Just a word of caution, this technique is only available for calls to the US and Canada. If you want to call other places for free, then this post does not cover that. Moving forward…

You’ve probably heard about Google Voice. But since you are reading this post, then probably not Google Voice is a beta service launched by Google last year. As of now it is still in its beta trial stage and that is probably why they are offering their calling services to US/Canada for free. So how do you avail of your free call to any US/Canada land-line phone/mobile?

Follow the steps below:

1. Get a Google Account. For this to work you have to have a working Google Account.
2. Open Gmail and install the Google Voice plugin. You can do this by looking at the left sidebar of Gmail and following the instructions when you click “Call phone”.
3. Once you’ve installed the plugin then you’re ready to rock n roll! Dial the US/Canada number and make sure your PC’s microphone and speakers are working. Or if you want, use your headset.

So that’s really there is to it. These free service is free tentatively until the end of 2011. For calls to other places on the globe, you have to buy credits before being able to do so. Having bought credits and used the service to call non-US/non-Canada countries, I confidently say that the service is working fine and a good alternative to calling on the phone.

When I was just a small kid, my mom used to boil our drinking water. No, we didn’t drink it hot but once boiled, we let it cool down for a while before transferring it to several small water containers. These water containers will in turn be put into the refrigerator to cool and be suitable for drinking. That was like 2 decades ago.

Now, we do it in a slightly different way. Instead of boiling water to distill it and kill of harmful organisms in the water, we instead buy mineral water from mineral water stations. We buy the mineral water together with the tapped water container (those containers with a tap attached to it so that you could get water straight from the container via the tap…). That way, we don’t have to boil water and leave the “water experts” in making sure that our water is clean and potable. After that, we transfer the mineral water in to small water containers and do as the former paragraph describes.

To eliminate the “transfer from large water container to smaller container” step, I could buy a water cooler/dispenser which can host a large water container which is designed specifically to fit into a water cooler. These water containers do not contain taps but instead their opening holes are designed to fit into the water cooler/dispenser which in turn cool/heat the water to be dispensed at the user’s will.

From comfort’s point of view this is a good idea. But if I want to save money by keeping purchases and monthly electric costs down, then sticking to the existing method of cooling and dispensing water is the way to go.

Companies should only contract out business tasks when they have the money to do so. This of course makes sense being that all businesses want to be profitable. Many businesses that are just starting up will find they benefit from performing most of their activities in house. Some businesses use business credit cards to pay for outsourced services, which prove beneficial because it enables them to build up a good business credit history. Performing activities in house provides businesses enough time to identify which tasks they will benefit the most from outsourcing. It also enables businesses to make enough profit to have the money available to pay for outsourced services if they choose to not pay with business credit cards.

It is also smart to begin contracting out tasks when a business realizes their employees are spending much of their time on tasks that can be outsourced for an amount that is less than what the employee is being paid. There are certain tasks businesses should remember cannot be outsourced, as if they are then the quality of these activities will be lost. Keeping this is mind, if a business excels at performing certain tasks with high quality, then it is not wise to contract them out.

Outsourcing business activities is never something that should be rushed into. No business should ever outsource any tasks until they find an experienced service provider that is capable of meeting the business’s outsourced needs. It is also important for a business to not outsource any tasks until they have a budget drawn up for their outsourcing needs. Sticking to this budget is pertinent so that a profit can still be endured from outsourcing activities.

Many businesses find it beneficial to not contract out any business tasks until they have posted their outsourcing needs on a number of different outsourcing boards. Posting outsourced needs enables a business to partner with the best available outsourcing service providers, which can also lead to saving extra money. There are also a number of businesses that find it advantageous to provide potential outsourced service providers with a test project; this enables a business to see if a service provider is actually worth hiring. Many businesses will go through a number of service providers until they find one they are comfortable hiring on a permanent basis.

