Their main argument is that Cebu Pacific are loosing traffic and potential customers by using cebupacificair.com instead of cebupacific.com

Their first argument is that the phrase ‘Cebu Pacific’ gets 5 times as many searches in Google as ‘Cebu Pacific Air’. This is correct, based on Google Trends, however it’s a completely irrelevant point since cebupacificair.com ranks first for ‘cebupacific’, ‘cebu pacific’ and ‘cebu pacific air’, so they’re certainly not loosing any search engine traffic based on their choice of domain name.

Their next argument is based on the assumption that 15% of visitors out there would be type-in traffic, meaning that the visitors are simply typing what they believe to be the correct domain into the address bar of their browser. While I agree there might be a reasonable level of NEW users who type ‘cebupacific.com’ into their browsers address bar, I would wonder if it’s really as high as 15% and I’d argue that they’re not loosing those visitors. People aren’t going to visit the wrong domain and then just give up on it, they’ll go to a search engine like Google and search for the correct address.

For many Filipinos, Cebu Pacific is the only airline they’ll ever fly due to the competitive pricing and brand awareness. I really don’t believe that visitors who land on the wrong website would simply give up and look elsewhere, especially considering the lack of choices.

And the annoying thing about the whole case review? They talk as though Cebu Pacific purposely left Cebupacific.com and Cebupacific.ph when in fact they were simply too slow to register them before professional domainers. What I’m actually amazed at is that Cebu Pacific haven’t gone through the proper processes to claim these domains which are quite clearly using their trademark.

Previously, the only method is to load funds via your direct debit setup which has a processing time of 5-7 working days (although on many occasions ends up taking 9-12 days).

This new method of adding funds, via online baking, lowers this time to 1-3 days. What an improvement!

Unfortunately the feature was disabled a week later due to technical issues. The funds were taken from peoples bank account and reached Paypal, but Paypal were unable to trace the payments correctly and assign them to the correct accounts. They officially said that they’d return the payments within 10 days if they couldn’t work out whose account the funds should be accredited to. However, as in our case, 15 days passed and they hadn’t returned the funds to our bank account. I imagine they’ve earnt quite a bit of interest on all those payments sitting in limbo.

What would have been nice is if Paypal had contacted us to let us know there was a problem, rather than leaving us waiting and wondering when the funds would show up in the Paypal account. It was only because we called them that we found out about the problem.

My personal favorite is the Bacon Mozza Melt which has a veggie patty, veggie bacon bits with mozzarella and a light mayonnaise.

Good Burgers pricing is very reasonable, with their basic veggie burger coming in at P60 for a single patty or P85 for a double patty. If you go for something more fancy like the Bacon Mozza Melt, you’re looking at P95 for single patty or P120 for double patty.

With branches in C5 Pasig, Kapitolyo, Greenhills and Sikatuna, their minimum order for delivery is just P200 which is a conveniently low amount.

They’re even featured on the website of PETA Asia-Pacific!

Good Burgers Menu

A previous launch in Manila, back in 2008, was unsuccessful due to o2 Infusions’ choice of smaller, less popular, Spas. This time they’ve teamed up with The Spa who are renowned for their quality and popularity.

I was invited for a complimentary consultation and Intraceuticals facial at The Spa Acropolis. At around P6,000  per treatment, it’s not exactly cheap, but this isn’t your average feel good, pampering facial. O2 infusion provide an advanced facial that will give instant results.

While I found the facial comfortable and definitely effective, It’s more suited for someone with a few more years behind them and a few more lines on their face. If you have some wrinkles or fine lines that you want to get rid of quickly, Intraceuticals from o2 Infusions is for you.

Due to the advanced technology and skin care products that Intraceuticals have developed, you’ll see results immediately after your first treatment. Although the results are immediate, they’re cumulative, so prolonged use will provide greater results. They recommend a course of six treatments and then a monthly treatment to maintain.

Intraceuticals treatments are based on 3 steps. The first is to apply oxygen under light pressure which helps Intraceuticals’ age defying products reach the deeper layers of the skin.

Next is to apply a unique rejuvenating serum which contains hyaluronic acid and a mix of vitamins and antioxidants. This will instantly hydrate the skin, resulting in reduced fine lines, wrinkles and increased facial skin firmness.

Finally, to maintain and keep your skin in good health, Intraceuticals provide a range of support products which provide essential skin nutrients and create essential layers to seal in everything your skin needs.

Pricing

The pieces are cast in plaster of paris and painted with acrylic paints and an acrylic lacquer is applied.

I’ll update this page as the set progresses.

