You can watch the Tech Conclave video or read the article here.

The video entry I submitted is included in the HP contest in YouTube’s Week #6 as an eligible entry. Watch my video here.

Unfortunately, the chances of winning for the major prizes are getting slimmer each day since September 1 because I have not received any notifications yet that my video is included in the Semi Finals. However, there’s still a way for you to help me bag a prize and you can do this by voting for my entry for the Community Award. Please vote for me and my video… It takes only 3 minutes of your time.

Here are the steps to do it:

1. Visit HP’s official channel in YouTube through this link: http://www.youtube.com/hp
2. In the main navigation menu, click “VIEW + VOTE” and on the page that loads click “COMMUNITY AWARD.”
   
3. On the dynamic page that loads, type in the Search field these exact words “Me My Computer” and press Enter. Only my video entry should come up as a result.
4. Click my video entry’s thumbnail and allow the video to play.
   You should be able to see a thumbs up and thumbs down on the right side.
5. Click Thumbs up to vote for my video entry.
   You can cast a vote for my video entry once a day from July 24, 2009 up to September 13, 2009. So please help me and thank you very much for doing so.

On or about September 21, 2009, HP will announce the Community Award Winners. The prizes for Community Award are the following:

• 1st place: $15,000 USD
• 2nd place: $7,500 USD
• 3rd place: $2,500 USD
• Top 100 entries will receive an HP Artist Edition laptop

Again, thank you so much for your support. This contest can definitely improve my life here. I also need a faster computer for my video show, Tech Conclave, and this HP contest offers that very opportunity.

From what it seems like a computer and technology-only blog, in the recent months my writings have been shifting into more personalized topics surrounding my day-to-day life (and somehow I am beginning to like this kind of style).

It has been very difficult to write for this blog in the past weeks because I’m so preoccupied (and still am!) with lots of web development work, technical and customer sales support, and as a freelance Internet marketer and writer for several Web-based companies. Additionally, there have been emotional struggles since November because I’ve recently made a irrevocable conclusion about my identity. I believe it is highly necessary for me to be able to do what I want, to be able to become who I want to be, and to be able to live a life with no more denials with what I feel. Now, this is too much information, so I’ll reserve the rest of story in my future posts. For now, be intrigued.

While my social life is pale, my career life has been good. Many companies are trying to pull me to work for them because they believe that I have the skills. I have many possibilities for next year and I might land a job outside the Philippines — which is what I really want. So, this blog will witness most of the events that will happen to my life and I welcome you with open arms to read it.

I will continue to write about technologies and computers because that is my career. Likewise, I’ll mix some true-to-life stories about myself to break the monotony. Surely I don’t want my readers to read blank faced with all the computer terms. I personally want to thank you for continually reading my posts on this blog!

Recently, I entered HP Magic Giveaway Contest for simple reasons: it gives me opportunity to change my life and share the magic to others. Here’s my entry and video:

I am John Raul Joven II, 21 years old, and I am web developer trying-to-be-geek here in the southernmost city of the Philippines called Davao (do a Google Map search). Actually, I lived in the outskirts of the city so it’s more like I’m a geek living in the middle of the jungle than surrounded by buildings. Here many people don’t know how to use computers and most things are still done manually.

I participated the HP Magic Giveaway because some of the prizes can change my life and the lives of the people who need the prestigious computer resources.

Computer and technology have been bound to me since I was little. My interest with computers started when I was younger and watching Super Mario in my neighbors place. I grew up in a poor family and we used to live in slums. I really wanted to play the game but I couldn’t put my hands on it because my parents cannot afford to do so. Regardless of that fact, as a young person I thought of ways.
Out of desperation, I climbed a tree in our backyard and sold fruits in the villages under the mid-day sun to earn money – I was six years old. There were days that I was successful but then the tree’s fruits are gone, I always ended up crying because I couldn’t put my hands playing my favorite Super Mario. That game wasn’t just a game for me, I learned logics. However, it made me frustrated because my family can’t afford to buy it during my young age.

