Recently, I received a series of comments, four actually, which supposedly came from different people BUT what intrigued me was that all of those comments came from the same IP address. The comments were in response to my post titled “My Homepage Text Copied By A Fellow Filipino Designer“.

It’s quite obvious that this site (www.ROMELO.com) is powered by Wordpress which is a blogging software and because it’s basically a blog, the comment form or commenting is enabled by default (which is also how I want it). You see, my comment form is open to everyone which means that you don’t need to register in order to post a comment but you are required to enter a Name and an E-mail address (as well as your comment or message).

Now, when a comment is posted by a visitor or guest, Wordpress does not only records the Name, E-mail and Comment or Message of the commenter. It also records the IP address of the commenter but this piece of information is hidden and it is not shown to the public. Only the blog administrator can see it either in the blog’s comment admin or in the comment e-mail notification which is sent to me when someone leaves a comment.

I’ve already deleted two of the comments that were posted but I still have a copy of them saved in my e-mail program.

As you can see from the screenshots, the comments came from the same IP address which was 125.252.**.***. Now, using IP2Location.com’s service I found out that that IP address is currently assigned to a certain company here in the Philippines (see screenshots).

(Screenshots were removed because they contained information about the company and I was advised not to involve the company since the company has nothing to do with the action or actions of an employee or employees even if it was done during company time.)

I then searched Google using the company name which gave me some promising results and it also confirmed that such a company exist. The next thing I did is, I went back to the website in question to check something and there it was, the same company was listed in his profile.

I also noticed that the website involve, which is also powered by Wordpress, has changed its theme and now uses Latin text (lorem ipsum) for placement.

To tie everything up, I called the company’s number and asked for the person and guest what, he was there and yes, I did use my home phone. Well, I would have used a mobile phone if I had one with me but my wife took it with her so I was left with the land phone.

So, it seems that these comments which are coming from the same IP address is actually coming from one company here in the Philippines and that’s not all, it is also where the involved person is currently working.

Here is what, I’m not sure if the comments I received actually came from different people (although one did use a valid e-mail address and name which I was able to verify) within that IP location or if its actually just one person using different names to create the illusion that multiple people are commenting.

Now, if the comments are actually coming from different people then what I don’t understand is that these people are supposed to be professionals. You know, working for an international company says a lot about their characters but why are they spending their valuable company time posting silly comments about my reaction to what this certain person did.

Please, was it my fault if I caught him using my “copy” which I’ve been using for almost three years on my website? Guys think, you are also in the marketing business (as stated in your company’s website) and I’m sure you create a lot of marketing materials for your clients and part of that is “copywriting”. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anybody using your marketing whatever without your company’s permission, right?

I’ve been doing a lot of writing on my blogs and I can admit to myself that I’m not really a writer BUT I do try my best to come up with something. Writing an article with 2,000 words like the one I did for Game! Magazine is not easy for me to do. It actually took me one week to finish that article.

Writing is hard (specially for someone who is not a writer but tries to be one), it is even harder than creating a design for a website and I’m sure you guys know about that, right? Like I’ve said, since marketing is part of your company’s service offerings.

Now, if it’s just one person, in that IP location, commenting using different names then there is really nothing more I can say, except maybe, try doing something else that is more worthwhile?

Here is the thing, your friend or collegue or whatever he is to you made a mistake and he was caught. As a blogger, I blogged about it and I’m pretty sure I presented my case clearly.

I’ve also made a few mistakes myself and I’ve been also called out once. It happened a few years ago when I was still using my own content management system which I wrote using ASP. It was a very crude and unpolished piece of web programming.

You see, back then, my guestbook was tied with my mailing list, so, signing my guestbook means also signing-up for the mailing list. I found out later that it wasn’t a very good idea because one person complained and I was called out in public. I tried to apologize but, unfortunately, the person already abandoned the website where he had posted his complaint.

What I’m trying to say is learn from our mistakes and try to seek good advise from more senior people in the industry. Look, if I hadn’t consulted other people then I would have made the mistake of posting screenshots which shows information about a company which has really nothing to do in all of this.

Note to those coming from you know where: You’ll notice that you are now being redirected to this post (that is, if my little redirection thing works, if not then you won’t) . Thank you!

ApotekDirekt.com is a project I did for Mr. Mike Danielsson. It’s for an e-commerce site that will sell, well I have to say it, Generic Viagra. LOL!

I kinda forgot how Mike found out about me but I’m sure glad he did. He wanted to create an e-commerce site that will use OsCommerce to handle everything (order, payment, shopping cart, etc.). OsCommerce is a great shopping cart system and it is also very popular. If you need a quick e-commerce or shopping cart solution then OsCommerce is what you need.

