Janette Toral sharing her tourist experience in Australia.

Friday 28 December 2007

Australia Top 100 Blogs (as of December 2007)

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Tuesday 25 December 2007

Jobs in Australia

Through this blog, I got an interesting e-mail recently from people based overseas who are planning to move here in Adelaide asking how I find it and the job opportunities available.

There are sites that you can check out to look for opportunities such as Seek and MyCareer. Before applying, you should invest time in making your resume look great or else your efforts will be futile. Getting a resume writer to polish it up for you may be an option if you don't have time to work on it.

Work at home, in the Philippines and whenever visiting Australia, is doing well for me so far as I have a client base. Expanding my ad network in Australia is a challenge I'll be taking on in the coming days.

Tuesday 18 December 2007

Fluff audition and games kids missed

My daughter submitted this fluff drawing the other day hoping to be considered in this (fluff)Friends application which is now popular in Facebook.

She got no response so far so I just asked for her drawing to post it here. She was at first thinking of habitat, fluff food, decorations, among others to compliment but maybe this is something that she can still consider doing later on. A game development competition which she joined lately seems to be taking a higher priority now.

Since we got here, my kids were badly disappointed that they are unable to play some of their favorite online games like O2Jam, Audition, OZ World, and Granado Espada. I hope a gaming company in Australia will consider carrying them here or discover available alternatives.

Monday 17 December 2007

Christmas in Australia

My husband started working in the area of Woodville, South Australia beginning January this year. He has a contract of up to 2010. At this point, I regularly travel between Philippines and Australia to catch up, take care of the kids, and maintain the household. For 2008, I expect this to happen from 4 to 6 times a year.

For 2007, this is the first time I'll be spending my Christmas in another country. I guess what makes it easy is that my family is here and at least we are together.

Although I admit that the kids will miss the December 24 family reunion that happens yearly in the father side of my family. This is where they get most of their gifts and always looked forward to it.

To prepare for the season, extra effort is made on our part. Last weekend, we started our Christmas shopping by buying a nice Christmas ham and cheese. We also found a store and found interesting gifts to give to the kids.

I'm a very family-oriented person and have kept our lives very private, even from my close friends. But for this year, I have to condition myself with the possibility of doing our Christmas celebration with my husband's newly-found friends.

A new book arrived in the mail this week, "The Art of Agile Development".

Thursday 6 December 2007

Filipina in Australia

Last weekend, I just got back in Findon South Australia for a vacation with the family. It is a good thing that my year 11 kids are now on school break so I'm no longer home alone the whole day.

There are a few things that I brought back with me:
  1. Philippines Christmas Lantern - having this at home is like a substitute for a Christmas tree.
  2. Lucky Me Pancit Canton (extra spicy) - there's nothing quite like it and I'm sure anyone who got the chance to try it will certainly miss this variety.
  3. Several books to read and get techie. This includes:
My daughter, who is currently in year 11, just got her 2nd art commission and is truly pleased. To support her further, we got a one-year subscription so she can customize her art site. It is nice that she finds herself generating revenue from it after 3 years of being a site member.

So yeah, Christmas season in Findon, is definitely the opposite compared to Manila, Philippines. As long as I'm with my family, regardless of location, I'm home.

Saturday 10 November 2007

Winners: Ratified Australia Text-Ad Raffle

Using Random's integer generator, the following three blogs got picked as winners in the Ratified Australia one-month text ad raffle.
Congratulations! To claim your prize, please e-mail me (digitalfilipino at gmail dot com) your anchor or ad text (limited to 50 characters, which is 2 lines in the sidebar). Once received, the ad shall be activated within a few days.

Just to let everyone know as well, you can now place an advertisement in Ratified Australia.

Tuesday 6 November 2007

Shopping and earning at the same time

I always try to keep an open mind when it comes to the various affiliate programs online. One program that I checked out lately was aShopFor and created my own store.

