More on beadcraft

My research on this topic continues. I came across this very informative article at Manila Standard Today by Portia Elaine Bismonte. According to her, tools, materials, color coordination, nimble fingers, and a little bit of creativity are all you need to succeed in this business.

The required tools include two types of pliers, a long-nose pliers and a rounded one, a wire cutter (which can be your old nail cutter), a glue gun, a bead holder or tray, and a piece of cloth to keep your beads from rolling away.There are different types of beads too. There are glass or plastic beads, real or imitation crystals, semi-precious and precious gem stones, and those made of porcelain, ceramic, wood, metal, shells, corals, and many others.

These different types of beads are available usually at P20 to 50 per pack at bead shops like Wellmanson's Sewing Notions located at Villalobos Street (fronting the church), Quiapo, Manila. I visited the shop yesterday and was totally amazed, not only with the great number beads and other materials available, but also with how lively the "beading" community visiting the shop was.

I was told that other popular bead shops are located at Avenida and Divisoria.

For threading, the simplest available are beading wires and fishing or spring nylons or garters which all come in various sizes. I guess experience will familiarize you with what size to choose. For me, it's still a guessing game.

Want to learn guerilla marketing?

The Entrepreneur, the magazine, is giving away tickets to the Jay Levinson event "Guerilla Marketing Conference 2007" and the upcoming Philippine Marketing Association Conference. The event organized by Salt and Light Ventures will be held on July 27 at the Onstage Theater at Greenbelt 1.

Levinson is the author of Guerilla Marketing, the world's largest selling and marketing series with over 14 million copies sold. "Ask almost any successful entrepreneur what the best book is for building a small business, and one of Levinson's titles will sure come up," says the Entrepreneur Business Success Guide.

To join the raffle, you only have to answer 3 questions and send them to entrepreneurcoach@summitmedia.com.ph. (1) How often do you buy Entrepreneur Magazine? (2) Do you subscribe to the Entrepreneur Magazine? Why and why not? (3) What topics are you interested in reading in the Entrepreneur Magazine.

I really do not know how much the registration fee is but I am almost sure that it will not be a measly sum considering Levinson's stature. Chances are it is not within a normal person's budget. Considering this, I encourage everyone to join the raffle and try to attend the conference... through the backdoor. Who knows.

My foray into beadcraft

I attended yesterday a seminar on basic beadcraft at Unique Minds Arts and Craft in San Juan, Metro Manila. I learned that there are different kinds of beads which you can make into bracelets, necklaces, earrings, rings, cellphone holders, and others. Plastic, acrylic, those from indigenous material like wood or shells, stones like pearls and some others.

Except for this little thing about looping pins, which I could not seem to do right, I think I am going to love this craft. I feel this is something I can be reasonably good at. At one point the instructor asked me who will be wearing my creations. I bet she really meant why am I, a male government employee, trying to learn beadcraft. The short answer of course is for business.

I was told that you can get your materials from shops in Quiapo, Carriedo or Divisoria. I learned also that the materials do not really cost much, and yet you can sell your finished product at quite a big markup. In a sense, what your buyers really pay for is your design. The more creative it is the better.

The pic above is the earring I made during the seminar. One of my first few steps into beadcraft. See also my first illusion-style necklace and cellphone holder.

Negoskwela's latest schedule

There is no doubt that a big of chunk of the many (twenty or so individuals, hehe) who visit this blog daily are people who are looking for information on Negoskwela. I have already mentioned before that this institution does not seem to have a website. As such, searches usually end up in other peoples' account of what Negoskwela is. Like this blog. My earlier post entitled "Negoskwela, finally found" is actually now no. 3 in Google's search results for "negoskwela". For this reason, I feel the urge to "repay" my visitors by providing them what they want. Please see here Negoskwela's latest sched (updated).

Amazon Grocery automates grocery chores

Here's something that OFWs (overseas Filipino workers), even ordinary house husbands/wives around the world, might be interested with. Amazon Grocerynot only offers 22,000 non-perishable grocery items including some of your favorite brands shipped to your door just like any Amazon.com purchase, they have also introduced a Subscribe and Saveprogram which would allow you to save money on items you use routinely.

