from it’s original mission of “helping other people blog smartly”. It has been a journey of ups and downs, full of adventure quests.

I personally  believe (unless you will disagree with me), that I’ve been successful in the mission that I’d planned to accomplish 3 year ago. I shared my knowledge to my loyal readers and in return I’ve learned a lot from them as well.

I’ve told my wife that I want to put a personal blog. A different one from the way I’m presenting my posts here at BlogDeManila. Unfortunately, she did not agree  on my plan. She told me that I’m already managing different niches of blogs and I don’t have the time anymore to put up a personal blog. Instead, she told me to turn BlogDeManila into a personal blog. I don’t want to argue with her so I agreed on her plan. I think she’s right. All I have to do is to write more personal post here instead of putting another blog.

And so, I decided (no, my wife decided for me) to inject  more post with personal touch  here. Note that BlogDeManil is only on a detour and not a complete turn around. I’m still going to write post blog for bloggers like SEO, make money online, web hosting, affiliate marketing, adsense, wordpress and more. I also decided to put additional monetizing methods here, perhaps pay per post or Adsense. I hope you don’t mind me earning from my post,do you?

Please continue to support me in this adventure. Give me a big clap if you agree on my new route or frown if you don’t agree.

Perhaps you noticed that I haven’t posted anything about blogging in all my previous posts.  The last topic that I’ve written about blogging was my article on Google PageRank Update which is almost a 2-month old post already.

To tell you frankly, I’m was busy with 3 things.

1. I just accomplished my first ever century bike ride last Sunday. It was a grueling 190 kilometers ride around Laguna De Bay.  It took us 14 hours to cover the whole distance. If you divide 190 kilometers by 14 hours, you will get 13.57. It means we were only traveling at a speed of 13.57 kilometers per hour.

Why so slow? Because we used mountain bikes and not a road bike. The endless uphills and incline roads somewhere in Quezon province and some parts of Laguna tested our strength and endurance.

With My Bike Buddies

To give you some statistics about this ride of mine, if you may:

1. This is my first century ride. A century is any ride that goes beyond 100 kilometers.
2. I drank 1 cup of coffee during our breakfast.
3. I gulped a total of 2 liters of Gatorade.
4. I drank a total of 4 liters of water.
5. I also tried drinking an energy drink and half-liter of soda  for my sugar needs.
6. I have traveled a total of more than 3,000 kilometers on my 1 year of bike riding – mostly trail biking.

Am I going to repeat this craziness? You bet I will! My next goal is to go somewhere either in Batangas or Aurora and perhaps Baguio by early next year.

2. I’m busy with my work. Really toxic.

This is the reason why I’m into biking. To release the stress I’m experiencing right now in my work.

Last week we started to migrate our project into a new system. And, I have one of the biggest responsibility for the migration.

Our company is into processing Short Messaging System or SMS and emails as well. Not only here in the Philippines but all around the world. I’ve developed the module for receiving and sending all of the messages that are passing through our servers. My program is parsing hundred of thousands of messages and if something goes wrong even for just one message, the fault is on me.

I’m actually monitoring our system for almost 24 hours. I’m even peeking in our servers while writing this post. So much for this, I’m actually under a contract  in our company not to disclose any information on what I’m doing. AHA!

3. I’m busy developing a new website with blog.

Mind you this is not a paid project but a free one.  I’m actually will be having a dinner meeting tomorrow with my client.

Building a website can be a daunting task at times specially when your clients doesn’t know what kind of website they really want to setup. Good thing I started this project using WordPress as the foundation. Not only I’m at ease with WP but I’m also using a tool that can magically turn a website or blog into a new look by just clicking and dragging the objects or elements of the site.

If you are curios about this magical tool that I’m talking about, check it HERE. With this new revolutionary tool, you will be able to produce the most amazing sites you can. I promise you can design a new site down to a few steps, POINT, CLICK, DRAG, DROP & SAVE.  And it is truly that simple.

July 2010 payment from Adgitize is my 20th already.

I was planning to  rephrase the title of this post to – “Received a Gross Profit of $403.87 from Adgitize“.

I’ll tell you why.

I just came back from Bohol and upon browsing my emails I saw the payment notification from PayPal . It’s not really big in comparison to other members. I’m just so happy to know from Adgitize founder, Ken Brown, when he pointed out on his blog that it’s my 20th payment  already. I was not even aware of it until Ken mentioned it.

So I’d checked my earnings on Adgitize dashboard and here’s what I saw on the Payment Page (I deleted the date and payment method to shorten the post):

Payment Amount: 13.55

The biggest payment I received for a single month was $35.81  on January of this year. Let’s do a quick calculation here:

+Gross Payment = $403.87
* Investment=$14 x 20= $280

where:

+ what I received from Adgitize
* $14 is what I invested to Adgitize as an Adverstiser and 20 is the total number of months

But wait…I’d signed up as an advertiser two months after I received my first 2 payments, so we should deduct 2 months from my total investment.

Investment=$14 x 18= $252

But wait..there’s more. I also joined a contest wherein I won a 1 month free from Adgitize. Oooppsss, one thing more, in November of 2009 Adgitize increased their advertisement fee to $24 but they rolled it back the following month.

