What is Amazon S3?

Amazon S3 is the acronym for Amazon Simple Storage Service.

Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers. Here is a short video that will help us understand on how Amazon S3 works:

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, secure, fast, inexpensive infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

Online Great Stuffs!

Here are some of the online softwares that I learned from my online jobs. I had already used some of them though, but I posted here again so I can review some of these great stuffs. 

1. Google Docs
-Create and share your work online and access your documents from anywhere. Manage documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys, and more all in one
-Link: https://docs.google.com

2. WordPress SEO 
-Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast.
-Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/screenshots/

3. Google Webmaster Tool
-Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages' visibility on Google.

4. Optimize Press
-OptimizePress is a unique WordPress theme that gives you the ability to create conversion optimized Squeeze Pages, Sales Letters, launch pages & more.
-Link: http://www.optimizepress.com

5. Digital Access Pass
-A WordPress Membership Plugin that allows you to protect and drip content, has a built-in free shopping cart, email autoresponders, and an affiliate.

Paypal and s2Member®

Due to the demands of my new task, I intentionally upgraded my Paypal from Premier Account to a Business Account. I didn't know what to put in the Business Name so I just put it there "Online eShop", that was the first term that pops up into my mind during the upgrade process. 

Oh I am also learning a new WP professional plugin called "s2Member® Framework". After spending a month of studying DAP(Digital Access Pass), my client gave it up, upon realizing that it cannot provide setup for online courses. As of this point of time, I am starting to learn this new plugin called "s2Member® Framework" through rigid tutorials. Deep Sigh! I hope I can make a catch up since we are about to launch our online course website in Israel on this First Quarter of 2013.

Pahabol lang ni akoang blog post kay its quarter to 12AM na before Dec 2. Wew, I can smell the cold breeze of Christmas na. :)

Reading a Time Zone Map

Defining the Skill
A time zone map shows the 24 time zones of the world. The prime meridian runs through Greenwich (GREHN•ich), England. Each zone east of Greenwich is one hour later than the zone before. Each zone west of Greenwich is one hour earlier. The International Date Line runs through the Pacific Ocean. It is the location where each day begins. If it is Saturday to the east of the International Date Line, then it is Sunday to the west of it. 

Applying the Skill
Use the strategies listed below to help you find times and time
differences on a time zone map.

How to Read a Time Zone Map
Strategy 1: Read the title. It tells you what the map is intended to show.
Strategy 2: Read the labels at the top of the map. They show the hours across the world when it is noon in Greenwich. The labels at the bottom show the number of hours earlier or later than the time in Greenwich.
Strategy 3: Locate a place whose time  you know. Locate the place where you want to know the time. Count the number of time zones between them. Then add or subtract that number of hours.
For example, if it is noon time on the west coast of Africa, you can see that it is 7:00 A.M. on the east coast of the United States. That is a difference of five hours.

Reference: http://petrimoulx.pbworks.com/f/Chapter1skillbuilder.pdf

Online eShops: Good or Bad?

I registered myself to these eShops to check on what they can offer to me as a customer. I am still on the process of  evaluating their websites according to my own standards:
-Is the website user friendly?
-Are the offer good and reasonable?
-Are customer support available 24/7?  
-Is the payment processing secure?

1. www.amazon.com

 

 2. www.ebay.ph

3. www.lazada.com.ph

 
4. www.metrodeal.com

5. www.beeconomic.com.ph

 6. www.cashcashpinoy.com

7. www.ensogo.com.ph

I will modify this post for some additional information. For now, you can check these website and see yourself if they are good or not.

So much in Learning : Earning !

Many said that they have to spend to learn and earn in the future. But in my own perception I would rather say I LEARNED while EARNING at the same time, because for me the future is TODAY!

Hello All! This week I learned a lot of useful online tools and I know there will be a lot more to come. I am so busy in these few days making interdisciplinary research for my other career as Web Developer. I shared some useful tools below that for sure will help online business people in their aim for online web presence. I would just say that these tools are excellent and friendly.

Some Useful tools:

1. MindMeister 
-This is an online mind mapping software that allows its users to visualize their thinking. Here is my sample work:

CLICK THE PICTURE ABOVE TO ENLARGE

2. Google Apps Market Place
 

-The Google Apps Marketplace allows more than 4 million organizations using Google Apps to discover, purchase, and deploy integrated cloud applications and advertise professional services for use by more than 40 million users within those domains.

