This morning, nakakapanibago. I slept late but I wasn’t doing anything and for the first time in two months, I woke up late on a Saturday

I’m starting to miss my recaps

Poor Blog.

To make up for my shortcomings, I changed it’s too corporate layout into an eye-friendly one. I’ll also be updating this because I need another outlet whenever I feel so down. As if I don’t have enough ^_^

Notice my header? It now says “Work at Home Mama. my life will begin at 30. i mean it.”

Would you believe that I’m already suffering from mid-life crisis at this age? Amazing.

So what have I been doing the past months? Well, first off I got so busy with my daughter’s schooling. She entered the big school this year and being with her consumes half of my day. Second, I opened my online bakeshop, PH Bakehouse because I’ve been wanting to offer cupcakes in Cavite. I’ll also be reopening my online shop Posh Baby Philippines which offers couture clothes for kids. I stopped working in oDesk for now because I can no longer commit that much time for my employers but I still write for POC and some paid post sites like PayU2Blog, Blog4Reviews, Sponsored Reviews, Social Spark, Linkworth and many others.

Until next time. Babush ^_^

One can send their recipients money using their credit card, debit card or bank account and the recipients doesn’t need to have a bank account or internet access to receive their funds.

In the Philippines, Xoom has partnered with BDO, Metrobank, PNB, BPI, Cebuana Lhuillier, SM, Globe Gcash, MLhuillier so withdrawal is fairly easy.

You have three (3) options to CLAIM YOUR MONEY FROM XOOM:

So how much does it cost one to SEND MONEY?

It costs $4.99 if you will be sending $50 – $2,999 to the Philippines.

How about to RECEIVE MONEY?

Actually NONE but most employers are not willing to shoulder the said $4.99 so what they usually do is deduct this amount from your total payment.

PROS:

1. Get your money in minutes
2. Convenient
3. Option to get money in peso or dollar

CONS:

1. Expensive

Not long after the May 2010 elections, these hard working teachers were once again braving the streets of the Philippines, under the scorching heat of the sun and 37.5 degree celsius temperature. This time they’re working for the National Statistics Office, counting the Philippines in figures.

I remember last week, we were having breakfast when two women knocked on our door. They were carrying folders with IDs I did not recognize. “Census po ma’am” they said. I did not let them in, of course! and I was even apprehensive in entertaining them at first. Why should I not be when budol-budol is very rampant in Cavite? The fact that my husband was inside the house and was listening to us made me decide to answer their questions.

It was a 3-minute interview if I’m not mistaken and yes, it was done UNDER THE HEAT OF THE SUN.

I didn’t have any idea that they were teachers until I heard the news from the television last night.

Yes, they are indeed teachers.

The National Statistics Office expects them to meet their quota of 340 households from May 17 to June 11, 2010. Failure to do so could mean that they cannot receive the  full payment of P11,500.

HOW HARSH considering all the inconveniences each teacher has to go through each workday.

1. Heatstroke – need I say more? With this unbearable heat, will NSO provide extra allowance for their water consumption during working hours? Is NSO caring enough to provide iced towels for these teachers?
2. Security Conscious Homeowners – why would I talk to strangers anyway? Did NSO or DepEd disseminate information about these surveys? They should have done it on national television weeks before the surveys were conducted to INFORM the people of their plans.  They should have coordinated with the local authorities BEFORE the survey period. Busy with the elections? Using the national elections is one very lame excuse! And because people were not informed, so were their dogs.
3. Dogs – There were reports about teachers bitten by dogs. The government will sure shoulder the expenses, hello PhilHealth! But will they shoulder the expenses should these teachers suffer from post traumatic stress disorder after the dog bite? Of course not.
4. Poor compensation – C’mon. Why not pay them the full P11,500 even if they not meet the 340 quota? Don’t these teachers deserve more? and why can’t these government offices hire contract-based employees to do this job and let the teachers rest so they’re ready for the incoming opening of classes? I’m still making sense here, right? If others can hire contract-based employees, why can’t our government?

These teachers are overworked, unappreciated and underpaid.

We are complaining of the poor educational system in the Philippines, yet we don’t know what our teachers has to go through just to make both ends meet. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers estimates that a teacher only receives a P9,939 gross monthly salary – no wonder that we always see some teachers selling knick-knacks during school hours.

It’s just sad that teachers has to go through all these. I just hope that the change of government officials will shed light on our teachers’ dark hole.

And I vehemently pray that the Filipino teachers are given the credit and compensation due to them before it’s too late.

CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT SIMPLE PHP

To start with, here is an explanation from Wikipedia:

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document. As a general-purpose programming language, PHP code is processed by an interpreter application in command-line mode performing desired operating system operations and producing program output on its standard output channel. It may also function as a graphical application. PHP is available as a processor for most modern web servers and as standalone interpreter on most operating systems and computing platforms.