Almost all businesses find it beneficial to outsource their bookkeeping and accounting tasks. Both of these types of tasks are very time consuming and must be completed in accurate manners, making it all the more important for a business to wait until they find an experienced person or company to outsource these tasks to. With these types of tasks being so time consuming, it is also important for businesses to outsource them as soon as possible.

Any company that has an online website will generally find it helpful to outsource their website design processes. Along with website design processes, blog design processes are also beneficial to contract out. Outsourcing these types of tasks enables a business to rest assured their business identity is being portrayed in a professional manner on the Internet.

Outsourcing business activities, even by paying for the services with business credit cards, allows a company to focus their attention and time on other pertinent matters other than repetitious tasks. The most important area for a business to focus on is its sales, as this will allow them to increase profit levels and improve customer satisfaction.

First off, what is the difference between “cool” and “dry” settings for an A/C?

I’ve read through countless blog posts, forums, etc… and here is the gist of the answer to the above question. Both cool and dry settings removes water in the air. In essence, both settings reduce the humidity of the room which makes you comfortable and feeling cool. Now the difference is this. The cool setting does a little bit more by cooling the air until it reaches the desired temperature as set by the user. On the other hand, the dry settings just drys the air (dehumidifies the air…) and when humidity is brought down to a certain level, the A/C stops thus saving energy.

With that knowledge, we can devise a simple plan on how to use the A/C more efficiently and bring down energy billing costs. If temperature is really high (very hot), then use the cool setting. It dehumidifies the room which is good for humid countries (e.g in the tropics) and brings the room temperature down as desired. On the other hand, if the room temperature is fine but it is a bit humid that day, then just use the dry setting. The A/C will bring humidity down and you will feel cooler because your body can now release more heat thus cooling you. Lastly, if it is simply cool that day and want it just a little bit cooler, use an electric fan!

After awhile, probably after a few years of using your a/c unit, water starts to drip down from the indoor a/c unit itself and not drain down the proper channels. This is due to the fact that the drainage is dirty water cannot sift through it properly. To solve this problem, simply clean the inside of the water duct(this is my own term referring to the pipe which drains the condensed water out of the room…) and voila your a/c is as good as new.

Now, as I said I am no a/c expert and the information above is how I understood the various articles and posts I read online about A/Cs and their settings. If I get them wrong, please correct me via the comment section below

Whenever you use your HSBC credit card for payment on dining, grocery, etc… you get to earn miles points. The ratio is not 1:1 of course but suffice it is to say that for every mile point you need to use more than double digit pesos. Anyway, this post is not about the Mabuhay Miles feature. We want to focus on the Caltex Instant Rewards and Rebate feature/benefit.

According to the official HSBC Philippine website, you can:

Get P100 off your fuel bill for every charge slip worth at least P2,000. Get even up to a full tank of fuel, for free.* What’s more, your card continues to enjoy 3% rebate on your fuel spend at Caltex. With HSBC, life’s amazing moments are on us.

We all know that fuel prices are rising like crazy. And we need all the discount and savings we can find. Fortunately, there is HSBC to the rescue. For a minimum of a P2000 transaction (keep the charge slips please…), you get to get P100 of your fuel bill. In my own personal experience, this is not a discount. Instead, Caltex stations give you P100 worth of fuel for free! Thus the term “off” is a matter of perspective. If you want to have a discount and you were originally planning on shelling out say P1000 for fuel, simply present your P2000 charge slip to the gas attendant together with your credit card, get P100 worth of fuel and then shell out only P900 instead of P1000 to get a P100 discount!

Or you could opt to still buy P1000 worth of fuel and get P100 extra worth of fuel when you present your charge slip and credit card. It’s up to you.

Personally, what I do is every time I gas up, I use my HSBC credit card and buy P2000 worth of fuel so that the next time I gas up, I get P100 worth of fuel free! If you use your credit card this way, gas/diesel worth P55/L or P45/L respectively would now cost you less given the “discounted” or “extra” fuel you get.

