image by Eliacim Lopes

I’m a grammar freak – anybody who knows me can attest to that.   My sister, who writes a blog called Grammar Pulis (yes, the spelling is intentional), will attest to that fact too.  No, I don’t claim to have perfect grammar – I’m sure, for example, that some of you can point out at least three errors in this post.  I do, however, try to make myself as clear as possible.

In order to make myself as clear as I can, one of things I do is make sure I spell things correctly.  Yes, you may find the odd typo in my writing, but I try to keep those to a minimum.  Heck, I’ve even activated the option to check spelling as I type on Firefox.

Of course, some forms of media make it slightly harder to be so particular.  Short Message Service (SMS), as the name implies, puts a limit on the number of characters sent in a single message.  Toss in the fact that you only have 8 keys to input 26 letters and one can almost forgive the atrocious spelling in SMS messages.

Note that I said almost.

evn f u cn undrstnd d nd r dsyr 2 kp tngs shrt, u cnt ignor d fct dt rdng grsly abbrvtd msgs s a pain.  hvng a 160 chr lmt sux, bt fns 2day cn send mltpl msgs neway.

Even if you can understand the need or desire to keep things short, you can’t ignore the fact that reading grossly abbreviated messages is a pain.  Having a 160 character limit sucks, but phones today can send multiple messages anyway.

Still, that’s not the point of this whole rant.  Like I said, I can almost forgive the shortcuts people make when typing messages on their phones.  What I can’t forgive, however, is doing the same thing when using full keyboards on their computers.

Yes, this goes out to those people (even though I know you’re not reading this anyway) who insist on using “text-speak” on forums (or fora?), in instant messages, on their own blogs, and anywhere else on the net.  You have all 26 letters and then some at your fingertips.  Is spelling words properly really that difficult?

xcpt 4 twitter n few odr apps, dr s no lmt n d # f chrs u cn use n d net. dr’s no nd 2 rplc a 2 r 2 wd 2 2 elmn8 all vwls frm ur wrds. u wnt b chrgd more 4 splng wrds prprly, so y nt do dt? pls mk use f d full kbrd n frnt f u – its nt dt dfclt.

Except for Twitter and a few other apps, there is no limit on the number of characters you can use on the net.  There’s no need to replace a “to” or “too” with “2″ or to eliminate all vowels from your words.  You won’t be charged more for spelling words properly, so why not do that?  Please make use of the full keyboard in front of you – it’s not that difficult.

Please excuse my pathetic attempts at ‘text-speak’ above.  When sending SMS messages, I rely on T9 Text Input instead of multitap and add frequently used words to my phone’s dictionary.

If you ever find yourself lucky enough to be at the Acuatico Beach Resort in Laiya, San Juan, Batangas, this is the view you get at dusk – pretty nice, isn’t it?  That’s the only image I’m posting of the place here, but I guarantee you – the place is lovely.

They’ve got pools (for both kids and adults) wrapped around a floating bar, some gorgeous Balinese inspired villas surrounding the pool, and when the construction is all done (they expect to finish this May), a gym, spa, and a bunch of other facilities that I can’t remember right now.  If you really want to know more, just check out their site here.  All I’ll tell you is that the place is gorgeous, and the service was downright fantastic.

Granted, the resort isn’t perfect.  The room we got (an Infinity Pool room) was pretty cramped, but it didn’t really matter – we spent most of our time outside anyway.

The beach wasn’t the greatest either – the sand was a bit coarse and there really wasn’t a whole lot of shallow water to wade in.  On the other hand, snorkeling (which is a boat ride away) was a whole lot of fun, and the infinity pool was always calling you into the water.  Sure, we didn’t spend a whole lot of time on the sand, but we definitely spent enough time soaking in the water.

At around 8:00 every night, they start a bonfire on the beach and lay out some lounge chairs around it.  No, it’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but if you’ve got some hot dogs, marshmallows, and some long sticks, I’m sure you can figure out what to do.  Having a cooler of drinks (or waiters bringing some drinks over) also makes for a cool way to spend an evening.

Anyway, that’s enough raving for one post.  I just wish I were back there now – and if they weren’t fully booked (and if my wallet could handle it too), I probably would still be relaxing in their pool.

PEDALA bike messenger service

I stumbled across this post recently and I think it helps prove its title – that Manila isn’t as ugly as we probably think it is.  Thanks to the emergence of bike messengers (see the poster on the right), is now a little bit greener.  Yes, the air is still filled with smoke, but at least one business isn’t adding to the pollution.

How does it compare to another courier service in town?  Let’s break it down:

Based on the price listed at the bottom, Pedala is more cost-efficient – at least for deliveries within the metropolis.  How about out-of-town deliveries?  Come on – you don’t really expect somebody to deliver a package out of town on only pedal power, do you?

How about speed?  There’s no way a bike beats motorized vehicles, right?  According the the (forwarded) email message posted by ManilaRat, you can get same day delivery.  I don’t think any other courier service around these parts boasts of that speed.

Right now I wish I had a package that needs to be delivered, but I don’t.  I’m sure I will soon – maybe I can try these guys out.  How about you, need anything delivered?

I don’t mean to brag (ok, maybe a little), but my teachers (both in high school and in college) recognized that I did pretty well in most of my writing assignments. The thing is, I hardly wrote anything outside of those assignments.

If I didn’t particularly enjoy writing, what then could explain my knack for it?

I devour books.

When I was younger, I read the encyclopedia (World Book, 1981 edition), Childcraft, Reader’s Digest, Time Magazine, Disney classics, and pretty everything except the collection of Hardy Boys books that my mom wanted me to read.

