The NOVICE MASTER|Welcome to Uncle Che’s NOVICE MASTER. This blog is all about Science and Technology, Business and Economy, Home and Family, Personality and Self Improvement as well as personal opinions, reviews and lifestream

I have been too busy lately, but still being able to work on Pen2Net for an average of one hour per day. I love this project very much. Through Pen2Net, I want to make blogging as easy as possible even for a caveman.

Pen2Net normally is a project that should take less than a week to complete but I am trying to give it more than I initially planned. I am done with the basic stuffs and I can call what I have now as the Beta Version. I have included a forum and a corporate blog. I will post a complete review of Pen2NET on AZ Blogging when I am done with this beta version.

Before I met Lainy, I had a very faint idea about Philippines and Filipinos. All I knew was that the Philippines is a third world country located in Asia, with broad smiling white men and women, and as far as the internet is concerned, they love blogging too much. Ha ha ha…

I am someone who loves making friends. I am very open and positive about friendship, and since I spend some considerate time on the internet, I felt it necessary to have friends online too. Real friends I could talk to, and exchange ideas and help. Social networks are good places where one can find friends, but it is somehow risky. Some people go to such places just to get victims. Yes, you heard me, victims. They claim to be your friend and look for every possible means to exploit you.

Thanks to blogging, I made two fabulous friends online; Sangeeta of World in ur Pocket and Lainy of Lainy’s Musings, Our Journey to Forever and Certified Fashionable Chick. Through Lainy, I have come to know her Mum and two brothers, her officemate Kittle and some Filipino bloggers including Allena, Ivy, Vilma, Bregie, Twerlyn, etc…

Interacting with the Interacting with the Filipino community is the best experience I have ever had on the internet. If you ask me about Filipinos, I have two things to say;

They are the best bloggers the world has: I can’t just believe how many Filipino blogs I meet on the blogosphere.  I feel like asking myself “is it a family or national tradition?”, ha ha ha. The y blog very well in all blogging related topics and their blogs are very well updated with personal information, so you never get bored visiting and reading their content.

They are the most genuine of hearts: What do I call a genuine heart? It is hard to explain, but Lainy challenged me so much that she beats my imagination. What makes her so caring and concerned even just after a few weeks of acquaintance? She is always welcoming, trusting and gladly helping. So are her friends and relatives. I feel like a family member and like living under their roof.

If I would like to go on a long vacation somewhere, I think the Philippines will be the only item on my list. I think I have more friends there than on any other part of this planet. Not just friends, but Lainy is there… :d When can that be? Hmmm she thinks some time after the… you know…

Our secret!

What is your contribution to the world wide web?

The world wide web is a network of millions of computers, each containing information accessible through the internet. The information is vast and almost limitless because there is very little restriction to who contributes to the web. As long as one has the tiniest knowledge about writing and publishing, he/she can rightfully put up some piece of useful text, photos, music or videos.

Any piece of information you publish on the web is of great importance to at least a few thousand users, even if it is just your diary you are publishing online. People do learn from other people just by following up their daily activities or reading their biography. To publish online, however, one should be ready to put up something that is not against basic ethical principles. Why contribute to hate, racism.

Most people do not contribute to the world wide web because they either don’t have the means or they don’t know how. In developing countries, the means is always the case. There are many individuals without computers connected to the internet. In some more developed countries where almost everyone is connected to the internet, there is still a great deal of people who do not know what to publish or where to publish.

Traditionally, in the past, publishing to the internet meant having your own personal site. Not everyone would like to go through the hassle of paying for and maintaining a web space. Even if the time and money is not a problem, expertise might be. Some people would still find it difficult publishing information on a website that has been built for them. Of course, this requires knowledge in html.

Later on, article directories made things easier for all. Most people would just write what they want to publish and submit to an article directory. If the writing is in accordance with their guidelines, it is published. The main problem with article directories is that they are very selective on what is published. This is both good and bad news. “Selective” doesn’t mean what they don’t take is bad. At times, not just any god piece of writing is necessary.

The most recent method of contributing to the web, that was introduced in the late 90s is blogging. With blogging, one is free to express him/herself as much as possible. One can publish at any time and also publish almost anything as far as it sticks to modern ethical rules (no hate, porn or illegal stuff).