Nosebleed. Yes, I know!

Good thing I learned the easiest way to learn PHP. If you know how to understand simple instructions, copy and paste HTML, then you’re on your way to mastering PHP.

This incredible book by Robert Plank takes you step by step, teaching you how to:

• Easily personalize your pages.
• Make easy .htaccess code for yourself.
• Code games, quizzes & other lead-building tools.
• Create an autoresponder.
• Mix JavaScript with PHP for a powerful combination.

Quit paying $125 per hour for something that you can do! PHP is very simple if you are willing to learn!

CLICK HERE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT SIMPLE PHP

Moving on, you can sell products in Multiply. Unlike before, selling is already LEGAL in multiply so you need not worry about being ‘deleted’.

To start with, you need to create a regular account:

Next, to mark yourself as seller, you have to click this button:

MARK YOURSELF AS SELLER

After that, you can now CUSTOMIZE your website by clicking your Home Page Tab (1.) and Customize My Site (2.):

After doing so, your page will now look like this:

Play with your site. You can remove unnecessary elements here that you do not need on your store. Basic elements are the following:

• Photos – where you upload the photos of your merchandize
• Blog – for your FAQs, updates, etc
• Guestbook – for customer feedback

Once your site is up, you can now start uploading photos of the things you want to sell AKA merchandize.

Your photos should contain the following to save you time from answering the questions of prospective buyers:

clothes / footwear

• Sizes available
• Colors available
• Brand (Filipinos are very conscious about brands)
• Flaws, if any.
• Authenticity (though I don’t encourage you to sell fakes. ’nuff said.)
• Price (This is very, very important. I, for one, hates asking for the price.)

food

• the quantity for each order
• description, of course!
• price

Your FAQ should contain the following:

• Terms of Sale – your selling/buying rules should answer the questions: do you accept haggling?, are you willing to sell outside the Philippines?, what will you do to non-paying buyers?, are you willing to reserve a product? if yes, what are your terms?, things like that.
• Shipping Info - details of shipping should be posted here, including, the courier you’ll be using and how much it will cost the buyer, how long will it take you to ship the items, if you’re willing to meet-up, insurance, etc.
• Payment Info - Indicate here if you are willing to accept Paypal, Bank Deposit or Gcash payments and how long are you going to wait for the payment before you relist the items.

Once you’re done building your site, INVITE FRIENDS and let your contacts grow. Join groups and post your updates there. The technique here is to have lots of contacts and promote your product in your groups.

but, but, but DO NOT SPAM if you don’t want to be deleted by your contacts.

Promote your products ONCE and believe me, if your products are unique or are reasonably priced, people will flock to your site in no time.

It’s very easy to sell in multiply because it’s FREE and the traffic is good so if you are a new seller and want to promote your products online, then Multiply is the perfect platform for you.

Now back to the topic, do you know that you can spell check multiple articles in one go? Yes, you can and it is through MICROSPELL.

Microspell checks HTML, TeX/LaTeX, RTF, and ASCII (plain text) Hotkey spell checking in WordPad, Notepad, Email, browsers, etc.

For the Microspell to work, you need the following requirements:

Here is a preview of the Microspell interface:

You will see the misspelled words as well as the ‘guesses’ on the second screen. If you are okay with the ‘guesses’ click the ‘Replace All (#) w/Guess’ otherwise click ‘Replace with’ to see more words.

After replacing the work or if you are satisfied with your document, just click the ‘Done – Close + Save Doc – F4′ button.

The filename extension of your original documents will then be changed to .BAK and your new documents will have the original filename of your document.

Easy peasy!

Worry not because I PROMISE (so help me God!) to update this blog this week and tackle the following post and read-worthy $$$ making topics.

1) Google Adsense

According to Google, AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to earn money by displaying targeted, unobtrusive Google ads on their websites. AdSense also allows you to provide Google search to your site users, while earning money by displaying Google ads on the search results pages.

2) Nuffnang

Nuffnang.com is Asia-Pacific’s first and leading blog advertising community.

4) PayU2Blog

Approved bloggers in PayU2Blog are enjoying the benefits of early payday and steady stream of work that’s why Bloggers Heart PayU2Blog!

and more!

Working from home is an answer to every mother’s wish, that is to be with their kids yet still earn and contribute to the household budget. For me, this is really a great opportunity since all I wanted to be is to become a hands-on mom to my little girl and earn at the same time. But what’s make it more special is I don’t have to see company big wigs everyday. Let’s accept it, bosses add STRESS to anyone’s corporate life and without them, employees can work better, right?

