dana820.blogspot.com

Woah! I was looking at my older posts and decided to go on over to typingtest to see how fast my encoding speed has improved. And I scored 58 WPM (gross was 59 WPM), yay! Last month I was at 53 WPM so that's good. I guess I'm pretty comfy today so I typed faster. lol! My goal is to type 60 WPM. And now to the weather -- it's so HOT today! I'm getting a cough from the heat. I've recently received a request to adjust the tax report format (which I've been using for the past five years!) for my bookkeeping client. Their tax people wanted to have the column name "Expense" changed to "Net". All right. Oh, and they wanted to have the "Net" column moved beside the "Amount" column and the "Tax" column moved after the "Net" column. Okay. I suppose they'll want to have the "Amount" column changed to "Gross" too but they didn't say anything about that. Therefore, I'd take the liber...

This was actually pork nilaga that was left over from lunch today. We got home at around 8 o'clock tonight so we were too hungry to cook something else. This turned out fine because heating it up again made it more... savory. Looking at this picture, you'd think that it would need soy sauce (toyo) or fish sauce (patis). On the contrary, it didn't need any of those because it tasted... well seasoned. Sometimes, reheated food tastes so much better than newly-cooked ones. Like this boiled pork over here and... lechon paksiw, adobo, menudo, morcon, lengua, et cetera. Wow, sounds like fiesta food! lol! Anyway, I saw like four Mini Stop stores in the city tonight. I've got to buy something good at a Mini Stop so that I can erase their bad fried dumplings from my head. It's just that each time I saw a Mini Stop tonight, I was remembering the bad-tasting fried siomai that I had yesterday. Blech!

We had dinner of fried chicken (again) tonight and some fried dumplings (siomai) they bought from a Mini-Stop that just opened around here. The siomai were... ewww. lol! I didn't like it one bit. Usually it'd take me two or three bites of whole siomai before I get sick of dumplings - it's just like maki where the first bites are always amazing but you get sick of it quite quickly - but these dumpling from the Mini-Stop tasted very much like uncooked flour and MSG (vetsin). Me not likey. We had fried tilapia and veggies for lunch today. That was a good combination though I mostly ate the sauted mackarel with shallots that was left over from this morning. Unfortunately, we didn't have an amazing cold radish salad that would've gone well with our fried tilapia. This amazing radish salad goes well with any fried or grilled fish kasi. This cold radish salad is a made with grated radish, thinly sliced small white onion and a thinly sliced tomato. What makes this cold sala...

When you're doing online WAH jobs, a lot of challenges pop up. For one, you rely on your pc. Two, you rely on your ISP. Three, you've got to have reliable clients. Four, you can't afford blackouts (or brownouts, as it's popularly called in the Philippines). And five... I can't think of a fifth one right now... Oh, I'm going to call this fifth one "unpredictables". lol! That would cover it. The machine that I have now is working well. I've no complaints. Now, the ISP.... hmmm, there was this one time when some underwater cables or pipes were damaged during an earthquake last year. That was a really inconvenient. Now, you got to have dependable clients. As you can see here , not all 'big-time and they have a cool website' organizations are reliable. I am so lucky to have a dependable writing affiliate and transcribing affiliate right now. And I also have an accounting job that doesn't entirely rely on the Web except for sending emails and...

Yup! Transcription does pay. I guess this is already answered. Yay! Today, my first transcription bill was paid and deposited to my account. I should've sent my bill sooner but I had to open an account with their bank first. I'm glad that this is working out well. I had fried chicken for lunch today. I eat my fried chix with soy sauce and vinegar (toyo at suka) in stead of gravy or ketchup. It just tastes good that way. Speaking of dipping sauces, I've never heard - much less, seen - anyone eat sausages (longanisa) with shrimp paste (bagoong) before. That is, until a few days ago. That was so weird to see! Anyway, I should've taken a bite of that weird combination in stead of talking about how weird it was. (I'm going to stop with the 'weird' now.) I just might be surprised that I'd like it -- or not! lol! OK, next time we have longanisa, I WILL eat it with bagoong just to shut myself up about how weird (aaarrgghh!) it is. lol! Hmm... this is getting me...

