It’s been quite some time since my last post here in Think LAB (getting used with this new name of our blog, stands for Think Like A Beginner).

Got a lot of things in my head to blog. Wedding, Tech, Blogging are some of the ideas. But I’m running out of time and words to write.

While the page views of this blog is diminishing little by little, day after day, I’m doing my very best effort to boost up the page views once again. Gone were the days when this blog was hitting 3000 – 5000 page views and thousands of unique visitors daily. Thanks to Mara Clara. Lol!

Honestly, sometimes, I’m loosing hope that Think Like A Beginner’s page visits will pick up again. Imagine, in the past few weeks, this blog is hitting page views of not more than 100 only. Sometimes, I’m thinking not to continue updating this blog anymore but my conscience is telling me not to.

Can somebody tell me what’s the culprit? Where do we go wrong? Perhaps, I must follow my conscience to continue blogging. I will just hope and pray that someday we will pick up again. By the way, last November 17, 2011 was the 1st birthday of Think Like A Beginner. Belated happy 1st birthday!!!

I am bothered with this ads popping out from our website. It says “Google Pays me $129 an Hour…Google has blessed me with a $4,800 a Month Income”.

I tried to search from the world wide web on how to remove this and detect what’s causing this ads to pop up but I can’t find one good answer to solve this problem

If you’re a blogger or one who maintains a blog, perhaps you encountered the same problem and was able to solve it, may we ask your help on how to remove this pop up ads?

Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers and also a blogger, shared in his blog 10 mistakes that bloggers commit and considered to be traffic-killers. Let’s take this lesson from this man as he only wrote more than 1,000 posts and received more than 60,000 comments.

Here’s the list:

1. You don’t post enough.
2. You post too much.
3. Your post is too long.
4. You don’t invite engagement.
5. You don’t participate in the conversation.
6. You don’t make your content accessible.
7. You don’t create catchy headlines.
8. Your first paragraph is weak.
9. Your post is off-brand.
10. Your post is about YOU.

I admit, I have committed all of the above mistakes. This encouraged me to improve my writing and this blog as well.

Have you learned? Do you have something to add on the list?

As the title says, this is the very first post here in our blog that pertains to photography. And it’s not other people’s photography. It’s ours.

I am not saying that we’re getting into this hobby (passion or whatever you may call it) called photography, I only want to share to you what we’ve got from the camera we used in taking these photos.

The photos below were taken during our stay in my Dear’s hometown, Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur. Thanks to our churchmate, Kuya Ron, who lent us his Canon EOS 350D DSLR camera. It was my first time to use and operate a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. This camera is one of the first DSLR models, I guess, of Canon.

Kuya Ron also lent us the extra lens he has for the camera. Sorry, I can’t remember the model name of the lens. But I can only remember for now the word ULTRASONIC which is embossed on the cover of the lens. This lens is bit longer than the EF-S lens that comes with Canon 350D and is good for far-distant subject. Some of the photos below where taken using this Ultrasonic lens, especially the beach ones.

I’m just more than happy to share these photos to you which I and Ads took during our vacation because we can’t have this kind of photos using an ordinary digital camera. I’m just a novice when it comes to photography that’s why it’s a great accomplishment having this photos.

Here are the photos taken using Canon EOS 350D, feel free to write your comment:

For a copy of Canon EOS 350D manual, please click here.

Before internet and blogging become prominent in our age today, people who wanted to keep the record of their experiences, emotions, in short their lives, they write all of them on a piece of paper or notebook or tickler called “diary” or journal. But I am not saying that diary-writing has already vanished when blogging and internet came in. Many people are still engaged in writing journals.

Diary has an equivalent when we speak of blogging. I consider personal blog as the modern diary or the journal-of-today. The difference is that with diary, you want to keep it secret. I mean everything that’s in there is private. It’s for your own consumption only. While personal blogging is a public one. You are letting other people to see what’s in your mind, your experiences, what you feel. Because it’s published online.

Actually, what you are reading now is a personal blog.

As far as I can remember, I only maintained one notebook for my diary before, when I was teenager. I am not fond of writing diary. I just can’t remember now the reason why I started that diary. Maybe because it was a school requirement. I don’t know, I can’t remember.

However personal blog does not necessarily start with “Dear Diary” thing. Esther Wachtell is another example of personal blog. As you can see, you can share your personal knowledge of something in your personal blog. Try also Esther Wachtell News and see other form of personal blog.

Personal blog or website is one of the easiest blog to maintain. It’s for the reason that you don’t need to focus on a certain topic or subject. You can discuss everything under the sun.

So if you are fed up writing your diary in a notebook or a piece of paper, why not try personal blogging? But you must consider that you are opening it to the public.

Good news to all bloggers and freelance writers out there! There’s a new platform or website where you can use your skill onto and at the same time EARN! GHOSTBLOGGERS is born!

