Ashrufzz Reality Adventure

Vitamin for Your Hair Loss

2007-11-03T07:00:00.000+08:00

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On average, we can lose around 100 stands of hair a day. For people like myself who have a thick hair, sometimes when I scratch my head, a few hairs would fall out but I'm not concern about it because my it doesn't make much difference. If you have thin hair and your hair starts to fall everywhere such as when you wash your hair with shampoo and suddenly a group of hairs sticks on the foam, then it is time to consider products that can slow down hair loss and restores it.

At Trustsource.org, there is a review of products specifically for hair loss. One of the product is called provillus:

Provillus hair growth product is taken orally. It can supply of nutrients and lets the tiny follicles beneath your scalp receive exactly what they need to create beautiful, full-bodied hair. The best and the most effective way to provide your follicles with the nutrients they need is through the bloodstream which is absorbed through consumption of food in your stomach. Try it out now.

Unique Bedding: Enlightening Your Children Bedroom

2007-10-18T23:47:00.000+08:00

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When I was younger, my bedding was dull and normal. All the sheets are plain, the only thing different was it had colours. Compared that to our parents or grandparent's time, they probably only have white bedding. Nowadays, we have constantly change the way we decorate our room, the way we dress and a lot more. No more do we have to make our children bed the same as what we had before. We can now have unique childrens bedding and spice up our children's bedroom. Check out the designs that I really like to have for my childrens bedding:

Besides bedding, the following is also personalized according to your liking:

Throw Pillow
Pillow Sham
Lap Blanket
Throw Blanket
Bed Blanket
Twin Duvet
Twin Bedspread
Queen Duvet
Queen Bedspread
King Duvet

If you have your own digital images, for instance you want to put your face on the bedding, the personalized custom bedding is available. All of the bedding products are made from high-quality material so you won't have to argue about the quality of your childrens bedding. Get your children bedding now!

Obtaining Cash Advance Online

2007-09-29T07:23:00.000+08:00

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Are you looking for an extra cash to cover your business expenses, an emergency cash or for your own personal expenses? In the advent of the internet age, people are seeking out more opportunities or information online rather than using an agent. The reason is simple, some people just don't want to be sold by the agent which is more likely to be the salesperson which could led to a state called 'buyer's remorse'. With online payday loans, the process is much faster, you can hide sensitive information by become anonymous and no more waiting for days for the approval.

Cash Advance 1500 is a website that gives a lot of useful information to the readers. At the moment, they have 4 articles which I find might be helpful for those who had never read about online payday loans. The website is clean, the design is easy on the eyes and the navigation is pretty much simple and straight forward. If only financial information portals could look like this:

However, please bare in mind that this payday loan although it is fast to apply if you are eligible, you still have to pay them back anyhow so don't take it likely. You could ruin your financial health if you don't plan properly.

Overall, this is a great service if you are in need for a quick cash advance.

Track Your Logistics with GPS Insight

2007-09-25T06:17:00.000+08:00

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If you live in America and you drive a car, this service is something that can be useful for you and if you have a logistic company, its even better. We all know what GPS is, if you don't then GPS stands for Global Positioning System. It is a piece of technology that can locate where you are or whatever you have tagged on a map so that you know where it is. Pretty simple right?

GPS Insight is a company that provide vehicle tracking product targeted for service and trucking companies, e.g. HVAC, roofing, plumbing, construction, sales forces, delivery vehicles, long haul trucking, etc. Normally these companies have fleets of vehicle running around all over the place and keeping track of them can be a hassle without proper communicating tools. GPS Insight provide the necessary hardware and web software-based vehicle tracking system that is easy to install and get it up running in a short period of time.

Here's how the mapping software looks like, check out the screen shot taken from GPS Insight website:

Once a vehicle is located, a call out pop up will show up:

You'll probably want to check out the video demo for GPS Insight. I was astounded by the amount of information that GPS Insight can track. Imagine this, you owned a car and someone borrowed it to go to somewhere, you can literally know whether they are at home, idling the car, speeding or stopped by somewhere and that data is updated every 2 minutes. Utilizing Google Mapping software, the map is pretty much comprehensive and in some places, 3D. It's amazing.

Benefits of using GPS Insight are:

Gets direct engine diagnostics (fault codes, speed, fuel consumption, odometer readings, idle time, etc.)
Cost only $1.50-2 per day per vehicle
No more labor paid when people aren't really working, fuel savings, routing efficiencies, etc.)

If you are an avid fan of GPS technology, you should also check out GPS Insight Blog. It has tonnes of information of how to use GPS Insight in tracking your fleets of vehicle. If you have GPS Insight already installed and need help, GPS Insight Support page has a wiki just in case you have questions regarding GPS Insight.

Overall, GPS Insight is simply a remarkabe product.

Anglian Home Improvement

2007-09-19T06:48:00.000+08:00

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If you owned a home in UK, as of any home owners in the entire world, you are most likely would like to make some home improvement. The reason is based on individual preferences but the common thing that we always strive for is to improve or at least sustain our current state.

Anglian Home Improvement has been around in the UK since 1966. Anglian Home Improvement has many high quality home improvement products and services provided. Product lines and services listed on their side menu on their website is:

uPVC Windows
uPVC Doors
Conservatories
Rooftrim
Driveways
Garage Doors
Garage Conversions
Kitchens

What I find most interesting Anglian Home Improvements is providing is the conservatories. What is a conservatory? Well according to Wikipedia:

A conservatory is a glass and metal structure traditionally found in the garden of a large house.

I have never seen a conservatory before, how does a conservatory look like?

In other word, a conservatory is also called a greenhouse. Using Anglian expertise and products, your own private conservatory can be built with an approval from the right authority so you can have a peace of mind both on your construction paper work and when your greenhouse is done. It will never get better than that elsewhere.

Home Improvements is always at its best and high quality with Anglian Home Improvement.

Visiting Spain's 2 Major Cities

2007-08-26T22:09:00.000+08:00

According to Wikipedia, Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe just after France. The capital of Spain is Madrid with population of over 5 million residents. The next important metropolitan in Spain is Barcelona.

With 2 big cities in Spain, finding accomodation would be more than a challenge. It could become a nightmare. That is why Cheaperthanhotels offers last minute and year round accommodation at hotels, apartments and hostels in Spain at prices generally less than direct, with free inclusions and use of facilities.

Madrid offers a lot of attractive places especially historic neighborhoods and streets. A few landmark for Madrid includes three superb arts museums: Prado Museum which one of the finest art collections in the world, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, a modern art museum and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.

As the capital of a country, the nightlife in Madrid is never dull. It is said that on weekends, Madrilenian youth are famous for dancing all night long. In the vicinity of the Plaza de Santa Bárbara, the Glorieta de Bilbao and Alonso Martínez, a large number of popular bars, pubs, fast food restaurants and ice cream parlors are concentrated. If you are interested in accomodations in Madrid, visit Hotels in Madrid to find out more information.

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain. The old city of Barcelona, The Barri Gòtic has many buildings date from medieval times. La Sagrada Família is a large Roman Catholic public building with astounding architecture. Barcelona's nightlife is as rich and varied as you'd expect of any major city which attracts tourists and students.

To find out more about accomodations in Barcelona, visit Hotels in Barcelona or Hoteles en Barcelona for a comprehensive information about it.

Get Yourself Covered When Traveling

2007-06-27T22:42:00.000+08:00

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Almost everybody at some point of their life travel somewhere. I don't think I have ever met a person who hasn't traveled anywhere in his entire life. With today's modern transportation, the time taken to go anywhere is a lot shorter and faster. Taking speed into account, it is a lot riskier traveling these days compared to before modern transportation were created. However, the good thing is we can get protection nowadays from anything that might happen to us when we travel.

What kind of protection are we talking about? If you have some knowledge about financial stuff, you'll definitely know about insurance. From what my experience has showed me, if you apply for any loan whether a car loan, a home loan or probably a credit card, you might have automatically bought yourself an insurance policy. The reason; the person or entity that have given you the loan need to secure themselves financially if something were happen to you. It's basically a win-win situation where you don't have to burden anyone else when you are incapable of paying back the loan or medical expenses if you happen to get injured.

You might be surprised if you asked people around you and they tell you that they don't have any insurance policy. Some of them might not even aware if they have one or not. It's a matter of education, well there's plenty of information out there on the internet. Back to our main topic, while most life insurance policies cover you in case something happen to you, they only cover you with a lot of exception. If you are too old, you are not covered. If you have serious illness or known diseases, you are not covered. If you travel, you are not covered. The list goes on and on and on. Let's cut the crap, here's a better way to get an insurance when you travel:

The above is a website claims that they offer travel insurance for every occasion. Their claim might be true. I haven't tried it yet but I do like to know that have other alternatives just in case I have difficulties in getting the right coverage. So far, I've never seen any travel insurance being offered this way but then again, I haven't been traveling overseas for a very long time so I'm not really looking for any travel insurance yet.

It is interesting to learn that we already have to tool to make our life easier just in case something happen to us. I kind of adore how the layout of the website is being built. It has this Web 2.0 kind of look. The navigation is neat and I can manage through the website without getting confused. I haven't tried the quick qoute because I'm not so sure if the travel insurance is valid in my country or not. From a plus perspective, I really like what they are offering and their website layout. Very interesting indeed.

Learn more about this medical travel insurance.

Your Hawaiian Vacation Spot

2007-06-18T19:53:00.000+08:00

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Most of us doesn't really realized this but Hawaii is part of the United States. It's the only state that is completely surrounded by water, it has lava flowing out from mother eath which causes the area of Hawaii to grow and it has no territory on the mainland of any continent. There is also a mountain called Mauna Kea which is taller than Mount Everest but only if measured from its based at the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

By just reading that facts alone, doesn't that makes Hawaii interesting for you? If you want to know more about Hawaii, you can search for Hawaii on Wikipedia and read more interesting stuff. Hawaiian Beach Rentals offers a variety of services which includes:

Vacation rentals
Hotels
Condos
Extended Stay
Airfare
Car rentals
Packages
Reviews

It also has a search feature that enables you to do a vertical search on the exact location that are in your interest. If I were to plan my honeymoon or a vacation trip to Hawaii, Hawaiian Beach Rentals would definitely be my top website for my destination research.

Check out some of the Hawaiian images below, I wish I could be there soon:

What Will I Consider For A Merchant Account

2007-06-15T16:20:00.000+08:00

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This is my second post on behalf of Advantage Processors. My first post was an overview about Advantage Processors website, so this time we narrow it down to the Tutorial and Merchant Account Processing.

Advantage Processors has compiled a list of quality articles in my opinion. One of the best article that I found pretty much useful to me is the Glossary. From my opinion, a reader need to read the glossary first before even read the rest of the other financial stuff. A glossary is like a dictionary where it tells you the meaning of a word and how it is used in a writing. When you have enough vocabulary in your head, things would slowly starts to make sense and you can always think wisely before making any decisions.