For someone who's been writing online content (and being paid for it, lol!) for almost a year now, I've began to notice little things which make it very easy for me to produce these articles. And since I'm doing my freelance WAH jobs at different times (there's three of them, you know?) these little things help me go over them all and earn my pay. Of course, you have to do research on it since you can only write what you know -- that goes without saying. Well, let's say you've got the research covered. Here's how I easily write Web content: Let's say, I have to make a 500-word article on an assigned topic. I'd start off with a good title. That title should, obviously, be interesting or informative enough to show people what the article's about. Speaking of creating a title - depending on how the content goes as I'm writing it - there are times when I've gone back and rewritten my title so it'll serve its purpose. Take a look at the ti...

Yum! Had amazing penne tonight. This is getting to be regular here at home. Good. I like it. I ate it with grilled pork on the side too for that added protein. Got to have that balanced meal, you know? It's raining a little tonight. It's somewhat cooler here too. This makes my work so much easier since I don't have to go cool myself every hour or so. Sigh. I hope it rains tomorrow too. I'm on a roll with writing articles now. I guess doing away with it for a few days really helps to refresh that writing skill of mine. I just composed a 500-word article in 30 minutes. I figure I'm typing a lot faster now thanks to my transcription job. I'm going to have to go back to http://www.typingtest.com/ to see how much I've improved. Oops. Got a message -- a new audio for transcription is coming tonight. It's due tomorrow. I got to redeem myself. Amen!

Alas! I couldn't climb my Mt. Everest podcast. I tried... I did try, so hard but I know my limits. If I didn't let go, I'd be so toxic in trying to work that out. I could see it already, a transcript full of 'inaudible' in brackets -- if I did go with it. So sad. Anyway, they were quick to give it to someone else. Wow, I feel so... dispensable. C'mon! I'm supposed to be a beginner remember?!? Hardly four hours of transcribed audio under my belt and they give me a difficult audio? Wow, they sorely overestimated my ability. lol! Of course, being the good, reliable WAH worker that I am, I asked to be replaced after spending two hours tonight trying to transcribe it. I've gotten as far as two minutes with a number (try 'a myriad'!) of 'inaudibles' until I called it quits. Truth be told, some people would've waited until the last minute to concede defeat or worse, hand over an unfinished transcript! And if I haven't emphasized it to be...

While I was proofreading the transcript (the one that I was talking about in my previous post), I was asked if I was willing to take on a new podcast that's due on Tuesday. I asked how long it was and they said it was 20 minutes long. "Sure," I said "that's great." They said that they were going to send the email asap. Okeydokey. So, I got the transcript done and I submitted it WAY before the deadline. Yay! That's when I saw the new email assignment. I thought, "Wow, there's less people working on this batch." I started to download this new podcast that I thought was going to be fairly easy since I've had really clear audio to work with so far. That is, until this one! OMG! Yeah, it was just 20 minutes but speakers (there's more than three of them too!) with Scottish accents?!? WOW! This is my Mt. Everest, to date. Plus, it's not that clear either because it sounds like it's from inside an auditorium. Oh well... I got to do ...

I'm eyeing the home stretch for the podcast transcript that I have to turn in tomorrow. I'm at 00:58:49 into the 60 minute audio. I intend to finish the transcript tonight so tomorrow, all I have to do is proofread and edit it. Sigh. This is so satisfying. What's more, I can send my transcription bill after I submit this project. Call it counting eggs (before they're hatched and all that) but I'm very excited to see my first transcription pay. I really am. My bookkeeping work's piling up though. A lot of the documents are laying on my desk waiting to be organized and recorded. But I'm not too worried about that. I've been doing that for almost five years now and I know exactly where everything goes and what I need to do. Also, I've already sent in their annual financial statements (annual income taxes are due next month, you know) so that's settled. As for my content-writing, that is not looking too good either. I've only managed to submit on...

