DoFollow Blog

It seems that there's a silent revolution in blogosphere that has been going on for a while that I was not aware of. It's called DoFollow blog. I have seen signs such as "You comment, I follow", but I thought it was like if I left a comment then the blog owner will reply it, or will visit my blog in return. I just knew recently what it really means with the DoFollow blog.

DoFollow blog will give an automatic backlink to commenters' blog, provided that they left their blog URLs instead of blogger profiles. The good part is that the backlink can be recognized by web spider. If you leave a comment and URL at a high PR dofollow blog, according to HowToRankHigh.com, the PR will be passed to your blog. In short, leaving comments at DoFollow blogs brings more traffic and higher PR to the commenters.

By default, blogspot is nofollow blog, which means that comments left by visitors will not be recognized by web search engine spider. Changing blogspot to be dofollow blog provides incentive to visitors who leave comments, as visitors will be rewarded with free backlinks to their blogs when they left comments and URL.

Searching with Google brought me to Andy Beard's blog that gives various plugins to remove nofollow in Wordpress and other environment, which then led me to Ronnie's blog on how to change a blogspot, with new blogger template, to be a DoFollow blog.

Here's the simple steps:

1. Go to Dashboard, Layout, Edit HTML.
   


2. Click Download Full Template to backup your template.
   


3. Click "Expand Widget Templates", press Ctrl-F, and type "nofollow", hit enter and find below tags:
   
   <dt class='comment-author' expr:id='"comment-" + data:comment.id'>
   <a expr:name='"comment-" + data:comment.id'/>
   <b:if cond='data:comment.authorUrl'>
   <a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl' rel='nofollow'><data:comment.author/></a>
   <b:else/>
   <data:comment.author/>
   </b:if>
   <data:commentPostedByMsg/>
   </dt>
   


4. Now, delete rel='nofollow'
   


5. Click SAVE TEMPLATE button, and you are done.
   

There are sites that provide lists of DoFollow blogs such as Tricia's blog, and list of useful plugsin such as the one at Andy's blog.

There's also a search engine that will bring you to DoFollow blogs, named DoFollow Diver. Just key-in any keywords, and it will give search results on DoFollow blogs.

If yours is already a DoFollow blog, leave me a comment, and I will make a list of DoFollow blog in this posting. You should be a regular blogger with at least two posts in a month, and it should not be a blog primarily made for Ads.
A backlink to the Aroengbinang Project will be very much appreciated.

List of DoFollow blogs:

1. Anita Carmencita


2. Aris Heru Utomo


3. Indonesia Matters


4. Junjung Purba


5. LinkBuilding Bible


6. The Aroengbinang Project


7. Therry's Journal

Here's another DoFollow Blog List from Tricia's Blogroll:

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The Phelan Legacy

A person can decide to donate time, efforts, goods, or money to support variety of causes or simply for the sake of giving things away. Small or big, a gift may leave a legacy that exceeds the person life span.

Having said that, when I was driving by Saratoga, California, cruising by the hills of Santa Cruz Mountains that afternoon, passing by the exit to Montalvo, a person's name flashed in my mind. The name behind the existence of Montalvo Art Center, one of the beautiful spots at the South Bay.

Montalvo Arts Center is a historic landmark spread over 175 acres of land, home of two theaters, an art gallery, the legendary Villa Montalvo, an artist residency complex, hiking trails and gardens.

A view of Villa Montalvo. Photo's taken by HHwang.

In the early 19th century, James Duval Phelan, who was then a San Francisco mayor, assigned William Curlett to oversee the supervision and the design of Villa Montalvo. Unfortunately, he did not live to finish what he had started, his son, Alex Curlett finalized the assignment by 1914.

The name was adopted from Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo, a Spanish writer. In one of his fables, he described an island rich with gold and jewels, full of Amazons (a tribe then living by the Amazon river in South America), with its queen, Califia.

Villa Montalvo was one of Phelan favorite places where he hosted many friends and dignitaries during his life. As a matter of fact, he chose to die on Villa Montalvo ground. His love and appreciation for arts preservation was such that upon his death, Phelan clearly stated in his will that:

I would like the property at Saratoga, California, known as Villa Montalvo, to be maintained as a public park open under reasonable restrictions, the buildings and grounds immediately surrounding the same to be used as far as possible for the development of art, literature, music, and architecture by promising students.

To date, the Trustee of Montalvo continuously follow Phelan wish and has rename the facility to Montalvo Arts Center. Montalvo has served the community as a center for creativity, by offering art courses on various buildings spread over the facility, organizing performing arts events and gallery exhibitions.

The garden of Villa Montalvo. Photo's taken by Sunil Menon.

Montalvo hosts many local and guest recitals and performances. One of its great annual events is the Montalvo Food and Wine Festival, which this year will be held on June 1. During this event, visitors will have the opportunity to sample a variety cuisine freshly made by local chefs, and a variety wine made by local vintners. More than half of the proceeds from the ticket sales will go to the preservation and maintenance of Montalvo Arts Center.