Some of the keywords that is inside the glossary page is:

chargeback
chargeback fees
contingent liability
credit-card processing
discount rate
fraud
high risk
merchant account
monthly minimum fees
cardholder
factoring
net settlement amount
pass-through fees
processors
offshore merchant accounts
reserve storefront solutions
transaction fee

You might be surprise to know that there are business owner themselves have no idea of most of the topics above. Unlike bloggers, one of the reason might be the lack of proper reading or too much time spent on business operation rather than knowing the basic topics of business or in this case, merchant accounts.

Now that we've all learned our lessons. Let's read more about business merchant account.

Smorty: Get Paid To Blog

2007-06-06T20:18:00.000+08:00

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In today's blogging world, there are plenty of opportunities to scout around. Eventually, things can get pretty saturated, so that would be one of the reason my blog advertising services hadn't been offering opportunities to blog for money.

Well, things will get so much better now. With more people jumping in the blogging bandwidth, there are ample of opportunities to get paid for blogging. Advertisers are more and more noticing the power of blogging. So, for those of you who love to blog, don't stop blogging yet. It's just a matter of time we all could reap the reward and benefit ourselves.

A few days ago, I found a new blog advertising provider called Smorty. I guess they are from Australia. What I love about their website layout is they use a clean and round cornered boxes. I just love curves rather than the boring old boxy layout that other's are doing. Well, my blog hasn't been corner rounded yet but I'll concentrate on content first.

Blog advertising has been around for a while these days. I previously was an online advertiser before I ran short on fund last time and I find that blogs have this certain strength rather than directly communicating through direct advertising channel. I would certainly would love to advertise on blogs.

Give Smorty a try and get paid to blog.

Digital Photo Frame

2007-06-06T07:56:00.000+08:00

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As a blogger, on of the thing that matters to me is to take shot of pictures wherever I am are on the go so that I could have something to write about. For that, having a digital camera or at least a camera phone is something of a must for me. With digital images, there are no need to have an inventory or requires a lot of space in storing them unlike the old days. All of it can be stored in your computer or these days, upload them to photo sharing website such as Flickr, Photobucket, Yahoo Photos and so on.

There one issue when we store all of those digital pictures, it got buried away together with the rest of all the other photos that we've taken after such year. It's actually quite ashame. If only we could get a frame so that we could get a frame so that we could display all of our photos somewhere. There is a solution for that:

Introducing The Digital Photo Frame by Digital Framez. Basically it's a modified TFT active LCD display that is customized to become a picture frame. Unlike the normal LCD display of a computer, it's smaller and lighter and can be hanged over on your wall be it on your living room, your SOHO or even in your bathroom (not recommended though since it's an electronic piece of equipment). It even has sound too. It supports a lot your digital camera equipment where it has a built-in memory car reader. There's also a USB port if you use pendrive to store those digital pictures.

How do we use this Digital Photo Frame? Check out the diagram below:

As you can see above, it's very simple. There is a lot other thing you can do with this digital picture frame. It's all up to your imagination. The price is reasonable too.

Head over to Digital Framez and order one digital photo frame for yourself, your loved one or for someone you really care.

My PayPerPost Love

2007-05-19T20:41:00.000+08:00

I've been writing sponsored blog posts for quite some time already. I don't really write much as my previous sponsored blog provider only e-mails me whenever there is such opportunity to do so. Still, I my only concern is I don't find it interesting to read text book kind of writing. So being that case producing high quality post that has my personality is my number one priority when writing blog posts.

I've registered with PayPerPost for quite some time ago. However, I have not wrote any sponsored blog post provided by PayPerPost yet. The reason; I was lazy to find open opportunities that they have to offer. Another reason is, PayPerPost administration page is so slow that I wandered off somewhere and had forgotten that I was supposed to learn, find and write about sponsored blog post from PayPerPost.

Since this would be my first ever sponsored blog post from PayPerPost, I'm penniless at the moment. I did however earned almost USD70 from my previous sponsored blog post provider and here what I did with the money I had earned:

Traded for cash (It was hard to convert to cash in banks from country)
Bought domain names for myself
Bought web hosting services
Bought a cheap e-book

I guess when I made some money with PayPerPost, I'd be doing the same thing but I should be focusing on writing blog post first.

What I've learned from writing sponsored blog post is that there are certain stuff that we don't really know but because of the motivation to earn that money, we somehow still pursue on digging the information to write about it. Therefore, by writing sponsored blog posts, it can be a new discovery by itself.

Word of mouth marketing these days are becoming more and more trusted. This is because we are now listening to the person that we trust instead of some lame marketing ploy that just wants our money. It is definitely crucial for business and word of mouth can travel a lot faster than we can ever imagine. Which is why I love PayPerPost effort in spreading the word of mouth marketing.

Public Announcement

2007-03-06T23:43:00.000+08:00

Celebrating my new career as an open source web/blog administrator, I am officially ending my blogging activity on Blogger dot com. I now have a new place to blog, play around with customizations, modifications, plug-ins and all the latest web 2.0 toys at:I don't do graphic design very well but I can modify them anyhow. Still, I'm working on my design and hopefully there are people out there who would appreciate my masterpiece. If you are wondering why I don't just migrate or copy all my previous posts, read this.

Farewell to my old blogger blog. Adios amigos, you have been so kind to me!

To my new blog http://www.ashrufzz.com

Why You Should Not Migrate Your Blogger Blog Posts To Wordpress

2007-03-03T13:42:00.000+08:00

Last week, after I got enough funds on my PayPal account from my sponsored post activities, I went on an online shopping spree. I paid USD35.99 for a web hosting service which gave me my own Ashrufzz.com domain. Click here if you are interested for the full features. So if you are broke and you desperately like to have your own domain name and a shared web-hosting service and willing to do what I do, let me introduce you to Blogvertise.

Nowadays, there are a few paid blogging services and all you need to do to fill up your PayPal account is to register a free blog. Write blog posts based on what the provider has instructed, wait for a month and you will receive the payment through your PayPal. Of course in order for you to receive the money, you need to add a credit or debit card (I'll write a blog post on this) on your PayPal account. If you don't have any, then borrow for someone and pay them or ask your parents.

If you don't want to buy any web hosting or maybe you don't have any idea on what domain you should be buying, then get a free PHP web hosting. One of my successful Wordpress installation that is now being used by a company (A friend of mine who works with the company bribed me with a Pizza Hut free meal voucher just get it set up remotely). Occasionally, the web host is unstable but that is what you get when it is free, right?

I like Wordpress very much but I'm not going to give up on my Blogger Blog yet. So, what do I do? After reading all these blog posts:

I have decided to let my Blogger Blog to be remained and I'll be starting to blog on my brand new Ashrufzz (It will be re-launch as Ash-Ruf-Double Zee dot com) powered by the Wordpress 2.1.1.

Why did I decided not to migrate all my blogger blog posts to wordpress? Well, here a few reason why:

I like the fact that I can still see my past creation.
I believe Blogger would be around for a long time and that would assure me that this blog will be online for the readers to read without me paying for anything.
I don't want to mess around with the inbound link that is pointing to this blog and also some permalink that is directed within this blog.
I don't really mind loosing the PageRank as good, unique and quality blog posts has far more value than a green bar indicator.

As far as I appreciate blogger for doing a good job hosting my blog, I don't want to make duplicate copies like what Shannon did. I will however make sure that the product shall remain as it is.

I'll begin the development of my brand Wordpress blog over the weekend. I'm excited to be announcing it soon!

Fireworks Mania

2007-02-27T07:56:00.000+08:00

Two nights ago right before the day I'm starting my new job, there was chaos on my neighbourhood. Well, actually it was everywhere in KL I supposed. From what I heard, that night was a night to chase away the sky devil. So, the fireworks were intended to do the jobs. There was also "Flying Tanglungs" decorating the sky. I'm not so sure if it is correct or not, but every year I keep seeing more and more of these fireworks. The most interesting part, there was also fireworks during "Hari Raya Aidil Fitri".

Anyway, I was wide awake during the firework display just outside of my bedroom windows. So, again after Chinese New Year 2007 Firework Display, I present 3 more videos I shot during the night's firework show that lasted almost an hour:

Oh well, nothing much happened. Let's see another one:

My car is parked just in front of outside my house. Lucky these people didn't played with big firecrackers or something could have happen to it.

I got crazy and just enjoyed the show.

It didn't stop there as there were 3 places where the fireworks was launched. It was a really busy night.

Either way, I still had a good night sleep after all the fireworks settled. Looking for more fireworks next year.

True Fitness Gym 2nd Visit

2007-02-25T15:47:00.000+08:00

Last July 2006, I got a call from True Fitness and invited me for a tour and a free pass to try out their facilities for one week. I chickened out from them after looking at the price. I've blogged about it: Are You Health Conscious?.

Last Thursday, I got a call from True Fitness again. They are again inviting me to come and pick up their 1 week free trial pass. Only this time, they have a system that sends out SMS to remind you of the appointment you made with one of their consultants. I missed my appointment I made on last Friday evening because my boss had a farewell evening tea for me. Yesterday, they called me up again and scheduled another appointment. I was hesitant at first but thinking about it, "Oh what the heck!". The appointment was made this morning at 11am.

I think I should take back what I've said in my previous post by just save your money and jog some place free. If you have the time and money, go ahead and become a gym member (No sales commission for me though). Your health is far more important than your money. It is so easy to crawl back into your unhealthy lifestyle especially for a TV potato couch like myself. At my former office, there is a gym and a swimming pool just 4 floors below that I can just pop in and work out. I never did. Tomorrow, I'm going to work at a new office and that place is also equipped with a gym and swimming pool (I'm just so lucky, don't you think? hehe..). Hopefully, I could make use of it wisely before I consider a paid gym membership.

So, back to gym tour. Again, I had another tour with the gym consultant by the name of Kimy. He's a nice Malay dude (skinny like me also) and I was really comfortable with him. During the tour, I did noticed a couple of new machines and here a tip, if you don't like the crowd when you want to work out, crawl out from your bed and come do it on a Sunday morning. There is less crowd during that time. I also had a 'fat test' where I scored "Acceptable". I think I should increase that level to "Good" and build up more muscle to gain more weight.

Now comes the hard part, pricing. After Kimy did his True Fitness presentation, he did the dissapearing act and call upon his manager. His manager came out and discussed about the price that would be affordable for me. There was a joining fee of RM500 and RM140 processing fees. All that was slashed and I only need to pay a RM50 deposit to secure a price of RM159 per month. Their price has now gone up from the last time I went there. I thought they are going to lower their price as more and more people are signing up with them. Anyway, they preferred paying using credit cards, unfortunately I don't have one. I then managed to talk to Kimy to hold on to that price until I have the cash to pay up for the membership. However, I finally got my free 1 week trial pass for me to use all of their gym facilities.