It's past 2 o'clock in the afternoon and it's so hot here. I can't help but be distracted from transcribing the last podcast that I've been assigned to do this week -- it's due on Saturday. I guess there's no holiday for us WAH folks. My goal is to complete ten minutes of audio before 3 o'clock.That's 45 minutes from now. I'm currently at 00:09:58 so I figured that a short detour here would be okay. I had a good breakfast today. I gobbled it all up so quickly that I forgot to take a picture of it. I had sweet sausage, fried egg, garlic-fried rice, OJ, coffee and water. The water got warm very quickly so I had to pop the bottle back in the fridge again. Did I mention that it was hot here? We buy these three-in-one coffee packs where all you got to do is add hot water and stir. Of course, it had to have artificial sweeteners or it had to be "sugar-free", as we call them. When you try sugar-free coffee, you wouldn't want to go back to ...

I'm going to talk about the weather, all right? And more on Express Scribe (I'll call that 'ES') too. I didn't think it was possible but my glasses are fogging up from the humidity. I've decided to keep the a/c off since I figured it'd be worst if it was cold in here and when I'd step outside, it'd be too hot. That's how most people get sick in the Philippines -- they'd be working in a centralized air conditioned office or space then they'd go outside, the heat would hit them hard. They'd catch something inside (from a coughing or sneezing colleague) and then they'd feel worse from the heat outside. It's not like I'm going to catch a virus from anyone since I work alone. But I can't afford to get sick, just like everyone else. Sick 'of' the heat is more appropriate, I guess. I've mentioned before that I changed my f6 hotkey control on ES. It did help me transcribe a little faster. But after that, the f5 bug...

I was up and about at noon after sleeping for 11 hours -- straight. Had lunch, had small talk at the dining table, then, back to my desktop. Too bad that I felt a pounding pressure at the back of my head... I couldn't comfortably do anything. Cutting paper wasn't relaxing, even drawing lines wasn't relaxing me at all. I decided to take a nap so it'd go away. But they were making their 'amazing pasta' again this afternoon so my nap was put on hold. After two servings of pasta, two slices of whole wheat buttered toast and coke, I lied down and was out for at least two hours. Woke up at 8:00pm, took a shower and I'm back here. Well... there's still some pressure going on back there (my head, that is) but it's better than before. So, work mode's on again... Earlier I was trying to figure out how to submit a sitemap on Google. I, of course, generated a sitemap from a random website and it said that I 'upload' that .xml to my server. What?!? I ...

I've set aside writing content (my other freelance job) for the past three days. As a result, I'm behind in reaching the minimum submissions that would make me eligible for pay on the 16th. That got me thinking. Should I intentionally hold off submitting any articles today? I could catch up and, in turn, submit more content than the minimum if I do. That means, the pay that I'll get on the 31st would be higher. I could... but should I? I do feel a headache coming on since I rushed to submit my podcast transcript this morning -- that's 2:00 am this morning, by the way. I even chatted with my friend who's in Canada (it was early afternoon there, at the time) while I was waiting for the confirmation of my submission. It was almost 3:00 am when I said goodbye. I still haven't received the confirmation at that time too so I figured that they were already asleep. I did submit the transcript twice just to be sure. This morning, at 8:00 am, I got a text message that the...

I ate at my "workspace" this morning. The eggs don't look appetizing in this shot... they're actually more yellow and fluffier than that. I cut up my dogs so I could eat with one hand. I started with just using the fork but the fried rice kept falling off on its way to my mouth. So I shifted to using the fork and spoon interchangeably (phew! big word for just talking about eating. lol). Earlier, I discovered a very useful hotkey on Express Scribe (I'll call this ES). I found it after I got annoyed with the f6 key because it kept minimizing the ES window. I needed to record the timestamps kasi and they don't show when it's minimized. The three hotkeys that I used to use were f4 for pause, f7 for rewind and f9 for play. While I was working earlier, I kept accidentally pressing f6 -- it minimizes the screen by default. So I went to "properties" and changed what it does. That's when I found the "go back five" command. I didn't know ...