In my high school, I was lucky because computers were one of our subjects. I always loved Tuesdays because we go inside out computer laboratory and I got my first time hands-on. It was during that time I learned how to program in QBasic and Foxplus. I’ve always wished to have a computer myself and whenever a friend invites me to come into their house, I would never hesitate to go especially if one has computer – because it was only my few means to get my hands on it.

Using other person’s computers, I learned how to use desktop application software, designed logos and wrote stories. I went to my neighbors houses and fix their computers (yet I didn’t own one for myself) and I helped a lot of classmates and friends when it comes to computer stuffs.
One day, my parents spared me a little money and they bought me an Intel Pentium II 350 MHz computer. I was jumping to the roof that day and started with Windows ME (Millennium Edition). It took me 7-10 minutes before I enter my desktop and it made me wonder why in Internet cafes computers are so fast.

During this time, the fastest CPU speed was 2 GHz Pentium 4, and I was running at 350 MHz. Despite that, it was my gateway to learn Flash 5, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and other software, which sucked because I had to run one application at a time. After 2 years, I completed a Pentium 4 computer which ran at better speeds, yet the technology I had was 3 years behind the latest ones. I’ve always wished to do extensive video editing, to innovate on the web with my skills, but my system prevents me to do it.

My web knowledge in computers until 2003 was summed up on the greatest accomplishment I had on Geocities that is still live until now:
Profile – ANMJOVEN.COM Final – John Raul R. Joven II’s Official Website Version 3!

And a few videos with effects limited by my system:
YouTube – Kadayawan – Technographix VI Entry by John Raul Joven II
YouTube – John Raul Dot Com

I had many classmates in college who had computers but they didn’t use them well. I’ve always wished to have a better system so that I can explore more my talents and hone them as I really want to be productive like making tutorials, editing sound through Audition, learning Flash and ActionScript, 3Ds Max, Vegas and a lot more. With my current system I cannot run the software I want to learn and it frustrates me a lot because I have so much motivation to learn, and ideas to put in action to make a difference.

When I graduated two years ago and started working at home for an employer who provided me an entry-level laptop to use for work, I was able to do the things I dreamed to do way back when I was younger. However, still the limitations are so low — it’s like I’m being choked everyday, I can’t play games, I can’t do video editing especially HD video editing using Premiere or other video software, Photoshop crashes, and there are many software I couldn’t run once or at the same time because the laptop lacks CPU speed and dedicated graphics card. My desktop experience hinders my overall productivity so much.

It’s noteworthy, however, that despite these limitations, a laptop slowly changed my life.

6 Months of Work:
My Workplace In The Corner Of The World | John Raul dot Com

9 Months of Work:
My Workplace After Nine Months Of Home Work | John Raul dot Com

Last December:
YouTube – Season Greetings! Christmas 2007

1 Year to Present:
After 21 Years On The Floor, Finally I Will Have My Own Room! | John Raul dot Com
My Geek Room Is Now Occupied, But Still Incomplete | John Raul dot Com

My greatest fear is to lose ownership of this laptop since my employer might ask me to return it back – I am afraid to lose a life and career, and my support to my family. I cannot afford to buy a laptop or computer of my own yet. I want to do more, I want to produce and I want to continue helping people — losing my laptop will take all these motivations from me.

I pray a lot that I would win the prize at least the HDX and the HP Multimedia Laptop. It would not only make a history but it would let me multiply the magic given to me and share it to other people through my assistance and support to their day to day lives. I can’t let them down just because my system doesnt allow me so.

Thanks so much and this is what I can share with you. I love you Geekzone and HP, and others for this wonderful opportunity. Merry Christmas!

Nearly three months after it first acquired a PageRank (PR) score of three last April, this blog’s home page again improved its worldwide importance in the eyes of Google during its third quarter PR update of 2008 with an increase of additional one point, resulting a groundbreaking score of PR4. Online marketers, especially bloggers, commonly see this as a significant increase of popularity and advertising value. Now, as the owner of John Raul Dot Com blog, I would like to tell some points to help if you are still struggling on getting a good PageRank.

