A man named Clifford wrote: (I snipped most personal or identifying information.)

Wednesday, May 2, 2012, 4:46 am [EST]

im a retired ~snip~ living in talisay cebu phillipines area called lower ~snip~ cabinet or local cabineet he is over sold and or over loaded and we also need a main server in this area because of the huge amount or residential homes being built here and the internet is always crashing giong off line and ond or slow to no broswing for the entire area . and globe refuses to upgrede this area to ease the traffic on 20 year old cabinetts that are failing what can we do to force globe to spend big money to upgrade this area immidatly. as the tecs are here every week for hours

My Answer:

Nomaste (It just means “I bow to you!” ~ as with respect!)

Hello Clifford!

First, to be clear, I am not associated with Globe or any other Internet Service Provider any longer.  I am a customer, just like you.

Likewise I have Globe (although I have a Sun Cell Wireless for a back up).

Internet Frustration

I understand your frustration with Globe, believe me if there was anything better, I would have already switched by now.  It took me Feb., March and half of April to finally get someone to pass on information to a network engineer about how to fix the Router Problems (selective browsing) causing all their clients problems.  It took the engineer about 5 minutes to fix the problems for thousands of customers. (After I told him exactly where it was!)

However, as I said, I enjoy Globe because I know what PLDT and Sun are like! (Actually they are now the same thing!)

Forcing Globe

Forcing any big company in the Philippines to do anything is nearly impossible.  I was lucky enough to have Globe upgrade the cabinet I am in, with brand new fiber optics.  How?  Well, an over speeding, drunk, truck driver kind of smashed the old one with his truck!  I am not sure what it would cost to get someone to drive into your cabinet!   I am certainly not suggesting that!

New Globe Office

The good news is that Globe is building a big new switching office for Talisay (actually there is no switching office in Talisay at this time, we are just grouped and sent on old wires to Cebu City.  The new office is on the SRP.  If you go North on the SRP from San Isidro Road, on the right is the YU Apartments and it is across the Highway.  I have been watching them build it, install 2 back up generators.  And install fiber-optic cables to various places.  When it gets put online (a year?) I am sure things will get better.  But I do not expect a USA standards!

I do not know what is your skill level, but there are some things you can do to make a better connection through Globe.

1) Do NOT buy Globe’s cheapest connection – 1MB.

That is what all the Internet cafes buy and Globe does not maintain it.  Get the next one up2 MB or better.  It cost P200 more than the cheap one, but I found the service is better also.

2) Do NOT use WiFi in your house.

WiFi in the Philippines is NOT the same as in the States.  Better to just have an Ethernet cable.  The computers in my house have no WiFi router!  Besides, the World Health Org now says WiFi may be a cause of breast and prostate cancer!  Thanks but, No Thanks!

3) Do Not use Globe DNS.

DNS or the Domain Name Server, is what changes names, like NewLipHe.org into numbers (IP Addresses).  Everything on the Internet runs on numbers.  Globe has DNS servers that do this, when they are not broken.

One day my friend called me up and said he was mad at Globe because everyone on Globe was down for half a day.  I said I was on Globe and still working fine!  He came over to my house to see it for himself!  What we realized it that Globe, Sun and PLDT all have problems getting Server Admin’s (quality) for their DNS servers in Manila.  So when the servers fail, Globe clients are down.  The next two suggestions are solutions for this.

4) Cheap DNS

Find a good DNS server in another country (perhaps two or three other countries) and program your router to use those instead of using Globe.  This is better, but it does mean a total outage if Globe loses a line to those servers.

5) Install your own DNS server.

That is what I did for a while and I am going to do it again next week…  This is the best solution, but it requires putting up a small server on your site.  I do not know what your skill level is, but just about any computer (think cheap) can do this job well.  You can download the Ubuntu Server package and get the DNS server running.

I am planing to move all my movies to the server so they can be watched on any computer on my network.  I will need a slightly larger box for that.  I figure a new computer will cost about P13T.  But if you have a used computer laying around you could use that for a DNS server.  OR even a cheap used one.  DNS causes about half of my problems with Globe.

6) Get a STATIC IP Address.

Every time the power of phone goes out, or you shut off your router, you get a new IP address from the Globe “pool”.  That is called a dynamic IP Address because it can change at any time.  If you want to run an incoming server (host your own web pages) you need to have a Static IP Address – it never changes.  I told Globe it was for my kids school… The reason I got it is to make my connection more stable.  A Static IP Address does not change each time you use the Computer.

