Manila Freelancer

Charice Pempengco wowed Americans in The Ellen DeGeneres Show

Charice Pempengco in her first appearance on American television, 15 year-old Charice Pempengco from the Philippines performs an incredible version of, “And I Am Telling You.” This kid wowed millions of Koreans and now Americans including no other than Ellen DeGeneres - One of Americas most respected TV Host.
About Charice Pempengco :

Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco, simply known by her screen name Charice Pempengco (born May 10, 1993), is a Filipino singer who started joining talent contents in the Philippines at age 7. Her first major win was at Bulilit Star Quest, a competition for aspiring young singers, at age 9. At 12, she placed third in the first season of Little Big Star, another ABS-CBN talent search show in the Philippines. Pempengco has since become popular through YouTube and was introduced to American television through The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Pempengco first attracted attention in the cyberworld when FalseVoice channel of YouTube posted her Little Big Star performance of Whitney Houston’s hit, “I Will Always Love You.” Many YouTubers thought her singing was fake and that she was only lip synching because of her unbelievable vocals. Another video that became a hit was a face-off between Pempengco and America’s Got Talent winner, Bianca Ryan. These videos brought Pempengco to the attention of Ten Songs Productions, a record company based in Sweden. She then traveled to Stockholm in June 2007 and recorded seven songs, among which were three cover songs, Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” and Shakespeare Sisters’ “Stay,” plus four originals, “Amazing,” “All The Money In The World,” “It Can Only Get Better,” and “Born To Love You Forever.” These songs will soon be released digitally.

A few months later, FalseVoice released a video of Pempengco singing the Dreamgirls anthem, And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going. This earned her an invitation from one of the biggest television networks in South Korea, Seoul Broadcasting System, in October 2007, to perform on a talent show called ‘Star King.’ The Korean audience was wowed by her jaw-dropping rendition of ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’, which made a lot of buzz throughout their country. Many viewers reposted her Star King performance on YouTube, and Pempengco found her way into American television. TV network E!’s The Daily Ten featured her Star King performance with the headline, “A Star Is Born” on November 14, 2007, and then crowned her ‘Queen’ on the Hollywood Royalty segment; this time with the headline, “A Queen Is Born” on November 16th. Pempengco’s performance on Star King was featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in the November 28, 2007 episode, in which Ellen showed web videos of different people she wished would guest on the show. After showing the video, DeGeneres did a standing ovation and imitated Pempengco’s gestures. She later personally invited the young singer to perform on the show.

On December 19, 2007, Charice sang her already popular “And I Am Telling You, I’m Not Going” and “I Will Always Love You” on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, leaving the audience and even DeGeneres herself in awe.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charice_Pempengco

It’s another season of the year, and if you haven’t begun planning that snowy ski vacation, you are definitely planning your summer escape to the beach. The photographs you take during your travels are the ones you will be looking back on years from now to remember all the fun you had, so why not have some pointers.

Depending on where you go, you will definitely find good subjects for your photos. Read some photography tips from Jeff Nolan, Manila Freelancer’s very first guest blogger.

With these 7 tips, your vacation photos can be better than ever.

1.) Plan photography into your trip

• Research various travel books of the places where you will be traveling, and decide which photos you want to use to make your memories. Then choose the best time of day for these photos – sunset or sunrise both offer the most flattering light.

[More]

Are you seriously doing your online marketing campaign? Do you want to utilize different PPC Advertising programs but you are afraid of click fraud? Based on the recent study, PPC advertising really does work! Before signing up for a PPC advertising contract, check on the websites customer feedback and their trust rating to avoid wasting your money. [More]

Every Year, Each Business is required to report their business sales tax to avoid being panalized. Can you imagine all sales tax computation extracted from your ledger manually? Not anymore, Quickbooks has an add-on program that can help you on your tax problems.

AvaTax ST is a hosted Web service that works behind the scenes of QuickBooks to validate customer addresses, provide a correct sales tax calculation for each transaction, automatically generate sales tax returns, and provide detailed sales tax reports. For businesses selling into multiple jurisdictions, this product provides enterprise-level sales tax automation using TaxWare sales tax data services.

AvaTax for QuickBooks offers automated sales tax computation based on your base rates. Now, QuickBooks users can remove that burden with AvaTax, saving time, ensuring accuracy and benefitting from sales tax compliance best practices. [More]

Think spending hours everyday in social networking sites is a waste of time? Well, not really if you’re an internet marketer or website owner. Social networking sites are virtual places on the internet where people naturally congregate. If you have some presence here, use that to your advantage as a form of marketing technique.

However, the big question is: how much time using social networking sites is too much?

It’s not the time, it’s what you do with it.
First of all, it’s not really about how much time you spend but what you do during those hours. Let’s say on any given day you spend about 6 hours a week using social networking sites. If you maximize these hours and promote your business actively, you would have used your time well. [More]

Everyone is busy for Christmas shopping this holiday season but not all of us are cautious before we swipe that plastic money. Credit card fraud is certainly on the rise and credit card fraud on the Internet is rising even more dramatically. Credit and charge card fraud costs cardholders and issuers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. While theft is the most obvious form of fraud, it can occur in other ways. For example, someone may use your card number without your knowledge. [More]

What in the world is a Blog and why would I want one? This is probably one of the burning question a lot of people are asking themselves everyday. Almost every blogger benefits from blogging, it could be personal or monetary. Starting a blog is quite easy, It pretty like a regular website you have started with Geocities.com before, it acts like a website but it is so much more.

I stumbled upon Thoughts.com, A website that can help you start a blog and learn at the same time. Thoughts.com is a free blog community that allows anyone to open an online journal, upload photos, videos or do podcasting, add friends and be rated for the quality of their posts. It is a combination of blog and social networking at the same time. It is a place where bloggers discuss things and meet other bloggers with the same interests. [More]

Or else you will join them. 1,500 plus CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines at practice! This is not the final routine, and definitely not a punishment! just a teaser.