I then tried working out using the threadmill and a ski running machine. My leg trembled after that since I have long never went on working out. I think I should cut a few hours of watching TV and plan out more time for working out.

By the way, while Kimy was giving me the presentation in the lounge, there was a couple in front of me across the table and the guy I saw look really familiar. I'm not really sure if he was the guy since he wasn't with his girlfriend or maybe his girlfriend looks different or so. Furthermore, I've never even met the guy yet but he has an awesome blog. The guy was wearing a sleeveless shirt and a short (black and dark blue), a pair of rimless spectacles and some big sized sport shoes. Elaneman, was that you?

Stay healthy and prosperous everyone.

Farewell Old Job - Hello New Job

2007-02-24T01:46:00.000+08:00

There an old saying which I find very important relating to jobs: "If you're the smartest person where you work, quit". What does that mean? Basically - if you work with people smarter than you, you'll learn a lot. If you don't, you won't.

I'm finally glad I am officially resigned from my job right now. Eventhough I got a new job waiting ahead of me, I'm taking the liberty of having the 'jobless status' over the weekend. I sure feel very relieved as the burden on my shoulder is now gone. However, I do expect to receive calls from my replacement who will be asking on what to do and stuff she is still struggling to understand, it doesn't bother me anymore as I am feeling happy right now.

Alright, let's see what my role are and what I've done for the former company that I have served for 27 months or 2 years and 3 months:

Taking over the technical role of the company by learning the software solution that the company represents. (December 2004)
Taking over the reception/administration role of the company by learning book keeping, documents filing, preparing payroll and doing clerical work such as proposal and edit and proofreading the boss's marketing letter and proposals. (February 2005)
Brought in some help (my brother) into the company to assist me on technical support. (March 2005)
Single handedly developed the company's website which includes a wordpress blog. (April 2005)
Brought in another help (a girl I met on Friendster) on board the company to assist me on book keeping and reception. (May 2005)
Organized a 1 week training session for one of the company's client at Intekma Resort Shah Alam. (May 2005)
Cleaned up and packed all the company's stuff and documents to a temporary office in Subang. (June 2005)
Took up an IT practical student from a polytechnic after my book keeping staff resigned. (July 2005)
Moved to a brand new office suite at Amcorp Mall, PJ. (September 2005)
Took up another IT practical student from a local private institution. (October 2005) *These practical students are sometime worthless, they don't have their own initiative and needed to be spoon fed. What's going on with them?
Became a project coordinator for one of the company's client doing IT implementation. (October 2005 - April 2006) *The project was discontinued for some odd reasons.
Pulled in a good friend of mine into the company to become a data entry officer for the IT Project. (January 2006)
Prepared countless of proposals and marketing letter for the boss and sent it out.
Update the company's websites and the blog.
Taking care of technical documentations eventhough I have no idea at first.
Resolved technical problems concerning the company's computers and internal network.
Taking any inbound calls for the office.
And other stuff which can be endless to list here...

Wow..that's a lot of stuff that I have done. The price paid for the job I did was only RM27,000 for approximately 27 months. Quite cheap don't you think so? Even my replacement is going to get paid RM18,000 per year. I wonder how am I going to get a cheap labour guy like that for my own company when I have one. Oh well, I could have make more money if I went to a bigger company. My friend all thought me as crazy for doing such high valued job for a fraction of the price. Just as the saying "If you're the smartest person where you work, quit", I kind of feel used by my company furthermore underpaid. I do feel stressed out knowing about that but I am still determined to think that there must be something rewarding awaits me after this. Maybe there is in my next new job next week, we'll see.

Here's some slide show pictures of me at my former company:

So, what do you think of my former office? Anyway, if you need some inspiration regarding careers and jobs read Technical Revenue: Why I Work At Google by Paul Tyma, a Google Inc. employee. They are in on different level. Gosh..how I envy them!

A Free 30 Minutes Sales Training

2007-02-22T15:24:00.000+08:00

Back in 2004, after failing through my telemarketing job. I went on pursuing my interest in the personal development world by attending free seminars around KL city. Most of the seminars that I went involves on wealth creation as I was crazy to get rich back then. Although I still dream of becoming rich which so many of us do, I now like to keep it real and just consider money as just a financial tool to get what we want. The first sales job that I went promise an income of RM2,000 to RM4,000 per month by just being on the phone. I then realized that I hate telemarketing and most of all cold calling. It just gives me the creep to call an unknown person and sell them stuff which even myself doesn't have yet. If you are an extrovert person, I think you'll have no problem to warm up your conversation.

Enough of crapping out. Here's a video which took me a whole day to convert and then upload it to Google Video (I'll write about "How I convert from VCD to MPEG format to upload to YouTube or Google Video" later). It's a 30 minutes preview video that was normally shown before you came into the introduction seminar. I got a hold of the VCD while working with Marco Robinson. I Hope it would be useful to share this video with all of you readers on the internet.

For more information if you are interested on sales training or wealth seminar, you can log on to Total Wealth Makeover blog created while I was still working with Marco Robinson.

Where To Get A Merchant Account

2007-02-20T02:05:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by:

With todays diverse and dynamic market, it is crucial for any business regardless of offline and especially online, to have electronic transaction ability in place. Electronic transactions mean a cashless trade for products or services between a merchant and a client/customer. However, there are so many independent merchant providers out there competing against each other plus they are also competing with the ever most legal powerful banks that you may find it hard to make a choice. This is where Advantage Processors can help you.

Although I find too little information on the About Page of Advantage Processors website, I believe if you are truly genuinely looking for some advice or consultation, they will most likely help you to find the best merchant account for you. Whether it is a new account or just checking out the best rates for your merchant account, ask away for using their Merchant Account Application.

What I really like about Advantage Processors is the hidden page of their Tutorial for Merchant Account Processing. There are so many useful articles and tutorials on their list. I've learned a couple of new things by reading those articles. One of them which I like the most is Different Types of Merchant Accounts. I Really enjoyed their library of financial tools.

Chinese New Year 2007 Firework Display From My Bedroom

2007-02-18T14:21:00.000+08:00

I have been living in Kuala Lumpur for more than 10 years already. The place that I live has a mixture of Chinese, Malay and Indian so when the festive season of our culture came, we have the same opportunity to observe and enjoy them together. Yesterday was a wet day since it was raining from early morning till the evening despite the weather department forecasting a dry spell because of the El-Nino phenomenon.

Anyway, last night was the day before Chinese New Year so after midnight, as usually for the past couple of years, I can see fireworks just outside of my bedroom windows. I guess the Chinese community are now getting richer and richer. Although firework is illegal in this country, they never seem to fail getting supplies of them. Wait till 'Chap Goh Meh' comes, that time there will be more fireworks everywhere from where I live.

So, armed with my father's 3 years old Kodak Easy DX6490 with built-in memory, I took this video from inside my bedroom window. You can hear my voice in the video, so now you know how I sound like ;-)

Gung Xi Fat Choy!

For a better view of the video, click here.

Why Outsource Your Online Marketing

2007-02-16T01:10:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by

For serious online entrepreneurs, it can be quite challenging to juggle all those detail tasks. We all have the same amount of time in a day, so in order to do more for less, we always need help. However, help alone is useless if the help that we want doesn't fit the job. This is where we have to trade something in order to get what we are going to achieve. We outsource!

Now this is where DiscountClick can really help. Well, maybe you are a bit skeptical about what I'm writing because I get paid to do it. Well, maybe you should, but think about it. Do you really want to do everything on your own? Are you prepared to fail by investing your time learning something about marketing online? Shouldn't you be doing the stuff that you do best?

So, what does DiscountClick can offer? Here's a few list of services they provide:

Natural Search Engine Optimization
Pay Per Click Setup, Tracking and Management Tools
Ad Serving
List Management
And many more..

Check out DiscountClick Customers and their partners and see their credibility. If I had the cash and the projects to launch, I would definitely try and ask for their services. Maybe you should try too.

Discovering Snow In The Tropical

2007-02-15T19:28:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday afternoon, after skipping 2 week of classes for my CCNA certificate, I went on an escapade. Being a bootstrapper, the escapade was of course, a cheap and affordable one. The place I went to was The Malaysia Agriculture Park (Taman Pertanian Malaysia Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam). Previously, the place was named Taman Pertanian Bukit Cerakah but that was a long time ago.

Here's better map for you to see where you are heading:

The entrance ticket for the park is RM3 for adult and RM1 each for your children's. You have the option to ride on the park's bus/coaches, rent bicycles or just walk on foot. No fees for riding the bus/coach but you need to pay RM3/hour for the bicycle ride. Before we go further, I would like to introduce you to 3 beautiful ladies who accompanied me to this beautiful park:

It's every man dream to be escorted by ladies to such wonderful place such as the Malaysia Agriculture Park. Am I lucky or what? One of them is actually my girlfriend though. You can guess which is 'the one' later in this post.

The Malaysia Agriculture Park has many sections (as you can on the map above) such as the Orchid Garden, Cactus Garden, Animal Park and many more. So, if you are going to explore all those places, I suggest you come early as you can. I however went there 30 minutes before the main gate is closed (Closed at 4.30pm). So, there are a lot of places that I've actually missed out. Anyway, the main reason I came there was to visit the highlight of the park which is the Four Season Temperate Garden. That is the place where I can see and touch snow. It is basically a big giant freezer adjusted according to the current climate of the other part of the earth but that is what makes the place so special.

Isn't she lovely? Well, don't get distracted yet. Let's go and buy the tickets to enter the garden:

I think RM3 is cheap enough. Ice skating at Sunway Pyramid cost RM14 which is 5 times expensive. It's hot and humid outside, let's go inside quick.

Now this is a diagram shown before entering the four season temperate garden. You don't want to look at it? Well, let's go inside and touch some snow.

Look at them, they like it in the cold weather. At least for the first couple of minutes. There is a sign telling the visitors not to stay inside the temperate garden for more than 3 minutes. We actually spent almost half an hour inside there and my hands almost got numb. We took as many pictures that we can before we went outside to warm ourselves up. I wonder how is it like to be in such a cold country.

For the rest of the trip:

The last time I went to Malaysia Agriculture Park was nearly 5 years ago. At that time, the hanging bridge was still there and I had the opportunity to experience it. It was a long, tough and exciting walk. Unfortunately, a few days later after that, there was a storm and from the news it was announced that a tree fell onto the hanging bridge. So, the hanging bridge walk is discontinued until today. I think I'll pay this place another visit because there are so many places I've missed because the lack of time.