I got all three jobs on a deadline this week... ack! Accounting : Yesterday, I received documents and files for tax reports that I have to send by Saturday (or Sunday, at the latest). Content Writing : I have to write at least four articles and submit them by Friday to get my pay this month. Transcription : I was assigned an hour-long (plus a few minutes) podcast that I'm downloading at this very moment. I have to submit it before Saturday. Phew! I sure hope my computer can handle it since it's been very hot and humid here lately (I don't use air conditioning kasi -- oh, I do have an AC but I don't use it). It's so hot!!! My fingers are sweaty... they're sticking on the keys... maybe I should turn the AC on??? Okay, I'm thinking about it. I don't want to add on to our electric bill because since it's so expensive here especially with air conditioning. Okay, downloading successful... I'm going to load that podcast to express scribe now. Ciao!

Today, I received a confirmation email from amazon that the rubbermaid container I ordered was on its way. Yey. At last, I was able to actually purchase something online -- no credit cards, no cash-out's. Yey (again). See, I joined mturk (it's free) while I was researching way back on transcription. That took me to castingwords... and that took me mturk. What's funny is that I've never accepted a 'hit' (a.k.a. task) on transcription there. The hits that I've been accepting are those one-question surveys that pays a penny (and the occasional 'what's the best photo', 'rewrite this sentence' kind of hits). Yup... those pennies added up all right. Since amazon and mturk are related, you can opt to have your turker earnings transferred to your amazon gift certificate balance -- you've got to open an account there, of course. It's free too. Initially, I thought I can order a book once in a while (since used books are cheap there). But w...

As of date, I can compose a 400+ word article in as little as 30 minutes to as long as a few hours. The former's great -- writing in so little a time; the latter's horrible -- in so many ways than one. The key to writing web content is to know your assigned topic well. And it's a lot better if you have set keywords that the client sends to work with. That's how I got hooked on playing backgammon in the first place. Now, I can easily (and breezily! lol!) whip up an article about the simple aspects of the game. The great thing about my current affiliation is that we can write as many articles as we want on a broad topic. I love that about their setup. However, after I finish an article in under 30 minutes, the magic sort of floats away. That's how those 'hours-long to finish an article' come about. I'd have a topic in mind but you can only say so much about it without sounding like you're writing in circles (like talking in circles? gets?). Case in poi...

I can type 53 wpm (words per minute) according to http://www.typingtest.com/ but it seems that I can only transcribe a difficult ten minute audio in approximately three hours. By 'difficult', I mean, there's mumbling or the speaker's volume is too low. I guess I try too hard to figure out what's being said before I go on and continue listening and encoding the rest of the recording. What I found out about transcription is that the perspective's not on a per minute basis. It's because when you encode speech... it's on a per second basis! I guess that's why some clients prefer time stamps rather than speaker names on their transcripts. I use Express Scribe where you can adjust the audio by volume, speed, background noise, etc. It's a great software plus it's free! It's just that I have to pause and hit 'f9' to play or 'f7' to rewind the recording and that takes away from the comfy position I had before while I was typin...

This is what fried rice with 'hibi' (see my previous post) looks like. Its taste is very distinct because it has a subtle saltiness -- from the sea or from drying, wherever. For me, fried rice should neither be sticky nor too moist. What we use is plain rice from the previous night. We wet one hand and work the rice to get the clumps unclumped (!). Then we heat a wok with a good amount of cooking oil. After that, we saute a few cloves of roughly chopped garlic, dump in the rice and sprinkle rock salt. We mix that up for a little bit to get the oil and garlic in there, press it with the back of the spoon and leave it to fry for a minute. It should make a crackling sound as the rice fries. After a minute or so, we mix it up and press down on it again. We usually do that over and over for about four to six times until the rice is... looks like fried rice! LOL! The 'hibi' here is mixed in right before the cooking/stir frying's done. The corned beef's brand that you ...