Picture this, say Globe had 8 problems with their network.  Now figure you are in a pool with 10 connections.  Eight of them have DIFFERENT problems.  So each time the problems is different.  A tech who actually fixes a problem (and I doubt most do that) would fix one of them, when you shut down, and turn on your computer the next day, you have the same problem.  Think Carefully, what is the first thing they tell you to do… Power down the Router, right?  So then you come up with a different IP Address and maybe one of the 2 our of 10 that work!

With a STATIC IP Address, that won’t work, so they must fix the problem YOU are having.  And when you shut down, and power up, you have the SAME address that was really fixed.  Does this sound like what is happening to you?

They used to charge a one time fee for a Static IP Address.  But I love mine!

With the pool address (look below at your information when you sent me that message, you are in the Globe-VISMIN-IP-POOL (no surprise, right?). With a Dynamic Pool address, people suspect you are bad.  Say that a spammer and cracker and all around evil Internet person just had the IP Address 180.190.165.19.  He (or she) did all kinds of evil things all over the Internet, and plenty of systems put up 96 hour (4 day) road blocks…  This guy was trying to break into all kinds of systems to rob and steal and destroy.  Automatically when these attempts were discovered, servers started blocking that address… just for 4 days or so.

He got tired, or just hung up to get a new, fresher IP ADDRESS.  75% of Non Card Internet Fraud from this country is on the Internet in another country – so Dynamic addresses in the Philippines are automatically suspect.  Now that address is dynamically assigned to you.  He was hacking, cracking, committing fraud, spamming and doing all sorts of evil… Now you get the same address dynamically assigned to you.  IP Address 180.190.165.19 is blocked for 4-7 days so any place he was doing his stuff will now BLOCK YOU!  They do not know why you are, they only know your IP Address!

Try this out for yourself…

http://whatismyipaddress.com/blacklist-check

REAL CHEAP METHOD: If you get any red, you can likely shut off your router, restart it after a minute and test again and you IP will change and the red may be gone!

7)  Praise the techs that come to your house!

It may sound strange, but usually the guys that come to your house cannot do anything to fix your problem.  If you complain at them they will just want to do less and leave as fast as they can.  Instead, appreciate them.  Treat them well, chat with them about other things.  Sometimes then they will think out of the box and offer a solution they would not normally offer.  And sometimes they will bump you up to their supervisor.  Asking to talk to their supervisor is a waste of time, but showing them they have an intelligent question for their supervisor, may just get the attention you need to solve your problem.

I have been in the Philippines more than 25 years, and one thing is for sure, it is not Japan, Canada, Germany, the UK or Missouri or California!  My Honeybun saw a Globe guy working on the new cables the other day… one of the guys we had been nice to and you know what he told her?  He was saving one of the first connections for us!

Part of living in the Philippines is accepting that this is a 3rd world country.  More than that, it is a Filipino World.  Don’t try to make it something else!  Services are NOT on par with the Bill Gates in the States.  Power, water, Internet, you can expect outages on a regular basis.  When I have a brown our here, I go to the mall, or go to the beach.  So now, I kind of look forward to these failures and complain when things work to well… or not!

Your Computer and Internet (Phone) needs to be grounded!

Wherever you were in the world, your computer was likely plugged into a grounded three prong outlet.  Here your computer is likely plugged into an ungrounded outlet.  In the States your phone box (Telephone fuses on the outside wall of your house) was likely grounded too (go check! Find your phone box, and see if there is a wire from it to a ground stake!  Make sure it is not broken and it is tight!).  If your computer, or your phone box, is not grounded, you will continue to have problems.

Adding a ground to your compute plug is not a hard job… It just takes a little time.  Did you ever touch your computer and get a low voltage shock.  It did not really hurt, but you were aware of it.  That is really a danger that kills people every year in the Philippines.  When there is a brownout / black out, on one side only, and no ground, the whole 240 Volts can be connected to the case of the Computer!

If your telephone cabinet is 20 years old, it likely has little to no grounding, so grounding at your house on your phone and computer is even more important.  I have seen house that did not even have fuses, just drop wire twisted to house wire… DEMAND a grounded fuse on the side of your house, if you do not have one.  I know Globe will give you that!

Well, there are Eight Solid and Proven Ideas on how to get a better Internet Connection Through Globe.

Take Care,

Lan

www.blogger.com

Enter the email address of your blogger account and the password.