Quality inbound links: these are basic elements of getting a good PR. However, getting quality inbound links aren’t as easy as it sounds. Many people relatively talked on their blogs many things on how to do this and do that about SEO, but they themselves are struggling to get good PRs for their own blogs. Many have suggested to do blog and forum commenting, however carelessly they end up having their PR saturated by lack of good SEO strategy. Always remember that the Google God is always watching and his eyes are fixed on what you do. Do good SEO ethics, and your PR will be safe.

Making good quality contents isn’t just the king of all SEO strategies, they can also potentially spark great interest from your readers, from other bloggers and site owners…

Making good quality contents isn’t just the king of all SEO strategies, it can also potentially spark great interest from your readers, from other bloggers and site owners — and you might get a nice inbound link reward if you make them happy. If you do not have something of good quality to show to Google when you update your site, then you have no reason to brag at all.

Now, don’t be discouraged nor stop writing. It is just a matter of time for your site to get a good PR score. Just be consistent with the good things you do and Google will reward you. Even in SEO, every good turn deserves another. So keep it up!

The dedicated IP address I got from THC’s Speedy hosting plan has helped as well in bringing better traffic and SEO performance to this blog. If you’re planning to have one, better check their hosting packages and enjoy the blogosphere.

Wikipedia defines PageRank (PR) as:

…a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set. The algorithm may be applied to any collection of entities with reciprocal quotations and references.

Benefits of PageRank

The first benefit of having a good PR if you are a website or blog owner is that advertisers start to notice you. The higher your PR, the more attractive you are to advertisers — this is a thumb rule. Now that this blog acquires PR 3, it has greater chance to make some money for whatever purpose it may serve best. Well, hopefully. I still need to exert more efforts and be consistent in pleasing my audience with my blog articles.

Another benefit of Google PageRank is during appraisal. If I decide to sell this domain, for example, I can use Google PR to determine the selling price of my website, along with my Alexa Traffic ranking, among others.

How Did I Build My PageRank

What I did basically was to provide good content. I did quality reviews in my previous posts and other sites seem to like them and they linked to my pages. Whenever they link to this blog’s pages, it is like they cast a vote for this blog to build a PR. This is how Google sees things on the Web for their PR technology.

During my five months of blogging, I also met new friends from the blogosphere and we ended up having our links exchanged. They added my blog’s link in their blog rolls and mentioned me somewhere on their blogs. What they did contributed as well to my current Google PR, which is good.

My Personal Standpoint

While the scale of PageRank (PR) ranges from 0 to 10, having a PR of 3 is fair enough for a start. For sure, there is more work ahead to increase the PR on its next update sometime this year. But for now, I want to thank Google for my score!

Chris Morris, a tech geek from Melbourne, Australia, broadcast the video below twice during his live webcast show event that took place last March 22, 2008. He is also planning to include it to his podcast. (Thanks, Chris )

So watch, have fun and don’t forget to leave your comments! Thank you!

By the way, the soundtrack is edited and was taken from the official theme of one of my favorite superheroes, Superman.

If you have a blog and you want to have an introduction like this, contact me and we can negotiate about it.

THC’s Speedy hosting plan presents a fresh and bountiful pool of resources for Web enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. At THC’s web hosting blog, a Speedy-related post mentioned that it was “the company’s greatest standard hosting plan offer they’ve done to date.” For me, it sounds exciting, but a little intriguing as well knowing that their previous Rudolf hosting plan was good enough.

