But of the many places I’ve been to, there is that something that draws me back to my roots. I was raised and grew up in this small yet beautiful island called Bohol in the Central Visayas region in the Philippines. Amidst the many natural wonders which our province is known for, it is also known for the long stretch of white sand beaches particularly in the municipality of Panglao, and somewhere here is nestled one of my favorite escapes, the Bohol Beach Club.

Panglao is the fourth class municipality that comprised Bohol, and is 18 km away from Tagbilaran City, the province’s capital. It has numerous beach resorts to its name, but being a self-confessed beach lover, Bohol Beach Club is on top of my list whenever I feel like basking in the warmth of the sun, or going snorkeling, or just want to take some time off to unwind.

Bohol Beach Club is a private resort with international standards. It’s one of the prominent beaches in the country sought after by tourists from around the globe. Its facilities include three (3) swimming pools, pool bars, restaurants, beach bar, outdoor jacuzzi, tennis court, game hall for darts, billiards, chess, backgammon and table tennis, offers scuba diving lessons, and a chance to take a glimpse of the underwater world on their glass bottom boat, or go scuba diving and swim with the colorful fishes as you take a magical tour under the sea filled with enthralling marine life.

Apart from the leisurely part, the resort also has wide range of business services being offered. Among these are secretarial services, Internet access, photocopying and facsimile machine services. In addition, they have able and efficient staff who do dry cleaning and laundry services, massage service, a doctor on call, room service from six in the morning to 12 midnight, airport transfers, and front desk officer who does airline ticket confirmation and provides tour information and tour bookings. The resort is also donned with gift shops wherein beach wear, sundry items, fashion accessories, and souvenir items can be bought along with many other vacation essentials.

Bohol Beach Club has somehow become a place of refuge each time I finished a project or at times when business is stressing me out. And other times, when I feel like I deserve a relaxing weekend getaway, the place pops up in mind right away. One of my favorite activities each time I am at the resort is exploring the nearby islands. Yes, it has neighboring pieces of land surrounded by white sand and crystal clear blue water. And beneath the waters are perfect diving spots which tourists are sure to love. Nearby islands are called Balicasag and the Virgin island. For those who have seen the depths of the sea on these areas, including myself, no wonder they or should I say, we, always come back yearning for more.

There’s just so much to see and do at Bohol Beach Club. Every time I’m there, I spend a lot of time outdoors. I love the serenity of the place. One thing great about it is it fits whatever mood I am at the moment. Like, if I am up for fun and adventure, I go diving or snorkeling. The diving spots? As I’ve mentioned, are just heavenly! Or better yet, I engage in sports. And at times when I just feel like curling my lap and reading a book, there is a vast quiet space for this too. Hence, Bohol Beach Club or BBC as the locals fondly call it, suits my mood, my taste, my style and most of all, my preference for a hot spot to be!

My first Plunge (210ft sudden drop with only faith and harness to hold…) at Eat Danao…. I felt like I died for a few seconds LOL… My friend, Rosemarie got lost in tracking me… LOL

The rising popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is pretty obvious and how these sites have created impact on millions of users around the globe is outstanding. But how does social media bolster your business? Branding. To come up with a successful brand, treat it like you would a person or a friend in the sense that it must be something trustworthy and something you enjoy.

So here is how it works. Social media is an appealing and effective tool to boost your profit and enhance your career. It creates world-class brands. However, the toughest part in making a successful brand is to make people see your potentials, including that of your products and services.

Well, this may sound unrelated when it comes to branding but the initial step is to thoroughly educate yourself about your business and what you are offering to the market. Once people realize that you know very well what you’re talking about, it’s most likely that they will consider, trust, and will start taking in your offer. But take note, this is just half of the entire process.

How do you make people see your potentials?
This is where social media comes in. As I have said, learning the ropes of your business is just the beginning. Imagine having baked the best blueberry pie in the world. But it will not be appreciated until others have tasted it. This is just the same with building a business. How will you be able to reap the fruits of your labor and gain profits if people are not aware about you? Therefore, the next step is to make people aware of your existence online. Social media just happens to be very good in making this possible.

Steps 1, 2, 3
Register and open an account. Membership is free, and most of these social networking sites are customizable and easy to use. Indeed, this is a fun and engaging way to brand your business. Through this kind of medium, you will be able to impart what you have and at the same time, you earn in return. If people are attracted to you, they will become interested with your and products and services. Eventually, a lot of them will become your friends or fresh clients, or even both.

Post and update your profile every now and then. Let people know what you are up to or what new products or service you are offering. This manner allows your follower and or network friends to know you better and trust you even more.
Add more and more friends as you go along. This network of connection will grow and expand bigger in no time. Doing things well means tremendous success for you with little waste of effort and time, not to mention less expense in building your business niche.