I am no web programmer (I’m a web designer) but since I’ve had a couple of experiences dealing with OsCommerce from previous clients and since Mike’s request was more on the design side, I confidently accepted the project.

The scope of the project was:

• create a custom design for the website
• install and setup OsCommerce
• integrate the final and approved design to OsCommerce
• add the products and other necessary content
• launch the website

The only problem we encountered was with his selected payment processor but it was easily resolved by going with another payment processor.

Working with Mike was a great experience and I can safely say that he is one of the best client I’ve ever worked with and I’m looking forward to working with him more in the future. In fact, he already did send a new project but it involves credit card processing which I am unable to do.

Today, while I was blog hopping, I read an article about protecting your website’s content specially written content from being copied and used by someone other than yourself. The article has a link to Copyscape which is a website that provides services to protect your own website from online plagiarism and content theft.

While I was there, I decided to try it. I used their search to look for copies of my website’s content and, unfortunately, I did find one.

I found my homepage text, which I have  been using since 2005, at a fellow Filipino designer’s website namely jmolde.com. The text is:

Website Design services are as common as the common cold but those who caters to small/medium enterprises, start-ups, NGOs and individuals are still very rare. This is where I come in.

I will design you a website at a fraction of the cost of what your normal design agency charges. It’s fast, inexpensive and you work directly with the designer himself.

I am a web designer based in the Philippines with more than 5 years experience designing websites both for local and international businesses.

Upon looking at his profile I learned that his name is Joseph Alinadel Molde of San Pedro, Laguna. He is also a web designer and based on his job experiences, which are posted at his site, he had some good experiences as a web designer already. In fact, he might be earning much more than me but what I can’t understand is why, an established web designer like him, copy and use text from my website? Is my text copy that good?

I’m not a copywriter but at least I try to write my own copy myself. I’ve been using that particular copy since 2006 (even earlier, I’ll have to check) and I never thought that it’s good enough to be copied and used by someone else. To be honest, I don’t know if I should feel flattered, insulted or ripped off.

(Web Archive of www.ROMELO.com 2005)

(What’s my copy doing on this website’s homepage?)

(Another version of www.ROMELO.com in 2006)

Last time, I created ten 125×125 Place Your Ad Here banners for everyone to download and use with their websites. I created those banners after noticing that a lot of blogs that run Project Wonderful ads use the default Project Wonderful Place Your Ad Here banners which I thought were too boring and plain. Well, I’m not saying that the ones I created before were out-of-this-world but at least they’re different and don’t look too generic (I hope).

Today, I created 12 more of these 125×125 banners because a lot of you really liked them but, this time, instead of using the text “Place Your Ad Here” or “Your Ad Here” I used “Advertise Here”. So, what’s the difference? Nothing I guess since all of them means the same thing but, you know, a little variation might help you in your campaign to gain some advertisers to your websites or blogs.

By the way, these 125×125 banners are not only for Project Wonderful. You can use them anyway you want (as long as it’s legal) even for your own advertising campaigns outside Project Wonderful or as Ad placeholders on your own websites or blogs.

The banners shown here are hosted at ImageShack and you can download each one by righ-clicking on the one you like and selecting “Save picture as…” or “Save image as…” on your browser or you can click on the link below to download all of them. The download package contains a GIF and PNG versions of the banners.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Oh, if you are with Entrecard and you need some credits for your advertising campaigns then I invite you to visit my Entrecard Credit Store @ i-TONG.com. Current EC denominations are 250, 500, 1000, 2000 and 5000. As a bonus, each purchase will reward you some FREE impressions for your 125×125 banner/button under the store’s Special Thanks section.

A few months back I worked on a Wordpress Theme for First In Action. The project was to create a blue version of an already existing Wordpress Theme. The work was not really that difficult, in fact, it was dead easy but, unfortunately, things were added which were not in the original request. Well, I really didn’t mind since the request were very easy and doable like installing Wordpress.

A problem I encountered while working on First In Action’s Wordpress Theme was not even related to the creation of the theme. The problem was with the server because everything was handled by redirects and rewrites. The server rewrites all the files without an extension making it appear like a directory. Now that is where the problem came in. I installed First In Action’s Wordpress blog in a directory named /firstinaction and since there was already a file named firstinaction.php, the blog became unaccessible. The only time the blog will appear is when you add a trailing “/” mark at the end of “firstinaction”.

The problem was beyond the scope of the project but I still tried to help them resolve it. In the end, they contacted their programmer for assistance. I guess he was the one who did the rewrites.

The project took longer than expected because I think they were also busy with other things but it doesn’t matter because the people behind First In Action are really nice people and I did get paid in the end anyway.