With blogging, you control what you publish, and format it to suit your own taste. Blogging can be fun and rewarding. You get to meet like and unlike minded individuals, make friends, exchange ideas, and in some cases, make a few dollars a month.

It is almost a year now since I started blogging. In October 2007, I was marveled that I could “own” my own personal space on the web and publish my stories to. Although I never new exactly what I was doing till early this year, I gradually developed interest in blogging and didn’t relent my efforts to learn how to blog better. I ran a couple of blogs on blogspot and at the same time, i was contributing articles to blogging communities. I later on abandoned all the stuff I was doing and started all over. During my blogging lessons, I learned a great deal of html, css, cpanel, ftp, databases, etc and could courageously start experimenting stuff on wordpress.

I had a very hard time learning how to blog because I didn’t know exactly where to turn to for knowledge. It is very certain that there are numerous blogs in the blogosphere that are dedicated to helping newbies with their blogging endeavors. AZ Blogging, owned and maintained by my humble self, is one of them.

I took my time on AZ Blogging to make sure a newbie doesn’t find blogging some sort of rocket science. What is A Blog? AZ Blogging answers that. If you have never been into blogging or want to know more about blogging, checking out the posts on the sitemap can be of great help.

Blogging is one big revolution on the web. Don’t miss it!

Third world countries, especially those of Africa, usually take a “very long” time to pick up with recent developments in science and technology. The Internet as a whole and blogging in particular is part of this immortal tradition. Blogging, though an old concept that commenced before the start of this century has not yet fully established its roots in Africa. However, one can’t deny the fact that the Afro-Blogosphere (presence and influence of African bloggers and blogs) is gaining breadth and depth at an always-increasing rate.

When I started blogging about a year ago I scarcely heard the word blog mentioned around me (although I was not very sure of what I was getting myself into). Recently, I realized that Africans are more into blogging than I ever thought.. After a quick search on Google, I was very surprised by how many African blogs I found, most of which were listed on www.geoblogdirectory.com and www.afrigator.com. I also found www.afrikeo.com, a site that features feeds from African blogs and news sites. Pay a visit to Afrikeo, and you won’t believe how many blogs’ feeds are fed into it.

Africa, just like the west, is full of talented and skilled individuals in various walks of life. This includes writing as well. Writing is an art that can be easily transformed into blogging. The afro-blogosphere has a very great potential of tippling in just a few months if more Africans are sensitized about blogging and given some basic training.

Below are 3 (out of a thousand) reasons I think Africa does not have as many bloggers and blogs as it is supposed to.

1. A majority of Africans are still new to the Internet. They lack basic knowledge on various web related stuff. As a matter of fact, most can barely check their emails, chat and do simple searches on Google. Networking on Myspace, Hi5 and Facebook is an extra plus. Most Africans are still to hear the words blog, blogging and blogger. Sensitization can help a lot in this aspect.
2. A typical African, relative to the westerner, works harder to earn a living and therefore lacks time for items placed low in the scale of preference. Most Africans will do very hard work during the day and just manage to have enough time to rest and sleep at night. So, Africans who have heard about blogging and have the potential to blog may be held back by time constrains. This is hardly the case with the West where majorities of people have enough time to stay online for several hours a day.
3. Blogging is “expensive” in Africa. Though certain platforms like Blogger (by Google) take care of domain and hosting costs, most Africans who are ready to blog still find it a very great deal paying for surfing time in cyber cafes. This, of course, is a problem because a computer at home connected to the Internet is still considered a luxury in most parts of Africa.

There are many problems standing on the way of potential African bloggers, but instead of pondering much on those problems, I think the experienced bloggers have a responsibility of encouraging others to blog, especially in the domain of sensitization. If bloggers in Africa reach out to their fellow mates and colleagues and educate them on the subject of blogging, I believe blogging in Africa will experience an exponential rise.

Personally, I started a blog (www.azblogging.com) with some lessons that I think can help newbies start blogging. AZ Blogging hosts a form that can be used to ask personal questions related to blogging and get customized lessons tailored to fit the skill level of the inquirer.

Long Live Blogging in Africa!