78 years after Phelan decided to bequeath his property to the community, I wonder if he really knew then that his legacy exceeded his fame. Not too many Californians know who Phelan was, but the communities surrounding this place know about Montalvo and are proud of it.

I thought that while Phelan might not expected that his gift to the community will be as valuable as it is now, his spirit is smiling up there in realizing how his gift has been preserved and has benefit others in a big way. James Duval Phelan can really rest in peace.

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Author below Post Title

After reading SBoentaran first posting in TAP (The Aroengbinang Project) and the comments posted, I saw the need to move author's name from the bottom of the article to the top of the post, right below the post title, as this will provide clearer information to the readers.

It took me sometime to find the information I need from the web, and as usual I relied on Google's search engine to get it done. Google can help us better when we use the right keywords to get what we want. The selection as well as the sequence of the words may produce a big difference in the search results.

Based on that information, here are the steps I took to move author's name to row below The Post Title:

1. Go to Dashboard, Layout.


2. Click "Edit" link on bottom right of "Blog Posts" column


3. On the "Arrange Items", press and drag "Posted by ...." and place it on the row below "Post Title".
   Move also the time stamp "at ....AM".


4. Scroll down and click "Save Changes"

Next you will work on the html template

1. Click "Edit HTML"
   


2. Click "Download Full Template", save it in your computer to back up the template so you can upload it if things went wrong. It's a must step to do.
   


3. Check mark "Expand Widget Templates"
   


4. Press Alt-e-f, type 'post-author' and hit enter to find below tags:
   
   <span class='post-author'>
   <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
   <data:top.authorLabel/>
   <data:post.author/>
   </b:if>
   </span>
   <span class='post-timestamp'>
   <b:if cond='data:top.showTimestamp'>
   <data:top.timestampLabel/>
   <b:if cond='data:post.url'>
   <a class='timestamp-link' expr:href='data:post.url' title='permanent link'>
   <data:post.timestamp/></a>
   </b:if>
   </b:if>
   </span>
   
   Highlight all of them, and cut.
   


5. Press Ctrl-F, type 'post-title', and find below tags:
   <h3 class='post-title'>
   <b:if cond='data:post.link'>
   <a expr:href='data:post.link'>
   <data:post.title/></a>
   <b:else/>
   <b:if cond='data:post.url'>
   <a expr:href='data:post.url'>
   <data:post.title/></a>
   <b:else/>
   <data:post.title/>
   </b:if>
   </b:if>
   </h3>
   
   Right after </h3>, paste the tags from step no. 4.
   


6. I put another tags to change font size, type and color. Here's my complete tags as a reference, I put them right after the </h3>:
   
   <font color='#777777'><i><b> <span class='post-author'>
   <b:if cond='data:top.showAuthor'>
   <data:top.authorLabel/>
   <data:post.author/>
   </b:if>
   </span>
   
   <span class='post-timestamp'>
   <b:if cond='data:top.showTimestamp'>
   <data:top.timestampLabel/>
   <b:if cond='data:post.url'>
   <a class='timestamp-link' expr:href='data:post.url' title='permanent link'>
   <data:post.timestamp/></a>
   </b:if>
   </b:if>
   </span></b></i></font>
   </b:if>
   <p/>
   
   The <p/> is needed to give a space between the author's name and the first row of the articles.
   


7. Click "Preview", and if it works well, click "Save Templates" and you are done.

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Movements and Prosperity

The essence of business is movements. Movements of people, goods, information, money. Even in this modern era where people can place orders of goods and services through Internet, by fax, email, or phone, there will still be movements of raw materials to factories or centers of production, finished products to distributors, to stores and to customers. There are movements of people to different places for different purposes that directly or indirectly generate businesses.

When movements are convenient, efficient, fast, reliable and secure, businesses will grow vertically as well as horizontally, and so does prosperity. If prosperity of the people is one of the ultimate goals of the nation, as written in the state ideology of Pancasila (the Five Principles), then movements of people, goods and information shall be one of the top priorities of the leaders in the government offices and in the parliament rooms.

Pancasila says (1) Belief in one God, (2) Just and civilized humanity, (3) The unity of Indonesia, (4) Democracy guided by wisdom through consultation and representation, (5) Social justice for the whole of Indonesia people.

The fifth principle gives guidance to government officials, lawmakers as well as the society in general to work towards the prosperity of all citizens. In reality, however, 62 years after the declaration of independence, 16.5% of the population still live below poverty line. Myriad factors contributed to the grim pictures, both from within and without. For now, let's just focus on movements factor.

