Doing things for the first time

My second month in Adelaide is all about becoming comfortable and a bit experimental. It has been awhile since I've been able to do things for the first time, no matter how simple they are like playing Sudoku, Warbook, create an autobiography, and accept payments through Paypal. I also got my first link love from Craig Harper. (Many thanks Craig!)

I got hold of the following books and look forward in learning:

• Google in Education
• Programming Collective Intelligence
• Dynamic Learning Flash CS3 Professional
• Designing Web Navigation
• High Performance Web Sites
• SOA in Practice
• Software Testing Practice: Test Management
• Ruby by Example: Concepts and Code
  

I'm experimenting as well with ashopfor that promotes the concept of making money with friends. Through it, I got lured to sign-up with Avon to prepare for holiday Christmas shopping.

Next month, I'll be in Manila to do my regular workshop for club members and will be teaching software project scoping and planning at that time. I will be campaigning as well for the Philippine Schools Cyberfair 2008, Blogging and 2010 Elections Forum, and pick the winners of the Filipina Writing Project.

Upon return, one of the things I am considering is to get some work experience here and will see how will that go.

Many thanks to the owners of the following blogs that were submitted and added in Ratified.org Australia in the last four weeks:

• http://alyndabear.com
• http://www.smallofficeaustralia.com
• http://typingisnotactivism.wordpress.com
• http://seo-sydney.blogspot.com
• http://sueblimelybt.blogspot.com
• http://www.tmsound.com.au/blog
• http://www.kotaku.com.au/
• http://justanother24hours.wordpress.com
• http://disabilitycarework.blogspot.com/
• http://australian.blogspot.com/
• http://www.thehealthylivinglounge.com
• http://barebonesgardening.blogspot.com/

We now have a Ratified Australia Facebook group and I encourage you to join, introduce your blogs, and post some developments that you may want to share.

Some of the following items worth noting in the blogosphere:

• I agree with Nick that we should use our names as brands wisely. For that reason, I had a hard time deciding whether I want to have a blog to represent it. Nevertheless, one should take the effort of protecting it by immediately registering its domain name.
• I'm intrigued with the developments happening in Digg as a social networking site. One can only likely to succeed if your submission reflect the interest of the crowd in it. I had a submission lately which brought good traffic to my blog but does not necessarily merit a vote.
• Through Shai's blog, also discovered this SEO IQ Quiz that got me pretty excited to try.
• If not for applications like Warbook (which have been a traffic contributor to my other blog lately), I will likely be a very inactive user of Facebook too.
• One thing that amazed me since I got here in Australia was how popular sports can be to the point that it hugs the limelight and headlines more than your usual politics. I guess that is why there's so much funding invested. But sometimes, it can be too much as shared by Tim.
• In a blogchain, Gillian shared that what and how we eat reflects who we are. I agree that eating can be a mindful meditation. Whenever I have friends just learning how to cook, I usually tell them not to take the things they eat for granted. Feel it and have a sense on how it was prepared. What was in it that made it exciting and delicious?