3. Prepaid Cards
 

-Shop online like you’ve never shopped before! My ePrepaid Card is a reloadable prepaid card that empowers you to shop from the widest selection of MasterCard affiliated shops online and worldwide. Reloading your My ePrepaid MasterCard is easy and convenient through various BPI channels that are available to you 24/7.

This is for today and I'll be posting more anytime soon! Thanks much!

References:
https://developers.google.com/google-apps/marketplace/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindMeister
http://www.bpicards.com/Cards/PrepaidDetails/12

Faculty Development Program

Today, I conducted a Faculty Development Program to my fellow Grade School Teachers in SACS. I discussed with them on how to be more efficient and effective in the process of Grade Making and on how to handle Computer Viruses.

Here is the Outline of my Topics:
1. Grade Making Tips and Suggestions
2. Some Helpful Tips in Dealing with Computer Viruses

I started the Talk with my personal adage that goes:
"There is no such thing as Best Antivirus Software, other than the person who personally use the computer "

According to Wikipedia:
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another.

From my own point of view:
Routine scanning of computer virus is useless unless the Antivirus program is updated.

Here are some tips that I shared to them.
Tips on how to deal with Computer Virus / Suspicious Folder/Files
1. Do not open the flash disk (usb) directly when it'll prompt you to open it.
Open it in "My Computer".
Right Click on USB drive and choose "Open in a New Window"
-An autorun.inf virus program will trigger the virus to open.
-That command itself is telling the virus program already to execute before you knew it.
-Most of the virus program will occupy the memory of your computer making your computer moves too slow. Remember that the speed of the computer is highly dependent mainly from the memory of it.

2. View the Folders/File using the "Detail View". This will help you know if that folder/file is a normal folder/file or not.
Question: How do you know if it's Normal or Not Normal.
-First you can do this by using the "Detail View"
-Second you can identify if that file is a normal file or not by looking at the "Type" Tab location right next to the filename / folder.

Normally Computer Virus will hide the real folder and create a STRANGE shortcut folder in your window as if it looks like real/genuine folder. Please don't trust this, make sure to check that folder icon in "Detail View"

3. How to unhide the real folders?
-If you are using Windows 7, Click on Organize > Folder and Search to open the "Folder Options" window.
-Go back to explorer window, and delete the "shortcut folder" and unhide the genuine folders.

How to stop computer virus processes?
-Since a computer virus is also a program, you can stop the process by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete. This will show up  the task manager window. Select the strange process and click end process.

All Else: 
Unhide Folder using the Command Prompt
Click on Start Menu
On the Search Bar type "cmd" and hit enter. This will show up the black screen window with the white text on it. Execute the command below to unhide the folders.
G:\ attrib -h -r -s /s /d *.*

Thank You!

WP Plugin: Learning to become Expert

Hi everyone! This must be my first post for the month of November. And today I am going to start putting up the different WP plugins that I learned lately. I am going to update this post from time to time though, since I believe that there are still a lot of Plugins that are very useful. In other words, I just want to make this post as a depository of all the WP plugins, which I think a very helpful tool when I want to use them again.

Here we go, before we start, I keep on saying WP, Plugins. Actually these are technical terms and below is my short discussion on what are these strange words mean.

WP, it simply stands for the word WordPress. What is Wordpress by the way? If you will check the tutorial button on the top of this page, I had already discussed there what is this, but for all sake, I am going to discuss here again. 

What is Wordpress?
Wordpress or WP is an online website creation tool written in PHP but in a non geek speaking it's probably the easiest way and the most popular content management today. Wordpress is actually being used by New York Times, CNN, and Katy Perry's website to name a few.

According to Wikipedia:
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 16.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1 million" websites and as of August 2011 manages 22% of all new websites. WordPress is currently the most popular blogging system in use on the Internet.

In simple explanation in our layman's term, Wordpress is like Microsoft Word wherein you can put content and layout into it.

Now let's move on the second word, Plugins.

What are Plugins?
Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress. There are actually hundreds or even thousands plugins made by open source developers already and I have been using some of them. Thanks for the developers who made them. I should say, keep up the good job! Let's say you want to put some social buttons or floating bars on your website. This can be done using Plugin. In other words, plugin will help your website more fantastic and functional.

