Friends, if you love blogging, why not try to maximize your passion for it by doing paid blogs? Yes, a lot of us are already into it, and I am dying to share this good news for everybody.

If you want to know how...feel free to navigate in the next entries.

This will be the first time that I will be posting my own personal entries here in TheBlogClub. You better enjoy it while it lasts.

Our home PC which is almost three years old is now nearing its death. I wanted to upgrade its parts to pimp it up just like having face lift Boca Raton. The computer technician says it will cost us about 10k to upgrade this thing because almost all the parts of our "lolo" CPU has now become obsolete that it's already gone in the market. Like its RAM,.it's still running in a 256mb DDR1 RAM. The hardisk contains 65% contagious files..and the motherboard itself is already experiencing some kind of hotflashes like menopausal ladies do. Not only that, our PC monitor is going through some severe hiccups that you need to tap its back really hard for it to be okay. uh-oh. I want to upgrade our PC and I want to purchase my own laptop too. So, I'll be saving around 40k pesos to get what I want. Please pray for me and my finances.

In blogging, don't confuse yourself with what to you. If you want to describe a famous clinic that you have been into like saying: LaskyClinic is operated by top notch surgeons of the world, then you may do so. Or if you want to state: Apple juice tastes better when they are cold. What I'm saying is: JUST BE SPONTANEOUS! If are not comfortable with the English languange, there are plenty of bloggers out there who sticks with their national language. Take a look at this blog:

http://speaknoenglish.livejournal.com/ - Only the titles are in english mode.

If you're feeling angry, blog it! If you're so happy and got no one to celebrate your happiness with, blog it! The whole world wide web will celebrate with you!

Honestly, you will never really know what blogging can bring you. Some, it brought them a 36" Plasma TV; for some, it brought them a house; and for some, it made them buy his own dream car. For me, my blogs became my bestfriends, and I'm proud to say that I came to love and know myself more because of this. I thank God for this.

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PS

Let me know how blogging changed you and your life.

Weird blog titles can be fun too. It is one's way of showing its creativity. There are a number of blog titles which I certainly like. Here's my top ten countdown.

10.  Bittersweet minus the sugar
9. Figments of a Queer
8. If I want God to laugh
7. Jerks: a letter to
6. L3s (Lasses who act like lads but not lesbians)
5. The art by which plastic surgeons make - this is by far one of the best I've read!
4. For the lack of anything else to say..
3. Poetry of Coincedence
2. Backseat Philosopher
1. My Thoughts..and I do have one (from Ellen Degeneres website)

If you have problems with titles, subjects, and such..feel free to navigate around the web for you will surely can create something that suits your blogging mood. That's why I say it is important to be blog hopping so that you will be able to educate yourself about the simple ways on blogging. Blog hop, make friends online, and most of all, write a blog entry. Enjoy blogging!

In blogging, you can freely talk about any topic that you want. I'd like to quote one of my classmates in UP, who just signed up a blogger account about two days ago, because he's both harsh (towards blog nerds) and funny (because he's became a blog nerd now, too). In his first blog entry he said:

Well the "blogging fever" (I think it peaked around 2003-2006, oh and please forgive me for the term "blogging fever") never did hit me. But don't get me wrong, I never did think of bloggers as lowlife nerds who didn't have anything better to do than write what they thought were knowledgeable opinions regarding matters that they deemed interesting enough to praise or well, make fun of *inhales then grins*. -DonRamontiko

It's funny because actually, he's been hit by the 'blogging fever', so to speak.

Anyway, in blogging, you need not be serious or so formal about it, yes you can be of that type too, but what I am talking about is you can be yourself when you're blogging. You need not be imitating other serious, goth-type bloggers to be thought of as a deep person. But if you want to be thought about as a deep person with a healthy intrapersonal value, talk about yoga, for sure you'll get the impression that you want. Anyway, I have even read one commentary that says, Blogging is not a form of journalism, but it is only an avenue to where one expresses his own ideas, thoughts, and experiences. Yes it's true that for many bloggers out there, they only use their blogs as an exhaust of the thoughts that they have. But there are also bloggers out there too, uses their blogs to write their opinions on the current national issues; reviews on movies, literature and art; some bloggers also have made their blogsites as a newsroom--so with all of this, I think blogging too has made its way towards the world of journalism.

