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Things changed when I started Batangas Today. It was ok on the first 2 months. It was hosted on the same VPS as this blog. It shared resources with this blog and all other blogs and website I have. Then, Batangas Today was accepted on Google News, and before October ended, we were included in the index of Yahoo! News.

Traffic grew from about 500 visitors per day to more than 15,000 visitors per day! There were even days that it went up to 30,000 unique visitors in one day. Then the site went sluggish. The front end usually loads fast, thanks to WP-Super-Cache plugin. However, making a post was a pain in the tutut. Most of the writers complain that it was really slow. Well, really, it was slow.

So, I’ve decided to move it to its own VPS. Adding a new VPS on Dreamhost is as simple as clicking a button. You request for a new VPS, and they deliver it in less than 24 hours. And that’s what happened. I got a shiny new VPS in less than 24 hours.

I scheduled the moving of Batangas Today to the new VPS last Sunday night. It was a smooth transition. We were expecting that after the transition, the site will load faster, both front-end and the back-end. Guess what happened?

After moving, things went wrong from bad to worse. The site seems much slower compared to when it was still on the old VPS! Writers complained. I even complained to Dreamhost. They just told me to optimize my WordPress installation, giving me links from their Wiki on how to do things. But I already did all of those things. Using Super cache. Disabling image hotlinking. Blocking abusive IP address. etc… But still, site was slow. I even adjusted the memory resources to its maximum of 4GB. Still very slow. The memory usage kept on moving up and down like a roller coaster.

After hours of researching and googling about this problem, I think I finally solved it. Yesterday night, memory usage went down from 1GB to 100-300MB. It is even reaching less than 100MB today, with the amount of traffic same as before. See the graph! (Click the graph for a larger view)

So, what did I do? Actually, WordPress is NOT the culprit. It’s my VPS’ configuration. After making the right changes and setting the right combination, memory usage went down as you can see on the graph above. I was like, WOW! I even applied the settings to my old VPS and from 400MB memory usage, it’s now on a double digit most of the time. 50MB to 80MB. So, what change did I make? That will be the subject of my next post. Watch out for it!

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Any site. Whatever site. Right? But try doing this after you availed of their Smart Unlisurf service: Visit m.facebook.com. Of course, you’ll be able to login as an ordinary FB user. You can surf Facebook. Of course, you will think that you’ll not get extra charges since you are on Smart Unlisurf. Just check your balance after surfing and see for yourself. Here’s my blog post about it. They gave me back my 20 pesos load after I complained, admitting to the mistake. But did they fix this bug? It’s for you to find out!

Any site. Whatever site. But if you simply browse http://messaging.nokia.com or http://email.nokia.com, they will charge you with additional 10pesos/30 minutes! Yeah. Even if you don’t have an account with Nokia.com. Even if you don’t subscribe with Nokia Push Email. Even if your cellphone has no mailbox setup for push email. Even if you are on Smart Unlisurf already! Just visiting those sites will give you additional charges! I knew this because it happened to me and SmartCares was good enough to inform me! Smartcares DM’ed this to me on Twitter: “Pls b guided that Nokia Push Mail is a different service than d UNLI Surf promo. It connects to Nokia Server which is charged with the regular browsing rate of P10/30mins.” Question. Why is this fact not stated on the Smart Unlisurf terms and conditions???

To Smart, why aren’t we informed of these things? That if we visit certain sites, we will be given additional charges? What other sites aside from what I mentioned above will give me additional charges if I visit them even if I’m on Unlisurf? Can you enumerate them for us so that we can avoid those sites as much as possible? Can you update this page and remove the ANY SITE phrase there?

I already decided not to use Smart Unlisurf for the rest of my life. I might still use my Smart SIM for texting and calling, but for surfing the net, I’ll avoid Smart Unlisurf like the plague. You’ll never know what charges they might deduct from you everytime you surf with it!

Smart Unlisurf. The not-so-unlimited surfing service from Smart that is ready to suck your load with unlimited charges for visiting certain sites they don’t even want you to know!

Please pass this to any Smart user you know to get them informed of what Smart Unli Surf really is all about.

Disclaimer: This blog post is mainly based on the blogger’s first hand experience on using Smart Unlisurf and the information he got from SmartCares. I’m not sure if SmartCares’ opinion reflects the opinion of Smart Communications, Inc. on this matter. But I assumed it is.

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So what happened? I checked my balance before surfing the net on my cellphone. No deduction. It’s the same 236. Take note that I’m only on my third day on my 7-day Smart Unlisurf plan. Checked my email at gmail.macuha.com and at mail.yahoo.com. Visited GMANews.tv. Visited Reddit.com. Visited Digg.com. Opened my Youtube application and watched some videos. Then I disconnected. Checked my balance again. And there it is! They deducted 10 pesos. My balance is now 226.