Login Problems

You MAY have some problems logging in to Blogger if you have a different Google service running, when you log into your blogger account, if the Google service has a different email address. If so, just log out of the other Google service and then you should be able to log into blogger.

Use the New Interface

I would also suggest you use the new interface.

New or old interface does the same things, but if you are learning, the old interface will one day disappear – so why learn twice!

After you login, find the name of your blog and click on it, something like “FGBMFI Olongapo Philippines“.

Selecting the Blogger Blog

You really do not want to click on New Blog.

Main Menu

Congratulations!

Congratulations!  You are now Logged In and ready to make changes on your website.

You should now see something like the Main Menu on the Left. This Main Menu is where each one of my BlogSpot Tutorials will begin.  So when I click Pages on the Main Menu, screen will look like on the left.  If I say click Settings on the Main Menu, it is at the bottom of the same place. The Main Menu is your starting point for all operations!

Remember the Main Menu because you will need to go here often.

Title and Description for the FGBMFI Minnesota USA Blog

We are now going to add a description, “Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International”

Click Settings on the Main Menu

1) Login

We start every operation by first logging in. If you do not know how, click on the big Login and it will take you to the instructions.

2) Settings

To do this we just simply have to click on Settings on the Main Menu.

Clicking on Settings will automatically open you to the Basic Settings Page.

 3) Basic Section

Next we will look in the Basic Section for Description and click on Edit.

Click Edit Next to Description

Notice that just above Description is the Title and it also has an Edit. If you want to change the title, that is where you would do it!

 4) Type The Description

Enter Your Description in the Box and Click Save Changes

At this point all you need to do is type your Description into the description box and click on Save changes.  As you can see, I have typed Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International into the box and my mouse is about to click Save changes!

Note that it says “500 Characters Max” ~ Have a good laugh about that one. I think one line is about all this theme can take!

5) Check Your Work

Title and Description for the Minnesota Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship International.

We are through!  The only thing to do now is to go to the FGBMFI Minnesota website and check to see that it is correct!

6) Use Caution

I will point out again that although I was changing the Description in this example, the procedures for changing the Title are exactly the same. Just click the Edit next to the Title instead.  Likewise let me give you this…

WARNING: The Settings Area is not a good place to try things to see what they will do.  Some things in the settings area can kill your website.  The Description and Title are safe enough, but other things can have catastrophic effects. Likewise if you change your title, it may drastically reduce your Search Engine placement and also reduce the number of people reading your website.  USE Caution!

7) Congratulations!

You are done updating your Description!

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 11:14 PM, john barnick <<snip>@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Lan:

<snip>. we are getting excited about the web site and just a question will i be able to add pictures and captions with the basic web format?

have a great GOD Blessed day! and Thank You for all of your help.

John Barnick

Completely Customizable

Well John, the answer to everything is yes! Yes and Amen!

The Theme

The theme we are using for most FGBMFI Chapters on the Blogger format is called WPStudio.  It is highly configurable, easy to customize for someone just learning, and it is a nice design to represent business men, and it gets good ranking on the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page).

If you want more information about Networking on the Internet and how to get a better SERP by doing some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) see my Basic Internet Networking Instructions.

IT Experts

Some FGBMFI Chapters have as members Internet Technology Experts.  For those with enough skill, you can change your theme to whatever theme you choose!  Please try to observe the Basic Internet Networking Instructions linked to above!

The point here, is that EVERYTHING is customizable!

The Slider

I am assuming John is asking about the “photos and captions” on the “slider” now visible on the front page.  Yes, these can be changed by your chapter.  They SHOULD be changed!  We use these simply as a filler to get a chapter website up and running.

Photos and Captions

However, beyond the slider, you can add more photos and captions into your blogs.  That is right, right inside your blog posts!   BlogSpot offers some space to load photos to, but better if you learn to use a photo hosting – there are plenty of free ones – and then just insert the code to your photos.  The sites we build are “Plain Jane” sites, meaning we do not put photos in it, but we can show you an example, so just keep reading!

The Header

You can also add a graphic to the header.  Wouldn’t it be great that instead of words only you were able to style a logo and text of different styles?  You can!  All you need to do is make the right size graphic and upload it!  In full color, to represent your Chapter!

The Example

Here is an online example of the WPStudio Blogger Theme to inspire you!

http://wpstudio-pbtemplates.blogspot.com/

Notice there is a header logo and image file?