When I or a site visitor makes a purchase online, I receive a contribution or commission. I tried this out last month and signed up in one of those direct selling cosmetic companies for my personal purchases. That registration is free but I also earned US$10.00 from it. As I'm preparing for my trip to the Philippines this Saturday, I could maximize this site further by purchasing for my hotel accommodation in Singapore (already felt bad for not using it to buy the airfare ticket) and getting a travel insurance.

Those who creates a shop that were referred by me also results to an ongoing commission for the revenue the affiliates generate. Although I still have to experience this should I be able to attract others to try it themselves.

The only downside that I've seen so far is the time it takes for the shop earnings to appear online. I guess as aShopFor is also a member of various affiliate program sites, it will have to wait for a report credit and then do the same to its members.

But putting that aside, I'm very happy with the concept of this site as it allows me earn from my transactions and could only hope for more shops to appear through it. I conclude that this site can be practical to those who are active in purchasing stuff online and would like to explore the possibility of getting a cash back of sort from their purchases - that they won't otherwise get unless they have a site in aShopFor.

Monday 5 November 2007

Doing seminars in Findon

Early today, I decided to visit three places to inquire about the fees that they charge to use a function room. This includes the Findon Library, Festival Functions, and Findon Community Center. Based from the rates, I figured more or less how much to charge should I decide to proceed in conducting seminars here.

Getting resource persons or experts in e-commerce, Internet marketing, and software process improvement who can be potential collaborators is one path I'm looking at as I don't think I'm confident to do this alone on the 1st attempt.

Another item to think about is the work required to do marketing and promote a particular event. I'm exploring to outsource the marketing part and that would mean scouting for entities who have expertise in doing this and with a good database. If they could function as the collecting entity as well, all the better.

Although registering for an Australian Business Number is an option so I can do this directly, I guess I'm having uncertainty if this is something that can be done on a continuous basis and whether I'll be ok with a TFN for now. In the Philippines, I outsource my events marketing and collection that makes things easy for me.

Another option I'm considering is to create a version of my e-commerce and software process improvement community here where members can attend the seminars for free. But building a reputation takes time. My e-commerce site was already four years old before I got to introduce the club membership part.

Still thinking...

Saturday 3 November 2007

Thinking too much

(I'm trying to explore a variety of ways of coming up with a blog post. This one was inspired from several blogs that I've read today and where I tried relating it to my experience.)

Today, I started my morning by sending a gift to a person whom I've been communicating for more than a year now (although I haven't met her personally). I found out that it was her birthday today through Facebook. Although I've been a member of the Amazon Associates program for quite sometime, it was actually my first time to buy an item (a gift) from the site. I guess the high shipping cost has always turned me off whenever I made attempts in the past. Looking for books that has an e-book version were not available either that makes it a heart breaker. But finally, buying that gift to this person, whom I'm extremely grateful to, is definitely worth the effort. At least I was able to start using those gift certificates earned from its affiliate program. Amazon should start considering having a Facebook gift purchasing application as there's much opportunity that can be captured and take advantage of the relationship linkage that goes with gift giving.

I'm happy in the past two days as my kids began enjoying the local library. It is a big deal when they start putting xBox game consoles inside these establishments that the children can use for free. The young ones can play a Fifa game while the older ones read books. I also found a whole barrage of activities happening the area that I would love to participate soon. Surprisingly, we all got dragged to the library since my daughter started making friends in school and they agreed to just meet in the library to catch up, borrow anime movie DVDs, among others.

My last week in Australia will be hectic as I need to prepare for my workshops and this include giving club members advance pre-work material. That includes last-minute self promotion too. Cramming can be frustrating when you want to integrate as much relevant information as you can as most of my club members are e-business entrepreneurs. There's a lot of pressure on the quality of the content. Take for instance the topic of web navigation, I'm now figuring out if I will have time to include data visualization as well. I guess trying to maintain an evangelist perspective requires you to really work hard to earn it.

