Floating in Limbo (Dec 18 2007)

It has been several days since I last posted an update. If there’s anything good that happened, it’s the fact that I’m still alive and kicking. Of course, we are all trying to keep on paddling. I managed to get a loan from a bank. That will help me finance some of the dues. My sister will transfer the money tomorrow. That means there will be no legal actions against me yet. No murderer, either. And for some good news, the former owner of the house agreed to postpone the payment until January. That’s one less headache for the next two weeks. Of course, there’s a lot more.

Just this afternoon, I already informed my superiors about what I’m going through. I feel lucky to be able to have people like them. They have been very supportive of my plans. I can’t help but cry when I told them that I have plans of going abroad to look for a job there. I never dreamed of working abroad despite the promise of better wage.  Of course, tears flowed when I told my managers my predicament. At least, I was able to let that tears out. I hope that will help me to sleep tonight.

Tomorrow, I’ll start talking to some of my financier-friends. I’m praying that they’ll understand. If they don’t, then what can I do? It isn’t easy. I can’t take it but I have to. It’s not more about me, I’m more concerned with my dear wife. She’s not used to this kind of stress. She’s not used to be away with her family. But maybe, it’s time for her to learn some things the hard way. But I feel sorry and guilty for pulling her with my family’s problems. Yes, she is my wife and we are one but sometimes, I can’t help but think on whether she deserves it or not. Besides, who does?

Losing hope is so natural but if that’s that you only have, how can you let it go? It is only the faith with the mercy of the Lord that keeps me going.

A Spark of Hope

We were able to contact a high-ranking official in a bank yesterday. The prospect is very promising but details will be discussed on Monday. If that will materialize, it will ease some of the burdens. Not all, not even significant, but any pressure lifted will taste like heaven.

Another good sign is the news that there is another bank willing to rediscount our client cheques. As you know, the loan sharks around the metro cannot handle huge amounts. If you show them a cheque worth 1M, they’ll stay away. So it is the banks that can help us. But we don’t have the right connections as of yet. We beg from our clients to release their payments even in the from of post-dated cheques (PDCs). They themselves admitted that they don’t have the funds so they can’t release a dated check.  Some agreed to Jan and Feb dates so that what we have right now.

It’s a spark, not a beam. Nevertheless, it’s a light in this dark days. If that spark will cause fire (which I hope and pray it will), then we can start moving. In the dark, even a small source of light is a treasure.

Who is to Blame?

At the height of a problem, we usually ask who is to blame and pin that person/s down to the bones. In my corporate life, especially in the current company I work in, this is not the case. As a production support resource, we have to solve it first and then do a “post-mortem” analysis later. We’ll have to identify the root cause and investigate what went wrong. If there’s somebody who made a mistake, we’ll have to know what lead him/her to commit the mistake. Simply put, there’s always a reason for every problem. There’s even a new requirement that we have to log every step we take to solve a Severity 1 issue. That’s logging every email, every query, every update and everything you do until the problem is solved. Once done, then we’ll have to devise a procedure or solution so that the recently solved problem will no longer happen again.

In the problem I current problem that I am into (not related to work), solving it is a tall order. Honestly, I don’t know what to do. If there’s any little thing that I can do, I already did. I’m almost resigned to the idea that it’s a losing battle. Or should I say, we already lost it and it’s high time to know what went wrong.

In my ealier post, I already presented what went wrong. It’s just part of the story. Another part is the fact that in the months of July and August, our small company managed to have a 55M worth of sales. Now, that’s mind boggling to me. I can’t believe my sister was able to pull that off. If we get the 30% downpayment by the first week of September, the company will be in good financial position for the rest of the year. But that downpayment never came. If it did, it was already too late. Instead, we have to repossess items equivalent to 30% of that sales due to non-payment. It’s a domino effect since then.

If you look at it, we should have not gotten to the big ticket contracts. We should have stayed low where the risk is low and although the profit is less, it is steadily coming. We bit more than we can chew! 

