By Myrna Rodriguez-Co
Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines–In this digital age, people don’t just exchange mobile phone numbers and e-mail addresses. They’ve also begun swapping web and blog addresses.

Having a blog is a badge of honor among serious Internet users. It’s like saying: “I have an online home, you have yours. You visit me and I’ll visit you.”

As they read and comment on each other’s posts, bloggers form friendships and build an online society like no other. This is known as the blogosphere, where members converse, share ideas, join forces for some common cause, arrange to meet face-to-face, and, yes, differ and bicker.

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The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has started blogging.

In its first post, the Canadian official writes:

With this tool, we hope to make the activities of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner more accessible to Canadians and to increase contact between the Office and Canadians interested about privacy issues and legislation.

As an Officer of Parliament, the Privacy Commissioner has a mandate to protect the privacy rights of individuals and promote the privacy protections available to Canadians.

GOT this via TechCrunch.

Here’s a nifty tool you can add to your blog courtesy of Sketchcast.com.

So what the heck is sketchcasting? I’ll let them explain it themselves — which they do by using the Sketchcast tool itself.

HERE’S another way to pass the time: Blogger has launched Blogger Play, a slideshow featuring recently uploaded photos from Blogger users.

Let me tell you, it can get very addictive watching these random pics. It’s also another way to blog hop, because you can click on a photo to go to the blog where it was uploaded.

Here are screenshots of some random pics.

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By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

FILIPINO tech blogger Abe Olandres wanted to jump out of his seat and explain to senators the technical aspects of the controversial national broadband network (NBN) project, as he watched the live broadcast of Thursday’s Senate hearing.

In his recent entry, Olandres wrote:

[I've] been watching the live broadcast of the Senate hearing over the National Broadband Network Project for the last 7 hours and I must say that despite the politics behind the issue, I was more frustrated with the Senators asking repetitive questions and making non-sense tech-related conclusions (that goes to Manuel “Mar” Roxas and Richard “Dick” Gordon).

Olandres was among the local bloggers who are weighing in on the issues surrounding the NBN project.

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CHECK out Filipino Nursing Herald, a blog that seeks to empower the “Global Filipino Nurse.”

Former tech journalist Geoffrey Ramos set up this blog.  As he shares in his profile:

Hundreds of Filipino nurses have gone on to build successful careers in many parts of the world. Many more are hoping to follow in their footsteps. I’m one of those people who’ve changed careers and is now trying to work out a successful career in nursing where demand is high in most parts of the world. Becoming a nurse is not the end goal of my aspirations. I’ve learned to love the work and I try to give it my best everytime. But becoming a nurse is just a stepping stone, a path I have chosen that I hope would allow me to do the things I really truly love: travel, writing and building a family.

I STUMBLED upon this from another blog. It’s called Pinoyblogopedia. It’s an attempt to create a wiki for the Philippines blogopshere. It does not contain much right now. It currently contains a list of some blogs, and a brief introduction about this effort.

Wikis about the Philippines now exist. Recently, Wikipilipinas was created by people behind Filipiniana.net.

HERE are some of the entries on the Estrada verdict that were posted by Filipino bloggers minutes after the Sandiganbayan found the former Philippine president guilty of plunder.

DJB Rizalist included an MP3 audio file of the promulgation in his blog entry.

Tonyo posted an entry on the “Opportunist view of Estrada guilty verdict.”

Here’s the entry of Chef Tonios Popcorn.

And here’s Grace’s entry for Filipino Soul.

CHECK out this speech by video blogger Coy of CokskiBlue.

By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

BANGKOK, Thailand–Filipino blogger Abe Olandres, popularly known as yuga, announced the sale of his homegrown blog ranking service Pinoy Top Blogs to Enthropia Philippines for an undisclosed amount.

“After several months of negotiations, I have finally agreed to sell the Pinoy Top Blogs project. It’s a decision that was very hard to make but I figured that the future of the project will be more secured with the new owners,” he said in a recent entry on his personal blog.

Admitting that the service has been bleeding money, Olandres said he could no longer manage the site because he did not have enough time to review submissions, monitor blogs that violated its policies, and filter spam. “I’m way too far behind the backlogs,” he added.

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