Notice there are photos in each post (you can easily add captions also).  Notice the most popular post have thumbnail sized photos of the photo in the Post.

You can even add Photos in your pages!  (With or without captions!)  For example, you may want to add a group photo in your Contact Page, or perhaps add an About Page and add photos of each of your officers!

Suggestions

I would suggest you make photo hosting account, they are free in places like Image Bank or Photo Bucket.  There are Many so choose the one that appeals to you.  Just Google “free photo hosting” and you will find many sites!  If you host on BlogSpot, be aware that if the person who posted the photo decides to leave, then their photos will disappear too.  If you host at a free hosting, that can belong to the chapter.

FGBMFI.Net or FGBMFI Networking – is all about bringing men together in fellowship. Fellowship is what the last “F” is FGBMFI means. Here is how we are Networking FGBMFI…

Building Chapter Websites

We just finished three sites:

• www.NorthMplsMNus.FGBMFI.net

• www.BanningCAus.FGBMFI.net

• www.OlongapoPH.FGBMFI.net

These are already in the number one position for Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for their respective keywords:

• FGBMFI North Minneapolis

• FGBMFI Banning

• FGBMFI Olongapo

Go ahead and give it a try, Google any of the above and you will see the new site on the first spot or at least on the first page!

Networking By Design

This is called networking by design.  FGBMFI.Net is the largest FGBMFI site in the World.  It is also the busiest FGBMFI website in the world.  We are regularly visited by thousands of different people in 120+ countries!  The Alexa #1 ranked FGBMFI site in the world is FGBMFI.Net, by a ratio of 3.2 to 1!  This pretty much guarantees FGBMFI.Net one of the top three slots on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

This is important for the local chapter website because FGBMFI.Net, who have authority and a 15 year history, link to the new unknown chapter site!

Each Within Their Divisions!

With each chapter website we build, we are building (as fast as we can), a parent website!  These are sites for either the National Chapter (Outside the USA) or a State Website (In the USA).  For example, the respective parent websites for the above three sites are:

• Minnesota

• California

• The Philippines

Don’t Remove the Parent Link

This link to the parent site is important, it validates the chapter site!  This link will firmly establish each chapter location by State or Country.  As we build the State and National websites, these links will become reciprocal links, which are important to you!

A Two Way Street

Likewise, each chapter site has a link to the FGBMFI.Net site on the top of each site. This is called a reciprocal link (meaning two ways – you link to us, and we link to you!).  This link passes authority for your area – to you!  This is one of the reasons these sites now enjoy the top slots for FGBMFI in their respective areas!  These links are likewise important to you because, like a two way street, they validate a site both ways!

In the Internet trade, we sometimes call this “Google Juice” and that is stuff you really want for your website!

 Deeper Networking

To make this even more effective, local FGBMFI members who have their own website, for example on facebook, myspace, friendster, or perhaps a blog of their own, or a business website, they should link to both the local chapter site and to FGBMFI.Net.

This is easy to do and it will promote their own chapter of FGBMFI (the chapter link).  As well it will help people outside the area find an FGBMFI chapter near them (the link to FGBMFI.net).

Random Thoughts

This post is geared directly at FGBMFI websites, but it applies to ANY networking done on the Internet, not just FGBMFI and not even an organization.  For example, like minded people with a hobby of Marine Aquariums (Salt Water Tanks) may want to Network to promote their hobby!

Click on Pages

1) Login

We start every operation by first logging in. If you do not know how, click on the big Login and it will take you to the instructions.

2) Pages

The next thing you are going to want to do is click on Pages!

Again you will not want to click New post at this time.
(Do that when you make a new POST!)

Click on Our Officers

3) Edit

Then you will need to click on Edit next to Our Officers.  This is where you will change the information of the Our Officers Page.

You will also notice there are others pages listed, perhaps you found a spelling error in Our Code of Honor, just click Edit and you can fix it.

Later after you Edit the Our Offices Page, you will want to Edit Our Contact with ways people can contact the Olongapo FGBMFI Chapters.  Phone?  Fax?  Email?  Cell?  Your Chapter Postal Address?  Directions on a Google Map for your office (usually a chapter presidents office or home).  And a Google map to where you have your regular meetings.  This is where you may want to state you have a regular meeting that all men are invited to attend.

Click Compose or HTML

Back to the Our Officers Page. You will see something like these Compose / HTML buttons pictured to the left…

Compose: When you click compose it will look like this:

Compose View

HTML: If you click on HTML it will look like this…

HTML View

 4) HTML for Editing

If you are editing a list of names or phone numbers, like we are here, I would use the HTML view so you can be careful not to ruin the formating.

