Why Retire in the Philippines/Marinduque Vacations: A Brief History of Blogging

Planning to Retire Soon!

If you are planning to retire in the Philippines soon, I suggest you visit several excellent websites on pro's and cons of retiring in the Philippines. However if you want to retire in the provinces, where life is simple, standard of living cheaper, less traffic congestion and pollution, availability of fresh seafood and vegetables compared to the big cities, my island province is the place for you! If this is your first time in my site, welcome. Some of the photos and videos on this site, I do not own. However, I have no intention on the infringement of your copyrights. The photo above is the front yard of Chateau Du Mer- Our Retirement Home in Boac, Marinduque, Philippines

Sunday, November 18, 2012

A Brief History of Blogging

Image from Wikipedia

Do you know that the first on-line diary was created in 1994? But it was not until 1997 that the term weblog was coined. It was coined by Jorn Barger. It was then shortened to the word "blog," by Peter Merholz, in April of 1999. Then, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb. To blog MEANS "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog". He also created the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms. Today, the words blog and blogging is used by hundred of millions all over the world including myself since 2008.

Slowly after that, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools, Open Diary and SlashDot:

Open Diary was launched in October 1998, and soon grown to thousands of online diaries. It became the first blog community where readers could add comments to other writers' blog entries.

On the other hand SlashDot, was launched in 1997 and became a popular blog site for tech "nerds". Later Brad Fitzpatrick, a well known blogger started LiveJournal in March 1999.

In July, 1999, Andrew Smales created Pitas.com. It was an easier alternative to maintaining a "news page" on a website. This was followed by Diaryland in September 1999. The website did focused more on the personal diary communities.

In August 1999, Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs) launched blogger.com . In February of 2003, Blogger.com was purchased by Google, Inc. After the purchase, Googles Adsense was launched the next year and now is the most popular and successful venture in the advertising business for Google, Inc.

Permalinks, blogrolls and TrackBacks made it easier for personal web pages to link to each other. Together with weblog search engines, it allows bloggers to track the threads that connected them to others with similar interests. This was the start of commercial blogging, also known as professional bloggers. They either sell a product directly to readers or via an affiliate company or advertise a business.

Today, hundred of millions of personal as well as commercial ( professional) blogs populates the Internet. In 2008, it was reported that there were 112 million blogs all over the world. This does not not include the 72 million from China. The two most popular blog hosts here in US that I know are blogger.com and wordpress.com.

Do you have a personal blog? Can you tell me why you are blogging? Do you blog to sell a product, advertise a business or just for FUN? I will be delighted to hear from you!

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Fruit Trees in the Gardens of Chateau Du Mer

The Mango Tree-I have three varieties in my Garden-The Indian, Guimaras and Carabao Mangoes My caretaker/gardener informed me last month that due to the El Nino drought in Marinduque, two of my Durian trees died in spite of his vigilant watering. One of the tree was attacked by insects that looks like a big fly but yellowish in color that sucks the sap of the seedling. The roots of the other tree was attacked by ants residing in the soil. However, my other fruit trees, the rambutans( 2), the lanzones(2) and the jack fruits ( 2) trees are doing well. The above eight fruit trees were given to me by Retired General Recaredo Sarmiento of Boac and Lucena., about three years ago. General Sarmiento is the “atid” of my wife. “Atid” is the colloquial term for brother. Evidently, Macrine's father, the late Bernardo Jambalos was the Godfather of General Sarmiento during his baptism and comfirmation. Gen Sarmiento's hobby is orchard planting, reforestation and farming. The other fruit trees in my garden are guayabanos, cashew, avocados, starapples, duhats, ates, guavas, mangoes( 3 varieties) and papayas as well as several varieties of bananas . Of the above fruit trees, my favorite is the guayabanos, also known as soursop tree known for its anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties . The following are photos of the fruit trees. The Durian photo is from the web. Note that it almost look like a jack fruit tree, except that the leaves are bigger and shiny. My desire is to have a passion fruit tree in the near future. You are welcome to visit my orchard and flower gardens any time, if perchance you are in the vicinity of The Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center.

The Rambutan Tree and Fruits

The Lanzone Tree and Fruits

The Jack Fruit Tree

The Durian Fruit Tree