So, I called their hotline again to investigate. And according to the call center agent I talked to, the 10 pesos deduction is for a push email service when I visited http://email.nokia.com! I’ve never been to that site! Push email is not even setup on my cellphone! I only check my mails thru webmails. So, I requested for a reversal of load. The agent made a report and told me to wait for 48 to 72 hours before they can give back my load. I also followed up my 20 pesos and told me to just wait for another 24 hours for the reversal.

The point here is not about giving back my load. 30 pesos is just 30 pesos. I can earn that easily online. The point here is why they are deducting money from us without our consent in the first place. I think, NTC should investigate Smart and make a complete audit of their system. Why does their system act like that? Deducting money from subscribers without their consent? And why their Unlisurf is not Unlimited after all as advertised?

Their system’s logic seems like this:

Check if customer has existing load.
Deduct 10 or 20 pesos for no apparent reason.
If customer complains, tell him some reasons that sounds valid, file a reversal and give the money back.
Else.. kaching, kaching!

Smart, your system has a bug, obviously. Your system is deducting money from us without our consent: automatically subscribing us to some services we don’t even know existed! Fix it! I might be able to get my 30 pesos back, but if your system doesn’t get fixed, you might be getting millions of pesos from the pockets of unsuspecting subscribers.

I’ll just let this 300 pesos Unlisurf expire and I’ll switch to Globe. Seriously!

Are you a Smart subscriber who have the same experience? Share it below!

Update (July 10, 2010, 12:30AM): Smartcares DM’d me on Twitter telling me that they are already fixing this issue and will send me updates. Meanwhile, they deducted another 10 pesos from me this afternoon around 4pm for the same reason as above! That I subscribed to Nokia’s push email service which I did not do. Tsk tsk. I already called their hotline and requested for another reversal of load. So far, they already deducted 40 pesos from me because of their system’s bug. No load has been sent back to me yet. I already stopped using Smart Unlisurf and I am now using Globe Supersurf as of the moment to avoid getting more deduction from Smart.

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So, I called Smart hotline *888 and ask why am I deducted that 20 pesos. The agent checked my last transaction and then informed me that that 20 pesos is for Unli-Facebook subscription. So I told them that I did not subscribe for Unli-Facebook, besides, I’m on Smart Unlisurf plan which I only registered 2 days ago. I paid 300 pesos for a 7-day Unlisurf plan. Then, this agent, named Cathy Magio, told me that it’s because I visited m.facebook.com. That’s what triggers the automatic subscription on Unli-Facebook and automatic deduction of 20 pesos. But hey! I’m on UNLISURF plan! I should be able to visit any website without worrying of any unwanted charges, right?? Well, she said, that’s the case, except if I visit m.facebook.com where I will be automatically subscribed to their Unli-Facebook plan! Well, that’s wrong! Why would I subscribe to unli-Facebook if I already have Unlisurf? Our talk just goes like that all over again, the agent telling me that it is really the case and I am insisting that it should not be, then, I asked to talk to her supervisor in which she put me on hold and then disconnected me for no reason!

I tried calling them several times, and each agent I talked to seems clueless on this thing. Do I really need to avoid m.facebook.com to avoid getting additional charges despite me being on Smart Unlisurf already? Logic tells me that it should not be the case. I am on Unlisurf, not on Unlisurf-except-FB plan. So, I should not be charged anything when I visit m.facebook.com since I already paid 300 pesos for unlimited surfing. UNLIMITED means no limit, right? So, why give me some limitations?

I already sent my concern thru Smartcares and thru Smart Webconnect. Let’s see their replies since I can’t get a decent answer from their call center agents. It’s only 20 pesos, but imagine if a million subscribers get deducted 20 pesos everyday without them knowing it?

I’ll update this post when I get a reply from them.

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So, what’s up with me? Why no updates? Well, that’s because I got busy offline due to an online endeavor. Me and my wife started getting busy on our real estate sideline. The last few weeks were spent on signing up as accredited agent on different real estate projects here in Batangas. Thanks to Ka Boni, our real estate manager for opening the real estate doors for us. And special thanks to Manuel Viloria for opening my eyes on the money behind real estate during iBlog6.

We’ve visited different projects here in Batangas. We are now an accredited agents for Beverly Hills-Lipa subdivision, Mahogany Place-Lipa, Bahayang Pilipino Village, Boomtown Subdivision, GC Berberabe, and many more. You can see the projects listed on our Batangas real estate blog. The blog is still in its infancy, and we still have to include all the projects we have. Anyway, it is already ranking on search engines for our target keywords, and if you have a real estate blog offering projects NOT in Batangas, feel free to exchange links with me. I’m open with exchanging links to real estate blogs offering projects in other places, since you’re not my direct competitors.