For more information, you can visit the links below:

Sonic Gear Morro 200 2.0 Multimedia Speakers Review

2007-02-09T12:28:00.000+08:00

After I went to The "Wow" Windows Vista Launch, I head to an IT superstore on the 3rd floor of Low Yat Plaza. A friend of mine works there. He has been working there ever since he graduated from his Diploma in Electrical Engineering and is still there. I don't know why he doesn't change jobs like I do (I'm going to be in my 4th job next month), but he might have a nice reason to stay there I guess.

The good thing about having a long serving friend at an IT store is, you can always ask for a greater discount than everybody else. So, after surveying other speakers they have in store, I've settled down on Sonic Gear Morro 200 2.0 Multimedia Speakers. The price of this speakers was RM19 but I got it down to RM17 by my friend there. It was a steal since the speaker was on promotion. This speaker is not for me, it is for my girlfriend's Acer Aspire 3683 laptop. I've tested the Acer Aspire 3683 laptop speakers and it has a pathetic built-in speakers.

So, how does it score after I tested it out? I'll go into the features I like first. The speakers is USB powered, that means no additional bulky power adapter needed. I hate to have another power adapter because my power cord plug extension is already full. So now I can just plug my speakers into a vacant USB port and enjoy the music. I really like the sleek futuristic black design an the illuminating blue LED. Plus, the speakers have a headphone jack in case you need a private moment. If you have a headphone directly connected, you'll notice that even if you set the volume to the max, it doesn't sound good enough. This speaker will juice the sound up, kind of like an amplifier.

However, the small 6 watts speakers when tune up to a higher level, you'll hear a cracking noise. Since it is not built for high performance and it is the cheapest quality speaker I can find, you get what you pay for. I tried a trance music on my My Dell Inspiron 630m, the built-in speakers for that laptop does a better job than Sonic Gear Morro 200 speakers.

Still, as a bootstrapper, I value the practicality and the look of this speakers and for RM19 a piece, it is quite a bargain.

The "Wow" Windows Vista Launch At Low Yat Plaza KL

2007-02-04T21:55:00.000+08:00

I got back this evening from Low Yat Plaza, Bukit Bintang Plaza to have a peek of the Windows Vista and 2007 Microsoft Office launch. Most people in Malaysia is aware of Low Yat Plaza being the premiere IT shopping paradise and people going there is on a buying mode making sales easier for shop owners and salesperson, maybe that is one of the reason Microsoft decided to host their launch there and hopefully making more sales of their products:

Knowing the bad traffic at Bukit Bintang and the high parking fees, I went there with my old trusted motorbike thus saving me a lot money (I spent only RM2 just for my motorbike petrol). So, after I parked my motorbike at the free motocycle parking bay inside the Low Yat Plaza, the new Windows Vista logo greeted me:

It's actually a time capsule where there is a timeline of the Windows product family:

Inside there is also some showcases of the 2007 Microsoft Office and some of the beautiful GUI presentation of Windows Vista. I've never seen the Windows Vista in action before so it is quite awesome.

The view of the grand stage. I arrived there just 10 minutes before 6pm. I was supposed to go there yesterday night for the official launch and watch the presentation. Unfortunately, I had other stuff planned so I postponed my visit to today. Maybe because the show was almost over, so the crowd wasn't too many or maybe they are much more interested to go and shop inside Low Yat Plaza rather than wandering outside.

Anyway, before I went to Low Yat, I had a glimpse of Windows Vista by installing Thoosje Vista Sidebar. Here's my Vista desktop view:

Windows vista button has no "Start" word anymore. It is now just a sleek logo of windows. My desktop hasn't been configured that way yet. Well, it is a Windows XP Home Edition still and I have no intention to upgrade to Vista yet. For me, the highly beautiful graphic user interface (GUI) that Windows Vista incorporate is rather resource consuming so you better have at least 1GB of RAM or even better, a good graphic display card such as ATI Radeon or equivalent. Mine is a shared memory of 512MB RAM with the motherboard chipset. My FireFox browser normally consumes more than 50% of my computer memory so those awesome GUI will just add to slowing down my system.

Until I can afford to pay RM800 for an original copy of Windows Vista (Basic full version), I think I would just settle with a piece of software (like the one I'm using now) to mimic the Windows Vista feel. Moreover, the current Windows XP is still usable and working fine. There is no need for an upgrade at the moment. Either way, if you feel like upgrading, then go ahead. Hope your hardware is good enough to crunch those sleek, stylish and shiny transparent desktop environment.

How I Got My Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card

2007-02-03T15:43:00.000+08:00

Back in early November, after realizing that BCB MasterCard Debit card has been discontinued, I wrote that I wanted to apply for a Public Bank Visa Electron as a change. I finally did, here's a picture of my Public Bank Visa Electron debit card:

It took me a while to obtain this useful debit card for my online transaction. Firstly, I'm guilty of procrastinating thing and secondly, I was doing something else, that is for sure. However with my new pay on my upcoming new job, I am going to be eligible to apply for a credit card. Still, if I wanted to be debt free, I think I would be better staying away of those addicting credit cards. As you know, with more buying power comes greater paying responsibilities.

So, laying out the steps, here's a step by step explanation of what I did to get my hand on this debit card.

Step 1

After doing some extensive research on forums and other people's blog, the right thing to do to apply the card is to dot it online on Public Bank's website. Why apply online? From the input I received, if you go to your nearest branch, they will give you a form and asked you to post your application to Public Branch HQ nearby KLCC. Save yourself the petrol money apply it here.

Step 2

After you have finished Step 1, you'll be asked to print out the filled up application form, sign it and attach a photocopy of your Malaysian Identity Card. Post the form along with your photocopy of IC to the Public Bank address given. Now, your job is done, be patient and wait.

Some details here, I sent the application online on Wednesday 27th December 2006, post the application form using the snail mail on Thursday 28th December 2006. Since I live in KL, it should take like a day to arrive to Public Bank HQ. I could send it myself on my motorbike but it too much of a hassle, beside I'd be better spending 30 cent on postage than RM2 on my motorbike fuel.

After 21 days (or 3 weeks) which was on the 18th January 2007, I got my approval letter sent to me at home. The letter as you can see on the above includes my brand new card number and asked me to deposit at least RM25 into my approved debit card in order for them to send me the physical card. The RM25 should remain inside the account at anytime to make sure the card is active. If I don't deposit any money into the account within 2 months, the card would be discarded.

Here's the not so good part. On Monday 22nd January 2007, armed with RM50 cash to deposit. I went to my nearest Public Bank branch in Batu 3, Jln Ipoh, KL and found out that there was no cash deposit machine. There was only an ATM machine and a cheque deposit machine only. Since it was after working hour, I couldn't deposit the money over the counter. So, I returned home pissed and did an online transfer using Maybank2u instead. Maybank2u charges RM2 for interbank transaction and they say that it will take them 2 business days to complete the transaction. Yet another delay. My advice is to just do an online transfer and pay those RM2 service charge. You'll be a lot glad doing that fighting your way to the bank.

4 days later or on the 26th January 2007, my Public Bank Visa Electron arrived on my doorstep by the national courier service Poslaju. Still, I have no idea whether the card can be used or not because on the package letter, it says that the PIN number would be mailed separately. I did however tried verifying my PayPal account to receive a pending USD27 on my Paypal account (I'll blog about how I got my PayPal verified later).

Overall, it took me 30 days or a whole month to obtain my Public Bank Visa Electron. It could be done earlier but you need some extra effort I think. Now, that finishes my report on getting a Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card. What I need right now is my PIN number to check my online statement (if there is any).

Related post:

Where To Find A PhatCap

2007-01-30T00:56:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday, I was on a mission to find an item popularized by a local Malaysian Hip Hop group called Too Phat. I'm not really a big fan of them but I do love their songs. You can look at some of their video clips on YouTube. In 2005, they launched their very own wearing item products. One of them is called, The PhatCap. It is basically a cap with a "KL" logo on the front. The concept is really interesting because they are branding the name KL City where I live and the PhatCap name.

I'm not a cap wearer. The reason I bought the PhatCap was because my friend in Sarawak asked me to buy one for his son. At RM59.90, the PhatCap is a quality product. I never had a cap that has a fixed size before. All of my free obtained cap are either came with the adjustable strap or the position hole. The PhatCap comes with different colours but originally, the black one is the main one.

Where to get a PhatCap? You can buy them at Echo Park Outlet around the Klang Valley. They have 7 branches around the Klang Valley. I bought the PhatCap above at Sunway Pyramid Echo Park Outlet. My friend Shaz has a nice snapshot of Echo Park at Sungei Wang Plaza. Other Echo Park outlets are located at The Curve Mutiara Damansara, Time Square Jalan Imbi, Gurney Plaza Penang and soon to be opened Mid Valley Megamall in KL. You can also buy online at Echobuy.com.my or check out the merchandise price over there.

Apart from the PhatCap, they sell other trendy stuff such as T-Shirts, shoes, accessories and many more quality stuff. When I say quality, it is of course more expensive than the "Pasar Malam" version. However, buying an original one can definitely last longer instead of the cheaper imitation product.

Hunting For A Cheap Laptop

2007-01-26T22:29:00.000+08:00

Last Tuesday, I took half a day off from my job and accompanied my girlfriend to buy a new laptop for her. She just got her PTPTN loan money and wanted to trade off her PC to her brother who tagged along with a brand new laptop. Being a student, we decided a minimum budget of RM2000 with another RM200 extra just in case. The best place to hunt for computer hardware is definitely at Low Yatt Plaza in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. This blog explains best about the famous IT place in KL. Check out: IT Pasar Borong.

I decided to hunt for the laptop on a weekday because the place will be overflowed with people during the weekend and it's kind of hectic and unpleasant. Arriving there at 3pm, we started the laptop hunt on the 4th floor instead of the 3rd since the floor is less crowded. We walked into a store and my eyes were glued on a white HP Compaq Presario. The price of the laptop was within our range and what I like about the laptop was the built-in Altec Lansing speaker. I was almost sold just by the look of the laptop.

Lucky my my girlfriend snapped me out of it and insisted to do more price hunting instead of drooling over the look of a white shiny laptop. So, we surveyed a few other laptop before walking out of the store. I happened to like a 15" Acer laptop. It look just about the same as the image here.

