Nego-skwela online

Guess what? I have just learned that Nego-skwela now has a website. I don't know since when has it been online but I was glad to see the url on their latest schedule announcement. You may access the site at http://www.nego-skwela.tk.

The site talks about their training courses, the company's history, it's vision and mission, their corporate strategies, and their team. There is also a call for a nego-livelihood revolution, appealing to the Filipinos' resilience and indomitable spirit.

One thing I still could not find on the site is their latest schedule. To find out, you may call them through their contact information posted on the site. Or, you may click on the sidebar link to Nego-skwela on this blog. I will continue to post their latest schedule at pinoyseminars.com until the information is already available on their site. Consider it public service.

Learn how to blog for money

Come November 24, Money Talks! will hold a seminar/workshop on how to make extra cash with your blogs. The workshop entitled "Blogging for Money" is meant for intermediate and advanced-level bloggers. It will feature Abe Olandres of Yugatech, one of the Philippines leading blogging gurus.

The workshop will be held from 12pm to 8pm at the Power Tips, Inc. Business Center, 5th level of the Podium, San Miguel Avenue, Pasig City. Registration fee is P1,500. The fee will entitle you to the use of a pc or laptop with unlimited wifi access for the day. For reservations, call or text 09189372147 or 09164353882, or email intermedia.workshops@gmail.com.

Read about this at Money Talks! and at Yugatech.

Don't end up paying for something you did not get

I'm sure many have experienced being asked by a friend or relative to co-sign a loan. And, even if we don't really like it, we usually oblige with the thought that we are just co-makers. The belief is that we are only going to have problems if the principal will refuse to pay. Not necessarily.

A friend of mine, Nelson Getigan, a lawyer and entrepreneur, warns us of the consequences. In an article entitled "The Unknowing Debtor: A Discussion on the Liability of Co-makers", he talks about Palmares vs. Court of Appeals, a decision of the Philippine Supreme Court which says that a creditor may go after the co-maker even without going after the principal first.

The article is posted at www.gccs.com.ph, the official website of GCCS and Associates, a company specializing in debt collection and credit investigation here in the Philippines. It is the first of a series of articles related to our laws on debt collection. The lesson is that we should know our rights and avoid paying for someone else's loan.

Creating a continue reading link

Brevity was never my talent. Even if I was writing about a very simple topic, I always ended with a writeup longer than expected. This creates a problem for me in blogging. Long posts have a way of muddling up the layout of the homepage of your blog.

The solution of course is to post only a few paragraphs on your homepage with a "continue reading" or "read more" link pointing to the url of your full post. Sounds simple, but as I later found out, not so easy to do particularly with the Blogger. I searched the net on how and tried out the procedures suggested. Nothing seemed to work until I found this.

Here's how. On your dashboard, click on "layout" for the blog you want to modify. Then on the menu above, click on "edit html". Once inside, check the box before "expand widget templates". Then, find the text no. 1 above and insert text no. 2 between them.

If you can't find no. 1, this probably means your template is saved in another file. Find text no. 3 and before it insert text no. 4. After which, find text no. 5 and insert text no. 6 after it. You may change the text "read more!" with "continue reading". Then save your template. Your blog now is ready to post blog summaries as they call it.

In your posts, insert text no. 7 after the last paragraph that your want to show on your homepage. Then insert text no. 8 after the last paragraph of your full post. Then publish your post. You now have a continue reading function for your blog.

My beadwork

Candlemaking basics

A few Sundays ago, I attended a free seminar conducted at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Project 6, Quezon City. I heard the seminar announced during mass and decided to take advantage of the opportunity to learn something new at no cost except my time.

The seminar was conducted by an Ate Timi who really wanted to teach the youth of the parish a nice way to raise funds. They were planning to make candles which they plan to sell in the coming Christmas season. I found the intention noble and the plan ingenius.