Pawns

Although the tour was meant to move on to different areas, for some reason the drifting has continued every weekend since; minus the additional entertainment. It was bad enough that PLDT expanded their tour time in Eastwood but now it’s transformed into the Lateral Drift Championships. The crowd has steadily declined and aside from a handful of spectators, the only people who attend the event are the drift car drivers.

The only benefit of holding the event in Eastwood is the potential of pulling in large crowds, however that’s clearly not happening. So why not move it a non-residential area?

I for one am fed up with being woken up at 8am every Saturday and Sunday by the noise of car wheels screeching. The question is, why are they still here? The tour was meant to move on and the event no longer pulls in spectators. If the boys want to play with their toys, why don’t they do it somewhere else?

You get what you pay for. The prices aren’t outrageous but they are a little higher than your average spa.

Rooms

The rooms at the Spa Acropolis are spacious and well decorated. Most rooms have a bath, shower and a couple of massage beds. You’ll find various amenities in the room such as alcohol, a hairbrush and lotions.

Massage / Service

As you enter the Spa, you’ll immediately spot an extremely large arowana fish in a well kept tank and a grand wooden staircase leading up to the main floor. You’ll be greeted by friendly reception staff and given a locker key. At this point, men will enter one changing room/wet floor and women will enter another.

Upon entry to the changing room, you’ll be greeted by staff and offered towels, robes and slipper for the wet floor. You can make use of the Sauna, steam room, cold or hot jacuzzi and a large medium heat pool. All of this is already included in the cost of a massage.

The massage therapists are always friendly, professional and are extremely well trained. Even the scrubs are relaxing and feel like a massage in their own right.

Other facilities

As described above, this spa features a comprehensive wet floor with Sauna, steam room, hot/cold jacuzzi and warm pool. In addition, there’s a full featured gym (membership required).

The locker room alone is a relaxing place. There are various health magazines to read while you relax on a couch with a mug of ginger tea. You’ll find everything you need to freshen up after a relaxing massage or a hard workout – from hairbrushes and combs to deodorant and moisturiser.

Conclusion

The Spa Acropolis is pretty much one of the best spa experiences you’ll come across. Friendly staff, well trained massage therapists and a huge range of facilities.

The pricing itself is extremely competitive. However, from my experience, you don’t quite get what you paid for. For example I paid for a 3.5 hour package which actually last around 1.45 hours.

Rooms

On first appearance, I was very impressed with the room. An impressive bed, a refrigerator, TV with DVD player and a bathroom with a full sized bath tub.

The main feature of the room is a large bed carved from a local tree and stained with a dark varnish. The bed was was comfortable and the bedding was soft.

The refrigerator is a convenient touch because Callospa don’t serve food, meaning you need to order from a local restaurant (Max’s or Pizza hut are recommended) and you’ll be wanting somewhere to store your leftovers.

The TV and DVD player was again a nice touch. The DVD player had USB support so I plugged in an external drive which had some TV series on and they played just fine. However, annoyingly, whoever wired the room was very creative and hooked the TV/DVD power up to the bed light. Meaning if you wanted to watch the TV you must also have the light over the bed switched on.

Living in a condo with just a shower, I always get excited by the opportunity of lounging around in a hot bath at a resort. Unfortunately the plug wasn’t functioning so I was unable to use it! Aside from that, the bathroom facilities were fine.

So those are most of the good points, now some bad points… To be fair, these are mostly small issues that can be easily remedied. It’s just a shame to see a resort that could be practically perfect if it wasn’t for these small issues.

The wiring was somewhat ‘dodgy’, as explained above, some things were wired together meaning you couldn’t use one without the other and there were exposed wires running around (although semi-hidden) the ceiling.

The room seemed clean on first glance but if you look behind anything, such as the refrigerator, you realise it’s not so clean after all. On a related note, the drain cover in the bathroom was so rusty that half of it was missing. The bath tub also had some rust which made it look a little dirty.

Massage / Service

The staff were as friendly and professional as any other mid-high range spa. My biggest gripe with Callospa is that I paid for the 3.5 hour package and it only lasted 1.45 hours.

The sauna was effective and comfortable although is quite small with just enough space for two sitting people. The jacuzzi is also enjoyable but the placement by the entrance of the main facilities feels somewhat strange.

The massages are relaxing and enjoyable except for the ending when they try to perform some kind of massage aerobatics with your body!

The scrub was a bit of a let down. The room itself looks like something out of one of the saw horror movies. The bed was too short and the wet headrest towel being reused throughout the day showed a lack of  cleanliness. The scrub didn’t feel particularly relaxing or thorough.