Now, I am in Davao enjoying a 2-week vacation. I’ll be back in Batangas on July 16. I’m still collecting flyers on the malls here.

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Selected Batangas bloggers were treated to a food trip last April 18 by SM Lipa. I and my wife were among the lucky bloggers who were given free buffet lunch. They also gave us free Bingo tickets, free World Of Fun tickets and I won 3 moisturizing items (Moisturizing Cream Shampoo, Moisturizing Cream Bath and Moisturizing Body Lotion) courtesy of Watsons. Imagine if I used all of these in one day, I’ll be the most moisturized person in the whole world!

Anyway, let’s talk about the food. Despite all the gifts I received, let me give them an honest review. The rice is good. I like most of the food. I like the Shabu Shabu, I like the chicharon, I like the ice cream, I like the potato fries, I like the sisig and I like the bopis. However, the fruit shake is kinda matabang, you know? And the shawarma? I was not satisfied compared to other shawarmas I tasted before. (I’m a shawarma-addict, ask my wife) Libre na nga, reklamo pa? Hehe. Well, so that they can improve it and get more sales in the future, right?

Well, all in all, it was a nice experience. Meeting fellow bloggers in Batangas, talking with them and planning the future of Batangas bloggers while having a free lunch = win!

Thanks to SM Lipa for making us feel like some judges of the Top Chef Masters. Sa uulitin!

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I started my talk with my story. (Just rounded up my 2 cents per day to a dollar per month). That’s because I think that if I just go straight away discussing SEO and all those technical stuff, you might not be interested. I just planted some curiosity in your minds so that you’ll all listen to me

As for my talk, what I’ve showed you are just the tip of the iceberg. They are just the basics. But basically, that’s all what I really do. Blog about what people are searching for and build links to it. Making a search-engine friendly blog is the first step, which you’ll do only once. It’s the blogging and link building, and waiting for the results that really takes time.

If you are really interested to learn more, you can download our Guerilla blogging e-book here. If you want to learn SEO in a more technical detail, you can download SEO Made Easy here. It’s also free.

And if you are wondering if my SEO techniques discussed on the Guerilla blogging e-book really works, feel free to read some of these testimonials.

• My First Google Adsense Payment by Bryan Depano
• Road Bike That Google Adsense Bought by Dodong Flores
• I’m A Guerilla Blogger And I’m Proud To Be One by Menard Osena
• The 3 SEO E-books That Helped Me Make Money Online by Ark Hilario
• Where I Started Making Money Online and SEO by Juanderpul Pinoy
• Guerilla Blogger – Best Guide For Improving Our Blog by Semidoppel

If you are looking for my presentation, you can download it here. If you still have questions, contact me here.

Here’s my talk as recorded by my wife on my cellphone:

Thanks to Miss Janette Toral for giving me the opportunity to talk on iBlog6. Congratulations for making this a success!

Hope to see you all again next year!

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We were able to buy the following items:

sofa set with center table
TV rack divider
4 seater dining table
shoe rack
book shelf
office table

I’ll post the pictures later. We were able to buy these items at Fiesta World Mall in Lipa City. They have a large array of home furniture and the tag prices are not yet fixed! The prices are already cheaper compared to other home furniture center and yet, you can still bargain. Yup, you can still bargain and bring the prices down if you are good enough. Nakakatawad talaga.

Like the TV rack divider, its tag price is Php 12,500. We were able to bring down the price to only Php 10,000. The bookshelf has a tag price of Php 5,400. And they gave it to us at Php 3,900! The sofa set with center table has an original price of Php 13,700, we got it for Php 9,500.

Comparing the tag price to the final price of the items we bought, we saved around Php 10,000. Great savings, right? Laway lang ang puhunan. Tawad lang nang tawad.

So, if you are in Batangas or near Batangas and you are into home furniture shopping, I highly recommend visiting Fiesta World Mall in Lipa City, Batangas. Check those furnitures first before deciding to buy at the other malls.

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We already found a good place to settle in Batangas. It’s inside Plantacion Meridienne in Lipa City. The place is good, quiet, safe (40 security guards are roaming around the subdivision) and has internet connection. It is just a 15-minute drive to Robinsons Mall and SM City Lipa and just 30-minute drive to my parents’ house.

We never bought the house. We’ll just rent there for a year and maybe buy a new house after that. We are still undecided where to really settle for the rest of our lives. Is it Davao, Batangas or any other place?

We are slowly packing things up. Settled our bills already and terminated the accounts that we cannot bring with us such as the Sky Broadband and the Destiny Cable. We will move next week. We will now become a full-fledged Batangas bloggers.

Hi Itot! Here we come!

Btw, here’s an overview of Plantacion Meridienne in Youtube.

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