The main thing you need in making candles, either ordinary dip candles or decorative ones, is paraffin wax. They look like white slabs that you can cut into pieces and melt inside old kitchen utensils like a teapot. You also need a substance called "steric" which according to my browsing is meant to enhance the "burnability" of your candles.

Of course, candles are not candles without the wick. Wicks come in various types, from the regular to the semi-waxed, to a nylon one. Enhancements like dye wax (for colored candles) and crystal wax (for a shinier finish) may also be used. Oils or scents may also be used to achieve an aromatic effect.

The process is actually simple. For dip candles, you just need a piece of wick cut at around the length of the candle you want to make, and dip it into the melted paraffin wax mixed with the steric and other enhancements. After the dip, you just hang the wick and let the wax dry. Then you dip the thing again, and again, until the wax gets thicker and thicker, forming a candle.

As for decorative and scented candles, you just pour the melted mixture described above and pour it into molds with the wick already fixed at the center. You have to make sure that the mixture is no longer too hot so that your candle will not cave in. We were told that the best time to pour the melted wax is when it is already starting to get cloudy.

After pouring, you allow the filled-up mold to cool down and the wax inside to harden. This could last from 30 minutes to about an hour. Once the wax has hardened, you then separate the pieces of the mold to see your finished product. It can be a flower designed candle, spiral type, among others.

There are lots of candles available out there which are factory made. They are bland, uncreative and unscented. You can be creative in making and packaging your candles and get a good price for them. The peak seasons of course are around November 1 and 2, during the Christmas season, and during Holy Week.

By the way, for every kilo of paraffin wax, you use 100 grams of steric and 100 grams of crystal wax. In addition, you can use the right amount of dye wax to achieve the color you want, and some scent.

You can buy these materials and the molds at candle and wax shops in Divisoria. There are two shops in front of Tutuban Mall and one on Juan Luna Street. I don't want the names of the shops though as I was sort of dissatisfied with the kind of service they give to their customers. I wonder if there are other shops closer to home and manned by friendlier people too. :)

Stock Trading Analysis: Fundamental vs. Technical

I wrote before that the key in stock trading is knowing when to get in and when to get out, when to buy and when to sell. In doing this, stock traders use certain analytical tools. There are two - some say rival - models in this analysis, the fundamental and the technical.

Fundamental analysis focuses on the corporate "health" of the listed company. It takes into consideration the company's financial statements, the strength of its management, their competitive advantages as well as their competitors and the state of the market.

Essentially, fundamental analysis compares the book value of the company's shares as against the market value. It assesses the company's management and their business performance, calculates investment risks, and attempts to predict future value.

The principle behind is that, even though markets may mis-price a certain stock in the short-run, the "correct" price will eventually prevail.

On the other hand, technical analysis makes use of trends and patterns in the recorded market price of the listed shares in order to predict future market price. The principle behind is that all information about the stock is already reflected in its price.

Since, we are not always well-informed about the specifics of most of the listed companies, it is advisable for people like us getting into online stock trading to be at least familiar with the methods used in technical analysis.

We need to know the significance of the opening and closing prices, the high and low, bid and ask prices, the market average and the volume of transactions. We should be able to assess the charts not only of the stocks but also of the Philippine Stock Exchange Index, also known as PhiSix.

We too must understand the meaning of terms like "support" and "resistance", among others. This way, we will be able decide for ourselves what stock to buy and what stock to sell, as well as when to do it.

For those who want to really learn, consider attending the Technical Analysis Seminar of Absolute Traders. I hope to be able to do so soon.

Rounded corners with Photoshop

A month or so ago, I helped a friend set up a website for his debt collection agency at www.gccs.com.ph. As I am not a professional web designer, I had to use a free web template downloaded from the net. The design called for some pictures with rounded corners. Obviously, I didn't know how to make them.

Like in many other instances, I found the answer by searching for it on the net. I followed the steps enumerated at www.paininthetech.com and was satisfied by the result. Now, I can confidently say, I know how to make them rounded corners. The picture at the left is my proof.