To make it easy for us (or me) to calculate, here’s the final breakdown:

My total investment is = 16 months x $14+$24( Nov. 2009)= $248
And the total payment I received from Adgitize= $403.87

So I still earned a decent amount of $155.87.

Not bad isn’t?

UnionBank of the Philippines is having a promo for all their Visa Debit Cardholders such as EON, E-Wallet, ePayCard, GSIS, EZ Cash with a VISA Flag. There are actually 2 ways to win and 2 prizes as well.

1. Use your card at eBay and get a 5% rebate for all purchases.
2. Link your card to PayPal and you get a 2GO coupon worth 150.

Both promo period is from July 23 – August 22, 2010.

The mechanics are as follows (lifted from UnionBank of the Philippines website):

5% REBATE FOR EBAY PURCHASES

1. All eBay purchases made using a UnionBank Visa Debit card during the promotion period are entitled to a 5% rebate.
2. An eBay purchase is reflected when the term eBay is found in the cardholder’s Statement of Account.
3. The rebate will be credited to the cardholder’s UnionBank account in its peso equivalent.
4. The rebate computation is as follows: Amount in PhP multiplied by .05 = rebate to be credited. For example, a total purchase of P1,000 will have a rebate of P50 (P1,000 x.05 = P50).
5. The promotion rebate will be credited directly to the account of the UnionBank Visa Debit cardholder two (2) weeks after the purchase is made or reflected on the Statement.
6. All related taxes will be shouldered by UnionBank.

PAYPAL LINKING AND 2GO CARGO COUPONS

1. Any UnionBank Visa Debit Cardholder who links their card to Paypal during the promotion period from July 23, 2010 to August 22, 2010 is entitled to one (1) 2GO Cargo Coupon worth P150. No minimum purchase amount required.
2. Linking of the Paypal account to the UnionBank card is determined by UnionBank when the Expanded Use Number is reflected in the cardholder’s Statement of Account during the promotion period. The Expanded Use Number (EUN) is a randomly generated 4-digit number that PayPal issues to account holders to further “secure” their transactions. Reflection of the Expanded Use Number (EUN) on the Statement within the promo period will serve as confirmation for the delivery of the 2GO Cargo Coupon.
3. UnionBank shall deliver the 2GO Cargo Coupon to the preferred mailing address of the sender found in his/her Customer Information File within 2 weeks.

A friend of mine who is into paid surveys called and asked for my help. She wanted to get some of her earnings -  a small amount since she’s still new in “making money online“.  She just wanted to test if she can really withdraw money from PayPal. She informed me that she seek  my help because she doesn’t want to make mistake.

I advised her to simply look for the Withdraw on My Account tab on the dashboard of her PayPal page and just follow the succeeding instructions. I coached her until we hit the wall.  For the sake of other PayPal users who are not aware of the withdrawal minimum amount, you may use the table below for your reference.

Minimum Withdrawal Amounts

This table was lifted from Paypal official website and the minimum amounts stated here are valid as of the date of posting.

Increase your revenue on Adgitize!

How?

Simply by scoring more than 300 points a day!

How do you score 300 points a day?

• If you are an advertiser, you get a 100 advertising points automatically.
• Visit and click 51 ads on the Adgitize network to score 100 points
• Write a blog each day for an additional 100 points

Doing these  methods will give you a total of 300 points, that is if you do them everyday.  Additionally, you will also gain points from page views and Ad view bonus points each day. These will increase your chances of reaching the 300 points or more.

Earn More through This Special Offer

You will earn a  minimum of 47 cents  for any day that you score over 300 points or an equivalent minimum amount of $14.57 for a full 31 day month.

What Else? Nothing… You are not required to do any more than be an advertiser and score 300 points a day.

So what are you waiting for? Advertise now on Adgitize and recoup your investment at the end of the month! Yes, advertising is an investment with profit and not just a cost. Adgitize will pay you back more on the money you invested  if you will do your assignment.

This is no joke. ‘Been there done that’, and I’m still doing it every month.

As of this writing, my Adgitize earnings for the month of May is already at $17.88. I’m pretty sure that this will increase because there are still articles that are unaccounted for. My biggest earning from Adgitize was at $35.81 on January of this  year.

By the way, this promo will run through July 31st, 2010. If the promotion meets Adgitize sales goals then they will continue the promotion throughout the year.

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.

The title of my blog today is correct. I want to win the  46″ Sony BRAVIA LCD HD TV & Sony Blu-ray Home Theater System or any of these items (or the cash equivalent):

• HP TouchSmart Tablet Laptop
• Kindle DX: Amazon’s 9.7″ Wireless Reading Device with Leather Case – the new one with the big screen!
• Wii Fit Ultra Bundle
• 16GB iPod Touch
• Flip Mino HD Camcorder – the world’s smallest (and coolest) HD camcorder
• 1GB LiveScribe SmartPen Bundle
• Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote Control
• Nintendo DS Lite
• The New 4GB iPod Shuffle – it talks!