So who is to blame? Most of the people in the know would say it’s my sister who is to blame. But no, we are part of it. In every request to get funds, we always get one. Had we not give in, this would have not been the case. But it’s already there and we have to face the consequences. We are part of it and that’s the truth.

My God, your tests are just too heavy for me and my family. It is only you and you that can help us. Forgive us.

The Impact of Rising Peso

After reading Taong Grasa’s post about the effect of the peso-dollar exchange rate, I asked myself how much really is the effect on quest in making money online. For sure, a lot of SEO experts and netpreneurs are feeling the pressure, too. Of course, I don’t make a lot of money through adsense or any affiliate program but I had some dollars in the bank until last week. I shouldn’t be that much affected, right? Well, maybe.

But on my meager income of around $80 a month(take note, that’s a total of all sites I maintain), the difference is becoming more evident. Just a couple of months ago, I get roughly PHP8,000.00 every other month when the peso-dollar exchange rate is at around $50. Small but since this is just a hobby for me, that’s a lot already. It can already pay for my domains and hosting and still have some extra. You cannot get that in the streets even if you walk hundreds of kilometers. But now when $1=PHP41.85, I only get roughly PHP6,600.00. Now, I’m beginning to feel the difference.

It became more evident to me when I decided to close my dollar account. I needed money and had to withdraw every penny I have in the bank. As expected, the value of my dollars are so low already. You see, I got some of my dollars at a exchange rate of PHP56, some at 54 and some at 50. None from below PHP50.00. I got those from my per diem during my trips abroad and some from adsense. If you compute the difference with the current PHP41.85 to a dollar, that’s a whopping average of PHP11.30 for every dollar. So for every thousand, I threw PHP11,300.00. Whew, that’s more than a month’s salary of a daily wage earner here in the Philippines. And that’s just a one time transaction for me. How much more with the beneficiaries of our “Bagong Bayani”, the Overseas Filipino Workers.

We all know that a stronger peso is good for the economy in general but it also comes with caveats. With millions of Filipinos abroad that feed their family here in the Philippines, more and more people are feeling the effect of the rise of the peso. But we must look at the bigger picture instead of our personal grievances brought about by this phenomenon. Our monetary authorities are working overtime to help soften the impact and let’s just hope that they keep doing their jobs.

Tough Luck at Christmas Party Raffle

Ever since I started attending Christmas party of the companies I worked for, I always win something mostly minor prizes. That means in one way or another I get to bring home some bacon. It worked for almost a decade but in the just concluded (about half an hour ago) Christmas Party 2007, I did not win even a single penny. You see, there’s at least 60% chance that you’ll get something as long as you attend the party. In this particular party, there’s about 20% of the employees that did not attend and that alone boosted my chances of winning. To my horror, nothing happened. It’s not just me. On our table, three of us did not get anything.

Hmnn…I guess none of the prices are meant for me. I’m beginning to think that this second half of the year is really not going my way. I mean, with all the things happening with me and my family right now, I really welcome any kind of help that I can get. Prayers is of the most important from all of them.

If you read this post, please say a little prayer for me.

iPhone in the Philippines

We all know that iPhone arrived in the Philippines the day after it was released in the U.S. However, it is only in the past two months when this gadget became available in the country at a less prohibitive price.  It came out at around PHP35000 unlocked a few months back. That’s around US$800 when you can get it at $250 in the states.  But the recent rally of the Philippine peso has brought the price down.

Here’s the current price that I saw.

1. Greenhills - PHP25,000.00 (my officemate just got one from a dealer there, cash!)

2. TipidPC.com - PHP24,000.00

3. eBay.ph - PHP25,000.00

4. Auction.ph - PHP20,600.00

Well, I know I can’t buy that for Christmas of 2007. It’s simply not in the priority list.  But I want one and it has to wait…. hehehe.