Now, let me share to you some of the useful plugins that I already used. Listed below are as follows. In my next post, I might be explaining to you each plugin individually. For now I will just post the plugin names:

Akismet
Digg Digg
Contact Form 7
Ultimate Tiny MCE
WP Limit Posts Automatically
Black Studio TinyMCE Widget
User Access Manager
Category Page (I like this but its no longer supported)

That is all for now, I will be posting more useful plugins on my next post. Thanks. 

Back to work now.

Paypal works best for me..

Hi all, howdy? I am too busy in these past few days that I almost forgot to post here in my blog. Well, today I am going to share you some tips that you may follow on how to deal with online payment and sending system over the Internet. Today, I tried to withdraw some funds from my online work. I actually have two options "Local Fund Transfer" and Paypal". I used these two options to see which works better and these are the things that I found out.

Local Fund Transfer
-Local Funds Transfer is the most direct and least expensive withdrawal method for contractors with bank accounts in participating countries. I used my account with Unionbank of the Philippines for this. This is quiet good because it offers FREE withdrawal fee for the the first timer. However, Local Funds Transfer withdrawals will arrive at your bank within three to five business days that's quiet long. Also, some banks may place a hold on the incoming funds.

Paypal 
-I am a paypal user since 2007. This was the time when I started to do online shopping way back 5 years ago. I like to use paypal because it is secure and easy to use. PayPal acts like a digital wallet and it is actually free. This is the second option that I used and this is simply amazing. Why I am saying that? Simply because I noticed that your fund will automatically transfer to your paypal account in just a matter of seconds unlike the first option that I had where I have to wait for 3-5 business days before I can receive the fund.

Well, what's best work for you, then it's up to you. They are both secured. They just differ on the amount of time before you can receive your fund. And lastly Paypal will charge $1 for every transaction while "Local Fund Transfer" will charge $0.99.

 

Online tools that are worth downloadables

To deliver results, e-learning software must produce more than canned interactivity, but scripting tools like Flash are hard to learn and time consuming to use. Today, I am going to share to you some of the online tools that are worth downloadables.

1.  smartbuilder.com
-This is an excellent software that is easy and friendly to use. I am new to this but I would say this is a better tool than any other flash software that I used before. This is an online tool and I am looking for a way to use this offline.

You can see samples below that I got from their website.
http://www.suddenlysmart.com/examples.htm

What is SmartBuilder?

SmartBuilder provides a point-and-click interface that lets anyone create highly-interactive Flash elearning that includes:
    Branching scenarios
    Games
    Rich-media
    Powerful assessments, and more

SmartBuilder further streamlines the development process with content management and collaboration features that enable your team to work together more efficiently.

2. FreeMind
-This is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. I like the idea of mind-sharing using this tool. However, I am still new to this, so I still need sufficient time to play around on this.
You can download the free software from here: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download

SM Wifi helps my online work somehow

I took this screenshot when they asked me to register.

Earning some few dollars as an online web developer is a good thing. However, there are few things that you need to consider to maintain your communication with your customers. Customers will contact you anytime, 24/7 as per say. Well, staying inside your room and doing this job all day round is quiet a boring job, especially weekends wherein you have to go out and give some break to yourself. Now if you want to go out to enjoy and have your work at the same time, this could no longer be a problem. Back off, charge your laptop battery, bring your headset, and put them all inside your bag, and get ready for some break. I went here at SM as early as 10AM, took up my breakfast, roam around to look for some stuffs and now I'm here at the SM foodcourt to start working online while watching some shows at the SM Entertainment Plaza. And what's more you can use their Wi-Fi free of charge. It's not just that, the Internet speed is fast which you can really do your job without connection interference. You are just prompted with one time registration online (http://wifi.smsupermalls.com). And this is it, I can do my online job within 1-2 hours and after this I'm free to roam around inside the mall. Thanks to SM Free Wifi. You help my online work somehow. No need to go to Starbucks or Bo's Coffee..

Studying Time Zones: UTC , EST and EDT

Working and dealing with various clients located in different areas around the world is not an easy task. You have to be aware of the time difference between you and your client's time zones which is very crucial and important when meeting up their deadlines. There are some terms and points to consider in learning these things. But before we can start off, I would like to remind the reader that I only make time comparison here between my own time zone where I am located which is UTC+08 (Philippine Time Zone) and other places which is  most likely located in US, Canada, UK and Asia Pacific regions.