Page layouting and design is a something that I am not really good about. It's sad but my gift of working with colors have lasted after my gradeschool years. So here's a good system from the book, Campus Journalism, that will give all of us hints on how to do it at least 'correctly' with our own website or blog.

A good page layout must be attractive and functional. Every element on the page must be able to tell the story in order to communicate.

Aims of an Effective Layout/Design

♥ To attract readers by an interesting and orderly appearance of the page.
♥ To arrange stories/entries and other other materials according to their importance.
♥ To capture attention by pictures.

I might speak the alien tongue now, but just keep on reading--maybe we'll learn something from this. Also, I think this might help us improve the 'traffic' that we want to get from the readers worldwide.

Primary Optical Area (POA) - reading the top left corner of each page.Then the reading eye moves downward and to the right, for he knows that when he gets to the lower right corner he has finished reading the whole page.

Terminal Area (TA) - Right, lower part of each page.

• Place a strong attention-compeller in the POA. The task is to convert a 'looker' into a 'reader'. So you must grab attention with a stron and/or interesting element.

• Anchor the corners. Strong elements are needed in all corners. They attract the eye into reading diagonally.

• Pictures are the best anchors. Also boxes and headlines.

• Use a horizontal layout. Body type arranged in wide, shallow areas seem to have much less bulk than the same copy run in a long single column. The reader is always ready to read an apparently shorter story than a long one.

• Avoid gray areas.

• Avoid separating related stories and pictures.

THE END. I hope you have learned something today.

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Announcement! The Summer Educational Program (SEP) in Mindanao will be on May 1-4, 2008 at Midway White Beach Resort. Email Kuya Rex dela Peña for camper applications or staff applications at rsmd_oftherock@yahoo.com. For more information, go to San Diego calendar of events to see the list of events coming up this year! Have a pleasant day everyone!


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HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol
URL - Uniform Resource Locator
WWW - Wordlwide Web
LAN - Local Area Network

To learn more about website layout and design, website codes, and more visit http://w3schools.com.

Thanks for dropping by... Journalism and Blogging will be on soon!

I'd like to thank my friend Lei for asking me this question. Okay so here it goes..

To link a word or a group of words to other sites, just type the text that you'd like to link, highlight them, click the link tool found in the tool box of the text editor. Usually, the link tool is represented by a (closed) chain. To be sure, hover your mouse pointer over the "chain" icon and there you'll notice a text saying Insert Link or Insert URL. Insert or type in the URL of the site that you would like to link from your blog entry. Usually, it is shown something like the ones below:

URL	http://theblogclub.blogdrive.com

                                                   Cancel    Insert
Click Cancel or Insert, whichever suits your needs.


Note: You can link as much words as you can. But you can't link a word or a group of words in two different URLs at the same time. If you want, you can retype the word/s in the other parts of your entry then link it to a different site.


For those of you who are using Wordpress, just click the Insert Link or Link button, key in the URL, then click insert to link it to other sites.


If you are using HTML codes, to link a word, follow this:


<a href="http://theblogclub.blogdrive.com">INSERT THE TEXT YOU WOULD LIKE TO LINK HERE</a>


Reminders: Always end each tag. FYI, <a href> </a> are the tags used to link. Take note of the use of the equals sign (=) and quotation marks (" "). Try it yourself.

If you have more questions. Feel free to drop by the tag board or send me a comment. Thanks!

Note: There really is no single way of writing a news story. However, you will discover that most of the stories or blogs seen online or in paper appear to follow a certain formula. The formula for news story writing is. F= inverted pyramid.

I. The News Story Structure

A novel or play or nearly any other piece of writing begins with the setting or the groundwork of the plot; and then builds up to the climax. The news story, on the other hand, uses a reverse structure. It opens with a summary or the climax in its lead paragraph, and then develops the rest of the story by giving details either in chornological order or in the order of decreasing importance.