So how can you help me? It’s very simple.  It won’t cost you a dime.

All you have to do is download this Free Report that Reveals How To Earn Autopilot Income For Life… Starting From Scratch!.

It’s very simple, isn’t?

Did I mention that you can win these fabulous prizes too?

How?… Just download the Free Report that Reveals How To Earn Autopilot Income For Life… Starting From Scratch! and you will see the instruction on how to join.

Make money with Squidoo

Are you using FREE Squidoo.com to MAKE MONEY on the internet?

If  NOT, then you’re missing a lot of FREE BIG opportunities!

What are these opportunities?

1. BIG Traffic (Links!)
2. Real Money

BIG Traffic, and I mean real traffic.

Why Do You Need to create a Squidoo lenses (pages)? Reason: Traffic, traffic, traffic by way of backlinking. Currently, Squidoo.com is at PageRank 6. What does this mean?

It simply means that if you have a lens (page) in Squidoo, you can create links going back to your blog! Remember that a higher PageRank page or domain can boost your blog’s ranking, if you are linking FROM the source with higher rank.

If you’re PR is lower than 6, then all the more reasons you have to create a Squidoo lens.

Real Money?

Yes, that’s right. You can make money inside Squidoo website.

Ways to Make Money on Squidoo.

1. Direct Commission

Sell items on your lens. Squidoo will provide the modules such as Cafepress, Amazon, and eBay. The commission you earned will be shared in 3 ways: 5% goes to Charity Fund, 45% to Squidoo ( they have expenses too, like running servers etc.) and the remaining 50% goes to you, the lensmaster.

2. Google Ads and Other Ads Revenue
This means that you will get share for Google Ads and other ads contracted by Squidoo to run on your lens(es). The money earned from this Ads will be put on a big pool. Half of the content of this pool will be distributed among the lensmaster (yes, that’s you!). Higher ranking lenses will be rewarded with larger chunk.

There is no limit to the number of lenses (pages) you can create. Don’t forget to create backlink from your lenses. And, don’t worry if you don’t have an  Adsense account because AdSense code is generated automatically by Squidoo.

Payouts are monthly via PayPal only. If you don’t want to hassle yourself in getting a Paypal account (and getting your money), your account will automatically start off earmarked to charity until you decided to get your cash using Paypal.

Minimum Payouts.

If you’d like to cash sooner, set it at $1!. Very ridiculously isn’t? The default settings is automatically set at $10, so make sure to change your cash payout threshold.

Is Squidoo FREE?

Absolutely YES!  You will never have to pay Squidoo. Building lenses is FREE!

Making a Squidoo lens is easy but making a good Squidoo lens, well, that’s another story.  There’s a lot of resources from Squidoo website that you can use but I HIGHLY Recommended a FREE Squidoo Guide written by a lensmater named PotPieGirl!

Free Squidoo Guide

This FREE “How To Squidoo” guide is 50+ pages of step by step instruction from the very beginning ( setting up a new Squidoo account) all the way to lens creation steps to get your first lens live and online!

Remember that by making a popular and interesting Squidoo lens, you will be increasing your likeliness of making a nice amount of money!

Avoid some of the more common Squidoo pitfalls by reading the FREE Squidoo Guide.

Did I mention not to forget to create backlinks going to your main blog? That’s actually the main benefit you can get from Squidoo -aside from the revenue. Once you get how Squidoo works, it’s not that hard to generate traffic.

* Note: This is a repost entry. My current host provider encountered multiple harddisk failures and the backup was restored but it does not have the latest data.

Once again, Adgitize fulfilled it’s promise that top active publishers can earn  in the range of $25 to $100 a month.

I may not be one of the top active publishers last month, because I went on a paradise vacation, still I received my fifth payment ( or should I write “Earnings”) since I joined Adgitize way back in November of last year.

According to Adgitize’s blog, one active publisher received $42.61!

For the April 2009 publisher payouts the top amount we paid to a single publisher was $42.61. We sent out PayPal checks to 5 people with amounts over $30. Twelve publishers received PayPal amounts over $20. And a large number of other publishers received amounts greater than $10. – as reported by Ken Brown.

So how can you as a blogger earn from using Adgitize?

Let’s learn the ways on how to earn MORE from Adgitize as stated by Ken Brown – the founder of Adgitize:

It is actually very easy and there are multiple ways to reach 100 points.

• Click on ads within the Adgitize ad network until you see the blue banner at the bottom with the words “Adgitize 100″
• Write an article on your blog about anything you want (as long as it is safe for work). Make sure you have added your rssfeed to each of your blogs in our system.
• Become an Advertiser ( This actually costs some money. )
• Build up traffic to your blog to score page view points
• Build up traffic to your blog to score Ad View points.

Becoming an Advertiser will give you more additional points, but simply being an active publisher will earn you enough points too!

If you are not convinced yet, I want you to look at my first Paypal proof of payment where I received $13.55 by just simply posting on my blog, visiting members, writing comments which exactly are what a blogger normally do. See the proof, HERE.

For more benefits you can get from Adgitize, read “Earn Real Money with The Adgitize”.