Under the Subscribe and Saveprogram, customers can sign up for routine convenient delivery of products such as laundry detergents, shampoos, diapers, perhaps toothpaste, and receive a whopping 15 percent discount on Amazon's already low prices as well as free shipping on the items. That is practically hitting two birds with one stone: you save on time going to the grocery store and you get 15 percent discount as well. Quite a good deal, I would say.

Interested? Check out this link to Amazon Grocery hereor on the banner on the sidebar of this blog. By doing so, and when you choose to make a purchase at Amazon Grocery, you will also help this blog earn referral income. That would be hitting a third bird with still the same stone. Think about it.

Fil-Negosyo Expo 2007

Now on its fourth year, Fil-Negosyo Expo will again showcase Filipino entrepreneurship to promote the entrepreneurial spirit and the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Philippines. The event will be held for a good 10 days, from June 22 to July 1, at the Megatrade Hall 2, SM Megamall, EDSA, Mandaluyong City.

140 expo participants are expected to showcase 140 business opportunities to the common Filipino. There will be a Young Entrepreneurs' Congress, a free event for graduating students in business and entrepreneurship aimed at encouraging to fulfill their dreams. There will also free seminars and trainings, networking session, product sampling, raffles, give-aways, and more.

The event is organized by SM Megamall and will be managed by Ex-link Management and Marketing Services Corporation. For inquiries contact Mitch Ballesteros at tel. nos. 6433887, 6407439, telefax no. 6437760, and the email address info_exlink@yahoo.com.

Trying TriNoma

My wife and our two kids had our first look at Triangle North of Manila (TriNoma), that new 3.5 billion mall by Ayala Corporation which soft-opened only last May 16, 2007. It is located at the corner of EDSA and North Avenue, just across SM City.

Although the mall obviously is far from being finished, it already looks huge at least from the outside, as it seems to occupy that area from EDSA to that part fronting Mindanao Avenue. This Wikipedia entry says its going to occupy 20 hectares and will offer 195,000 gross leasable area, clearly a direct challenge to SM City and the Block. It will also have an 8,000 slot parking lot.

What seems to differentiate TriNoma with SM City and the Block, at least for now, is that it has a some waterworks up front, meaning fountains, and a park on their top floors. Going there is quite a departure from SM malls' "block" image. The mall also promises to improve rail travel experience in the Philippines as it will be directly connected to the North Avenue station of the MRT. Perhaps we are really learning a thing or two from Hongkong.

But for now, comfort and convenience is clearly not yet at the optimum. The forward area, right near the entrance was quite hot. That park upstairs, was dark and hot too. There were also no observable floor maps that we still had to ask the guard where Jollibee and Mcdonalds were. My wife also had to walk a long way to go to a comfort room. I also know of an incident wherein some of the early mall customers suffered minor injuries due to a freak accident in the mall.

Still, am quite hopeful that TriNoma will give us a nice mall experience in a year or so. My kids did love the rides at the mall's Timezone, said to be the flagship and going to be the largest in the Philippines. I am also happy that Landmark will soon be closer to home. I always felt that their department store offered you real good buys. One big reason why I await the formal opening of TriNoma. Until then.

Hopping on the Alexa Train

I have been invited by Manila Mom to join the Alexa Redirect Train started by Carl Ocab of Make Money Online with a 13-year Old. I now pass on the invitation to 5 other blogs and hope that they too will take train. Hopefully this thing will increase traffic to newbie blogs like mine.

~Start Copying Here~

Alexa Redirect Train by Carl Ocab .

Rules:

Put anything you like above this list – Chit Chat, talkies, introduce what this is. Something like that.

Start copying on the “~Start Copying Here~” and copy all the things listed without removing the links. (Of course, the train would be no use without those links.)

Move all the sites labeled “Newcomers” to the list labeled “Oldies.”

Add 5 sites that you want to include in the train and make their link like this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.example.com then invite them to join the train.