The logical reason for this type of structure is because it is a natural way of telling a story. "I just saw a fireman rescue a child from a burning building on Recto street," you will naturally begin if you want to tell your friend what you saw. More than likely, you will start your account with a description of the colorful patterns formed in the sky by the setting sun as you walked along Recto street, only to have your reveries broken by the wail of a fire siren. What you have done then is to give your listener a summary of the news you wish to convey; then you add the details.

Summarizing a news story in the opening paragraph has practical advantages. It facilitates reading and satisfies curiosity.

II. The Lead

Here's a poem by Rudyard Kipling:

I have six honest serving man,
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What, Where and When
And How and Why and Who.

Here then are the famous five W's and the H that comprise the ingredients of a comprehensive lead. By merely seeing to it that they are all included is not enough. The good lead requires, among other elements, selectivity-- the determination of what elements is most important.

Let us take, for example, the explosion of a bomb (What) placed under a manhole cover (How) by a disgruntled emplyee who wanted to "get even" (Why, and to some extent, Who), at the corner of Recto St. and Quezon Blvd (Where) at 12pm (When), with thousands of people on the street, ,resulting in the death of the son of the mayor of the city, who was passing by at the moment, and 12 persons (Who). How would you handle the lead for this story?


Any one of the news elements in this case could serve as a springboard to propel you into the story. The opening words could emphasize any of the W's--What happened? Who was involved? When did it happen? Where did it take place? How did it happen? or Why? The poin is that htere is no formula one can apple which can guarantee a good lead. The experienced newsman can "feel" it carefully in his mind before he puts it on paper, and if he is not satisfied with it, he will tear the sheet out of this typewriter and try again--because he knows that once he has the good lead, the rest of the story tends to "tell itself". Even highly trained newspapermen are made constantly aware of theneed to strive for appropriate leads. So as bloggers, let's try to learn from them.

III. The Body of the Story

The body of the story should emerge from the lead, and the dominant point made in the opening paragraph must be fuly borne out and developed in the sentences that follow.

If the reporter starts with a summary lead to give the "story in a nutshell," then in the body of the story he has only the task of retelling the story in sufficient detail and with the facts and incidents arranged in logical order -- either of decreasin importance or chronological sequence. This oranization of material makes sense, for if the reader stops reading at any point, nothing omitted will be as important as what was read or left in the story.

Up Next.... Body of the News Story

Source: Principles of Campus Journalism by Elena Q. Tanodra, p.9-11.
*Note: Some words are edited on purpose to suit to the blogging needs.

The best news gathering is done by bloggers who have the following traits:

1. Intense interest in all kinds of people and converse with them.
2. Ability to speak and write good English or any language that suits your blog or website.
3. Being resourceful and persevering when a story is difficult to obtain.
4. A sense of responsibility and punctuality.
5. Willingness to respect confidences, consider requests, and keep promises.
6. Ability to work quickly and accurately.
7. Realization that there are always two sides to every story, and willingness to hold judgment until all facts are known.
8. Braod interests and wide educational background.
9. Keeness of observation and a "nose for news".
- ability to get information that will be of interest to readers.
- abilitly to spot clues which may lead to the discovery of important news.
- ability to recognize the possibility of other news related to the particular information at hand.

10. Extensive reading and enjoyment of good literature.
11. An extensive vocabulary.

Note: If you think you aren't qualified because you lack one or more of the abilities mentioned above, don't loose heart. I tell you, everything can be learned when you are willing and interest. In time, you will be able to acquire those skills. Just be open.


Requirements of News Gathering

º Understand your story before you cover it.
  - Research is important, google it up if you may.
  - Look up previously related stories in earlier issues for background information.
  - Use facts.

Up next... The Structure of the News Story

Source: Principles of Campus Journalism by Elena Q. Tanodra, p.9-11.
*Note: Some words are edited on purpose to suit to the blogging needs.