Branding is created as social media paves the way between customers and marketer to engage and connect, allowing both parties to develop a personal relationship altogether. By the development of such relationship, a brand is formed. This is the befitting change brought upon by social media to modern day online marketing. Social media is “perfect” for marketers. In order to come up with strong brands, online entrepreneurs, like me, need a certain degree of scale and presence. And for that world-class brand, we need customers, lots of them, and a place to meet these customers. Nothing provides better these essentials than the social media platform.

For this, I am truly grateful. I am one of the many who’s reaping the boons of social media as I embrace it as a way to reach out to clients and targeted ones. Along the way, I gain friends and trusted clients, and I am enjoying every step of the way. Just be sincere and you’ll be part of the social media frenzy without nothing to lose. Rather, you’ll beat the odds and gain yourself the kind of “brand” that will set you apart from the rest.

The reports said Google Circles is a social product which integrates status updates, videos and photos, much like to what Facebook is about. But Google product imparts more privacy for its users, offering features such that users can send private messages to a particular group or in group. Sounds familiar? Yes, it does sound like similar with Beluga, a mobile project made by former Googlers.

But the real question remains: is the rumor true or will it just go in circles without definite answer? Will we ever get to see this “new product” anytime soon? The answer is with Google.

Worst, the hackers didn’t keep the database all to themselves. Instead, they uploaded everything to thepiratebay.org, a public torrent tracker, including the database’s rough analysis, 200,000 decoded passwords, plaintext credentials for some Gawker employees, and the 1.4 million email addresses, encrypted usernames and encrypted passwords.

The technical details on how the hack was done are not yet entirely disclosed, but Gnosis, the hacking group accountable for such has taken responsibility for what happened. Together with the database uploaded at thepiratebay.org was what looked like an angry shout-out aimed at the company.

Based on the occurrences, it looked like Gnosis guessed or decoded Nick Denton’s, Gawker founder, password which he used for his Campfire team-collaboration portal account. This account is used for internal communications and chat among the staff. The moment Gnosis gained access to this, they’re able to get hold of valuable information from the 4-gig chat logs.

Also, it seemed like the MySQL database password was divulged somewhere in the logs. It’s a petty issue for Gnosis to dump what they had gathered. Unfortunately for Gawker’s part, their passwords were encrypted using the criticized and ancient DES or Data Encryption Standard which made use of the 56-bit encryption key. With such poor encryption system, passwords with more than eight characters can be truncated to eight prior to storing in the database. Those users using more than eight characters
for the password will not be entirely compromised. However, account access is still possible once the first eight characters are cracked. Gnosis had successfully cracked about 200,000 passwords in the Gawker database, out of the 1.4 million passwords stored.

Analysis of the passwords hacked from the database were quite surprising and at the same time horrifying. Some highlights were the facts that 2,000 passwords used the word “password” as password; another 3,000 passwords used “123456;” 150,000 passwords consisted of all letters in lowercase; and Nick Denton used a password comprised of all the numbers. Pretty specific, huh?

Whoever had left a comment at any Gawker site may possibly be compromised. In addition, some individuals who used the same password for their different online accounts may likely be compromised too. Reports of social media accounts were uncovered such as Twitter accounts. Therefore, vary your passwords. Do not use only one password for all your online accounts.

Facebook comprises 78% of traffic among social networking websites, while micro blogging website, Twitter, is accountable for the 5%. However, Twitter’s “tweets” are favored with 19 clicks, as Facebook’s embedded links get three clicks only.

A marketing firm offering social media marketing campaigns had assessed over one million shared links using the Tell-a-Friend widget, which allows people to share any information on sites. SocialTwist determined success rate based on clickthrough rate; meaning, the total number of clicks a particular link gets to take the user to a particular destination. As the survey was conducted, more and more surprising outcome were uncovered. One of which is the fact that MySpace still acquire a 15% market share.

Any social media user must be aware of each site’s pros and cons. Both are highly favorable yet as a user, you should keep in mind your intent and objective for needing such medium. It helps to be aware the specifics of what the sites can and cannot provide to better attain the desired outcome. So here are the pros and cons of both Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter (Pros):

Bloomberg has reported that presently, Twitter has about 165 million users. And with the site’s improved layout, expect the number to rise. The new layout introduced a split-screen/view pane idea to allow users to share photos and videos conveniently. Clearly, Twitter is for the social media savvy. It can be used directly from its website or through a third-party application which offers features such as scheduled tweets, searches, retweets, paneled views or other similar Twitter metrics and identities.