We finally settled at a booth with a smooth talking laptop salesman. I had a couple of good laughs just by listening to what he was saying. Being a tech junky, I always think about what I can maximize without overbudgeting. So, when the salesman showed me an Acer Aspire 3683 that has a 100GB of hard drive, it was a great bargain. Apart from that, the salesman bundled together a few free gifts. The gift wasn't so attractive if you ask me but still good enough, however when the guy showed a cartoon shape pendrive, my girlfriend was already sold. The total price paid for the new laptop was RM2046. This was what we got:

Here are the specs of the Acer Aspire 3683 that we bought:

Intel Centrino Celeron M 1.6 MHz processor
512MB DDR2 RAM
100GB Hard Disk Drive
DVD + CDRW Combo
14.1" Wide Screen
WiFi and LAN capabilities

Free gifts:

An optical mouse
A headphone with microphone
A laptop key lock
A cartoon shape 512MB Pendrive

The reason it cheap because the processor is a Celeron M. A Celeron M is a cheaper version of Pentium M, however I don't think it is a major disadvantage. You'll probably feel a slight slower loading when opening up big applications such as AutoCAD or Adobe Photoshop CS2. It will get the job done and if you are a bootstrapper like me, I don't really mind about waiting a couple of milisecond. You probably wasting more time watching TV than opening up a useful computer application. In my opinion, this is an ideal laptop for a university student. I wish I had one when I was still a student.

I did some testing at a WiFi hotspot place and found out that the laptop is working perfectly well. As for heat issues, I think my Dell Inspiron 630m is way much hotter than the Acer Aspire 3683. Being cheaper RM1200 than my Dell laptop with an additional 20GB of hard disk space, this was definitely a good deal.

My Job Hunting Is Over

2007-01-25T23:37:00.000+08:00

After more than a month with last week I got my interview done, I have finally agreed to accept a job position offered to me last Tuesday. That's quite quick considering that it has just been only a week since I found the job. Answering Miss dAia's question, yes I am quitting my job. The reaction that I get from my boss when I send him my resignation notification letter was, he told me to do a better job in my new career or I'll get screwed. My boss is kind of hard to say 'thank you' to me or any other staff he had or has, so I don't really mind about it. Just to let you know, the job responsibility I was carrying was so big but the reward is puny. So I am very relieved to let go of the position I held for more than 2 years and move on to my next one.

There are two topics that I will write about based on my job hunting experience last week. First one is 'Tips on Job Hunting Online'. Second would be 'How To Make A Good Notice of Resignation Letter'. Hopefully by writing this 2 articles, it would be a great value to anyone who needs information regarding this two topics. I'll write for you all again very soon.

Trying My Luck Getting A Job As A Webmaster

2007-01-21T18:13:00.000+08:00

I have always been interested in the web. Ever since my first encounter with the world wide web back when I was 13 years old, I've been hooked to online based activities. The habit that I've accustomed to in whatever I do is to figure out how everything works. So in order to understand how the web browser is displaying what you see, you can always go to the source code by looking what is behind the scene of the web browser. Anyway, HTML is the only computer programming that I am interested. Other programming languages such as Visual Basic or even QBasic doesn't appeal to my preferences.

Getting back to the topic, being a webmaster is the job position I was referring to in my previous post. I would suggest you read How To Get a Job in the Web Industry by Smiley Cat. The article is written from a perspective of a web team manager. I'll try and describe what I've done right and wrong according to the tips Smiley Cat has given.

Resume- In my resume that I sent to the potential employer, I've included all my small web projects. That is the most significant thing that I highlight since the job position is all about the web. However, my paper qualification doesn't reflect my hard earned self learned skill sets. I should have plan my career life earlier though.
Be Focused- My life has been a series of dabbling pursuits in different kind of thing. My diploma is in mechanical engineering. I have the ability to understand what happen under a hood of a car. I can draw technical drawing in AutoCAD although it is the thing that I hate doing. I was doing tele-sales for a month before getting fired. Now I'm doing administrative work in a small office. What I should have do is to focus on the thing I love the most which is to do stuff online and the most obvious thing is to build websites. That was the past but if I could turn the clock around, I would go for the right paper education and get an early exposure to what I really like doing. That would really appeal to any potential employer.
Use Lists- Some parts in my resume is not done in a form of list. However, making too many list can be overwhelming even for the job interviewer. I've selected the best work and my best skills set and relate it to the position I'm trying to get.
Sell Yourself!- Its been a while since I've done a sale job. For me to make a sale, I need to believe in what I want to sell and be comfortable about it. Being a skeptical person, it is not an easy task to sell myself. I wasn't able to sell the company I work at the moment to the job interviewer during the interview. Of course even as a normal employee, while not doing any hard selling it is crucial to build rapport with clients and sell your skill sets in doing the job.
Be Human- As human, we talk about the things around us. So, making the interviewer comfortable by asking them questions, getting to know them better is a good impression for yourself.
Be Concise- It is good to know that my job interviewer know the stuff that I read and deal with. Now, that simplifies thing as I'm not so good in describing details.
Provide URLs- I can give ample of my URLs. The only problem is to make the link as short and simple as possible can cost me a domain name and web hosting if I really want to make it good. Still, a link like www.geocities.com/ashrufzz is good enough in my opinion.

That was what I did during my last week's job hunting adventure. I'm looking forward to see what will the outcome will be for me. Wish me luck!

I Got So Nervous

2007-01-17T22:33:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I received a phone call from a company I had forgotten I've sent out my resume to them. The caller, most probably the secretary or the reception officer called me while I was walking to my office and she briefly told me the to come to their office the next day and prepare a 10 minutes powerpoint presentation slide about my university final year's project. I had a lot of questions to ask her but I was busy walking so I just said okay and that was the end of it. I have no idea where my project were and I don't really think the project it is relevant to the job I am applying. I'll let you know about the job positions in my next post.

I then shot a thank you e-mail to the company I went for the interview the day before and the rest of day was an overwhelming feeling of nervousness. I had no idea why I felt so nervous, I never felt this feeling for quite a long time. During the evening, the company who interviewed me called me and asked me to come to their office this weekend and show them what I've got. This had lead me to rethink about going to the next day's interview over and over again.

After having a good night sleep, I've decided not going to the interview today because it doesn't suit what I'm looking for. So, now I need to make sure that I can impress and not screw up this weekend's evaluation with the company I had the interview with. Now my success would be determined by my creativity and skill that I've been practicing. I'm working hard on it as you are reading this.

Going Through Job Interviews

2007-01-16T00:45:00.000+08:00

This is a follow up of Alternative Job Hunting post. My first job interview was when I tried to find a moonlight job when I was still studying. It was a sale job selling some special bed sheet that would get rid of some microscopic bacteria. At that time, I got some financial issue and needed some money to pay off something. I never did the job because went I was getting back from the interview, I crashed my dad's Volvo 204GL car into a Perodua Kembara. The front hood of the car was badly damage. There goes my job motivation.

After that incident, I never attempted to find a moonlighting job ever. I did my industrial training in a small turbo servicing workshop but never intend to have any jobs. I don't know why I had no interest to earn money eventhough I had the chance to do so. It was not until before I graduated that I was introduced to a network marketing program. That is when I was introduced to the Rich Dad Poor Dad book that change my perspective entirely. However, after a few years of soul searching and wandering about what I wanted to do with my life, I found that I should really get a job and when the time comes which I have no idea when, I'll do something else. This maybe sound like I have no direction in life...maybe I am. It's a question that I have no answers yet. I should really get a mentor I think.

So right after work today, after exchanging a few e-mails and some phone calls. I went through an interview with this two native Englishmen. I was really nervous at first but I kept my composure although I was cold sweating in the air conditioned room. Firstly, the managing director asked me what the company I work with do, I replied by trying to explained what the product of the company. However, I failed to sell the current company I am with because I wasn't really sold the software solution the company is selling. I realized that making a good impression about the company you are representing is the key for an employment but I couldn't pull it off. So, moving on to the next thing, the MD told me about what they do, what they are planning for, what they need and what they are looking for. It was an insight to a world I have no idea off. Well, at least I'm learning something.

After more than 30 minutes of interrogation, I was handed over to the creative director where he showed me some stuff on his big 32 inches LCD display. He has this 3 LCD display monitor on his desk, it kind of impressed me though because I always want those multiple LCD displays. I managed to answer all his technical questions and that was the end of it. The MD wasn't so happy to know that I had to give out 2-4 week of resigning notice to my current employer. Still, he said he will contact me later on for a decision. I was glad interview meeting was over. Now what I need to do is wait for their call. In the mean time, I'll try my luck with other jobs opening as well.

After going to the experience, I realized that there are a lot things to work on to improve myself. It has been too long I've taken things for granted. Now what I need to do now is to step up to a new level. Best of luck to me!

Selesa Resort Outing 2006

2007-01-14T23:51:00.000+08:00

During the last Christmas holiday, my family and I went for a big family outing. The place that was chosen was Selesa Resort, Bukit Tinggi, Pahang. If you are not so sure what "Selesa" is, in Malay language Selesa means Comfortable. Selesa Resort is about 40 minutes drive from my house. We rented 4 units for 6 families to stay over there. We had so much fun.

What I like about this resort is the ambient. The place has an astonishing hillview and the fresh air is so refine. I wished I could live over there, well maybe I could. As long as there is an internet connection. By the way, I've found a way to be online eventhough you are somewhere in the jungle using a satellite dish. I'll write about that later.

Here's a slide show taken using my own digital camera. Eventhough it is not that exclusive but I think the place is superb.

As for Selesa Resort website, I really think the webmaster should be sacked. The website is made using images as such the website is the brochure of the resort. They should have made it in a text version so that search engines can pick up and index a few interesting keywords and make the website more visible.

Anyway, I had fun being there. I think I'll plan a trip there again once I get married for one of my honeymoon trip...hehe..

N2Growth Blog Review

2007-01-13T00:18:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by

When I look at a business entity, I cannot stop but figure out how they make money. In business, cash is the oxygen to sustain the life of a business. There are so many ways to generate cash however, we can simply put it into two different categories which is selling products and providing services.

So, what does N2Growth do? N2Growth provide business consultations which means they have clients that pays for their services. Consulting is a big business so I suspect they make a lot of money out of it. Some of the listed services they provide is Branding & Identity, Executive Search, Leadership Development and Strategic Growth. Normally, topics like these is for people who have higher thinking level but that doesn't mean a small time business minded person like myself couldn't comprehend what they are talking about. The only different is the environment between small businesses and big businesses both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Moving on to N2Growth Blog. The author of the blog is Chief Strategy Officer of N2Growth, Mike Myatt. The first blog post is posted on May 2006 which makes the blog less than a year old. Mike writes about interesting topics such as The Power of Personal Branding, Leaders vs. Managers, ROI Reexamined and more juicy interesting business articles.

If you need some business inspiration or some ideas to cultivate your business thought, then N2Growth Blog is worthy place for some useful advice.

Getting Stumbled

2007-01-11T23:51:00.000+08:00

I never understood what StumbleUpon is all about. I first read about it at LiewCF Blog, I did read about StumbleUpon at their website but I thought it was just another social bookmarking tools until recently when I wrote about Web Scripts on Ashrufzz's Blog. This is what happen to my blog's traffic:

I then re-read about StumbleUpon and install it for myself on my Firefox browser. Now I know why my traffic spike this month. It is basically a toolbar on your web browser that when you click, it will go to other website other StumbleUpon user has saved. I've StumbleUpon a lot of websites and they are really quite interesting, you'll never find such interesting website when you search on Google or somewhere.

