What's In A Name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
William Shakespeare; Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

According to Mosignor Moraleda, the celebrant of the mass I attended this evening, there are three names that we carry as we live.

One is the 'name' we inherited from our predecessors. It is the name that our parents inherited from their parents, which will then be handed down to us the moment we are born. It is the name to which we belong in the sea of people here on earth.

The next one is the 'name' given to us by our parents. It is the name by which we are called by others. It is the identity that we are superficially known for; the one that somewhat makes us unique from the rest of the world.

And the last one is the 'name' that we will leave to our children or to our loved ones. It is the name that speaks for what we have done while we were living. It is the name that matters the most. The same name may have been bequeathed to us by our predecessors, and we may have the same name as others have, but the name that we have made out of such names will be the one that will be remembered long after we have departed this world.

The name founded on love is the only name that will matter before the Lord.

And so I quote Stephan Grellet's words:

“I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

How about you? What's with your name?

Maktub!

Domain Names, Anyone?

Just when I was getting the feel of writing posts for my blog, or simply getting the feel of finally having my own blogsite after being left out for years now, my former colleagues are one by one having their own domains. Huhuhu.

My ever supportive blogging mentor and editor, Peachy, just recently bought www.atomicgirl.net and my former supervisor, Bhem, bought www.phoebeonline.com a couple of weeks back. Months ago, our beloved bossing Dex acquired www.psychosanctum.com, while my dear friend and co-worker, Ate Razh, purchased www.raziella.com last January.

Is there anyone else who was not mentioned?

Sigh. I think I need to catch up with them as soon as possible, or by the time I decide to join them, they might already be going somewhere else again. Eheh.

So what are the advantages of having your own domain name, you may ask?

• First and foremost, it gives you a personality or unique identity in the World Wide Web.
• With it, you can easily and conveniently direct your existing followers and potential followers to your virtual real estate, just like a building address where people can visit you anytime. (This is very much advantageous to those who are doing business in the Web as prospective customers will uncomplicatedly find your business niche in the Internet, should you be able to establish a good one.)
• You can advertise your own website instead of someone else's when sending emails as your domain name will appear already in the email address that you are going to use. This is because once you got your own domain name, you will also have your own domain name email address i.e. emailadd@domainname instead of emailadd@yahoo.com or emailadd@gmail.com and others.
  
• Domain names are easier to remember as compared to free web hosts, and they allow you to change web hosts without losing your web address.
• It further allows you to use custom error pages to prevent people from leaving your site because of broken links and other errors.

HOWEVER, having your own domain name means shelling out some bucks from your pocket. You need to spend for its initial purchase and annual renewal as well as the annual renewal of your web hosting. Although cheap, expenses are still expenses. But if you have a kind friend who's willing to take care of your domain's hosting for free, so much the better. As for me, I don't have money nor that kind of friend, and there's no compelling reason yet to get one so I guess I will just have to settle with Blogger for the meantime. Eheh.

Sources: this and this.

Maktub!

Blog + Blogger + Blogging = Blogosphere.

Coined from the words web log, a blog is a website that is regularly maintained by an individual (usually) or by a group. It features an assortment of text (personal journal, commentary, description of events, advertisements), images, web links, web pages and other stuff such as graphics, audios and videos that have (or have even nothing) to do with the blog topic or theme. Depending upon the focus, most blogs are updated by textual posts or entries, or by art (artlog), photos (photoblog), sketches (sketch blog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) and others. Blogs also come in different genres to wit: personal, topical, political, business, health, literary, travel, research, legal, and educational. The act of updating posts or entries is called “blogging”, the one that does the blogging is called a “blogger”, and the world of weblogging or blog-related websites is being referred to as the “blogosphere”.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Problogger


As for this site, it is going to be more of a personal and topical blog. It will basically feature bits and pieces about law, reason, love, faith, life and anything in between. Images/photos, audios/MP3, videos and whatnots will also be added for delight and convenience purposes.

The posts or entries here are primarily intended for self-expression, but if they happen to impress you then that will just be the cherry on top. For one frustrated seasonal writer like me (please correct me if this is just a misconception on my part), putting up this blog is kind of hard. Not until nature forced me to learn and know anything about blogs and blogging, I had no any idea what it was about. As of the moment, I still need to learn a LOT; I’m just a neophyte in the blogosphere, as what my very, very beautiful and kind colleague called it. Well, like life, blogging is also best learned through experiences. So, here I am now – blogging my own way.

Maktub!