Good thing I'm still spared in getting myself in the Second Life community as there are hardly virtual conferences of that sort happening in our part of the world. I noticed though that appreciation of technologies like Web 2.0 is still slow for organizations. So I guess Enterprise 2.0 won't be happening that soon. Perhaps what prevents it from being totally embraced is the idea of ownership and community belonging.

As I'll be riding the plane back home to Manila next weekend, one item that I still haven't decided upon is whether I will go and explore Singapore night life or just stay at the airport overnight. The thing is, my plane will land at 5:40 pm and my flight the next day is at 9:45 am. So I could either just sleep or catch up with people I met online hoping to see them. But disturbing people on a Saturday night is something that I'm not sure if it is ok to do. I hope to decide on this in the next few days.

Whenever in Singapore, one place I always look forward to visit is the electronics shop. They have so much stuff there although I don't really need anything right now and the least I want is to resort to buying gadgets just for the heck of it. Although in my past visits, I've been able to go around the market, have a good Indian food and Vongole dinner in different occasions.

Before leaving, I also have to announce the three winners of the Ratified Australia free text ads. Those who have the Ratified button in their blogs are entitled to be included in the raffle. I wish I could just write to all the blogs listed in Ratified and ask them to add the button but that would be too imposing (and I'm afraid of being rejected or be scolded for it). So I hope this raffle will subtly encourage more blogs to do so.

Another thing that I also need to wrap-up is a marketing plan for a company who plans to operate a casino site targeting those who live in China. With a growing economy, it is not surprising that you find a lot of people working there rather than owning a business these days.

I noticed several male Aussie bloggers joining the Movember campaign. This is where the guys have to grow and groom their moustache for the whole month as they campaign for funds that shall be donated to charities. I think such is a swell idea and will participate actively next year. So I encourage you to sponsor Darren Rowse and Nick Hodge for their Movember pitch.

By December, the election will be over and no one knows for sure whether Australia will have a new Prime Minister by that time. But with the campaign pitches, I'm partly biased in hoping that Howard will remain. I guess I just hate watching debates where opponents are so good in pointing their finger on faults instead of focusing on why their agenda is better - that would encourage voters to give new leaders a chance. The more they put down an existing leader, the more their good qualities, no matter how imperfect they are, also surfaces and gets remembered.

It is funny that I'm already looking forward to be back in Australia and to think I haven't left yet. I'm already thinking about buying David Austin roses for my planned garden, cookies baking, watch live football games and a symphony performance, doodling, and various arts and crafts. Reading up on past art work is something that I have to make time for to get some inspiration for arts and crafts through.

With the holiday season fast approaching, I will need to catch up as well with reading the catalogue junk mail and find out what can be bought in nearby stores that can be useful for the home and that the kids will love to (as there will be no family reunions for them this year). Although they made it clear that they want to have a great Asian Christmas meal to celebrate it so that will require some serious scouting for good Asian restaurants.

From December onwards, I'll try to network and attend meet ups to get to know more people personally. Although some might say that I'm being too optimistic as there's not much action happening in Adelaide.

I'm considering visiting the local zoo again especially once they have new animals there like the Panda that will be donated by the Chinese government. I hope they'll have elephants soon. I'm also thinking of planning a vacation in 2008. Perhaps Greece will be nice.

Friday 2 November 2007

Being away

(This post is inspired by my friend's twitter messages where I get all the ideas from. I am trying to fire-up a NaNoWriMo entry by getting prompts from it.)

I just woke up this 2nd of November. Everything is generally ok. I logged on to twitter and saw contacts giving their usual good mornings. Well, there's nothing outstanding on this day yet. I guess they are just used to that routine of telling the world that "Hey! I exist!"

I opened my e-mail and Facebook and check my usual messages. Also look at Warbook, Vampires, and if there's enough strength left, fight back or beat up other heroes. Being able to fight back and succeed against those who attacked you first gives this sense of pride. Silly isn't it? Although I'm very tempted to uninstall these applications. They can't hurt your game character if you don't exist anymore right? Not to mention that they can waste your time as well.

