KUMAGCOW's Blogging Tools

I know a bunch of my friends ask me the same question; on what particular tools I use for blogging. It's pretty simple and I don't have that much weird content on my site. If I had something weird posted you probably caught me on a bad day ha-ha! I'll share some of the things I used to stay in this on line doppelganger since 2006. I hope you don't mind...

Publishing: Blogger

I have been using Blogger for the longest time. I find it very user friendly and simple. It's all good too that it works with Google and I don't have to worry about hosting and it does the payment automatically too so I don't have to go through all the fuzz about renewals. It made renaming my site a cinch. There are also thousands of templates to choose from on the Internet. It takes a lot of time organizing how you get the site to look like and they made it easy for me. I don't have anything bad to say about Wordpress or Typepad so don't badmouth Blogger ok? Hehehe..

Photography: Nikon D60, 70-300 Sigma Telephoto Lens, 35mm Nikkor Prime Lens, 18-55 Nikkor Kit Lens, Nokia Phones, Blackberry Curve 8320

I use the DSLR cam mostly for fashion shoots and food photography. For the quick unannounced trips to restaurants and what not the common cellphone cameras does the job. Daylight provides ample amount of lighting. Updates in Twitter gets most of my Blackberry shots and even with measly megapixels it works. I don't steal images; and I have them linked on original URL's if I need some for reference. I'm a photographer so I know how it feels to use someone's photos without their permission. I should get a carved bust soon, this is getting me heroic!

Videos: Flip Ultra 120 Minutes

I won tons of prizes from Olay to say the least with Ms. Daphne Osena's site. I guess I am lucky. Though just this last week, I volunteered to have my Flip Cam be taken to the UN General Assembly as my Aunt was speaking on Civil Society Hearings. To make the story short, the glass lens cracked in transit rendering my Flip on retirement mode unless there are some people who want to be shot with cracks on their faces. Hence the need for a NEW ONE to continue this streak of luck this year. You must be blind by now if you haven't noticed I'm giving you a hint! LOL!

Subscription: Globe

I have been with Globe since Day 1 of my mobile phone usage. I had never changed numbers up until this year when I got into post paid. Not really a fan of the other one (no offense) but I had so much unscrupulously charged things on my account which were never returned, Globe provided me better service and that made a huge difference. I also use their service to post blog entries even if there are no Blogger blackberry applications. I use the browser straight away and had no glitches even on WIFI. I love my phone until now because of this!

Laptop: ASUS X80N

With large tasks on gaming and editing I needed a laptop computer that would be able to perform above and beyond normal ones hence this one. I needed to test out several games and download others for my PSP. Photo and video editing was also a chore so I do that every now and then. If I don't get a new one in the near future, I'd stick with this one since it is doing what I need as of now. Anything smaller than its screen and I'd be squinting. I wouldn't want netbooks because it won't do on editing. If there's a free one I'd be happy but it won't get my laptop replaced. I'm taking it hostage!



Software: Adobe Photoshop, Premier and Lightroom 2.3 Flipshare

All my watermarks are made via Photoshop no matter how simple it is.Color Management is done via Lightroom. Premier handles the videos and effects. Flipshare does the cutting and editing before I do render them back in Premier. Nothing complicated for my level but hey I'm a Computer Engineer and I had to do videography and photography altogether. If I had something simpler that would not deteriorate quality of images then that would be better, but not now since the Adobe stuff are doing good! I won photography contests and had them printed already; so go figure! I also use a lot of image hosting sites like Flickr, Photobucket, imageshack and Imageboo. Flickr does the best in showing images since it does not deteriorate compared to the original file.

Enjoy what you are doing

You won't survive years of blogging if you don't enjoy and love what you are doing. It's hard to write everyday. It's hard to please everyone. If you love what you are doing then you can be contented with what you publish in your blog. It's your blog after all!

I just got you to take a look at how I do things in this side of the globe so if you (in some stroke of luck) would want to get into this hobby too; you know what to do and when to use it alright?!

Go get your writing itches and do the deed, go get your blog out for the world to see!

Here to help!

PC Tools That Need You

PC Tools Together is a community that would help in the interface translation of the popular anti-virus software THREATFIRE. This is a huge initiative from people around the world to have this free software improve itself and have different language packs for ease of use. I know I have not used this one yet, but just by reading the facts on it website and the comparison it did from other branded and paid ones. This is extremely going to be a better choice for people that could not afford subscription enabled ones. With the viruses taking shape and new form around the world, this maybe the only one that can catch up with it.

We can all contribute to this cause by just joining their community and see where we can help. I was impressed to see that they have already translated a lot in Turkish. I wonder if I could suggest to have this translated to Filipino or TAGALOG. That would be nice for people in the South East Asian region. I know we have a very high English speaking rate in the Philippines but like major websites like Google or Microsoft it would be nice to have them in the native language so we all would have a choice. I try to be the best linguist for all my friends, so I will try my luck so they could do it in our national language. I understand that I would need to request for it first in their forums, but I do not think they would shy away from someone who would just want to help. I posted this so you guys can do it too. This is for a very good cause anyway! You can do your part to save the world because there is a BETA program that you can join here. So be smart and do the right thing now!