I have been always drawn to digital art. It started with 2d and 3d characters on the games I played and eventually moved on with adoptables and pet site art. I still spend a lot of time browsing through finished digital artworks in DA and wonder how people can do them. I spend some time each week trying to learn more about the tools of my trade which consists of Photoshop and Paint Tool SAI. I still feel that I need to learn more and I am considering applying in a digital art school once my budget allows me to.

I found out about First Academy of Computer Arts a year or two ago through Google while was searching for a school that offered web design and PHP courses. I even went on to inquire through email about their courses back then but wasn’t able to actually attend their courses because I was still finishing school then. Last year, I learned that one of my classmates took a course there and she recommended it highly when I mentioned I was interested. I’m glad I stumbled upon their website again now that I am focusing my career into pet sites and adoptables. I find their list of courses interesting and I am highly interested with their multimedia arts offering since I would like to learn more about concept art. Here are a few examples of their students’ works:

Basically what I found is that they offer the following main courses:

3D Arts that includes 3D Modeling & Design, Texturing & Rendering, 3D Animation and 3D Effects.
Multimedia Arts that tackles Concept Art (2D), Digital Animation and Basic Motion Graphics.
Print Media which contains Graphic Design, Graphic Illustrator and Page Design & Layout.
Web Design which includes techniques in Photoshop, xHTML, CSS, and Dreamweaver.

They also offer several workshops in case you have a specific area you want to focus on. In case you are interested to find more information First Academy and their programs, you can check out their website, www.firstacademy.net or call 898 27 24 to 26 and ask for Ms. Ciel C. Luy their Marketing Manager. The school is located 2F Saville Building, 8728 Paseo de Roxas corner Sen. Gil Puyat Ave. Makati City.

I tried to remember my previous TXN password but all the passwords I tried didn’t work. So I decided to call their 24-Hour Customer Care Hotline whose number was at the back of the card. Since I am not in Manila, I chose the Domestic Toll Free (for provincial areas) which is 1-800-1888-2277. When the automated/recorded prompt played, I chose Option #5 (press 5 on the phone) to access my EON account. A very nice customer representative answered the phone and helped me with my reset request after answering several verification questions. They asked the following:

1. Account Number (the one under your name on your EON card)
2. Full Name (on account)
3. Birthday
4. Cellphone Number
5. USER ID (the one you use to login to your EON online account)
6. Email Address

If the email address you used before isn’t working anymore, they can change it for you. When they ask for the email address, they ask for your preferred one. I was told by the CS that I will receive the email for the reset within 2-4 banking days so I would have to wait until Thursday. I hope everything goes well then.

Update: Woohoo! Received their reset email Thursday afternoon.

Since graduation day is less than a month from now, I have started the employment hunt. I do know that I want to pursue baking (I really love it) but to be able to continuously experiment on recipes I need to have ingredients. As we all know, the main ingredients of cakes and other baked products are flour, butter, milk and eggs. It’s quite expensive so I have to find a stable source of income so I can fund my passion. I’ll try freelance writing again and hopefully it will be enough to fund my mass baking sprees. I kid you not. When I get the itch to bake, I prepare several batches for taste-testing and our neighbors benefit from it. People at home are already sick of eating my baking experiments that they have stopped wanting cake.

Wish me luck on my hunt. Hopefully I get lots of writing opportunities so I can pursue my baking.

Are BPO’s allowed by law here in the Philippines to terminate an employee rather than accept their resignation (which is backed with a medical reason) when they have a target attrition rate limit during a specific period?

I checked the usual webhosts both recommended and loathed by people. I checked HostGator, BlueHost, DreamHost, HostMonster, LiquidWeb, NameCheap, LunarPages, ResellerZoom, SurpassHosting and a whole lot more. I liked some of the plans they offered especially the one with DreamHost where you get a year’s plan for only $9.94 if you use the 777 coupon as their way of celebrating Earth Day. The fun ended when I was shown in red letters:

The promotional code is not available in your area.