Alright, I'll StumbleUpon some more website before I do something else afterward. Happy Stumbling!

Alternative Job Hunting

2007-01-08T14:17:00.000+08:00

Last month was my second anniversary of my employment in the company that I serve. So far, there is no hint of a career progress and therefore no pay raise for my income. Imagine for the last 2 years, I've only got 1 small bonus. I can't really blame the company because the company is not making money anyway. The problem is, I couldn't sell the product that the company is representing because it is too complex and I think a higher level of management planning plus some higher business connection is needed to get the company off the ground. That doesn't count the need of fundings. Either way, from what I heard if there is any increment in salary, my salary would just be raised 50% of what I'm earning now. Looking at the current situation, I doubt that my company will bring in any businesses and with the upcoming resignation of my fellow colleagues who are my dearest friends, it's making my motivation to go to work turned off.

Being in a low income category and with the rate of inflation which is rapidly increasing, a 50% raise would do no good for me. It is either I try find another job with a higher pay or I got to try and search for a job nearby my parent's house where I'm living to cut cost on my expenses. I don't have any funds yet to build up any small businesses, so entrepreneurship is out of the picture. It has been 2 weeks now I've been on a job hunt online. So far, no luck for me yet but I'm going to try applying to as many as I can and see what the outcome would be. However, I have come up with other alternatives to find a job without having to do what conventional job seekers do.

Here's a few of ideas that popped out from my head for alternative job hunting:

Contact a job placement agency. They can match a job matching your preferences for you without having to flip to countless of job listing pages advertised in the newspaper. I just found out that there are literally a lot of these job agencies and they are making a lot of money just brokering for potential employees to be hired for the respected employers. Make sure that the job agency is registered to the governing body of the goverment.
For sustainable income, make a preliminary research of the industry you want get involved with. Make sure the industry has growth and a lot of money trading around. Don't go for volatile industry such as the holiday package sales or very competitive ones like computer sales.
Choose only companies that are listed on the main board or second board of the stock exchange listings. These companies have too much money and they often overpay their top management. Eventhough your pay as the lowest rank is crap, it is still more than what you get in a small and medium enterprises.

Well, that's about it. This is all what I've been researching, read and thought over the past few weeks. I'm not the type of person who loves risk. Not all of what I write is true. Well, at least with a few points I've highlighted can trigger some light for your brain's unorthodox ideas. Wish me luck in my job hunting adventure.

P/S: I'm also applying for an employment in the public sector. I'll update on my job hunting progress later.

Grumpy Musings About Life Dreams

2007-01-07T12:30:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by:

When I first read the sentence "Grumpy Musings About Life Dreams", it makes no sense to me. I know what the meaning of grumpy, however musings is a new word for me. After looking up the meaning at The Free Dictionary, musings is a deep thought about something. Another word is ogre. It is a giant monster in legends and fairy tales that eats humans. I'm not really a fan of monsters so knowing that the monster eats people, that is a turn off for me. However, that adds up a few new words for my vocabulary tank.

So, what is GrungeOgre.com is all about. From what I see, it is all about work, movies, tv, art, life, dreams, food, gadgets, etc written by James Allison. I believe there are 2 or maybe 3 writers for the website. After reading a couple posts, the website is kind of a blog type. For me, maybe I've become so use to read wordpress type blogs, instead of using Joomla content management, I would really like if the GrungeOgre uses Wordpress.
Well, that is what I feel. Anyway, as long as there are useful contents, any website is to me, add up value to the world wide web and it makes the internet more colourful and interesting.

Getting Insurance For Your Small Business

2007-01-05T21:26:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by:

One of my many dreams is to build and own a small business. The reason is very simple, you are free to do any business you want, whenever you want and where ever you want. However like any other businesses, there will always be risks involved. A life of a business is dependable on one thing, cash flow. Cash flow is like oxygen to any business. Without it, your business would be dead. So, in order to protect your small little vulnerable business, you need protection. This is where financial organizations such as BusinessInsuranceNow comes in handy.

Since I don't my own small business yet, I just love to let my imagination run wild a little bit when we talk about small businesses. What would I like my small business to be like. Okay, I picture my small business to be just a small office with virtually no employees, fully air conditioned, having several computers and laptops with several big flat screen LCD displays, an extra comfortable couch with a small home theater and a small mini bar. Wow, I'm getting a bit too ambitious I think.

So, what does my business category that I've picture fall into when choosing a business insurance? My small business would be in a low-risk business class. Eventhough it is low risk, with all those high-tech computers, laptops, home theater and fancy furnitures, they are prone to theft activity. Beside theft, small businesses can be sued and the cost of getting to court can get pretty expensive.

If this has gotten you nervous, then consider having a safety net by searching for small business insurance in your area/country or visit BusinessInsuranceNow for more informative knowledge regarding business insurance.

Web Scripts On Ashrufzz's Blog

2007-01-04T01:02:00.000+08:00

One of the advantage of using free Blogger blog is the ability to insert your own web scripts. In my blog alone, after tracking down what scripts I've put in. It seems like I have 17 different kind of scripts. Some of the scripts I had little use of, so I think I better review it back to see what is their functions. There was also scripts I have used but I discontinued it because it gave me little or no use at all, plus it doesn't gave me any value. Let's check them out:

Advertising Scripts

Apart from Google Adsense, I have also put in Amazon Associate. Another one is Blogkits. Blogkits is an alternative advertising scripts targeted for low traffic websites or blog. Well, my blog has low traffic, so what? I had put Darkblue Ad before, but they don't seem to have any interesting ads that I like so I'll check them out later.

Search Script

Google has a searching script which allows you to search your own blog. It will put a search box where ever you wanted it to be. You can also customized it to whatever you like. With that also, if you are registered to Google Adsense, every advertising on search done on your search box is worth the advertising dollar the advertiser pays.

Tracking Scripts

I've installed several tracking scripts. At first all the scripts (except for Statcounter which is my main tracking script) is intended for experiment only. However, I couldn't find any expiry date to the experiment so I just leave the scripts alone. Here's a list and brief description of the scripts function:

103 Bees- A real-time online tool that is highly focused on natural search engine traffic
HitTail- Another real-time online tool for natural search engine traffic. The only difference is HitTail has a Long Tail tool for you to analyze search terms which arrived on your blog.
Google Analytics- Google's own web statistics tool. I find it too advanced for me to use.
MyBlogLog- Beside tracking visitors, it adds a nice widget for the most recent readers who came.
Performancing Metrics- A real-time free blog statistics. Acquired by PayPerPost recently.
AdLogger- I hosted this free Adsense tracking script engine on one of my shared hosting. Lots of valuable functions.

Other related scripts

Feedburner- Simplify your feed services
Feedblitz- Getting blog posts in your e-mail (integrated with Feedburner)
Blinklist- For the tag clouds you see on my sidebar
Cbox Tagboard- Free chatbox on your sidebar
Technorati- To display your Technorati profile on your sidebar and to confirm that it's your blog

There were two scripts that I've taken out from my blog not too long ago. One is CoComent and the other is HaloScan. Both of them are comments management tool but I have no idea what CoComent does. I tried to learn about CoComent but I just don't get it. HaloScan is a replacement comment tool instead of the default one. If you use Blogger and you receive a lot of comment from your reader, HaloScan provide quite a useful tool for you to manage comments. For me however, I don't really need to manage that many amount of comments.

That's about it. If I stumbled upon another interesting scripts after this and it is free, I am most likely to sign-up and install the script in my blog. However, with so many scripts I have, I don't think I would like to add more to that and risk my blog to become heavier. Keep it simple is the best way to go, for now.

Ashrufzz 2006 Recap

2007-01-01T07:45:00.000+08:00

I started blogging using Blogger since April 2004. It has now been 32 months since I have been blogging here. There were time I almost gave up on blogging yet I managed to overcome that feeling and kept on writing. At first I thought I was going to make money out of blogging, however it is quite hard to achieve that when you are swamp with all kind of distractions especially when you are given a lot of free tools to play around with. I've decided to make blogging my part-time career since I've found another way to make money online and it has nothing to do with creating blogs or websites or even sales and marketing. I've been blogging about it secretly but I don't feel like wanting to reveal it yet. I'll tell all about it once I've succeeded in my plan.

I've made up some statistics about my blogging journey:

Posts I've made so far-

2004: 38 posts
2005: 73 posts
2006: 117 posts
Drafts: 14
Total: 242 Posts

It seems like I've managed to improve on the numbers of blog posting. That's quite a surprised for me. So, far I've created 9 blogger blogs and 6 wordpress blogs. Out of the 15 blogs, only a handful of them are active. Blogging is a job by itself, so it requires work. Working requires you to spend time. I don't really believe in creating automated blog because it feels so overwhelming plus a lot of those automated blogs created just by entering keywords and RSS has been terminated anyhow. People in my observation are more likely to choose quality over quantity.

Alright, I'm going to recap some of my highlighted blog posts for 2006:

January 2006

February 2006

February Rambling
My First Real Online Sale
My Dell Inspiron 630m Laptop
When Your Boyfriend Cries In Front of You (I'm not gay mind you)
My Hectic Day

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

June 2006

July 2006

August 2006

September 2006

October 2006

November 2006

December 2006

My new year 2007 resolution is to improve and increase the number of blog posts I've made apart from making more money of course. Writing is not something easy for me but I do it anyway. Last but not least:

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2007 EVERYONE!

How I First Learned English

2006-12-31T15:45:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by Answer English.

My first language is not English. I am more comfortable speaking in my local language rather than English. However, being exposed to English language since I was at the tender age through cartoons, English advertisement and Sesame Street, I am more comfortable reading and writing in English but not in speaking out. When I was 5 years old, my parents brought me to Sunderland, England. My father pursued his degree at Polytechnic of Sunderland (now known as University of Sunderland). So, he sent me me to a primary school where I was there for 2 years. As a result, my local language became limited and my English became much more better.

So, when I came back to Malaysia, I hardly can speak my local language properly. The people I know began to put pressure on me and I had to restore my local language skill for my own social well being. Since then, English became my favourite subject eventhough I couldn't really speak it up fluently. I must admit that being an introvert person, it is my fault that I couldn't really stand out and speak up. However, I'm turning that around and screw the people who pressured me not to speak in English.

The point I'm making out here is, the environment can very much determine your verbal ability. If you want to be the best, learn from the best. If you want to speak the proper English language, what is more better than English Courses in London. I went to London once when my parents brought me over there. It is a beautiful place to be apart from expensive. If you need the best English language course, I believe London English School is the best place to sign up.