Visit all the listed sites! (That’s not much work! Remember, if you plant good seeds they will also grow good) and look at your high Alexa ranking next week!

Newcomers:
Hundred Percent Katherine
Sa Iyong Pagbabalik
Mai Paul
Stentorized
Quick and Random

Oldies:
Female Gamer
Garry Conn
Pinoy Seminars
Bookmarks
Cafe Romanza
Blog About Money Online
Manila Mom
ScottPot
How to earn money online?
Quasi Fictional
Make Money Blogging!
Make Money Online 2.0
Nate Whitehill
Jozzua
Grow your Writing Business
CultureShiok
Gary Lee
Smart Wealthy Rich
TechZi
Make Money Online with a 13-year Old
Erik Karey: Internet Entrepreneur
Tjantunen.com
Hate The Grind
Earn Money Blogging
bajaenergyblog
Deden Amijaya Weblog
Mommyba's Journey

~End Copying Here~

Adsense inside posts in Blogger

For those using the new Blogger, am sure you know already that in the template, you can only add a Google Adsense unit either to the sidebar or to the footer of your blog. This clearly limits your flexibility in positioning the Google ads. For one, you cannot place them in between posts. That's just too bad because placing ads between your posts is really placing them right straight in front of the eyes of your readers, not a little to the side, or below.

But then you see a lot of Blogger blogs with URLs like www.blogname.blogspot.com showing Google Adsense ads inside their post. I figured there must be a way to do it and set out to learn how. It took me some time but now I know. It is fairly simple. Just follow the instructions below.

1. You have to have an Adsense account. If not, sign up for Adsense first.
2. Open your Google Adsense account and get your desired code.
3. Sign into Blogger and click on "template".
4. When inside, click on "edit html".
5. Save a backup file first.
6. Somewhere on the right top corner, put a check on "expand widgets".
7. Find the "data:post.body" line in the html code (see image above).
   
8. After this text, paste your Google Adsense code.
9. In the Google Adsense code, change "<" with "& l t ;" minus the spaces in between (see image above).
10. Still in the Google Adsense code, change ">" with "& g t ;" minus the spaces in between (see image above).
    
11. Save your corrected html code.
12. View your blog to see if your Adsense unit looks nice between your posts.

There is of course discussion as to the legality of this "change" in the Google Adsense code. The blog were I got this technique, IMessengr, assures us that this is not in violation of the Google Adsense's terms. They point to this email from Google posted in this blog, Blogging Secret.

Still another chapter in my quest for making money online. Hope this will help others out there too.

Top 10 emerging influential blogs

Can't deny it. I was happy to know that Pinoy Seminars was included in the Week 2 listing of Ms. Janet Toral's listing of the top 10 emerging influential blogs in 2007. I have to thank The Grape Bunch and Stentorized Blogging for nominating me. I also would like to thank Sa Iyong Pagbabalik who also nominated Pinoy Seminars this week.

In support of the project, I decided to come up with my own list. I first re-checked the rules. I learned that you are supposed to list blogs created between August 2006 and the present and which are making an impact on readers in 2007 as shown by growing growing readership and influence. There seems to be no requirement that the blogs have to be Pinoy but my own listing is. I guess I consider them more influential. :)

My own top 10 emerging influential blogs:

1. Make Money Online With a 13-Year Old - "money" blog unbelievably by someone who just turned 14.
2. Culture Shiok - blog by an OFW in Singapore which ranks no. 19 at Ratified.org, up there among the old-timers.
3. Kubiertos - nothing beats food in full color.
4. From the Boondocks - powerful blog on the Igorot or the Cordillera indigenous people.
5. I Heart Manila - rediscovering Manila one photo a day.
6. Tingog.com - tingog or voice of the Filipino.
7. Manila Mom - blog by a Pinay mom which is obviously breaking barriers.
8. Webbyman's Favorite Dyoks - a really entertaining collection of classic and not-so-classic Filipino and English jokes.
9. An Apple a Day - by Aileen Apolo of Google Philippines lang naman.
10. Jun.Anteola - some guy's thoughts with nice photos.