Now as if that’s not enough, HSBC gives you a 3% rebate on fuel purchases from Caltex! That’s like P60 off each time I gas up for P2000.

Thus, if you own a vehicle and want to save on fuel, use your HSBC credit card this way. If you don’t have a HSBC credit card, apply for one to enjoy these perks. I believe this Caltex fuel perk will last for some time so it is definitely worth owning a HSBC credit card.

For those wondering, this is not a sponsored post. I just want to share how good it is having a HSBC credit card I do use other credit cards as well such as the Citibank Cashback but that is another topic for discussion which I will probably will post on as well in the near future.

For the general user => How to Mass Delete Pending Comments in WordPress using a Plugin

It’s as simple as that. Here are the steps:

1. Go to your WP dashboard.
2. Click on “Add New” under Plugins and enter “WP Optimize” in the search box.
3. Install the WP-Optimize plugin and you’re all set!

Just play around with the plugin and you should be able to find your way around and delete all those pesky spam comments.

For the techie people => How to Mass Delete Pending Comments in WordPress via PHPMyAdmin

Taking this route has its advantages however small. One advantage is less overhead during WP loading but which has very minimal to no visual effect on users. But then again it’s your choice Here’s what you have to do:

1. Enter your CPanel and click on PHPMyAdmin
2. Select the database of your WP installation
3. Click on the SQL tab
4. Enter this code inside the SQL textbox:

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved = ’0′

That’s it folks! Thanks for reading.

If you would like to really jump start your Cityville “career”, then check out Paul’s site as he reviews the #1 CityVille guide. If you do buy, then please stick to the strategy presented:

Ok now once you’ve got yourself a copy of the ebook above and became a member of the site, let us go through each item mentioned in the title. First up is Cheats. I am not a big fan of cheats, but here is 1 you could use in emergencies.

Cheat(s)
The cheat I use and recommend is creating more FB accounts. By doing so, you could add more “artificial” neighbors to your main city(in your main account). You could also send or gift yourself with necessary items for you to level up fast like Energy, Zoning Permits, etc… Don’t overdo this though as having many artificial neighbors will drain you out and render the game too strenuous for you to enjoy.

Bot
I am not a fan of bots. But if you want to really stream roll your opponents(neighbors) then you could probably use one. Here are the links to Cityville bots available online:

• http://www.cityvillebot.org
• http://www.cityvillebots.com/

Guide & Secrets
The guide and secrets are really all in the ebooks above. There is no need for me to mention it here as that would be redundant. However, you might want to check out the strategies section for help for intermediate to advanced players.

Strategy
Strategy is different from tactics. The two have often been confused to mean the same thing but they are not the same. Strategy pertains to the overall plan you are going to follow to achieve your goal while tactics pertain to techniques that you can employ to achieve various milestones in your overall strategy.

The best way to illustrate this is in the game of chess. The goal is to checkmate your opponent’s King. But what would be your strategy? Are you going to be aggressive and beat him by force? Or are you going to be defensive and beat him in the end game? White players tend to aggressive because they have momentum while Black players tend to be defensive for the opposite reason the White player does. That is strategy. Tactics on the other hand are the forks, pins, etc… you employ in the game.

Enough of chess and back to Cityville. So what strategy are you going to employ in the game? Before answering that question, what is your goal first? Are you playing just for the sake of fun? Then you don’t need any strategy at all! But if you are playing to beat your friends and neighbors and get to the highest level then you need a strategy.

Cityville is a more complicated game compared to other FB games and thus analysis of the game is much harder. Unlike the other games, Cityville has more limiting factors. And by that, I am referring to Coins, Energy and Goods. So we need to carefully balance each one to get the best out of it. Let us start.

Here is my goal => I want to beat my friends/neighbors by obtaining the highest level in the quickest time possible but at the same time have an attractive and big city with its borders maxed out.

Sounds intimidating but in reality that is what we all want. So what would be my strategy?