5) Compose for Composing Something New!

If you are writing a blog POST about an upcoming event, or the birth of a members baby, or the people who accepted and received the Lord, then I would use the Compose.

HTML is best for EDITING most of the time, and Compose is best for something NEW – Composing!

6) UPDATE

When you are through Editing, be sure to click the Orange Update button at the top.  This saves your work and puts the new page on the Internet!

If you are making a new page the box will say “Publish“.

7) Congratulations!

Congratulations! You have taken major steps to learning how to maintain your web site. All your Page editing will be done the same way!

With this post I am launching a new category I am calling simply BlogSpot. This BlogSpot Category will be about ways to use Blogspot.com to either have a club or chapter website, or how you can become a Money Making Entrepreneur

For those who follow MME (The Money Making Entrepreneur How-To My Partner Writes!), You will know that that MME does NOT recommend using Blogger/Blogspot for Money Making Blogging. I agree with that, if you want to make money on your Blogging, then you should pay for some hosting and a domain name and use WordPress.Org software. MME does a good job of giving you low cost solutions, so quality does not need to be expensive.

However, there are some people who really want to take advantage of earning on a blog, but really cannot afford the hosting or domain name fees. For those people this can be a how to or way to get started. I strongly advise you to switch to WordPress As Soon As Possible – Don’t be A Sap, switch ASAP!

On the other hand, the Business Men’s Fellowship Global Chapters and the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International Chapters, as well as anything from 4H to Grandma’s Knitting, could benefit from a BlogSpot Blog. In these cases, advertising is not a consideration. These blogs are about getting information out to the people who need it. For these organizations, of for anyone who just wants to publish information on the Internet, a BlogSpot Website may be ideal! And it is free!

So click on the BlogSpot menu above and you will find a whole menu of ideas. If you are already graduated to using WordPress, I suggest you check out the Money Making Entrepreneur!

Web-page Cloaking and Daggering are related Black Hat SEO and White Hate SEO techniques, respectively. SEO, of course, is Search Engine Optimization. There are many misconceptions about what is and isn’t Cloaking, as well as some people who think that cloaking and Daggering is actually the same. Daggering is not the same as Cloaking. They are very different and that is what this post is about.

Cloaking

Cloaking is a black hat search engine optimization (black hat SEO) technique in which the content presented to the search engine bot (crawler, robot or spider) is different from that presented to the user’s browser. This is done by delivering content based on the User-Agent HTTP header or IP addresses of the user requesting the page. When a user is identified as a search engine bot, a server-side script delivers a different, deceptive version of the web page, one that contains content not present on the visible page, or that is present but not searchable. The purpose of cloaking is often to trick or deceive search engines, so they display a page when it would not otherwise be displayed (black hat SEO).

Daggering

Daggering is a white hat search engine optimization (white hat SEO) technique in which the content is blocked or presented to the search engine crawler (also called a spider, bot or robot) based on a websites whitelist or blacklist. This is done by delivering content, or delivering a 403 Forbidden header, based on the User-Agent HTTP header or IP addresses of the bot requesting the page. When a bot is identified as a blacklist (or non-whitelist) search engine bot, a server-side script delivers a 403 Failure header (or sometimes a 404 File Not Found or 410 Gone header). Daggering is related to other forms of user authentication, except that instead of using a user name and password, the user_agent and/or requesting IP Address are used. The purpose of Daggering is prevent the use of valuable resources by non productive search engines or other bots. This white hat SEO works by reducing the load (CPU seconds and bandwidth use) and thereby possibly making the page respond faster. Google does use response time as one factor in their SERP ranking algorithm.

The Internet Term Daggering was coined by Lan Tait, after an unruly bot took down his site for a couple hours.

Not Cloaking

There is a number of misconceptions about what Cloaking is and is not. Here is a short list of some things that Cloaking is Not!

• Delivering dynamic content based on cookies or authentication. For example, a “Hello Percy” type of personalized message.
• Delivering dynamic content base on geographic location. For example, providing different shipping charges to people in Germany and those in Japan. Google uses IP Geographic location to deliver AdSense Ads.
• Daggering or Blocking anyone, or anything, from accessing the content of your website.  Anything would include any bot, crawler, robot, spider, or human.  It could include IP Address Ranges, time zones, languages, countries, regions or continents!