Twitter (Cons):

On the other hand, the downside to Twitter is its similarity to a cocktail party wherein people momentarily gather around to have conversation, or to listen, or to partake any interesting find, and then wander off again not long after. There are also security issues with Twitter, albeit it has been minimized with the revamp. Sometimes, when users opened some unknown URL’s, malware may spread rapidly. This is a tactic planted to spread viruses or to download account data. Lastly, Twitter’s dependability is questionable specifically in reference to its Fail Whale application. Twitter’s Fail Whale icon is popular. Such icon appears to explain or to inform user that Twitter is over capacity or simply down. Although its dependability is now better compared to how it was before, still the site continues to experience hiccups and service outages.

Now let’s tackle Facebook’s cons and pros.

Pros:

Unlike Twitter, Facebook has become rapidly popular with about 600 million users to date. This is not altogether a surprise if you already know that people can do more than just add or search friends in Facebook. You can do more like play games or take quizzes. Certainly, there are lots to do with Facebook in which one can easily waste his or her time on.

Another of Facebook’s advantage is its being dependable. Yes, it experienced outage for 2 and a half hours sometime late last year but it’s really nothing compared to the frequent appearance of Fail Whale by Twitter. And more than anything, Facebook ha a variety of tools which users can access on. These tools include videos, news, quizzes, photos, and links; while Twitter just began offering photos and videos on its site.

Cons:

Admittedly, Facebook’s advantages are also its disadvantages. Like Twitter, it has numerous people from children to moms to grandparents, baby boomers and millennials even. For this reason, business entities may find it arduous to find the right target or market. Still, businesses can be noticed in Facebook but only after a broad campaign and connection through several users, different with Twitter in which it is undoubtedly a more focused medium.

Facebook is said to be more similar to a dormitory rather than a cocktail party. This is so since with twitter, people there are more likely to be interested in the “talk of the hour.” Granting this is true, Facebook may be likened to a college dormitory hallway or a cruise ship lobby where users see each other but don’t become friends instantly until days or weeks after, months even. Thus, Facebook may be a medium to bare one’s sentiments but not the place to make a hard sell, unless of course, your exemplary social media effort takes place.

Now, which one is best to use: Twitter or Facebook? Actually, it does not come as a surprise to find out that people opted for Twitter for their marketing choice since such has more return of investment to offer, other than its more savvy population, fast approach to conversation, less time more exposure approach, and few distractions from countless streams of flowing information.

Indeed, Twitter and Facebook are two different social websites. Therefore, businesses and anyone should be aware that they’ll have to adapt with each site and formulate campaigns fitting to each service’s strengths..

It’s the second year for Facebook to top in America’s Internet search list. The term “Facebook” covered 2.11% of the total searches, as Hitwise pointed out. More so, the popular social networking site had its 3 variations into the top 10, namely: www.facebook.com at #9, facebook.com at #6, and facebook login at #2. If combined, these terms accounted the 3.48% slot of all searches, which meant a whooping 207% increase since 2009.

Other search terms who made on the top list include Mapquest, YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Craigslist, and eBay. Companies like Netflix, Hulu, ESPN, and Verizon were some of the names that were responsible for the searches. Apart from all that has been mentioned, the term “games” was able to appear in Hitwise’s 50 search terms as well.

But even more surprising is the fast ascent to Hitwise’s number one list for being the most visited site. From January to November of 2010, Facebook was held responsible for 8.93% visits, beating Google at 7.19%; and following the lead were YouTube with 2.56%, Yahoo Mail at 3.52%, and Google at 7.19%. Nevertheless, with Google’s properties combined, Facebook was not able to beat the former’s traffic.

Apparently, only time can tell when Facebook overturns all of Google’s online empire. As per comScore, Facebook in the US increased traffic by 55% last year. Thus, Facebook is on its way to becoming an online magnate greater than Google.

Paul Butler’s interactive world map of Facebook’s social connections… View high-res (3.8MB)

Butler started with his discovery by taking samples of Facebook users from the site’s data warehouse. After which, he combined the gathered data with each user’s location, added the number of friends in between each cities and immersed with the latitude and longitude of each city. To come up with a more visible data, Butler “defined weights” for every coupled city which served as the Euclidean distance between each location and the number of friends in between.

Butler admitted to being surprised with what he saw. What started out as a mass of data eventually turned out to be an outstanding map of the world, to which, continents were not the only ones apparent but international borders were seen as well. On top of this all, what struck as marvelous to Paul Butler was the fact that the lines didn’t represent political borders, rivers or seas, but real social human relationships.

So where’s this data now? Deleted. Pretty much similar to what an outside programmer, Peter Warden, did before. Warden gathered millions of profiles and analyzed them to discern connections between states and countries, and from those connections, he was able to come up with interactive maps. However, Facebook denounced to file a lawsuit for scraping users’ profiles was a violation to their terms of service. Hence, Warden was left with no choice but to obliterate the data.

What is LKS or Landau-Kleffner Syndrome?