Level up as fast as possible by building the most profitable businesses and surrounding it with as much decorations as possible so that I get the most bang for my buck and energy. The game must be played according to the correct timing so as to play the game efficiently. Attractiveness comes last and will be dealt with when my Cityville “economy” is stable.

Let’s break that down by going into the basics of the game. You level up by gaining more XP(experience). XP can be obtained from rent/business/community collection and harvesting. Rent/Business/Community collection and harvesting require 1 Energy per action. You regenerate 1 Energy every 5 minutes. Unfortunately, you cannot buy time But you can sort of do so by using coins and cash. I won’t be talking about cash here as we want to play the game as “free” as possible thus we will stick to coins. If you did your homework and scoured the internet for guides blah blah blah, most of them will focus on buying/getting the best houses and business per coin/supply respectively. That is good for other games like Fishville but in Cityville that is not the case.

If you followed my logic above, the most important limiting factor or resource we have is Energy. Without Energy, we won’t be able to do anything. And if we don’t do anything then we don’t level up and thus won’t achieve our goal. Money/Coins are important but that is very easy to get. The same thing with Goods so I will give them less importance. Now, let us do some math.

As of this post, the maximum Energy limit is 30(assuming you are at least level 26). That means we get to fully refill our Energy bar every 150 minutes or 2.5 hours. Hence, we could play every 2.5 hours and build our city without much interference from our every day lives This also gives us a chance to get 2-3 Masterful bonuses which is a must if you want to level up and collect lots of money fast.

So, if you work 8 hours a day, you could play before you work, 3 times during your break time and after work. After work, you could devote more time to playing Cityville which means you don’t have to play every 2.5 hours. If you are “harvesting”  4 businesses which have their potential maxed out using decorations, you can harvest them every 20 minutes and get a lot of money in 1 hour’s worth of playing time! Using this strategy, I often collect 10k+ coins in just 1 hour, that is using the highest earning businesses available to me at my level.

Also, don’t use housing as a means of getting coins. Yes, you can get coins from them but regard them as extra bonuses. Housing should be treated only as a means to increase population. Hence you should get housing which occupies the least space with the most population. I am referring to the Colonial Chalet. It can fit in 13.34 population/people per grid which is the best in the game. It is quite expensive in the beginning at $10000 but if you harvest maxed out businesses as I did, then money should not be a problem.

Just to reiterate, housing is just for population. Never collect rent from houses to get money. That is a total waste of energy. To make money, use businesses and harvest them to the max using decorations. But not just any decorations though, use the best ones which give the highest multipliers. The only time to collect on houses is when you need bonus clicks to get to Masterful or when you are going to sleep, that is after collecting on businesses (use all your Energy before going to sleep!!!).

Since the max Energy is 30, we only need to have a total of 30 houses, businesses and crops combined. Thus, it would be a good and wise idea to build/plant houses/crops which can be harvested every 2.5 hours. Other houses are for population, other crops are for decoration and other businesses are just for show

We should also expand as fast as possible. More space means more clicks, more XP and more money! Thus it would be wise to always send Zoning Permits to your friends. The rule is, give and you shall receive. If you give a gift to your neighbor, they would likely gift back one to you.

So I guess that’s it. The strategy above would be able to help you to level up faster and make lots of money. It is not written in detail but if you have played Cityville for a while now you would understand what I am saying. If you need a complete beginners guide to help you through the game, then it would be best to get the 2 ebooks above.

