The Busby SEO Challenge competition was a great way to discover and learn Search Engine Optimization for every newbie SEO enthusiasts like Bloggista.com, a Busby SEO Challenge participant to the hotly contested Busby SEO Challenge competition organized by Busby Web Solutions, an SEO Company based in Australia.

Many Filipinos joined the Busby SEO Challenge which ran for about 3 months. The goal - rank first in Google Top Page when the key phrase Busby SEO Challenge is searched. Teams from Indonesia ranked solid in first place, a day before the Busby SEO Challenge officially close.

The top winner wins USD5,000.00 while the second and third runner-ups get USD2,000.00 and USD500.00 each respectively. Check back this post as I will be posting the winners and top 10 best performers once the results are out.

Busby SEO Challenge winners:

1. Imfreakz
2. Sphereteam
3. Pogung177

One big lesson learned from this competition was Teamwork. Others resort to obtaining thousands of backlinks by all means - some I personally doesn’t want to do at all - which borders to SPAMMING just to get backlinks.

Anyways, a big congratulations to the winners and to all the participants of the busby seo challenge contest. Hopefully next year, Busby Web Solutions will again run this event so we can participate.

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Finally the Government is doing something sensible and smart - raising the salaries and wages of Government employees to a competitive level. The Department of Budget Management (DBM) through its Head, Sec. Rolando Andaya has endorsed to Congress a proposal to increase next year’s budget for Government Services, amounting to Php426 Billion, or 42.3Billion pesos up from the budget allocated this year.

This will translate to an increase for Grade Level 1 10 (thanks to Promdiliving for the correction) Government employees (ex. entry level Teachers, Nurses) from the current salary of Php12,000 to about Php18,000 - at least a bit competitive to entry level in the Call Center Industry.

Would this be enough? Probably not, but at least it should help. Still Government salaries is among the lowest in the Philippines - an ironic reality when in fact running the government is much more like running a business. Yes it has become a business - a business of getting kickbacks and graft on most government projects for politicians and government officials. No wonder even our Policemen and Military suffered major credibility problems - when some of their members directly involved in crimes and illegal activities just to “augment” their financial resources.

While it is an unacceptable reasoning, still low income, which is most of the time not enough to cover basic needs have enticed some policemen to be “creative” in the streets. Low government salaries made the teachers got buried in debts from loan sharks and opportunist lenders, forced government health workers (doctors, nurses) to seek employment overseas as helpers, caregivers, or nursing aids.

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Lately there are quite a number of banner advertising marketplaces that are available for bloggers to monetize their blogs. One of them is ViralBlogAds which I stumbled upon Michael Aulia’s Technology and Reviews blog.

If you have empty 125×125 banner ad slots, you can monetize them while waiting for some Private Advertisers to purchase banner ad slots on your site. You earn money on every click made by your visitors on each Banner Ad. You can leave at least one Banner Ad Slot to let potential advertisers know that you are accepting Ads on your site.

The VBA (ViralBlogAds) short javascript code does all the tricks of displaying the Banner Ads on your site. You don’t have to create your own codes just to display the ads. Just select how many Ad Slots you wish to create (say, 6 slots) and paste the code to where you want the Banner Ads to appear - its that simple. I was able to setup mine, in just 5 minutes - that includes Registration process, confirming email and setting up the codes.

Currently, two banner ads are supported: 125×125 and 468×60, in GIF, JPEG and PNG format. Payout are paid via PayPal. You can request a payout when your earnings reach USD25.00.

REFERRAL COMMISION - ViralBlogAds is giving each approved Publisher who refers another Publishers 15% for life of all referral earnings. It’s not just a one-time referral payment. Let’s say you have referred 10 bloggers and the 10 bloggers earn a total of USD100.00 in a month, that’s USD15.00 per month earnings to you for life. This is something you wouldn’t want to miss, ‘aight? Also, you earn 20% of Ads spendings of any referred advertiser. Cool!

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In my previous post, I discussed the reasons why I turned to Ubuntu - and one of the key decision points was COST - it doesn’t cost anything. One commenter, Ms. Elle (a Nurse) asked if Ubuntu is an OS (Operating System), and she’s right - for those who haven’t heard about Ubuntu - yes it is an OS just like Microsoft Windows (98, XP, Vista), but differs in so many ways.

What is the meaning of Ubuntu? Ubuntu is an African word which means ‘Humanity to others’, or ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’.

Ubuntu Installation

The two colleagues whom I instructed to install Ubuntu on the Lenovo laptops haven’t used or seen Ubuntu before. After a few “hiccups” as Archon put it, the guys were able to install Ubuntu on the Lenovos, with all its drivers, including WIFI and network peripherals. The problem was simple - the Installer they used was an older version - so it all needed a connection to the internet and Ubuntu automatically detected the Software Update and downloaded the latest update which fixed the issues on wifi and some peripherals. Installing Ubuntu is easy - just insert the CD installer (bootable) and follow simple instructions and just a few clicks.

Ubuntu comes in two editions - the Server Edition and Desktop Edition. For desktop PC and Laptops like the Lenovos, just download the Desktop Edition (it is almost 700MB - about 4 hours download time on standard home DSL), or if you have a slow internet connection, you can request free CD installers from Canonical - the developer of Ubuntu. I also have the latest Ubuntu Desktop installer on CD if you are interested, I can probably give out some free CD installers.

Ubuntu Look and Feel

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Got to be honest, the first time I heard about Ubuntu was sometime April of this year over at Archon-Digital’s blog when he made an article of his switch to Ubuntu. Even after reading his post, I still didn’t get the idea of what exactly Ubuntu is all about.

It was only two months later in June when I had a chat with an Indian Consultant of a popular Business Planning Software in one of my Semiconductor Clients that made me do some little online research - and then went back reading Archon’s article all over again and those were enough to make me an Ubuntu User wannabe. Still, I didn’t bothered to try it out since I don’t have a system that I can play with at that time. The desktop at home is always busy with the “other” users, and I cannot afford half a day downtime with my laptop.

Finally, last week, I had a date with Ubuntu, and with those very rare events of my life - I got tied up and committed to it. Since I was launching my new business - it was necessary to buy some office equipments. I managed to buy 3 laptops - an Acer and 2 Lenovos (I’m adding two more Lenovos this week). Also, my friend Zymo helped me build my PC Server - an 8GB workhorse with two 700GB hard drives (for RAID setup) with a Quad Core processor. I was happy with the Server Cost as I only paid Php48,500 (a little over USD1,000.00) complete with a 19″ Acer LCD Monitor, and a UPS plus other freebies.

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