It is great to see people flock social networking sites more than porn. I have a no porn policy at home. Yes, I'm very demanding but also because I have young boys and girls in the family. Also, in Feng Shui, having a women painting or poster is bad luck for couples or partners.

Christmas season is fast coming. This year's Christmas is not going to be that exciting. Moving in to a new country, means being away from family and friends. Of course, thanks to the Internet I can still keep in touch but I miss the texting and meet up days for a great Italiannis lunch and Starbucks coffee.

I wonder what's the fuss for Christmas this year. Of course, there's the election in Australia and never-ending political scandals in the Philippines. Although life is too short to spend my day worrying about it.

Thinking of what Christmas gifts to give can be a pain sometime. I wonder if a Frank Sinatra CD or a music cd with cheesy and mushy love songs will be a click to old relatives and friends. For the kids, perhaps a 5x5 rubic's cube can be an interesting gift. For the girls, I thought of giving them 2008 predictions and some of the bead jewelry that I've made in the past.

Being away gives this kind of pressure and makes you think of the things that you should be thankful for. At least I'm spared from the blogging and IT jungle that I normally feel back in the Philippines. I still believe that in life, there are no permanent friends but permanent interest. Although we could co-exist in a civilized manner but there's still that lingering thought that some might be collaborating to take me down. Unless of course, I take them down first.

I activated my mobile phone roaming although I usually turn it on most of the time to avoid being swamped by calls . Not to mention the bills and the credits taken away from my prepaid mobile phone. I wish that all applications, Gmail, Facebook, Friendster, Yahoo will have text messaging programs that can be used to keep in touch with friends. Or even a site where you can manage your Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ecademy and other social networking programs. That should look very interesting.

Saturday 27 October 2007

Updating Google PageRank in Ratified Australia

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Friday 26 October 2007

Having an amazing day at home

Craig just shared some tips on how to have an amazing day. Being here in Findon for the past two months, staying at home, to take care of the family, often sparks a question from friends - if I get lonely.

Being able to take care of your family and do a lot of things for the first time can really get you busy. At the same time, if you choose to be productive at home by also looking forward to accomplish things that helps meet your overall goals can make everyday simply amazing.

Thursday 25 October 2007

Google PageRank Slap - Is this War or Victory?

(I hope you can digg this blog post if you like it)

Snoskred and Darren gave interesting observations with the slap that Google made lately to various blogs' and websites' PageRank. This hasn't reach my websites yet so I'm partly still in a wait and see mode.

On the plus side, some may say that this development can lead to:
  • Better ranking of sites as those that do not engage in keyword-based advertising may rank better.
  • Provide authentic search results to users as those who place keyword-based ads will have less power in manipulating search engine results.
  • More advertising revenue for Google AdWords
  • More site owners to join Google AdSense as they should minimize selling links to avoid further PageRank penalty.
On the minus side, some may say that this development can lead to:
  • Blog and site marketers need to revise their criteria if Google PageRank influences the rates charged to advertisers.
  • Lose advertisers who have preferences on where their advertisement appear on site's with certain PageRank score.
  • Lose membership in ad networks who eligibility is influenced by a one's PageRank.
  • New sites will have to bear having PageRank 0 for a longer time.
  • Lower ranking in directories if it uses PageRank as a criteria on site popularity and influence.
  • Google get sued for anti-trust or unfair competition as it penalizes sites who engages in link marketing and yet embraces context sensitive advertising based on keywords. Proving that sites who participates in these programs don't get any benefit in its ranking is wanting.
  • Google get sued by consumer advocacy groups by showing sponsored links to influence choices. (as shared by Snoskred, Google already has a case in Australia)
It will be interesting to see if:
  • Google stock prices shall benefit or be harmed by this.
  • Google AdWords revenue shall increase.
  • AdSense payout shall increase.
  • New and competitor search engines will overturn Google.
  • Perception about Google will be towards good or bad guy on the block.
On another note, congratulations to PK for the launch of the The BibliOdyssey Book. This is another interesting from blog-to-book journey.