Eh? How sad. I also applied on Hostway since they have this Tango Reseller program that I found because of SitePoint’s newsletter and a whole bunch of people offering and recommending on their blogs. Who wouldn’t want it? It was a year of free reseller hosting and after the year’s up, you have to pay $200 to continue with the plan. So I went ahead and signed in trying to use a MasterCard that was expiring this year but it wouldn’t go through. I decided to try my Visa which expires in a couple of years and boom, my registration goes through. I receive two emails from them and I try to login the reseller cpanel login. I get in but then I get a pop-up saying,

Contact Hostway Administrators

And I don’t have any activation buttons to click which was shown in the tutorial. I sent their billing and reseller support a message saying the exact thing above but up to now I haven’t hear back from them. Should I now be worried about being billed next year on my Visa even if I didn’t get the reseller thing from Hostway? >.<

So finally by the end of the day, I find one webhost that I seem to like because of the good things I heard about them. A couple of bloggers also use them so I am more inclined to host with them. The only problem now is how to raise the money needed to get the hosting as soon as possible so I can start transferring all my files and websites to them before the servers of my current host go down next month. I have a couple of weeks to raise $120 to get the two-year hosting that I like. That would amount to just $5 a month. That would save me so much in the future. So now all I need to do is find ways to raise the cash. Wish me luck.

I read lots of articles and even hear some people in the news say that we are not affected at all by the financial crisis that is ongoing. With news of companies laying people off, I don’t think we are not affected at all. When demands for products around the world go down, demand for parts go down to. We all know that many companies outsource here in the country for manufacturing and it would seem rational to say that if they don’t sell their inventories, they wont need more parts from us. Thus companies downsize and lay-off employees to be able to continue existing. We cannot fool ourselves forever saying that we are not affected because we are. We have been barely able to alleviate poverty back when the global financial crisis was nonexistent, how can we alleviate it now when even more people are unemployed?

I started back in August and I can truly say I had fun in working there and I did meet a lot of people that I wouldn’t normally meet. Although I think I got burned out by the tasks and the fact that our teams got changed lot in a span of a few weeks, so I had lost the feeling of having a real team. I am also going back to the university this coming term wherein I am hoping to finally finish my remaining 18 units. I do hope the term goes by like a breeze so I wouldn’t feel so constricted and bored.

My blogs have suffered a lot when I left to work and I suffered as well because all the writing I was able to do was coding service tickets. I need some writing time again because all those months spent in taking in calls and documenting them has made my brain feel unused. I need to start writing again and I think a good way to do it would be to start on a simple writing project! Since its the holidays, I think it would be a good writing exercise to write about good simple gifts that can make the holiday gift-giving tradition a memorable one. I’ve given myself the task to think of one gift each day and write about it. I’ll try to choose at least 12 gifts, or make it 24 for each day of December until the 24th.

I think it would be easier to write about simple things that I wouldn’t mind giving and receiving for the holidays. Its usually the thought behind the gift that counts for me so a hefty price tag is not needed at all. Hopefully this exercise will help my brain to get used to writing and thinking again because it needs to get conditioned in time for my classes back at the university this coming January. Wish me luck!

I miss blogging terribly not only because of the freedom I have with regards to my schedule but also because of the different people I’ve met and gained knowledge from. With my current line of work, I’m learning many things too but I am not meeting a wide range of people that I get to do when I am living online.

Having a stable offline work is good in terms of monetary rewards. I can count on receiving a salary every 10th and 25th of the month and I will be able to receive from benefits when I reach my 3rd month there. However I’m feeling really stressed out in my job right now. My head hurts a lot these days and I don’t have the energy I had back when I still worked online. I also have less time to spend with the people I love and seeing my old friends. Since I started working, my whole life has changed and though I met lots of great people who I consider as my family already in that company, I don’t feel happy anymore. I think of the job as a burden now. I get nightmares at night (or morning) when I get home to sleep and when I wake up I still worry about my job. I don’t think the money I am getting from it can compensate for the stress I am experiencing daily. In fact I don’t look forward going to work. I have been dreading the time that I have to leave our home and ride the shuttle to work. I know in my heart that I am not happy anymore.