Tips and Tactics

• Don’t close your Cityville app so that businesses use out their supply faster. I am not sure of this tip but it seems to me that it works. Faster supply usage means more money in your pocket. This is just a gut feel tip so use at your own discretion.
• Buy goods/supply from Charlieville using the train. I know it is expensive but we are talking about buying time here. Goods from Charlieville cost 4coins/good but without wasting precious time and Energy. If you have 3 businesses using a total of 300 goods and giving you 4500 coins gross profit, then your net profit would be 3300 coins in 15 minutes (assuming all 300 goods get used in that time span which is a good approximate)! That would be 13200 coins an hour
• Give and you shall receive. If you need +3 Energy, gift them out first to your friends/neighbors. This is a proven tactic which has survived the test of time.
• Use bonuses to your advantage…always. To get to the highest bonus(Masterful), you need 32 clicks. That can be done with 16 Energy. If you are fortunate and get extra items then you can do it in less than 16. Always find a way to get to Masterful as that would mean more coins/money for you. One way to get extra clicks without using energy is by using the Charlieville train. Doing so will give you 3 free clicks without using energy. I won’t post a bonus chart here as they are everywhere

If I have anymore to share, I will update this blog post for you guys.

Today, I am going to share to you a forwarded email I received which could be useful all of us, bloated or unbloated(I made this word up) alike. This email was written by Kirsten Whittaker, an editor of the Daily Health Bulletin. Without further ado, here is the email content:

Stomach bloating is something that you can avoid pretty easily, so long as that bloat doesn’t come from extra pounds or is the result of a medical condition (liver or heart disease for example) according to Michael Jensen, MD, an endocrinologist and obesity researcher at the Mayo Clinic. The way to do it – avoid accumulating gas in your abdomen or intestines, as this will bring the uncomfortable feeling and the awful looking bulge.

It’s actually a well-entrenched myth that bloating in the stomach is the result of fluid accumulation, so called water weight. This isn’t true at all. In fact, the abdomen isn’t the place fluids will accumulate first in a healthy individual – they would be noticed in the feet and ankles for anyone up and about.

So if it’s not water, what is causing the gas to build in your belly and impact how you look and feel? Here are ten likely suggestions that might just explain that bloated belly.

1. Constipation: too little fiber, fluids and activity can bring on constipation and this causes bloating. Eat a diet high in fiber (25 daily grams for women; 38 for men) from whole grains, fruits and veggies, legumes, nuts and seeds. You’ll also want to be sure you’re taking in enough fluids – aim for 6-8 glasses a day. Be active for at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week.

2. Food allergies/intolerances: can cause both gas and bloating and can be confirmed by a visit to your doctor. Resist the temptation to self-diagnose and then eliminate healthy dairy and whole grains from your diet when this isn’t necessary. You can reduce the amount of the suspect food, or eat it with other foods, or try aged cheeses and yogurts as they are lower in lactose to see how your body responds.

3. Eating too fast: it’s what Mom always warned you about… eat too quickly and you swallow air and this brings bloating. You need to slow down, chew well and enjoy your meals. A meal should last at least a half hour, and remember digestion starts in the mouth. So try and cut that bloating by chewing your food better… just like Mom told you.

4. Limit carbonated drinks: as the fizz in those tasty sodas and other drinks can cause gas to get trapped in your stomach. Instead try water flavored with lemon, lime or cucumber. If you must have those carbonated drinks, at least cut the number you have a day and try other beverages – peppermint tea for a soothing, healthy change.

5. Don’t chew too much gum: as this can have you swallowing air, which leads to bloating. If you have a hard-core gum habit, alternate a piece of gum with sucking on a mint or hard candy instead. A healthy, high-fiber snack is also a good choice.

6. Watch sugar free foods: as these can cause you to take in too much sugar alcohol in those artificially sweetened foods and drinks, this can lead to bloating. You want to limit your consumption of artificially sweetened foods/drinks to no more than 2 to 3 servings a day.

7. Limit sodium: highly processed foods are high in sodium and low in fiber, both of which can contribute to feeling (and looking) bloated. You need to start reading food labels and shoot for no more than 500 mg of sodium per serving in any processed, canned or frozen food. You want to keep your total sodium intake to 2,300 mg a day.

8. Go slow with gas producing foods: there are some foods, like beans and members of the cruciferous family of veggies, that if you’re not used to eating can cause that bloated, gassy discomfort. Work these good for you foods into your diet slowly, or try to take an anti-gas product as directed when you plan on eating them.