Friday 19 October 2007

October 28: Let's Meet Up and free text ads in Ratified Australia

I have to escort my daughter this October 28 for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) meet-up 2 pm at Pancake House (Gilbert Place in Adelaide).

If any of you folks are free at that time, let us meet up!

I also would like to announce that we are raffling off 3 one-month text link ad in Ratified Australia. In order to qualify, just add the Ratified button that shows your rank in your blog. I will make a blog post linking to blogs that have added the Ratified button - citing them as qualified to be part of the raffle. Winners shall be announced on November 9!

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Problogger takes #1 rank in Ratified Australia

When Ratified Australia started, one of the things that amazed me was to see Lifehack holding the #1 spot in our list. Lifehack's Feedburner subscriber base was something that most of us can only dream of.

After updating the Ratified ranking prior to this post, I was not surprised to see ProBlogger and Digital Photography School finally taking the #1 and #2 spot in Ratified. The Problogger.net's birthday celebration that gave away lots of prizes has surely contributed to the shoot up of Darren's fresh link love and growth in its Feedburner subscriber base.

For the Digital Photography School, the only campaign that I saw so far was the flyer that was distributed in Facebook (and which I passed on as well I think), I'm not sure if that was the sole factor that contributed to the growth of the site's Feedburner subscriber base.

Regardless, Darren has indeed shown us ways in tapping our existing networks to create a far more stronger community for our blog. Congratulations Darren!

Monday 8 October 2007

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:
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:
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?

Sunday 9 September 2007

Being productive at home

It's my third week in Adelaide and finally got my act together to do the stuff that I was planning to work on. This includes:
Many thanks to Lee Hopkins and Steven Noble for blogging about Ratified Australia. Many thanks to Meg's feedback that allowed us to fix a bug she found in the system. Many thanks also to the following who submitted their blog for addition:
Surfing several Aussie blogs and found the following interesting:

Friday 31 August 2007

Online friendships

Just an update, the following blogs were added to Ratified Australia
One of the things I enjoy that has driven me to partner with Ratified Australia is being able to keep myself posted on the latest in the blogosphere. Here are some stuff I saw lately:
  • There's an article at Imaginif on children learn the cycle of violence from our parenting. I believe every parent desires to be a good one. My worry on that article piece is that the writer may insinuate that he or she is a perfect parent and may alienate readers in getting the message across. Of course, reading it as compared to how it gets presented is different. Perhaps I'm missing some emphatic voice in it. Will have to re-read that sometime again.
  • Suzie made a post about the Carnivals of Australia. It seems my submission missed the deadline. =( However, the format of the upcoming Australian Blogging Conference gave me an idea on how to improve similar events I organize back home.
  • SwollenPickles gave a preview on how the Audi A4 looks like. I wonder if that car feels like a BMW inside. I guess from a passenger point of view, they all feel the same.
  • Over the weekend, we get to see some birds and I find myself lost in telling the kids what kind they are. Good thing there's Bird Anonymous that helped me in identifying them. I only wish that I'll be successful in taking their pictures next time.
  • I just learned from Haalo that there's this presto pasta night and I am thinking of sharing a Filipino style pasta soon.
Stephen made an interesting post about online friendship. I believe that the Internet has allowed us to increase our circle of contacts even more. Depending on our kind of work, some of us will get exposed to a lot of people and keeping up will be hard. I feel kinda bad whenever I receive an e-mail from someone saying they met me years ago and it is likely that I don't remember them anymore. In fact, most of the time, such is true.

When tools like LinkedIn came out, I invited members of my mailing list so I can put a face behind the e-mail addresses. Also in events where I speak, I invite those I met just to keep me posted on their movements. I have at least ten ways of using LinkedIn.

Before Facebook became popular, I'm already using Friendster and use that to monitor friends birthday, announce events once in awhile, and observe what my kids and their friends are up to. ;)

Last April, I also started using Twitter out of curiosity. Definitely, that tool became very important when blog wars started happening in my part of the world.