Though if I leave, I would not have a steady income that I can rely on. I would need to work double time on my blogs again (plus maybe sell some baked goodies) so I can be assured that I can make ends meet. Its so frustrating that what makes me happy can’t sustain my needs at the moment. I want to resign but I can’t resign just yet. Life is so annoying at times.

]]> http://www.bloggingpinay.com/2008/10/06/real-work-can-be-a-pain/feed/ 0 http://www.bloggingpinay.com/2008/07/26/neobux-get-paid-by-clicking-seriously/ http://www.bloggingpinay.com/2008/07/26/neobux-get-paid-by-clicking-seriously/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:08:20 +0000 Nika Catbagan http://www.bloggingpinay.com/?p=52

I started trying out paid to click (PTC) websites a long time ago and I never really got interested in them. One of the sites I did invest in first was Bux.to and I was actually losing faith in it back then because I had been waiting for my cash out for 6 months already. I finally received it a few days ago in my AlertPay account so I am quite contented because I finally got back my initial investment there. Everything I will get there from now own would be pure profit. Just before I received the payment notification in my email, I was able to join Neobux which is another paid to click website that tickled my interest. It wasn’t like the usual PTC where you just click get premium and referrals and forget about it. This PTC makes you active in their site and it actually gets you hooked because their business model simply works.

In Neobux, the members are active clickers because they simply can’t buy referrals and leave their referrals to do the job for them. You have to do your clicking part because you get credited based on your clicks. So if you don’t click yesterday, you don’t get credited with your referrals click today. Also you don’t simply pay and purchase your referrals one time, because you only rent them monthly. You have the option to extend your rented referrals before the month runs out so you can keep those good clickers under your wing. Its a good business model because with this option, you have to reinvest in the business and in turn you keep the company running. Great for you and the company.

Also what makes people love Neobux a lot would be their instant payments. You can easily get your cash outs from them as long as you meet the minimum payout amount and it gets credited to your AlertPay account instantly. Neobux’s business model is different. Its members have to actually put in a significant amount of work and time to actually earn and they can’t just get hundreds of referrals immediately and get rich that way.

I invested in Neobux part of the payment I received from Bux.to and used it to rent myself 100 referrals to help me get started. I couldn’t get it out of AlertPay immediately anyway since banks here in the Philippines don’t work yet with AlertPay (but AP did mention that they are working on setting up their services to work with Philippine banks) and withdrawing the funds through check (to be mailed to my home) would take a long time simply because our country’s postal service is really slow, so I decided to make the money work by investing it in Neobux. Hopefully my referrals and I could earn $30 before this week ends so I can get another 100 referrals next week to help me raise my income there. There are even members with only 1-2 referrals who have been able to accumulate the minimum payouts so if you don’t have funds to invest to the site yet, just a little of your time daily would work well enough.

So check out Neobux and the PTC innovation it offers. A few cents saved overtime can become a substantial amount in the future. I know most everyone would love to have some extra funds once in a while.

1. NBI Clearance
2. SSS Number

I know there would still be other requirements since I am still an undergraduate so I will probably be asked to get a copy of my school transcript as well as other common requirements such as an authenticated copy of my birth certificate and maybe a medical certificate from my doctor stating that I am well and able to work . Getting those is easier and less of a hassle because I don’t need other documents to get them. The NBI Clearance and SSS Number, I need a few documents to get them. I decided to go and get these requirements today since I will be having my written exams and another interview this coming Monday.

So off we (my Mom was such a darling to accompany me) went and the following is a shortened version of what we went through today.

11:00am
Went to the Barangay Hall to get a Barangay Clearance from the Barangay Captain. Paid P50.

11:15am
Went to the Municipal Hall to get my sedula (Community Tax Certificate). It cost P23 but I only got P26 change from my P50 because they had no coins left.

11:25am
Got the sedula and barangay clearance photocopied. Paid P5 for two pages. Yikes. P2.50 per page now? Ugh.

11:30am
Went to the Police Station to get my Police Clearance, but was told to go back to the Municipal Office first because I have to pay P20 there for a police clearance receipt, before I can fall in line there at the station to pay another P80 to get my Police Clearance.