By signing up with GhostBloggers, you can publish your unique articles and sell them to blog and website owners. And this is the catch: once a buyer purchase your article, you will receive US$3.50 per 100 words. This means that for an article of 600 words, you will receive US$21. The income is promising, isn’t it?

Aside from selling your unique articles in Ghostbloggers, you can also buy unique articles for your website or blog. The cost is US$5 per 100 words per article.

However, reading from the FAQ section of the website which I think will become available to your view once you sign up with them, contents that you will be publishing in Ghostbloggers cannot be published anymore in your blog or website because once your article has been sold or purchased, the ownership or copyright transfers from writer to client. Well that’s my understanding on that FAQ.

What about intellectual property and copyright?

Upon purchase or sale of an article, all copyright is permanently transferred from writer to client. Upon submitting articles, writers are already asked to confirm they possess this right to transfer copyright.

We have already signed up and will try to publish our first article in GhostBloggers. You may try this new earning potential website which is currently on its beta version.

We would like to share our first earnings online through our blog, Think Like A Beginne.  It’s not that big, though.  At least now I could attest that we can make money online through blogging.

Not only to share some thoughtful ideas, we also started blogging to make money online.  That’s why when we launched this blog, we signed up with different websites that give opportunities to bloggers to earn money, such as Buyblogreviews, payperpost, payu2blog, sponsored tweets and google adsense, by simply writing a review of a certain product, services or website, or by tweeting an advertisement.

See screenshots below:

BUYBLOGREVIEWS

Buyblogreviews.com: $1.05

Google Adsense

Google Adsense: $1.62

Sponsored Tweets

Sponsoredtweets: $0.50

In a span of  1 month, we were able to earn $3.07.  Yes it’s not big but it’s good to know that we have already started earning online and I expect that there will be more to come.

Last February 2, we made a blog about the disapproval of our Google Adsense application.  We mentioned there that the disapproval was due to some pages of our website were under construction (where in fact they’re not).  What I did was to resubmit our blog to Google or reapplication.

I wasn’t not hoping, this time, for a quick response from Google.  But I was surprised last night when I got an email from them that our application was approved.

I was so glad because finally we got the approval from the Big G.  We waited for it for two months.  So last night I immediately set up the ad units.  I thought it would be difficult to set it up but I was wrong.  It only took me less than an hour, considering my internet connection was not that fast, to set it up.  As you can see, we have ad units in the header, before and after the contents, sidebar and custom search.  I’m still learning how to put adsense in the footer of this blog.  I’m also still on my learning curve on how to use the custom channel.

We just hope for now that this google adsense will bring us income.  But of course, we need to work out first on the SEO of this blog so we can increase the traffic or the number of our visitors.

At last after almost two months of waiting, Google has already replied for my Adsense application.  I was glad when I saw the GOOGLE ADSENSE ACCOUNT STATUS from our email’s inbox a couple of hours ago.  However, when I opened the email and read it, I was saddened.  Google did not accept our application because according to them our webpage is UNDER CONSTRUCTION.  How come they were able to arrive on that remarks when in fact this blog has been running for 2 months already.  I really don’t understand Google’s response.  However, we were given another chance to resubmit our application.  So right after I finished reading Google’s email, I resubmitted our application.

Please find below the excerpt from Google’s email:

Hello XXXXXXX,

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we’re unable to accept you into Google
AdSense at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.

Issues:

- Under construction

———————

Further detail:

Under construction: We’ve found that your site’s pages are incomplete
or under construction. We require websites to be launched and navigable
before being considered for AdSense. Your site must also contain enough
content for our specialists to review, and to display relevant ads.
Once the majority of your site is complete and functional, we’ll be
happy to reconsider your application.

I checked all the pages of our blogsite but I can see no incomplete or under construction pages.  (Kindly comment on this post if you found incomplete or pages that are under construction, thanks in advance!).

I just wish that it won’t take 2 months before I receive Google’s answer to our re-application.

Symposium is defined as a meeting or conference for discussion of a topic, a collection of writings on a particular subject and convivial meeting.

I made this point because if you have noticed, there’s a forum page link on our navigation bar where readers of this page can post topics that they want to discuss with the rest of the world.  I want to include a photo of this page but my Adobe Photoshop CS2 is not working good as at this moment.  I don’t know if this will come to success but for now I am just enjoying its presence on our blogsite.

This forum page is powered by WP Symposium plugin.  I just bumped into this plugin in our wordpress dashboard a couple of hours ago, reviewed its description and browse its homepage, and got amazed of its capabilities.  That’s why I tried this one.

WP Symposium is actually a group of plugins that each provide certain functionality and each can be activated or deactivated.  And Forum is one of its plugins.  Other plugins include: Login, Registration, Profile, Avatar, Mail, Members Directory, Notification Bar, and Widgets.  You may download the user guide from their support page.

Until now, I’m still thinking of topics to be discussed in our forum page.  Perhaps you could help us by commenting on this page or leaving a post on the forum.