I had pork rib kaldereta (or is it mechado?) for lunch today. And in stead of eating it with plain rice, I partnered it with garlic fried rice with hibi (teeny tiny shrimps that are dried). Me likey! I started to think of how easy it is to make our version of kaldereta (or is it mechado?). As long as the meat's pork, you wouldn't need a pressure cooker to tenderize it. Just dump cubes of pork, potatoes, carrots, bell pepper, water, canned tomato sauce, small can of good quality liver spread into a pot and let it boil. Of course if the meat and taters aren't tender yet and it's starting to get dry, all you got to do is add a bit of water at a time. When everything's almost done, just add salt and pepper to taste. That's about it! Well, regardless of whether it's kaldereta or mechado... this dish is deelish!

If you want to play backgammon online for free, you have two ways to go about it. One, you can opt for the 'no-download' game where you'll need Java (usually) to run it. And two, you can download a free program (I think it's called 'shareware', I'm not sure). For the latter, I like FIBS the best and I've no complaints when I use it. On the other hand, if you want to get into the money games, you're going to need to deposit usually $25-$50 so that you can play for real money. I think the success of playing poker online has paved the way for backgammon tourneys with big prizes at stake. But without question, if you're thinking of playing backgammon online for real money, you're going to need to download that game site's program. My suggestion for anyone who wants to play backgammon online for money is to play for free first. You got to hone your clicking and doubling skills before you can bet on winning. Obviously, I haven't played for ...

I'd like to write about food. I'd really do. It's just that it's not as interesting without having pictures to accompany a post. Yeah... and I only got a lousy VGA camera on my mobile so that's no use. But that's a goal, I guess. Well, writing this is making me hungry. Now this is totally unproductive... lol! I should be working right now and I'm writing about - writing about food. Oh well, did I say I like food? Because I do. Oh wait! I've got one. My mom made this AMAZING pasta dish last week. Actually, that was the second time that she made it like that. The first was... maybe years ago with penne. Anyway, the trick to that amazing pasta dish is - NO HOTDOG, NO KETCHUP! Yeah... I'm not talking about the kiddie spaghetti here... I'm talking about scraping-that-last-bit-of-tomato-sauce-off-the-bottom-of-the-serving-dish-with-bread kind of pasta. My cousin brought some to work last week and it got all sorts of praises! That's how good it was....

Great opening moves are almost decided by now - especially after bots that analyzed optimal checker plays entered the picture. One of the most famous and well-justified openings is called the lover's leap in backgammon. That's when you have to play a 6/5 to start off the match. I don't really know why it's called that... maybe it's because it's the maximum number of spaces for which you can advance in an opening? Probably, but I don't really know why. Well, taking that into consideration, it's played by moving one of your checkers from the 24-point to the 13-point. That's about it. No need to count spaces (pips), no need for delay -- all you got to do is just move a piece all the way down to the other end when you play a 6/5 roll at the start of the game. Why is the lover's leap in backgammon the best for the 6/5 roll? Well... other than the obvious reason that you'll get a head start... beats me! Bots already figured that out so I just roll ...

I like playing on FIBS - First Internet Backgammon Server - since I learned how to play backgammon. It started when I was I researching on the topic for one of my articles. Since it's easier to write about something that you know... I started learning how to play backgammon. Just from reading the game rules, the first impression that I got was "chicken feed!" HAH! I was wrong! Since I neither have a mortar and pestle backgammon board game nor anyone to play with, I turned to the Internet. I started with a "no-download required" game site. Almost immediately, a window popped up saying that so-and-so wanted to play a one-point match against me so I clicked "accept". My opponent made the opening play. I thought that this was nice. When my turn came up, I clicked on the pieces that I wanted to move and waited for the other player to take his turn. I waited... and waited... I kibitzed (that's for chatting), "Your turn." And then he replied, ...