9. Eat smaller meals, less often: this alternative meal schedule can help you stay free of the bloated feeling that comes after a large meal. Eating more often can also help keep your blood sugar stable and manage your hunger. Just be sure that the quantity of food and calories are in line with what you need, and don’t make more meals, bigger meals.

10. Try anti-bloating foods/drinks: as a few studies suggest that peppermint tea, ginger, pineapple, parsley and yogurts that have probiotics (good bacteria) might help bring down the bloating.

Understand that spot exercises will help your belly appear flatter, but that’s because you are toning and strengthening the abdominal muscles, not because doing a specific ab exercise has worked wonders. Pilates and exercise ball workouts are some of the best ab workouts we know.

Experts agree that laxatives, water pills and fasting are not the way to get rid of bloating, or lose weight. Losing even a few pounds will help your belly look (and feel) trimmer, that’s because for almost anyone who is losing body fat usually does so from the belly area more than other parts of the body. This holds true for every body type and weight loss type.

If you want to know more, then simply visit the Daily Health Bulletin site.

How to Fix Simple HTML Dom Memory Exhaustion Problem. Have you encountered an error such as this when trying to use the Simple HTML Dom script?

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 24 bytes) in /home2/asdasd/public_html/labs/lib/simple_html_dom.php on line 750

If yes, then you’ve got yourself a memory exhaustion problem! The Simple HTML Dom script is a very cool script to parse HTML documents but in terms of memory management it is not that cool. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem. Simply allocate more memory dynamically! Add this line of code at the top of your PHP script:

ini_set(“memory_limit”,”200M”);

The “200M” is variable so change it to whatever suits your needs. I believe by default, PHP allocates 64M as the memory limit.

Check out the ff links for more information on this:

• http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.memory-limit
• http://www.php.net/manual/en/faq.using.php#faq.using.shorthandbytes

For this tutorial, I am assuming you a know a thing or two about making backups(database and file) via CPanel and about FTP. If not, then I suggest you go learn them first, they are not that hard. If you are all set, then here is the step by step instructions to migrate a WordPress site from one server to another via CPanel:

1. Backup the database. Now, there are a number of ways to do this but I prefer to do it via PHPMyAdmin. Backup your database by logging into PHPMyAdmin and exporting the database into a .gz file. If you are unsure how to do this, follow the official WP how to backup your database instructions.
2. Backup your WP files. This can be done via the file manager. Select the root folder containing your site and click ‘compress’ from the clickable options above.
3. Create a new database on your destination server. To make things just a bit easier, you may opt to name the database the same as the database you just backed-up. This way, you don’t have to update much later in the wp-config.php file.
4. Import your backed-up database into the new database. Remember step #1? Well, just import the file(database backup) into the new database via PHPMyAdmin.
5. Add domain to Add-on domain list. Make sure to fix the folder structure as well.
6. Restore backed-up WP files. Restore the files via the file manager into the new folder just created in step #5.
7. Update wp-config.php in new server. Update the database name, username and password.
8. Update DNS of domain via registrar. Get the new DNS of your new destination server and update them via your current domain registrar.
9. Wait. Nameserver propagation usually takes a few days so just sit back and relax.

The steps outlined above involves some downtime since we would have to wait for the nameserver propagation to finish which usually takes several days. If downtime is an issue, you can modify the steps above by adding these steps after step 6:

1. Allow your old server to access the new database in the new server. You can allow this by going to Remote MySQL on the new server and adding the domain or IP address of your old server.
2. Change your wp-config.php in the old site to point to the database on the new site. So, instead of accessing stale data, your site can access update information while waiting for the nameserver propagation to finish. The only downside is this could be a bit slow sometimes.

So the these are the steps to migrate a WP installation from one server to another. If you have any questions, feel free to comment/ask below.