But despite all these benefits, working from home still has bad sides BUT the good news is, we can do something about this! Here they are:

1. No work stability. 
   Because there is no contract between you and your employer, there is a big risk of easily losing your job. This is a fact and you must accept this the moment you decide to work from home. A lot would maintain several jobs, just so they have a fall back when one employer quits, but this is not feasible to moms like me. You can’t have several jobs, maintain a household and have desirable work output at the same time. But of course this is feasible when you have a helper at home to do the household chores,  attend to your children’s needs, and do the errands. This is quite impossible for a yaya-less and help-less household like ours. And oftentimes several jobs brings so much money YET it drains all the energy in you, therefore, defeating the purpose of working from home. 
   I manage this by maintaining a good relationship with my employer. I only maintain one employer now and I’ve been working with him for 6 months now. He pays on time and communicates well, I, on the other hand, provide him with beyond outstanding output so our working relationship is okay. I just asked him to notify me ahead if he can no longer give me enough work, at least with that I have ample time to look for another employer.
2. No insurance, health cards, and government benefits such as Pag-Ibig, PhilHealth and SSS.
   Employers who hire people online veer away from government mandated benefits, so as workers, do not expect to receive these benefits.
   What I do is apply for individual or accounts and pay voluntarily. My husband is still in the corporate world so my daughter and I still benefit from his PhilHealth and Medicard. Now I am voluntarily paying my Pag-Ibig and SSS accounts.
3. No Social Life.
   This is true and sometimes working from home eats the best of me. A person needs to go out and be with his friends (unless one has no friends!) otherwise you’ll end up depressed. At some point working in an office is healthy because you can separate real life from work. Working from home is very stressful as you need to work and mind your home problems at the same time. So to avoid depression you need to go out once in a while. Visit the malls, drink some coffee, eat out, go to the park. The list is endless! The most important thing here is to get out once in a while and do something work unrelated. 
   I already developed friendship with several online friends, going out with them once in a while helps me keep my sanity.
4. You will become less and less conscious about time and self-discipline.
   Yes, this is true. Since you have no schedule to follow and no boss to see everyday, you are responsible to keep track of your time and your work. Some online bosses can be so time and deadline conscious so you have to fix your schedule to maintain their demands.
   What if you have a boss like mine who cares less of my schedule? All he asks of me is to complete the 40 hours each week? Great? Not really. Oftentimes I would get so relaxed and play games on FB that I lose track  of time. It takes a lot of discipline on the employee’s part if you want to succeed in working from home.
5. No Promotion.
   If you are promotion-driven then working from home is definitely not for you.
   But one good thing about working from home is that you can learn so much everyday. The web is a treasure chest of knowledge and you can make use of this to your advantage. Read and keep yourself updated. You may not be promoted by this BUT if you arm yourself with knowledge on technology, current events, and all – you are more than ready to face the world.
6. You’re doing what?
   This is the hardest part. Whenever someone asks me about my work, I always end up looking for the right term to make people understand. Sure almost everyone knows about the word INTERNET but not everyone knows that they can actually earn from it. Its hard to explain that the internet has more to offer than YM, emails and Farmville.
   The more I explain to people, the more confused they would become. Oh life! Oftentimes people would give me strange looks which is quite irritating! This has become a real life issue that I have to face everyday. People would think that I am up to no-good because I am JUST working from home. This is definitely not the case, I am jobless but definitely not worthless. I hope that people will start recognizing alternative ways to earn and start accepting the fact that in life, “kanya kanyang diskarte lang yan para mabuhay.”

I have been selling and buying online for several years now but I haven’t been scammed. I am very cautious as to whom I’ll be sending money or goods, verifying and scrutinizing details before shipping or paying for anything because I don’t want to be scammed and be called a scammer as well.

But I just did. Not on online selling but when I started joining sites:

1. Paid-To-Click Sites. You’ll earn a few cents here and there but come to think of it, how many hours did you spend online just to come up with that amount? Crazy, right? The amount you earn is not even enough to pay for your electric bills. Reality check

and CLIX SENSE? They’ll blind you with PREMIUM OPPORTUNITIES to click so you will UPGRADE for $10 but after the upgrade…goodbye PREMIUM OPPORTUNITIES (and your $10!). Great scheme.

2. AW Survey. They will give you 7 surveys that will pay you $4 to $6 survey, so there you got $26! Easy money! and $1.25 for each referral you send over. But the fun stops there!!! Their cash out is $75 so after that 7 surveys they will no longer give you surveys and will cancel your account BECAUSE IT’S INACTIVE.

3. Paying Post / Blogadvertising Store. Read the reasons here and here. My biggest so far.

There are more scam sites online. So be vigilant. Don’t send payment instantly or work for something you are unsure of.

And the best way to steer clear from this crooks? Google the COMPANY NAME plus the word SCAM. You’ll see