It’s basically a childhood disorder. LKS usually happens in normally developing kids between 3 to 7 years old. It’s major feature is sudden or gradual loss of ability to speak and understand. The dilemma is triggered by abnormal brain waves which can be monitored and studied by the use of EEG or electroencephalogram. EEG records the brain’s electrical activity.

Eighty percent of the children diagnosed with the condition experienced epileptic seizures mostly at night. Depression, aggressiveness and hyperactivity may also be telltale signs of LKS, which is also referred to as infantile acquired aphasia or acquired epileptic aphasia. Such disorder was first diagnosed by doctors William M. Landau and Frank R. Kleffner in 1957; thus, the name.

With unknown reasons, children with LKS find it difficult to comprehend what is being said to them. This auditory agnosia, which doctors referred to as “word deafness” or auditory agnosia, occur either slowly or quickly. For the most part, parents’ initial thoughts are that their child is experiencing hearing issues or sudden deafness. But hearing tests decipher normal hearing. Some kids diagnosed with the condition may also look developmentally delayed or autistic.

Eventually, with the incapability to discern language, the child’s speech will be affected to the point of loosing his or her ability to talk. However, children who are able to write and read prior to acquiring Landau-Kleffner Syndrome oftentimes continue communicating by means of writing. This results to a practice of sign language or some sort of gestural communication. Later on, as the disorder progresses, communication problems can lead to psychological and
behavioral issues. Good thing is, intelligence isn’t much affected.

As earlier mentioned, seizures are apparent occurrences in children with LKS. Somehow, the seizures mostly stop at teenage years. With LKS, children are found to have abnormal electrical brain activity on the left and right sides of the brain. Moreover, the language problem continues to persist, ranging from difficulty on following commands to loss of verbal communication. On some instances, recovery is possible but may take some time, like months or years.

Landau-Kleffner Syndrome’s cause is unknown. Yet, medical experts think that such is triggered by more than one cause. In general, children who acquired LKS were initially normal until the onset of language problems or the first seizure. LKS is unlikely to be an inherited disorder since no reports have been found of children with a family history of this disorder.

Are there treatments for LKS? Yes, there are. Treatments include medications which aim to control the episodes of seizures and the abnormal brain wave. However these anticonvulsants are known to have little effect to correct on the language ability, but corticosteroid therapy does, on some cases.

You may or may not know it, but we don’t have to look too far to find the drive to be better and be more productive. People, places, and things can be your inspiration.

Inspiration is everywhere. It’s around you. You just have to look well to find it. So when the road seems uncertain and the ride seems bumpy, here are five “places” to take comfort into to find the “will” to keep going.

1) COMIC PAGE in any newsprint

Reading this, perhaps you can’t fully comprehend what comical illustrations can do to motivate you. Well, comics are like sweet treats. Reading them doesn’t only provide you with pleasure and an opportunity to break into laughter, but importantly, they are pleasant reminders that the simple things in life indeed can make a difference, wonderful difference. Genuine compliments, a pat on the back when one is down, words of encouragement, a smile, and words of appreciation,
are confidence and energy-boosters. People are hungry for recognition, admiration and kindness. Hence, comics remind everyone of us that the simplest gesture is enough to lift one’s spirit.

2) Plants and Trees

Look around you. Pay attention to the beauty of nature. Look at them and realize how beautiful they’ve grown on their own. They can’t move, yet they survive and even turn out to be productive in their own way.

Plants and trees, especially the large ones are epitomes of perseverance. They have their leaves and roots which extend as far as they can go to acquire sunlight and nutrients that they need in order to survive. So may these gifts of nature inspire you to keep searching for whatever it is you need to succeed in life.

3) Gadgets and Appliances

Every thing made by man started out as an idea. More often than not, it took some time for the inventor to materialize it into being. Years even could be a factor, along with the struggles and developmental studies that went with the success. Take note, if they succeeded, then so can you. It’s not surprising to hear of naysayers and critics. But each time you look at a piece of furniture or even a tiny gadget, be reminded that hard work and perseverance will bring you a long, long way.

4) A Flag

Upon looking at a country’s flag, allow it to serve as an inspiration to you, being reminded of the patriotic citizens who fought and died for the country just so you and the next generation can enjoy absolute freedom. Thus, when you see a flag, may you be inspired to cast a vote, volunteer, or conserve resources. Contribute something for the betterment of your country and for the generations to come.

5) School

When you look at any school building, bear in mind the teachers, faculty and staff who are behind the walls, dedicating their lives to educate us. And do not forget that learning is a lifetime process. The next time you see a school building, be inspired to learn more and create new opportunities.

May these and more serve as an inspiration to you. Anyone, anything, anyplace and anytime, offers you something to succeed. Keep pushing, keep moving!