What are the common acronyms used in Time Zones?
UTC = Coordinated Universal Time
GMT = Greenwich Mean Time
EST = Eastern Standard Time
EDT = Eastern Daylight Time

Important Notes:
GMT is an absolute time reference & doesn't change with the seasons. EST is 5 hours behind of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Note that most places in US and Canada observe daylight saving time during summer, and are therefore using EDT instead in the summer.

This would be a nose bleed stuff if you will just use your fingers in counting the differences of other time zones to that of your country. Now to make things easier for us, we can use an online tool that allows us to convert time differences.

Here is the link:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Here are some of the sample time zone conversions that I made:

LTE: The Latest Internet Technology

Few weeks ago, I heard this one of a kind broadband technology that can download data from the internet with unsurmountable speed and reliability. At first, this is just ordinary for me, considering that I had online residential customers from US with Internet Speed connection of up to 10mbps. But when I did a research I had discovered that Smart Communications already launched its multi-frequency service LTE to their customers. Consequently, it made me realized to write a blog on this to feature what is this LTE about including its great features.

What is LTE?

In simple definition:
LTE is shorthand for the most advanced fourth generation (4G) wireless technology called Long Term Evolution, which is capable of speeds of 100 Mbps and above.

From Wikipedia:
LTE (an initialism of Long Term Evolution), marketed as 4G LTE, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. The goal of LTE was to increase the capacity and speed of wireless data networks using new DSP (digital signal processing) techniques and modulations that were developed around the turn of the millennium.

To those who are interested:
Smart announced that subscriber plans begin with Smart LTE Plan 3500. As part of their launch promo, Smart LTE will be unlimited until October 25, 2012. Each user is given a monthly data allowance of 10GB, and will begin on that day. Plan 3500 will include multi-band USB dongle that works for both PCs and Macs.

How to install Android Apps without wifi?

I just got a new LG phone (LG Optimus L3). This is the latest dual SIM from LG Company released as of July 2012. Normally, I just used wifi to download android apps via the google store, but what if you do not have the wifi connection. How do you download apps then? I tried to google but most of the tutorial asked me to download a file manager like "Astro" but I really don't  have any single file manager in my LG Phone. So, I decided to create my own tutorial that works for me.

1.  Since LG Optimus doesn't have any File Manager built-in within the unit, you have to download the mobile PC suite from their website:
http://www.lg.com/ph/support-mobile/lg-E400

2. Install the PC Suite in your computer and open it. You can see a simple tutorial on how to use it on its first use, so there is no need to panic on how to use it.

3. Connect LG Optimus to your PC using the USB Connector. Tap down the main screen of the phone to reveal some options like "USB Storage, Charge Only and PC Software. In this case choose "PC Software". Automatically the PC Suite will detect the content of your SD Card as well as its built in memory. On the left pane, it will display the "Device Name" and the PC Library.

4. Under the PC Library, choose Applications. Click on the drop down menu below the File/Edit Menu Bar. Choose "Import File to Library". Search for the .apk file that you downloaded from google and open it. Right Click the file and choose "Install App on the Device".

5. The Android app will automatically shows up in your phone after the installation.


Sample APK Website:
http://www.iapktop.com
http://www.appsapk.com


Note: I'm still working on the video tutorial on this. If you want to have one, I can share it with you, just contact me. Thanks!

FB New Feature: Promote Button

Promote an Important Post
Now you can promote posts and bump your important news, links, and photos higher in News Feed.

Implication:
But you need to pay for this. FB setup various ways on how to pay. Its a good feature, a new way of business. Rating? 7/10.

Is there money in Blogging?

What most failed bloggers will tell you, when you ask them if there is money in blogging, is a plain simple no. However, ask someone who has enjoyed a successful run as a blogger and his answer will be different. The question remains- Is there money in blogging? We think there is and it solely depends on you how you earn it.

There are a few basics that one has to keep in mind about blogging. I will be posting some basic steps that you may follow to earn money while enjoying blogging.. :-)

Blog Assignment / Project (Whole Year)

Note: Add two posts (text and image) in a week. This would be a weekly assignment and a whole year project for individual pupil.
 
1. Sign Up a blog account using blogger.com
2. Layout your blog and put the following contents:
-add a post (text and image)
-change layout, footer
-add a page
-create a custom image header (13inches x 2inches)
3. PM in Facebook or email me your blog address to admin@youngwebartist.org in the following format:

Name:
Section:
Blog Address:

My First Blog

  Tree Planting or Mountain Climbing?

  This is my first blog! Welcome to my web blog!