This post is sponsored by:

Why Today's Internet Connection is Down

2006-12-27T16:05:00.000+08:00

This morning, I realized that the internet connection was unusually slow. I thought maybe it was just my area that was slow since I've accustomed to the slow broadband connection at home eventhough I'm on a 512kbps. So when I got to the office, I logged on internet and it was still excruciating slow. My office uses a 1MB broadband connection. I had no other choice but to do some other offline work instead of bothering to do stuff online.

My web hosting where I host my company's website is already dead more than a day. Shooting them an e-mail didn't work and trying to call them doesn't seem like something worth trying since the data center is located somewhere in the United State. Nevertheless, for a web hosting fees of less than USD10 a year, it's no big deal. The sad part is, I've parked 3 other domains using the same web hosting and incoming traffics to all of the other websites is also compromised.

So, why is the internet at my place here in Kuala Lumpur down? A friend of mine who happened to work at TM Net, the main Internet Service Provider told me that their internet exchange server in Taiwan got hit by the earth quake last night. The magnitude of the quake was 7.1 and 7.2, less than the previous 9.3 magnitude quake that went off the coast of Indonesia. It triggered the tsnunami warning after 2 years since the last one but the tsunami didn't happened though. More of the news here.

This is what TM Net official website announced:

I had to use Googlepages to host this image since my Photobucket image hosting can't establish any connection from where I am. It also made me realized how dependable I am to the internet. I wonder why Google is still accessible at the time of writing while Yahoo is out of reach already. Maybe the have a server farm nearby where I live. Content and web pages hosted in my country and nearby is accessible however apart from that, it's dead or extremely slow.

Here's an announcement by Jaring, another internet service provider:

They are more or less the same boat because they also share internet infrastructure. I hope they could find a way to overcome this problem.

How I Discovered John Chow Dot Com

2006-12-26T11:22:00.000+08:00

Last September or so, I was actively seeking for methods and some sample of niche websites that I can model. While browsing and searching for information, I discovered WickedFire Forum, an active forum for webmasters. The forum is a established by a super affiliate marketer by the name of Aojon. His blog was established June this year and has an extremely valuable information that is in my opinion is better than paid e-books that is selling in the internet marketing world. Because of his online success, I read all about his writing in his personal blog and this is where I found out about John Chow's The Tech Zone. John Chow was a featured guest on Aojon Radio Show talking about Ways to increase your CTR with contextual ads.

Landing on John Chow's blog, I saw this traffic graphs:

I was hooked on John Chow's writings. I've also discovered a lot of valuable information and tips on building websites and online related activities. Although I'm still far behind in the online publishing industry, John Chow is one of my many idols that I wish to model. Looking forward for his brilliant writing and hope he could share a lot more of it for aspiring Dot Com Mogul like myself.

I Am A BattleStar Galactica Fan

2006-12-22T11:33:00.000+08:00

I love Sci-Fi movies and stories. The reason is because it is logical instead of magical. Magic can be tricked or manipulated but science fictions can be backed up with theory.

I love BattleStar Galactica. It is aired on my local 8TV every Monday night. However, the show has now reached Season 3 in the United States while I'm still watching Season 1. Check out the YouTube video below, I just loved the music blended with actions with the right timing. Always give me the goosebumps and excitement.

Since I love this show too much, I've created a special page containing BattleStar Galactica (BSG) Videos that summarizes everything you need to know about BSG if you've never knew or watched it before. Enjoy!

BattleStar Galactica Story Videos

Widen Your Bathroom Choices

2006-12-22T08:14:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by http://www.Taps4Less.com

Some people like designer bathroom. Some people love to renovate their bathroom. Both has something in common, you need to have a bathroom design ideas. Whether you want to design your own bathroom or you pay someone to design for you, the most important thing is to have at least a basic bathroom images in your mind. At Taps4Less, there are ample of images of bathroom taps, bathroom showers and bathroom furnitures just to name you a few.

These are some of the items that had my interest in building my own futuristic bathroom:

So head over to Taps4Less and make your dream bathroom a reality.

How To Share One Computer With Up To 10 Users

2006-12-20T22:32:00.000+08:00

When I was younger, the internet was sort of like a luxury. The first time I went to a high speed internet cafe in Penang, I had to pay RM7 an hour but it's worth every penny of it since it is so lightning quick compared to my nowadays TMNet Streamyx connection. It reminds me of the speedy internet connection when my family first installed the RM111 TMNet Streamyx package which includes the ADSL modem when it was first launched. Despite of the slower speed my ADSL connection today, I can't live without an internet connection since I'm hooked on it most of my daytime.

When I see FREE INTERNET ACCESS, I get very excited. Last weekend, I brought my digital camera and took these pictures at level 3 of One Utama New Wing:

Those guys are on school holidays so what is better to do than hanging out at the mall. Why are they there? They are checking out their e-mails and their Myspace account. During my school days, Myspace doesn't exist yet but MIRC was the craze at that time. MIRC is still active but with today's media rich services I guess the number has decreased compared to last time. I'm going off the subject already, what I wanted to show you is how you could have multiple consoles just by using one computer host. I tried and build one during my employment in on of the company I worked with but the sad thing is, the console was even slower than I thought.

I forgot the name of the previous product I've used to create multiple console last time. This console you see here is built using "Office Station", a product by NComputing. What I like about this product is it is faster than the other product I've used. If I have my own small company, I would definitely install this product, this way I would save on:

Cost: because I can just buy one PC and the rest is just on other peripherals such as mouse, keyboard and monitor.
Security & Maintenance: I'm a hands-on technical person, so I know what to do just in case something goes wrong. It'll save me time to repair just one PC instead of 5.
Power: A PC can consume quite a lot of electricity. With the latest hike on the new electricity tariff, it is better to save up on whatever you can.
Space: I like my desk to have some space where I can write comfortably.

You can read further on the advantages of OfficeStation. I don't want to touch on the disadvantages of this product eventhough I'm not getting paid of writing about this product. I guess you can pretty much figure out yourselves.

Bullet Proof For Protection

2006-12-18T20:03:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by http://www.pacificbulletproof.com

When we talk about bullet proof, the first thing that will come to our mind is probably an image of a bullet shot at a glass but the glass doesn't break. Another image is a police wearing a vest got shot but soon gets up with a pain on his chest as shown on many movies or TV series. If you are a fan of the popular Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), you'll be familiar with gunshots and ballistic measures they take to solve difficult crime cases.

Let's look at this video explaining about how to build bullet resistant cars:

Based in Anaheim California, Pacific Bullet Proof Co. offers bullet proof product such as:

Deal (Cash) Tray
Bullet Resistant Glass
Bullet Resistant Doors
Bullet Resistant Fiberglass
Bullet Resistant Acrylic
many more

Other benefits of using bullet proof made material is:

Protect from potential terrorist attack
Protection from explosions
Protection from high impact knock

Interested to see list of all products and a free educational video, visit Pacific BulletProof Co. and "Make your world a safer place".

Technorati Tags:bulletproof vest, bulletproof glass, bulletproof car, bulletproof window, bulletproof jacket, bulletproof skin, bulletproof vehicle, pacific bulletproof
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The Lucrative Business of Credit

2006-12-16T17:16:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by http://www.tradelinebroker.com

If you have never heard of credit before, then click here. You should read, learn and understand what credit is because it can be a life changing one. If you are:

a US Citizen
own a major credit cards for 2 years
have a minimum credit limit of $5000 for each account
never missed any payment (Good Credit Report)
Have nothing to do or looking for some additional income

Seasoned Trade Lines is inviting people with the above qualification to help other people raising the score for their personal line of credits and at the same time reward yourself with $50-$150 for every person (or clients if you assume this a business) you've helped.

Your work if you choose to participate is to do some simple phone calls to your credit card company or maybe some visits to the bank. If you love dealing with financial documents, then this job is perfect for you. To learn more about what I mean, visit:

Technorati Tags:line of credit business, personal line of credit, small business line of credit, how to get business line of credit
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Car Insurance Financing For Malaysian

2006-12-16T11:49:00.000+08:00

Earlier this month, my car insurance expired. Being in a low income bracket and living in Kuala Lumpur, renewing my car insurance requires almost a month of my salary and my savings can get depleted. What other choices do I have? The first thing I had on my mind is to get a loan. I'm not getting any personal loan just to pay for my car insurance because of their high interest rate. My only choice is now to get AEON Car Insurance Financing. By the way, I'm not getting paid for this post by AEON or any other party, this is just to share with you what I have found. Maybe I should ask them for a small fee to promote their products and services online, that would be a good idea.

The most interesting feature I like about AEON Malaysia website is their estimation calculator:

As you can see above, the maximum length of repayment is 10 months. Breaking it down, an insurance premium of RM1000 requires you to pay only RM114 per month. Eventhough the interest rate is calculated to be 14%, however it reduces my financial burden so I don't have to decide to withdraw my savings. Of course, if you can find the money the total amount, then there is no need to apply for this car insurance financing. This could have save you RM140. For more information, you can go to the nearest AEON Malaysia branches.

Eventually, I borrowed some money from my family since it is interest free. To not take things for granted, I recorded the money borrowed in my personal financial sheet. Well, at least now you know what other choices you have if you are stuck in a financial dilemma.

Seeking For More Blogging Income? Blogsvertise!

2006-12-15T00:13:00.000+08:00

I've known a few local exceptional bloggers who achieved a full time income just by blogging. They love what they do and they passionately speak about it and show their love towards blogging. From my observation, if you love what you do and you get paid doing it, that is the greatest job in the world. Can we do the same as what they have done? Of course you can. However, not everyone can follow the footstep of those who had succeeded. As in any jobs available on the planet, there is always a price to pay for success.

So, how do you earn cash and generate income from your blog? Personally speaking, I make a small pocket money which I haven't been able to cash in yet. The most easiest thing you can do is to put Google Adsense script on your blog and for every click on the advertisement shown on your blog, you earn a portion of what the advertiser has paid Google. Pretty simple don't you think so? Well, not quite. If you have never fiddle around with HTML, then installing the Google Adsense script is a pretty scary thing to do. If you are not careful, your whole blog could be messed up. Is there another option apart from Adsense?

How does Blogsvertise work? In a nutshell, a blog or a website has space on it. It's like a piece of paper or billboard where you write information on it. Those spaces on your blog could be sold for a piece of other informations. The person who buys that space is oftenly called the advertiser while you are the publisher. A publisher get paid whenever the spaces are sold to the advertiser. In Blogsvertise's context, your post would be the advertising space and Blogsvertise would pay for it. The only thing you need to do now is to write whatever you feel or according to what the advertiser has requested. That is all, pretty simple right?

For more information, read and re-read the whole FAQ page. I love reading FAQ more than reading a whole page of introduction. Try and register yourselves on Blogsvertise for yourself and let me know about it.

BCB MasterCard Electronic Has Been Discontinued?