I was doing my daily rounds of Entrecard dropping today when I noticed that some websites have empty Project Wonderful ads spots that use the default Project Wonderful “Your Ad Here” banner. Most of those I saw were 125×125 banners which are very popular with blogs. Well, some of my blogs are serving ads from Project Wonderful too and when I joined PW I made my own 125×125 “Your Ad Here” banner because the default one is too plain.

Anyway, today I made 10 simple 125×125 “Your Ad Here” banners which anyone can use anyway they want. The images below are hosted at ImageShack. You can download any of it by right-clicking on the one you like and selecting “Save Image As…” for Firefox or “Save Picture As…” for Internet Explorer.

Again, these are simple 125×125 banners which you can use anyway you want. You can also download the entire set by clicking on the link below:

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Florida Dealer Consultants. I started to work on this project a few months back but my client decided to put it on-hold. After working on a few more projects for him, he then informed me that this project was ready once again and last month I was able to finish it.

The project was to design a website that would sell a software that car dealers can use to better manage what they do. I was not familiar with the software but I did receive a lot of assistance from the client on what the design should have. As always, I submitted 3 design studies or mockups for approval and the one selected was the one seen above (see screenshot). Well, it did undergo some revisions but the revisions were mostly just image changes and a few color changes here and there.

I don’t remember encountering any problems with the project and the client was very easy to work with. We’ve completed a lot of websites together and I really like working with him. Currently, we are working together on a new website and we are already at the final stages of design. Just a few more minor tweaks here and there and the design is good to go.

As far as design goes, I don’t limit myself in just designing websites. I also do graphics designs like websites or blog headers, banners, buttons, etc. If I think I can do it then it’s no problem with but if I can’t then I don’t accept it. It’s that simple!

A few days ago I finished a couple of headers for two clients and since I haven’t updated or posted anything here at my blog or to my portfolio for sometime now, I decided to post them here.

This header graphics will be used on a Wordpress powered blog. The client specifically requested to use images like clouds, rainbows, flowers, etc. The client also sent his own images but I decided to use images from my own collection. The client was very happy with the final header design.

The above header graphics will be use on a static site that sells e-books, reports, etc. I kinda forgot the details of the client’s request on this one but he/she was happy with the final header design.

So, if you are in need some custom header designs or graphics for your websites or blogs then don’t hesitate to contact me with your need, request or project requirements.

Today, I removed a few items from my portfolio. A former client requested that they be removed and so I did with no questions asked.

Former? Yeah, I decided to drop the client after learning that I was working at a rate of less than $20 per job on my last jobs for them and that includes web and print work like websites, brochures, posters, etc. I conferred my decision to my wife (she scolded me bad when I told her about the rate) and a few friends and they were right, even with my shortcomings, a rate of less than $20 for a website is hitting the ground bad specially with today’s peso-dollar exchange rate of P39 to a dollar ($20 would only be less than P800).

Well, I have no problems taking the items down because I can always replace them with new ones besides I’ll never use the unfair rate issue as a leverage against anyone. In fact, I never use anything against anyone. I’m the type who’ll just walk away and say nothing and that’s exactly what I did. I walked away and stopped communicating.

Right now I’m working on a car dealer site and I’ve already received another request to do another site. Another client also sent a request to redo 3 more sites for them as well. So, replacing those items I took down won’t be too hard. In fact, I still have hundreds of designs waiting to be put up I just can’t find the time to work on them.

Now, if I can only get my hands on a new computer then all my work will be much, much easier and faster too. Anyone want to donate a brand new computer with at least 4GB of RAM?

The first version of the wordpress theme I used on Kabalyero.com. I originally designed it for Kabalyero.com but you can now download it here and use it on your own blogs. A few modifications were made on the header to prepare it for general use. (Top Pic: Modified for General Use, Bottom Pic: Original Header)

Some Features:

• The theme is widget ready
• It only has 2 columns

I’m making it available to everyone because Kabalyero.com is now using version 2 of the theme. You are free to download, modify and distribute the theme but I would just like to request everyone to not remove the link and design credit to www.ROMELO.com and I would really appreciate it if you can link any of the following blogs too.

• MMORPGREALM
• San Pablo City
• i-TONG
• Kabalyero

Download

Click on the link below to download the file.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Installation

1. Download the Theme to your computer
2. Unzip the Zip File
3. Upload the Theme into your wordpress blog’s theme folder

Usage

1. Login to your wordpress blog (Admin)
2. Choose Presentation and look for wpTheme_Kabalyero 1.0
3. Click wpTheme_Kabalyero 1.0 to activate it
4. View your blog