Using Photoshop 7, the following are the steps:

(1) Open the image whose corners you want to change;

(2) Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool from the Tools ( note that you will find this tool in the menu which will open when you point your mouse at the lower right corner of the Rectangle Tool);

(3) After selecting the Rounded Rectangle Tool, enter a value in the blank field after Radius on the Options menu (note that the higher the value the more defined are the rounded corners);

(4) Still on the Options menu, to the left, click on the "Shape layers" button;

(5) To get rid of the fill collor, go to the Layers palette and drag the "Fill" slider to 0%;

(6) After, go to the Paths palette and click on the arrow on the top-right corner to generate the drop-down menu;

(7) On the drop-down menu, select "Make Selection";

(8) On the "Make Selection" dialog box, leave the settings as is and click on OK;

(9) Then, click on "Edit" on the main menu and "Copy Merged" on the drop-down menu to copy the rounded rectangle;

(10) Open a new document and paste the copied rounded rectangle; and finally

(11) Extend the canvass size so as to reveal all the corners.

After following these steps, you should now have your picture with rounded corners.

How to reduce the size of digicam pictures

Have you tried uploading pictures to Friendster or Yahoo Photos and ended up with an error message saying the file size exceeded their limit? My guess is that the picture file you are uploading is a picture you took with your high mega-pixel camera which is more than 1 mb in size. You need to resize it first before you can upload them easily to sites on the net.

The question is how. I do it using Photoshop. You open the picture file. On the main menu, click on Image. Then, on the drop-down menu, click on Image Size. A dialog box will then open. First, make sure that the box before "Constrain Proportions" is checked. Then change the width in Pixel Dimensions to 640. Notice that the height also changes in proportion to the new width. Click on OK.

We're not finished yet. On the main menu again, click on file. On the sub-menu, click on "Save for Web". A dialog box will open with a view of your pic. On the right, choose "JPEG High" for Settings and check the box before "Optimized". Then, click on save. My suggestion is that you save the file with a new file name and on a different folder.

You now have a reduced version of your picture that you can upload easily to say Friendster or Yahoo Photos. Clue, if you're not a techie like me, just follow the steps blindly and ignore all the other options you see along the way. The important thing is that you get the task done. :)

By the way, take note that I am using Photoshop 7.0 with settings at default. There may be command variations for other versions of Photoshop.

Stock Trading Basics

My research and experimentation on stock trading continues. My notes says...

Trading in a stock market like the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) means you buy and sell shares of stock of companies listed there. You can do this either through a stock broker or by yourself online. To earn from this trade, you have to know when to get in (buy) and when to get out (sell).

Of course, the stock market provides you some basic information. This include the bid price, ask price, volume and value of all trades for the day. The bid price is the price that buyers are willing to pay for the stock. The ask price is the price that sellers are willing to accept as payment for the stock. The volume and value of stocks traded are also available.

The bid and the ask price is never the same. The ask price is always higher than the bid price. The difference between the two is called the bid/ask spread. I read something about the spread going to the brokers, but newbie as i am, am not exactly sure. For now, it is enough that we are aware that there are bid and ask prices.

Now, I understand that in order to buy a stock, you may order it using the bid price (in that case you get queued with everyone bidding), or you can use the ask price (buying it instantly from those who have expressed willingness to do so. Once you've bought the stock, you then watch if the price of the stock will go up or go down.

In monitoring, you have to take note of the opening, high, low and closing prices. The opening price is the price at which the stock was being traded upon opening of the stock market. Take note that the PSE opens at 9:30 am and closes at 12:00 noon. The closing price is the price at which the stock was trading upon closing.

The high and low prices on the other hand are the highest and lowest prices at which the stock was traded during the day. All these, together with the volume and value of the trade, provide you clues on when to buy and sell a certain stock. To know more, visit Investopedia.com's Stocks Basics.