Other facilities

There’s a large outdoors pool with a small jacuzzi. Both are quite shallow but perfectly fine for a relaxing dip. There are two full sized badminton courts but they seem overpriced at P500 per hour. There’s an abundance of outside seating with full sun and shaded options.

Conclusion

The Callospa is so close to being something special that you’d tell your friends about. With a little more care and attention to the resort facilities and actually providing the full service their guide promises you this could be a truly amazing resort. As it is, It’s just another mid range spa in a slightly remote location.

Although they provide this service for free, they make money by redirecting incorrectly typed domains to their search page which includes Google ads.

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What is DNS?

Basically, DNS translates domain names like Google.com to IP addresses like 64.233.189.103

Every time you visit a site via it’s domain, a request is sent to your ISPs DNS server asking for the IP address. Your computer then caches that information for future reference.

Benefits of OpenDNS

In most countries, using your ISPs DNS server will be quicker than using those run by OpenDNS since your ISPs server will usually be much closer than those ran by openDNS. However, in some countries, such as the Philippines, the ISPs have a hard time keeping their DNS servers up. You can sacrifice a little bit of speed for long term stability and uptime. Some ISPs in the Philippines (e.g MyDestiny) have already given up trying to run their own DNS servers and push openDNS DNS server IPs out to all customers.

It amazes me how many businesses I’ve spoken to in metro Manila who’ve experienced long periods of downtime with their connection and don’t know what to do. In most of these cases, the connection isn’t really down, only their ISPs DNS server is. Even if you’re not willing to rely solely on openDNS, you should add one of their servers as a secondary point so that if your ISPs DNS server goes down, it will fail over to openDNS.

Other benefits of openDNS are their blocking features. You can block certain categories such as proxies, pornography, social networking sites(facebook) and such like. This is ideal for businesses that want to block some content from their employees without having complicated network hardware.

Another option for speeding up internet browsing or to access blocked websites is to use a philippine web proxy which includes smart compression techniques and such like.

OpenDNS irony

I was reading a post on the openDNS blog about Google and Dell installing spyware on peoples systems, written by CEO David Ulevitch. What is ironic here? Mr Ulevitch has placed a link in the post to Zwinky.com which installs the MyWeb toolbar which of course is known to be one of the hardest to remove spyware applications out there! It’s one thing to sell a link on a businesses blog but to link to the very thing you’re meant to be arguing against… how ironic!

Blogsvertise was one of the first ever commercial link buying/selling networks. It’s been around for quite some time and has a huge number of publishers(bloggers) and clients(link buyers).

If you’re looking to quickly buy some links at an extremely low price and aren’t concerned about quality or risk then Blogsvertise is for you. Generally, due to the quality of the links obtained, you’ll only find smaller clients with modest budgets using Blogsvertise for their link development needs.

As a publisher, you’re not going to make much money by joining blogsvertise(average 9-15 USD per post) but if you’re stuck for topics to write about and want to earn some beer money on the side then you might consider giving it a go.

Style of paid links

Publishers who’ve had their blog approved for the blogsvertise network will be assigned tasks based on the theme and Google Pagerank of their blog. Publishers will be provided with a topic which they must write about and the anchor text and URLs for links they must include within the post. Generally the minimum requirements are 2-3 paragraphs of unique relevant(to the links) text and a minimum of 3 links to the client.

What are the pros of this style for publishers/bloggers?

You have complete control over the content you place on your site. You’ll be writing the content yourself and do not need to place any misleading or promotional text. If the links you need to include were for pet insurance then you could write a generic post about pets and then include the links naturally without misleading your readers into thinking you’re actually promoting that company.

What are the pros of this style for clients/link buyers?

The blogsvertise network is full of publishers who operate blogs covering just about every topic imaginable. This means you can buy links from highly relevant sites. Another benefit is that you do not need to provide any content yourself. The blog owner will write the content and you will make the decision to approve or decline the post. Cheap links with little effort.

What are the cons of this style for clients/link buyers?

The biggest problem with using the Blogsvertise network for your link development is that generally the blogs you’ll be buying your links on will be filled with existing posts stuffed with links. Because of this, not only will the links have relatively little effect on your sites positions in Google but you also risk a penalty due to the obvious nature of your link buying.

Google have historically penalised websites which buy links through well known networks like Blogsvertise, ReviewMe and Text-Link-Ads. If you want to make a quick buck with sites you can afford to have dropped from the search engines then go for it but for any respectable client website, avoid blogsvertise!