Indonesia is full of exotic places to be visited, enjoyed and admired by both locals as well as foreigners. If we can influence more local people, and of course foreigners, to leave their homes on Saturdays, Sundays and during holidays to visit various places across the country, either by road, sea or air, the impact to the economic advancement will be enormous. The issue is how to craft the right message about the destiny and give positive experience to travellers once they are there.

In order to lure people to make more movements across the archipelago, central government shall find ways to expedite the construction of toll road to connect Banda Aceh at Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province to Bakauheni at Lampung Province, and toll road that connect Merak-Jakarta to Surabaya-Banyuwangi. Another toll road that needs to be built is the one that connect Makassar in South Sulawesi to Manado at the North.

Currently Jalan Raya Lintas Sumatera has connected Banda Aceh and Bakauheni with total length of 2,508.5 km. The conditions of the road, however, were not quite reliable, not that safe, and not too convenient. In Java there's Jalan Raya Pantura that currently connects Anyer-Jakarta-Semarang-Surabaya-Banyuwangi. Whilst there were significant improvements for the last 10 years or so, they are still unpredictable, sometimes unreliable, and inconvenient especially during rainy seasons.

Trans-Selatan Jawa (Trans-Southern Java) that connect Anyer-Banyuwangi through the southern route is still under land perparation. Even though they are not turnpikes, the new roads will still boost movements across cities in Java island. The road that will span 639 km in length including bridges will connect five provinces: Banten, West Java, Central Java, DI Yogyakarta and East Java.

It's crucial then for the provincial governments to create and maintain smooth connections between the toll roads or the national road to places of interests, sources of raw material and production centres in regencies and villages.

Red tapes and extortion on the roads shall be eliminated throughout the road chains. Movements of goods and people shall be fast, smooth and efficient. The government may need to increase significantly salaries and allowance of traffic police units and highway traffic agency units, and take stern actions for any corrupt practices. If we can fix the corrupt practice on the streets, we will be able to boost people morale and self-confidence.

Security and convenience are another important factors to be considered. Airport securities all over the country need to be improved and strengthened to give assurance to travelers on their safety. Public bus and railway stations have to be freed from thuggery and scalpers. Their safety standards also need to be upgraded. Stern actions need to be taken, consistently throughout the year.

Movements of people and goods from one place to another has to be encouraged, facilitated and incentivized. Movements will bring more business to less develop areas and likewise. More businesses will create more job opportunities that will eventually be able to alleviate poverty problems that haunted the country for so many years already.

Let's make a plan to visit places across the country that we have never been there before, and spend some of our savings wisely to help the local economy grow.

Readings: Wikipedia on Pancasila, Wikipedia on Jalan Lintas Sumatera

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Books should not be cheap

Agnes Winarti wrote a report at the Jakarta Post yesterday that book publishers and literature advocates demand the government to support the book industry with cheaper paper price, and to give more lenient tax on printing, sales and royalties that will enable readers to get cheaper quality books.

The report says that publishers have to offer discount between 35-45 percent, sometimes 50%, to distributors, which is high but to me it is probably reasonable. Distributors have to bear certain costs, such as transportation, inventory, warehousing, promotion, provision for damaged and obsolete books, the opportunity lost for slow-moving books, and other overhead costs.

Indonesian books are already much cheaper than the imported ones, and the number of books sold per title is not that high as the habit of buying and reading books by Indonesians is far behind other countries. It means that the distributor's profit may not be that big.

The price structure of a typical book can be 35% allocated to distributors and stores, 30% for printing, 25% for the publisher and 10% for the author. The question is whether there is a way to reduce the price, and whether we have to bring down the price and how low will that be.

Books shouldn't be cheap. Even if we can find ways to reduce costs for the distributors, printing companies and publishers, the savings shall be allocated entirely to the authors. This way, more quality books can be expected to hit the stores.

A typical half-day basic course may cost participants around Rp.500,000, only to get a few learning points and a piece of paper with their names on it. It may not always be the case, but most of the benefit of training and seminars actually go to the trainers and speakers, not to the participants.

With that amount of money, people can buy a couple of books and get a lot more wisdom. The question is whether the reading habit is there. I'm not against training and seminars by the way, as there are some real values in them, such as to serve as motivational tools, escapes from boring work environment and also good places for networking, but we need to be selective, and training providers shall improve their quality of teachings and facilitation processes.

The industry shall focus more on promoting the habit of reading while trying to reduce production and distribution costs. To serve those who have less money to buy books, we need to encourage people to sell or donate their books after reading instead of keeping them in personal libraries with slim chances to reopen it, and create more secondhand book markets.

Instead of asking the government to subsidize the price of paper, the industry needs to promote the habit of reading e-books and listening to audio-books. More virtual bookstores are then needed, and the government shall move faster to cut significantly the cost of Internet connections.

Cheaper books is not the solution for the industry and the society. More creative approaches shall be explored to bring the books, in whatever formats they are, to reach more people.

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