Protecting my Identity

As what I have posted in my Twitter account, I’m really tempted to divulge my real identity here. But I can’t do that just yet. Well, actually, I used to post here using my real name but since I entered college almost two years ago, I gave myself a new identity because I don’t like people from the university to know that I blog. And that was when Christian Evangelista was born.

Just a bit of background about my pen name: the name Christian is my favorite name and if I were to be given the chance to rechristen myself, I would use this name (but of course, I still love the name my patents gave to me). That’s how I decided on my pseudonym’s first name. As for my pen name’s surname, I wanted something that would suggest that I’m a Filipino. The first family name that I thought of was Bautista. But then, there is a singer here in the country by the name Christian Bautista and as i don’t want to be linked with him, I had to think of another last name that I could use. And after some brain wracking moments, I settled with Evangelista. I’m planning to add a second name and maybe, a middle initial to complete my pseudonym but I can’t think of a name that would sound good when combined with Christian. Any suggestions?

The catch is, separating my offline and online life is hard, even with a pen name. Actually, my earliest readers and online friends like Tammy and Hener (whom I didn’t meet through the blogosphere but in a now obsolete forums dedicated to Harry Potter) know my legal name which makes it a bit harder for me to keep my real identity. I just hope that those few people who know my name can keep that as confidential. Haha.

Actually, if you are a gifted stalker, you would be able to know my real name. Some of those people who know my real name are even my contacts on Friendster. This is one of the many ways that you can use to track me down. All you need to do is to check their common friends. Haha. And that’s not even the easiest way, but of course, I’m not giving any other clues about my real identity or how you may know it. Haha.

On the other hand, to make your stalking activities more easier, let me give you my number: 09158399267 (I’m a Globe user). So yeah, text me, call me, stalk me. Lol. Just be sure that you do proper introduction1. Btw, that’s not the number my offline friends know.

The real thing that makes it difficult for me is that I don’t like having multiple accounts. One account is enough. So in some of my accounts where I use my real name, there are a number of people I met online who are included in my friends list. As for my accounts where I use my pseudonym, there are a few people I know from the offline world especially my high school friends who are in my contact list.

Yeah, I’m dead. My identity is being jeopardized. Haha. Well, someday I’ll post here my real name (and maybe, even my course). But then again, what will I do with my pseudonym? I’ve grown used to it and discarding it could be very hard for me.

  1. I rarely use this number so don’t expect a reply 100%. []

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Abused Web Applications

No, this is not a meme. I’ve decided to make this entry so I can share to you, my dear readers, some of the web applications (or simply webapp) available for free usage that I’ve been using. Dunno if you’ve heard of them, but still, let me write about them.

Google Analytics

This is one of the services available in the internet that stores your web statistic by just inserting a script on your code. But I don’t think it’s reliable because the script that you’ll add is JavaScript powered, so if your visitor has deactivated JavaScript, he or she won’t be recognized as a visitor. Oh, well, this service is for free, why not abuse it?

GMail

After I’ve got an invitation to join it, I left Yahoo Mail forever. Why? Gmail has so many features available free of cost. What’s more, it offers a whooping 2.8 GB (and counting) of storage. You would surely not need to delete anything for a long period of time.

Google Reader

This is my favorite service that Google offers. So what is this Reader? It’s a web-based feed aggregator. That means, when I subscribed to your feeds and when you publish a new entry, I’ll see and can read it in Reader without visiting your site.Great, hu? It helps me to tract those blogs with new posts that I still haven’t read. I really recommend this to all bloggers. You can subscribe to my feeds by clicking the “Subscribe to RSS” link that you can find at my footer.

Google Maps

No, I’m not a real user of this service. It does not give me any help as of the moment because the Philippines is not completely mapped. You won’t be able to see even just the main roads here in the Philippines. I hope in the near future, the Philippines is fully mapped so I can use it to get directions. That would be very great!

Flickr

This one is owned by Yahoo!. I’m new to this service. This web application is best if you can get a pro account (the paid one). Nevertheless, there are so many cool photos there (you can even do derivative works with some). This is must-subscribe-to if you’re a photographer or even photographer-kuno. From now on, I’ll get there the photos that I may need to use to create my layouts.

del.icio.us

Another web application owned by Yahoo!. This enables you to bookmark any page in the internet. Because of this web application, you can now see your bookmarked web pages anywhere, just be sure you have a computer with an internet connection :P .

FeedBurner

Oh, I really like the services that they offer. Because of this, I can save a little of my bandwidth. It gets my feeds, and then, it’ll do the rest of the work for me. It sort of republishes my feeds. That’s why if you have subscribed to my feeds you would see extra links below each post. It also gives me a statistic how many people have viewed my feed and my site.

DeviantArt

You’ll find great works here. From photography to painting. If you need some inspiration, this one is a great site to start with.

Friendster

Have you heard of the news that Filipinos have dominated Friendster? Lol. When it was still new, that was in 2004, I really got addicted to it. But now, it has lost it’s magic. The whole concept is now boring. But it amuses me that some senatoriables uses it, like Chiz Escudero, Trillianes, and Sharon Cuneta’s husband, Kiko Pangilinan for campaigning.

Technorati

I’ve been visiting this site more than the usual lately. Basically, for the sake of bloghopping. It’s also one way to tract what is the hottest topics in the blogosphere. It also tracts your blog’s rank but Shari says it’s not reliable.

That are just only ten of the numerous web applications that I’m using. If I would put all of them here, this might get really long and I don’t want you to get bored with all of these1. Do you know any web application that you may recommend to me?

  1. And if you haven’t noticed, I haven’t included WordPress. But do I still need to include it? []

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