When I got tired of the books from the family library, I started with my siblings’ collections. I discovered Douglas Coupland, Michael Crichton, Alex Garland, John Grisham, Jessica Hagedorn, Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, Jose Saramago, Jessica Zafra, and a whole bunch of other authors.

Basically, like I mentioned earlier, I devour books.

At this point, let me digress a little and give you a little background information about me.

I don’t remember speaking English a whole lot when I was younger.

At school, my friends and I spoke in Filipino most of the time. Yes, we spoke English in class, but outside the classroom, we spoke in Filipino, or switched back and forth between the two.

The story wasn’t really very different at home – in fact, I think we spoke in the vernacular most of the time.

Basically, I didn’t really speak English except in class.

This begs the question then – if I didn’t practice the language, how did I become fluent in it?

This is when we get back to our original topic – reading.

I didn’t speak English very often, and I only wrote when required. In other words, I didn’t really put a whole lot of effort into learning the language. I did, however, keep myself exposed to it through books. Like I already mentioned, I didn’t really write much, but I definitely exposed myself to good writing.

In other words, I learned English through reading.

Let’s go back to the original statement though: “the best way to learn how to write is, well, to write.” How, you may ask, did I learn to write?

Again, I exposed myself to a good writing. I may not quite know all the rules of writing (though I am known to be a grammar geek), but simply because of how much I’ve read, I get a sense of what good writing is.

Yes, I know that writing more (that’s one reason I maintain this blog) helps improve my writing. I also know that some instruction couldn’t hurt either. However, I still maintain that reading helps a whole lot.

What do you think?

image credit: Reading Well by moriza – Creative Commons Attribution

Part of the way through a post on the UFC going global, I came across this:

UFC’s ambition won’t stop there. As company president White has said since he took over the company, he wants to lead the way in the growth of not just UFC but mixed martial arts all together.

“We are going global,” the 39-year-old White said. “The Philippines, Germany. We are going after Mexico.”

He actually mentioned the Philippines?!?

I don’t know how long it’ll take before the UFC actually has an event here, but I sure would be interested in tickets (or better yet, media passes – so I can bring my camera).

Tibor Radványi a.k.a. Photonovice wants to know where your visitors are from. He’s asking this as part of a three-part project on site statistics. The first chunk covered search terms that lead to your site while the second highlighted the most popular posts. By the way, both parts are done now so you can check out the results for both search terms and popular posts anytime you want.

This posts, however, isn’t really about search terms and popular posts. As the title above says, it’s a look at LightChasers’ visitors. Specifically, it’s a look at where our readers come from.

At this point, let me remind you that we’re not talking about this dark little corner’s visitors – we’re putting the spotlight on visitors of LightChasers Photography. Yes, this little blog resides in the same domain, but as the title implies, it’s just one corner of the place. Besides, this little corner probably only has 2 regular visitors. Of course, I can’t really be sure – I don’t really check statistics for this blog.

The question begs asking then – why am I posting this here instead of at the LightChasers blog? As my about page here says, “this is the place where I write about pretty much anything I want – anything, that is, except photography.” I’m trying to keep the LightChasers blog as focused on photography as I possibly can.

Yes, I know I already wrote about the second chunk of the statistics project (as well as the project results), but like I mentioned, I’m trying to keep the site focused. A post on site statistics doesn’t really fit well under the categories of images, gear, tips, or even news, so I might as well put that post someplace where it’ll actually get on the front page – and that’s why it’s here.

Anyway, moving on…

LightChasers Photography, as the about page states, is “a team of photographers based in Manila, Philippines.” Based on this, majority of our visitors should be from this little archipelago of over 7,000 islands. However, our statistics over the past three months (based on Google Analytics) say otherwise.

Less than 15% of our visitors are from the Philippines while over a third are from the United States. I wish this meant I could offer my studio’s services abroad, but sadly, photography isn’t as easy to sell online as web design, blogging skills, or some other things. I could sell through stock photography sites, but that’s for another post – if I ever write about it.

The question of where visitors from are isn’t limited to their physical location – it also includes what sites they visited immediately before landing on yours. In other words, another question Tibor is asking is this: How did your visitors get to your site?

I wish I could say that all the business cards I’ve given out were sending loads of traffic, but again, statistics say otherwise. Less than a fifth of visitors to LightChasers Photography got there directly.

Of course, since only a small fraction of visitors (12.3% to be exact) come from the Philippines, I can’t expect direct traffic from the business cards to be that large either. If you factor in the percentage of direct visitors (12.4%), you might be able to argue that there is a connection. Unless I dig deeper into the statistics though, I can’t make any conclusions.

Breaking this pie chart down into smaller pieces changes how I look at the visitor breakdown. Though the margin is pretty slim, direct traffic is the site’s top source of visitors. This still isn’t enough data to make any conclusions, but it does make me want to learn more.

As for the referrers, the top four, based on the chart to the right, are:

1. Google Search: 11.71%
   I didn’t really dig that deep into statistics like Tibor did, but the amount of traffic that Google sends my way still surprises me.
   
2. Epic Edits Weblog: 9.93%
   Brian Auer’s site caused a spike in LightChasers Photography visitors last December and still keeps sending visitors over. Once again, thanks Brian!
3. PhotographyVoter : 8.65%
   The social site I visit most often – LightChasers is a photography site after all. Thanks to all those people who think my posts are worth voting for.
4. deviantART News: 8.08%
   Over the past few months, people from various sites have kept linking to a little tutorial on shooting photographs like a terrorist. They’ve all sent quite a few visitors over, but the deviants over at dA seem to be particularly interested in the piece.

There you have it – a not-so-brief-look at the visitors to LightChasers Photography.