Tuesday 28 August 2007

110 Blogs and Adelaide Weekend

Many thanks to everyone who took the time in getting to know how Ratified works. Also to Lavender, Shai, and Andrew for giving a shoutout about the service.

I have added 110 blogs as of this blog post and still have more or less 28 blogs to go from my Australia Top 100 Blogs and Blog Juice list.

Many thanks to the blog owners who submitted the following for ratification: (excluded from this list are those we added directly from the Australia Top 100 Blogs and Blog Juice)
  1. http://www.swollenpickles.com
  2. http://www.motordude.com
  3. http://www.digitalburn.org
  4. http://cookalmostanything.blogspot.com
  5. http://www.masey.com.au
  6. http://nickhodge.com/
  7. http://www.miscmum.com/
  8. http://adelaidegreenporridgecafe.blogspot.com
  9. http://www.semanticallydriven.com
  10. http://www.imaginif.com.au/~ima33724/blog/
  11. http://www.shaicoggins.com/
  12. http://justmakemoneyonline.com/
  13. http://chrysaliscreativity.com/
  14. http://www.abundancehighway.com
  15. http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com
  16. http://blogs.msdn.com/frankarr
  17. http://airminded.org/
  18. http://www.invoiceplace.com/blog
  19. http://www.dodgypete.com/
  20. http://blog.sitemost.com.au/
  21. http://bowerbirdbeads.blogspot.com/
  22. http://www.roadlesstravelled.com.au
  23. http://artworkanonymous.blogspot.com/
  24. http://photographyanonymous.blogspot.com/
  25. http://birdanonymous.blogspot.com
  26. http://www.byootaful.com
  27. http://www.snoskred.org
  28. http://www.souvlakiforthesoul.com
  29. http://delicategeniusblog.com/
  30. http://www.howtoliveonline.com
  31. http://www.craigharper.com.au/
  32. http://psychmatters.blogspot.com
  33. http://johblogs.blogspot.com
  34. http://facibus.com/onblogging
  35. http://onblogging.com.au
  36. http://facibusreviews.com/blog
  37. http://www.tamaleaver.net/
  38. http://www.enjoyperth.net/
  39. http://www.pencilportraits.com.au/blog
  40. http://www.acidlabs.org/service/blog
  41. http://manwithnoblog.com
  42. http://www.purecaffeine.com
  43. http://weblog.200ok.com.au/
  44. http://librariansmatter.com/blog
  45. http://kay.smoljak.com/
  46. http://www.velvet.id.au/
  47. http://tedalog.blogspot.com/
  48. http://tedamenu.blogspot.com/
  49. http://tedreviewperth.blogspot.com/
  50. http://zencookbook.blogspot.com/
Should you have queries about Ratified, you can reach me at 0423534867.

I just had my first week in Adelaide and got used in being the caretaker of the household while the kids now go to school. My daughter in year 9 is having a tough time to adjust. Good thing she has two older siblings who can check her out during the break.

Running an online business while working on some projects in the Philippines is manageable so far. It seems I will miss the upcoming Adelaide Meet Up as I will be teaching software project scoping and planning at that time.

Last Saturday, we visited the South Australia Museum and checked out the National Science Week exhibit. We've spotted the following:
  1. There's a club called the Starship Mawson that caters to all science fiction, fantasy, and cult genres.
  2. There's a campaign to bring butterflies back to Adelaide where everyone is encourage to create a butterfly-friend habitat. All of us can participate by planting butterfly and caterpillar food plants. You can also join the Butterfly Conservation SA and know more about the butterflies of South Australia.
  3. Jasmin and Janin got the chance to touch a diamond python.
  4. Surprised to find that there's a group called the Mars Society of Australia whose goal is the human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet.
  5. I got hold of information about the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in the Flinders Ranges. If events will go as planned, that is one place I surely want to visit during the school break this October.
  6. I also got a flyer that details activities for children and families up to January 2008 organized by the Art Gallery of South Australia. At the back of it promotes a site that talks about positive minds and mental health. It's a nice site but I think my kids will find it weird if I ask them to check it out.
Last but not the least, I got an email from Charmayne Paul about encouraging bloggers to take part in a global relay as support for the Child Protection Week and make a flag of commitment. Let us all take part!