11:40am
Went to the cashier in the Municipal Office to pay for the P20 police clearance receipt, but left my sedula (which is needed) so Mom had to follow me there, so we finished there around 11:50am.

11:55am (Yay! I made it before their Lunch Break)
Gave them the photocopy of my Barangay Clearance, showed them my sedula, and paid the P80 to get my application processed. I was then told to go to the “photo booth” made up of a simple plywood as a background then using a webcam they took my mug beautiful shot where I looked like a wilted piece of dried pulp.

12:10pm
The guy behind the picture/claiming window was having trouble fitting my name into the computer because they only register 15 characters for first names and mine is already 17 characters long, not including the space needed to separate it.

12:20pm
Finally got my Police Clearance, so off we went to ride a tricycle to get to the bus/jeepney stop so we can go to Lipa City’s Municipal Hall where I would be getting my NBI Clearance before heading off to the SSS Building to get my SSS number.

12:50pm
I receive a text message. “You left your wallet at the city hall’s treasury. Please come back and retrieve it.” *boink* Mom say’s, “What?”, I frantically open my bag and tada, I did leave it behind. So we tell the jeepney driver that we have to go down, so crossing the street we went back to the municipal hall where the only window open was the one with the kind man was waiting for me to claim my wallet. I was just walking to the window when he immediately put out my wallet and said, “Here.” So I ran back to Mom who was in a tricycle and instead of getting back to the jeepney stop, we decided to head back home to go eat some lunch.

1:30pm
Mom was pestering me to get up from my bed because I got engrossed in watching “The Soup” in Velvet. The topic was “People who won’t go away.” Freaky. So we end up leaving around 1:45pm.

2:15pm
We get to Lipa’s Municipal Hall and we fall in line at the NBI Clearance, Step 1 Window. There was a huge note plastered on the Window that said, “No sando or sleeveless tops allowed.” The woman in front of me was wearing a sleeveless top. When her turn came up, the guy behind the window kept on tapping the sign above to make his point. She then left and he asked me for my documents. I showed a copy of my Postal ID and my Police Clearance. He asks if it was for local or travel, I say local, and he asks if I am married or single, then see’s the single in my postal ID and says ok. I pay him P115. Then he motions me to the next window where the lady behind the glass took my picture before I even had the chance to fix my facial expression. Another mugshot there. I fill up the NBI form and ends up writing wrong information at the wrong lines. I didn’t have a husband yet I had an address for him, and I wrote my Dad’s birthplace as the same place my Mom’s was. Since I don’t carry correction tape around, I just cross it out.

2:30pm
I go line up at Step 4 to get my fingerprints printed onto the form and some guy cuts in. The man who handles the fingerprinting finishes with previous applicant and the “guy” goes in. The man tells him, she got in first, so he puts him in the corner and get my prints first. After everything is done, I pay him P5 for the wet tissue pack that is used to get all of the ink off my hands.

2:45pm
I get called in the last window where the clearances were being given out. I get told I have to go back on August 8th to claim it. I was confused. Mom then asked her again if she had the right person, and the staff said yes. Mom asked why can’t we get my NBI clearance now like the other new applicants? She then says there is a conflict since there was another person with the same name. I was like, “WTF?!?” You see my name is very very weird and sort of unique and my surname is quite rare. Even my middle name is rare. So I am just bothered right now as to why another person was registered in the records with same name as mine.

3:00pm
We get to the SSS building. Asked the guard for information, I was given a small form to fill-up. He told us I needed to submit a photocopy of my authenticated birth certificate (luckily I have one). Got my thumb prints on the form, then off we went to the line. The woman asked for a copy of my authenticated birth certificate, she punched in my name, it got cut-off again because my name was too long and then we paid P45 (I think). That was fast. We only stayed there 10 minutes. Wooohoo!

3:15pm
We arrive at SM Lipa, we look around then we head up to the second floor. I got a diamond face peel (I needed to de-stress) charged it onto Dad’s card (hopefully I get enough funds next month to pay for that one).

5:30pm
Grabbed a Cheeseburger deluxe so Mom would feel nauseaus and I bought her one tablet of SERC at Watsons.

6:30pm
Arrived home safely. Though still worried about my same name situation.