Widget Bucks CPM Ads for International Traffic

It’s a very welcome news that WidgetBucks is somehow reconsidering their position regarding the non-US and Canada traffic. Just the other day, they announced in their official blog that they’ll start offering country-specific CPM ads. In that way, you’ll still be able to monetize your international traffic using WidgetBucks. This would also mean that you’ll no longer need to filter your traffic as discussed on my earlier post since WidgetBucks will do that automatically for you.

Here’s some quote from their blog.

At the time a user visits a page containing the widget, we will sense the geographic location of the visitor. If they are in the U.S. and/or Canada, the user will see the normal WidgetBucks widget. If the user is outside those two countries, then our system will determine a country- specific CPM ad to display. We are currently working with advertisers covering 100
countries and offering thousands of creatives to ensure that site visitors will be monetized for your benefit. All ads are restricted against adult or other suggestive themes.

Below is the complete post. Kudos to MPire for listening to the concern of their members. It’s definitely a plus point for them and I will again consider placing a widget on one of my sites.

And by the way, I only learned about it when a certain Dean Jutilla from Mpire(the company behind WidgetBucks) commented on my earlier post. I’m surprised and somewhat honored that somebody from Mpire has noticed my blog.

Avoiding Accidental Clicks in Adsense

Note: This is a contributed post in Taong Grasa Blog.

It’s a good thing that google changed the way their ads were clicked. Before, even the background of the ads are clickable and that leads to accidental clicks. I myself has fall into this and was afraid that my adsense account be suspended or terminated because of that. I think it happened thrice already.

With the new format, it is only the title and the url that’s clickable. The background, text and white spaces are no longer clickable. More than the user experience, it would benefit the advertisers more.

Finally, this change won’t just improve user experience on your site; it
benefits advertisers as well. We currently monitor clicks on Google ads for
accidental clicks, and the format change complements our monitoring system by
further ensuring advertisers only pay for meaningful clicks. By reducing
accidental clicks, we hope to increase advertiser campaign value and
satisfaction, encouraging additional spend and facilitating higher monetization
for all publishers.

For the complete adsense announcement about this, click the lick below.
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/11/accidental-clicks-fade-into-background.html

WidgetBucks Filters Traffic

A recent decision by WidgetBucks has affected most of its members. Clicks from traffic coming from outside United States and Canada are no longer counted. It’s a big blow to all of its members especially those whose traffic primarily comes from their own country (i.e, local social network, clubs, etc). However, I think it is a bitter pill for WidgetBucks to take since their advertisers are also complaining. Some other companies has done that before. The main reason is that most people from outside the two countries doesn’t really buy goods online.

A Filipino SEO expert has shared his knowledge to filter the traffic on your site, too. Here’s his tip on how to do that. By using his technique, widgetbucks widgets will only appear if the visitor is from US and Canada. For outside the those countries, you can show other ads. You can use adsense if you have one.

Well, if you are still banned from adsense, WidgetBucks is still a good alternative. For me, the change has significantly lowered its edge against adsense. I still have widgetbucks in an inner page of one of my sites. But that’s just it.

Spam on my Gmail

I have a gmail account that I’ve been using for quite some time already. I treated it like a business email and do not devulge it on online registrations that require email. I have another gmail account for that. So for more than a year, I’ve been using my email with no problems and most importantly, NO SPAM!

For important registrations that need real name, I use my ‘business email’. But that’s very rare, only for very important and serious registrations. Unfortunately, spam emails selling everything from viagra to flowers began to arrive early this year.  When I checked my latest transactions, I was surprised to see that my latest registration was with a very popular and leading online payment service that only made their service available here in the Philippines recently.

I can’t name it but I know most of you know that company. Basically and naturally, that would be my suspect. It’s a shame if indeed that company forwarded my email to spammers. Or maybe the spammers were able to snoop into the company’s database. That’s another scary scenario.

And oh, don’t ask about my 9-year-old email account. It receives over a hundred spam everyday. hahaha…