I'm submitting this article in the Carnival of Australia.

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Getting the kids settled in Adelaide

Last Saturday, the family arrived in Adelaide with all excitement especially upon seeing our home. The first order of business is to get the kids to school at Seaton Park Primary School and Findon High School. They youngest already started last Tuesday while the 3 in high school will start tomorrow.

From a foreigner's perspective, here are some observations:
  • The school personnel are very friendly.
  • It is a weird feeling when no one asks you to pay a fee upfront.
  • Great to have your kids enter school even if it is already in the middle of the year.
  • There are hardly any basketball court and they now have to catch up learning soccer.
  • It is different when you don't have helpers at home as you are struggling to have enough time to do some serious blogging work.
I'm gradually picking up on sites to include in Ratified Australia and some I have made a blog post in relation to it. This includes:
I haven't really shared that much personal stuff in my blogs before. However, after getting to read through Karen Cheng's blog, I think I can also do it.

Tuesday 14 August 2007

Are you Ratified?


Andrew Dela Serna just made an announcement about our collaboration with me handling Ratified Australia. This is a directory that intends to rank the top 100 blogs in the Australian blogosphere. It ranks based on three different factors: Technorati Links, Google Pagerank and Feedburner subscribers.

So if you’re an Aussie blogger, I encourage you to get Ratified now!

Monday 13 August 2007

Things to do in Adelaide

This coming weekend will be my 2nd trip to Adelaide to visit a loved one. As these trips will be quite frequent in the next 3 years, I've started jotting down notes on how to make this as productive as possible that includes:
In addition to that, I look forward in getting to know more bloggers in the community as well and that is where I've collaborated with a friend for a blogging project. I hope to make that announcement in a post soon. Cheers!

Saturday 14 July 2007

Australia Top 100 Blogs and Blog Juice

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Wednesday 13 June 2007

First family van - SUZUKI, XL-7 4X4

We just got a SUZUKI, XL-7 4X4 (different color though) last April. It is interesting to find yourself shopping for a car using the Internet. What a great convenience indeed!

Saturday 19 May 2007

The Adelaide Blog Index

If there was one website that I really wished I visited before visiting Adelaide last March 31 was The Adelaide Index. This site contains a listing of 487 blogs (as of this post) that were made by people residing in Adelaide.

I wonder if any of them will be nominated in our Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs in 2007.

I look forward in visiting Adelaide again later this year. This time, I'll make sure to get a ride in the Adelaide Gondola.

Sunday 29 April 2007

Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre: Journey to the Afterlife

One of the amazing exhibits I've visited during my visit to Adelaide, Australia is the Egyptian Antiquities from the Louvre: Journey to the Afterlife.

It gave a preview on how the Egyptians in the early days prepared for the passage of the dead, especially those of noble and royal blood.

The exhibit had interesting themes such as the Lords of Eternity, Gateway to Heaven, Heaven Beyond Earth, Heaven Next to Earth, and the Gates of Heaven.

Being inside the exhibit is like a time travel and makes you kinda wonder what would it be like to be treated that way.

Sunday 8 April 2007

Visiting South Australian Museum


I find the South Australian Museum a must visit place if you are in Adelaide Australia. I was there lately and found time to check out aboriginal and historic relics, and other collections

You can also find some special exhibitions, events happening in the area.

Thursday 5 April 2007

Welcome to Discovering Adelaide Australia


I arrived in Adelaide, Australia last week for a vacation and get me on track in planning for the future. Whatever is available online about Adelaide is not enough to show off the things, events, culture that can be found here.

Through this blog, I hope being able to share my discoveries about Australia.