Among its standard hosting features, here are outstanding figures that comprise THC’s Speedy hosting plan:

• FREE Dedicated IP Address – usually this is an add-on to other hosting companies, normally costs at least $2.50 per month. THC had it free for Speedy, which is really good.
• 33 000 GB Monthly Bandwidth – I remember THC offering only 3000 GB bandwidth with their previous hosting plans (including Rudolf).
• 1000 GB Disk Space – Self-explanatory, but great hands down. Previous hosting plans only featured 250 GB, which definitely was a history.
• Free Domain Name – it’s awful to know some hosts (not THC) don’t include a domain name in their hosting plans. They do it usually to look their plans cheaper against their competitors.
• Aggressive Pricing – At THC’s Speedy comparison page, the hosting plan costs as low as $6.75 / month. Commonly, the pricing is dependent to the billing cycle of the hosting plan. I found out that THC had Speedy aggressively-priced, beating all matching hosting packages from other hosting companies such as Host Monster, Dreamhost, Bluehost, Go Daddy and Host Gator. I checked their competitors’ sites and their price comparison was rather true. However, I will have to verify its features further. Sometimes, companies are biased to their own products. I will go find out the truthfulness of their page and whistle blow if I found something fishy.

According to their live chat representatives, their existing Rudolf customers can upgrade to Speedy hosting plan. Honestly, I don’t see so much point about that since Rudolf is already a lifetime plan with just one-time fee. However, I couldn’t blame seeing people moving towards Speedy from Rudolf since it comes with a free dedicated IP address, a terabyte disk space, a jaw-dropping 33,000 GB monthly bandwidth, and other features. Those figures are enough to convince them, as it did to me.

Yes, this blog now runs under Speedy hosting plan. I’m currently assessing the experience and I will write a comprehensive review soon whether it’s really hot or not. Initially I have a positive impression with it, especially knowing that this blog now runs over a dedicated IP address. If you are not aware, having a site running over a dedicated IP address will absolutely favor search engine optimization (SEO), plus it is very good in building legitimate business identity on the Internet, and certainly unleashes extra FTP functionality as well. I will explain in my future post why having a dedicated IP is important especially for online entrepreneurs.

It is very futuristic and has a very competitive lineup of hosting features that will break your worries on hosting.

I recommend that you check THC’s Speedy hosting plan. It is very futuristic and has a very competitive lineup of hosting features that will break your worries on hosting. By the way, if you sign-up for it, I recommend getting a 24-month plan for you to get huge discount – that’s what I got and it was very affordable for me. At least, the setup fee was waived, which would have cost me additional $25 if I got a one-month, 3-month, or 6-month plan.

So enough talk here, I will continue my observation in the back scene and assess this hosting plan for a week. I hope to bring good news from it.

By the way, if you have a product, service, or website related to this blog and you want it to be reviewed by me, check out this post. Let’s have some good time.

This website just breathed to life and started barren on the Web last December 16. In my spare times I have worked on writing and posting blog articles that would express my mind and heart. Now, this is my eighth blog post and more yet to come.

In the Year of the Earth Rat (2008), this website aims primarily to be productive in whatever ways it could – productive in a sense that it would benefit, invoke and entertain a greater number of readers including myself. Secondly, I want this site to monetize and find out what online money-making fuss is all about. I know it is true; I just want to experience it.

Now in connection to that, the advent of 2008 comes with a major facelift for John Raul dot Com. I’ve started integrating ad networks into this site for fun (never tried it before) and placing them strategically. If you browse my blog’s pages, you will see. I decided to go for Google AdSense, TTZ Media and BidVertiser as my merchants. Initially, I cannot jump to more ambitious affiliate networks yet because they require high traffic and substantial amount of regular visitors. As of this writing, I only have three RSS feed subscribers.

So, today I will mark the commencement of my efforts toward this site’s goals for 2008. Let me do it by showing you my initial income stats from my ad networks.

We will see in the upcoming months if the barren figures above will change. I’m sure it will. I want give credits to popular blogs like John Chow’s (he visited this site!) and Maki of Doshdosh. I’ve been reading their blog posts and awed by the success stories of their blogging ventures.

Before I start writing what I have in my mind and amuse you with it, let me introduce a bit of myself first. And yes, I am John Raul II, and this is my blog. I live somewhere in the northern jungle of Davao, one of the biggest cities in the world in terms in land area, located in the southern tropical island of the Philippines.

To those who want to be my friend and to all my old friends who read this, prepare to a blog you’ll never forget and let’s build an active community and new civilization that would change the world!