I have been trying to find a solution to my problem where I live in a really lightning prone area and each time it rains I have to shut down my computer and unplug all power cables. I have in fact gotten my modem and network card fried TWICE. One when I was a new user and did not know better, another time was when I was just a minute slow in unplugging.

So my problem is that each time it rains, I am unable to use my PC and that spells downtime for me. I know this could be solved with a lightning protector but these do not provide 100% guarantee. I’d have better peace of mind using a battery operated gadget.

I don’t know if I should get a laptop or a mobile phone. These don’t use live power and could be used during thunderstorms where I dare not risk doing for my computer. Like I said, I can’t afford for any downtime at all.

A laptop or a mobile phone is about the same price but like my friend said, I can’t put a laptop into my pocket.

I hate decision making because I am never confident if I am making them right.

I recently signed up with a local forum to show support to my friend who is one of the founders. I was a forum queen just a few short years ago but I have actually retired from forumming. I am now a blogger but anyway, I signed up to help him beef up his membership. However, I did tell him that I may not have the time to actively participate in the discussions and he was fine with it.

Today, they made slight changes to their forum administration and suddenly I have been receiving thread updates even though I did not opt for email updates.

So I deleted the emails but out of curiosity, I opened one and it was an invitation to participate in an adult chat.

OMG, it is hard to believe that in that kiddie forum, people are discussing about sex in the open. There were threads teaching people the art of oral sex and such. I had the impression this was a kiddie forum as the smilies were all cartoonish but I guess not.

I think that if they wanted an adult section in that forum, they should at least make it password protected so that the younger members who are not yet of legal age are not able to access the threads. No doubt, these children can still access such discussions and even porn on the internet at large but at least be discreet about it on the boards, right?

Well, the previous one was in late January, 2007 and it was a long time coming. I wonder when the next Google Page Rank update would be. I read that it will be in mid-late April, 2007 but I am skeptical. Three months since the last update?

I read that some people have Google Bots visiting their sites already, but mine is still not. I hope they will come soon. I already missed the boat in January, 2007 and can’t afford to miss it a second time.

I am hoping that with this coming update, I would be assigned with a nice Page Rank. A Zero doesn’t look pretty at all. I am aiming for a Three. I don’t think it’s unrealistic because I have seen some blogs with less traffic and incoming links getting a Three on the first update.

As for my other blog, I hope that I would at least get a Four. It has been Three since July – August, 2006 and I hope that it will be upgraded, finally.

I’ve been having problems with my ** An Anonymous Journal ** blog on Technorati where it is stated that the blog is not updated for more than three months. What a joke, when I update is almost daily. The consolation is that this problem is not exclusive to me.

I have written in to Support since early February, 2007 and a follow up mail in early March, 2007. I did not receive a reply at all nor was my problem solved. So someone told me that I should post my problem on the Support Forum. She did it and her problem was solved quickly. I searched for the link to the Forum for ages but could not find it until I read the Technorati Blog and went to the Forum from there.

The Forum took ages to load on my computer and as a matter of fact, the Technorati site is generally slow. Then I finally managed to access it and located the right thread to post my problem. Little did I know that my problem does not end there.

For the life of me, I have no idea why my post kept going to another thread!?! I ended up posting a similar message on four different threads that are not on my issue. Bah! I quit posting after that lest I look like a spammer or worse, someone with a mental problem, harping on the same problem and on the wrong threads too!

I think I am going crazy. I have spent the past week looking for the best Blogger template as I am thinking of changing it. And one thing led to another and I began to search for beautiful website templates.

And then I am trying to look for templates for Googlepages as I saw one Googlepages site that has a layout that is NOT available from the Googlepages selection. Weird. As I know, Googlepages, although is easy to use, is not very flexible. How on earth did he have an entirely different layout?

So I have this bright idea that perhaps, we can also edit the HTML codes of Googlepages like how we do to our Blogger blogs but I still can’t find the solution. In the first place, I can’t even find the templates!

Of course, the easy way out is to just pay a designer to come up with a design that is really for me and me to use alone but if you know me at all, you will know that I am a cheapo.

Not only do I want a beautiful template, I also want it free and I want it to be friendly enough for me, an HTML noob, to customize easily. Am I asking too much?

A few days ago, I received an invitation from Text Link Ads to implement AuctionAds on my blog. While this is another opportunity to monetize the blog, I wonder how relevant the ads will be.

Take for example my buddy, Cyberpartygal. She is an eBayer herself. Do you think that she will want to drive people to another eBay auction? I would think that for blogs like hers, it would be more logical to run her own product ad, using the free services of Auctiva Store and Slide.com, for example.

Even for my non-commercial blog, I would rather have visitors STAY on my blog and not go to a third party site even if I may be getting paid for that. How many people do you think will actually “take an action” at the eBay auction, which I take it to mean, “place a bid”.

I’m not known as a pessimist for nothing, though I rather think of myself as a realist.