2006-12-11T19:54:00.000+08:00

This morning, I went to my nearest BCB or now it's called CIMB Bank branch. The reason I went there was to update my savings account passbook. I hadn't update my passbook since July 2005. Using a saving account for all my financial transaction, I couldn't track every spending I've made because there was no records available for small transactions made. I'm planning to open up a current account since there would be more benefits using that account. However, I'm not opening up an account so soon, I have to wait until I'm ready before I can do that.

So, while updating my passbook, I asked the officer for an application on BCB MasterCard Electronic. The officer then searched and searched for the application form. 5 minutes later, the officer came back to me and said that ever since BCB is now merged with CIMB, the card is now discontinued for application. Former card holders can still use their cards but new application is no longer available. I was quite disappointed because it wasn't easy for me to come to the bank, there was not enough parking outside, furthermore I had planned to apply for a debit card since last October.

End of last month and earlier this month, I tried to search for Ambank NexG Prepaid MasterCard at a few 7 Eleven branches. After asking several branches around my workplace and also around my home, one of the personnel told me that they have stopped distributing AmBank NexG Prepaid MasterCard. I have no clue why they stop the distribution but I was again disappointed. I wonder why there wasn't enough promotion and recommendation to use debit cards. Maybe financial institutions doesn't want you to use debit card and urge you to overuse your credit cards so that they can profit from you even more.

My only choice now is to apply for Public Bank Visa Electron.

I'm heading to Public Bank this week for an application form. Hope my application would turn up well because I don't want to be disappointed again this time.

Kuala Lumpur Wordpress Meet Up

2006-12-10T21:01:00.000+08:00

If you have installed Wordpress blogging software before or simply registered a blog on Wordpress.com (I've done it both), you must be very much familiar with the default template that Wordpress blogging software is using. It's called K2. One of the developers is Zeo, a Malaysian webmaster. He is organizing a Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Wordpress Meetup. Although this blog is not developed with Wordpress, I'm considering to migrate this blogger blog into a my own domain name (www.ashrufzz.com of course) using a shared self hosted Wordpress somewhere. The reason I'm still considering is because I don't have any budget to buy the domain and hosting plan since it'll cost me a minimum of RM65 a year. I can park my domain name using my company's shared hosting for free and I can save my money even more but anyway, I think I'll remain on free Blogger at the moment.

I'll check my schedule to see if I can come to the meetup. Eventhough I'm using Blogger, I blog using my company's blog using Wordpress blogging software and I loved them. Here's the detail of the meet up if you are interested:

Date: 16th December 2006 (A Saturday)
Time: 2.30pm
Place: Starbucks, Berjaya Time Square, Kuala Lumpur
Person to look up for: A guy with a Wordpress t-shirt (A big W)

Do You Really Believe In Multiple Stream Of Income?

2006-12-08T15:50:00.000+08:00

I just watched a video by John Reese. He's one of my favourite online entrepreneurs and for many others that I have much respect. The topic he came out on his video is:

You can click on the above image to watch his video. It shatters all my belief of creating multiple streams of income. Well, come to think about it, it is quite true. If you are struggling in creating one stream of income, then how on earth can you create more. We all have an equal 24 hours a day in our everyday lives.

I bought this book 2 years back:

It's an eye opener to a whole different ways of creating incomes. By then, I found another one which I couldn't find at my local store:

Having a lot of information is good. Having a lot more FOCUS is even better.

Update 11/12/2006: John Reese has came out with a sequel of his video titled - A Focused Flood of Income. Check it out!

Micro Credit Loan: AEON Cash

2006-12-06T17:29:00.000+08:00

In my previous post, I've have written about Xpress Cash by CIMB Bank. Yesterday, while browsing through The Star newspaper, I've spotted another one of these no hassle Micro Credit Loan by another financial institution called Aeon Fast Cash. Here's a screenshot of what they are offering:

Interested to see more about the information, click on the image above for a larger portion of the newspaper advertisement. Here is what Aeon Malaysia website is offering:

So, now we have an almost detail information in our hands. Let's do some calculation and some analysis on what we have. Assuming that we are not a member of their club, we would like to take a RM3000 loan from Aeon Fast Cash as opposed to Xpress Cash from CIMB Bank. Wait a minute, I don't have to calculate it myself, they already have a calculator, how cool is that?

So, now we calculate RM170 times 24 months, that would sum into RM4080 of repayment. That's RM1080 of profit for the bank. Comparing that to my previous CIMB Xpress Cash encounter, that RM168 less. Not bad, but still a lot of money you have to repay if you come from a lower income group. I haven't dig out any additional cost that comes with the loan term but you get the picture right?

Last week, the nation was shocked by a family who couldn't afford to pay back their loan from a loan shark and cost them their children and nearly their lives (click here to read about this sad story). So, this piece of information could be useful but can only be a useful tool if you have a strategy to repay it. Eitherway, I'm going to bootstrap and not going to apply for any loans at the moment.

Accessories To Control Laptop Heat

2006-12-04T12:04:00.000+08:00

I've been writing about laptop heat for quite some time now. Previously, I wrote about Keeping Your Dell Laptop's Heat Under Control. This time, I'll write about the accessories that can be use to physically keep your laptop's heat within the suitable operating heat. My boss is currently using this laptop accessories for his Sony Vaio laptop:

This accessory provide a dock with a 12 degree angle and raises your laptop about 1" - 2" from your desk. This allows ample of space for heat dissipation. The palm rest is a gel-filled wrist and is quite comfortable. It comes with a built-in cable management and an AC adaptor which my boss doesn't really use them. However, it's a useful and comfortable docking place for your laptop.

Other dock station I've found is this one:

Adding a few more dollars, now I can a mouse pad since I don't really like using the touch pad. The reason I hate a touch pad is because there is no accuracy when using it. If you are a Photoshop power user, then you should know better. Check it out by clicking on the image above. You can also buy it directly from Amazon website.

As for me, I'm looking for one for myself at my local IT Shop at a bargain price.

Making Money With YouTube Videos

2006-12-01T17:13:00.000+08:00

I can spend all day long waiting, downloading and viewing videos on YouTube. If you haven't browsed YouTube before, you should try it and you'll be surprised on what other people are sharing. YouTube gets an enormous amount of traffic from all over the world and they are raking millions from advertising. While some people thought YouTube would never survive the high cost of bandwitdh which they have to pay up every month, eventually Google bought them over on a USD1.65 million deal of stocks. You can read about YouTube history on Wikipedia.

So, how can you make money with videos? The answer is by using Google Adsense. Personally, I've never got any Google cheques yet but I'm working slowly building websites, blogs and add in some Adsense Ads while building traffic to the websites created. I don't know when I'll get the cheques because it is really up to me to work or not. Recently I found other ways that could make my Adsense ads scripts/code to get more exposure thus increasing my chance of getting a click and some money.

The place is called TheVideoSense. After more than 2 weeks joining and submitted 11 videos that I've selected from YouTube, I've managed to get about 134 views for the videos submitted and 103 impression of my Adsense Ads. Not bad, however I'm not so sure videos can increase the Click Through on ads because for me, if I'm watching videos on YouTube, I never give any attention to the surrounding ads. Anyway, it is worth a try. Either way, thinking positively, the more you can exposed your Adsense Ads, the more chances of money you can earn:

Click Here For Free Sign Up to TheVideoSense

I've Upgraded My Blogger Blogs

2006-11-29T20:26:00.000+08:00

I've been holding back from upgrading to the new Blogger Beta for a while. The reason is because I had a bad experience with my Yahoo account. It is a good thing to have everything under one username and password, however if things goes wrong, you'll lose everything that you have.

Either way, after thinking about it for a while, Blogger would eventually upgrade their system so I think it would be better to upgrade my account with them and not having a seperate account. So last Sunday morning, I merged my former Blogger account into my Google account. This is what happened:

Maybe because of the size of my blog which has increased over the years, it took a while before all my blogs got upgraded.

A few hours later (I went out for a while after I pressed the upgrade button), my new account is ready and I'm quite pleased with the new Dashboard. At first I thought the new Blogger would entirely change how my blogs look. To my relief, my templates which I've worked hard to customize is preserved.

I just loved the feature where I don't have to republish each post or the template whenever I've edited them. It makes my blogging a lot faster to publish and it got labels too. Not bad if you ask me. So, if you can upgrade to the new Blogger Beta, then what are you waiting for? Things will get upgraded sooner or later.

Agloco: The Global Community. Is It or Was It?

2006-11-28T11:14:00.000+08:00

A long time ago, while I was still in my school years, I discovered a lot about getting paid to surf the internet. Some of them requires you to install a special software on your browser while some of them just to browse a couple of websites a day. Earlier this year, StudioTraffic and 12 Daily Pro which was one of the top program at that time finally shuts down. Millions of dollar were being thrown at these kind of program. Eventually, they kind of short lived and learning from these mistakes, I don't really trust such programs.

However, whenever I encounter another new program, I could not resist convincing myself that there is hope of making some extra cash. I'm not sure if Agloco will survive again since they also share the same experience quite some time ago. Anyway, since a lot of influential people are promoting it, it doesn't hurt to join as the membership is FREE. Check out Agloco!

Micro Credit Loan: It will Choke You!

2006-11-23T16:50:00.000+08:00

I had a shortage of cash recently. With my small salary living in a big city, I can't really survive on my own. Which is why I need help. I'm quite lucky not to have any big debts yet that will jeopardize my financial life. I'm still living with my parents though. However, I need to find more ways to get my financial right and not just depending on my crappy job I am in right now. I'll write about my plan later on when I see some success over my implementation.

Down at the mall where my office is, there is a small bank BCB or is now called CIMB Bank. They are now promoting a microcredit loan called Xpress Cash. The financial product was launched by SBB Bank which now they have merged into CIMB Group. Their target market is for those who have an income of RM800 and above. The best part is, for loan under RM5000 there is no need for any guarantor and there are minimal documents to prepare. I was the perfect candidate to apply for the loan where I can apply for up to 5 times my monthly salary. They also provide flexible loan period however there are terms and condition on the fine print of the application you need to take a closer and careful look at.

After some careful study using details on the brochure, I am eligible and can easily apply for a loan using the documents that I could provide them. My goal was to take a RM3000 loan with 12 months repayment. My rough calculation estimated that I have to pay around RM250 a month while receiving RM2150 in cash after deducting the RM100 processing fees and 3 months of security deposit. I will lost almost 30% alone just for the process of the loan itself but I don't mind about it because I need the money to pay up something and ease myself from a financial strain.

To confirm my calculation, I call CIMB Bank and ask them about this product. To my surprise, the repayment for a RM3000 loan on a 12 months tenure is RM301 per month. I ask the officer about the interest rate, the amount she has given to me is already calculated with a 3% interest (daily rest basis). I then asked how much do I pay for a 24 months tenure, she replied back RM177 per month. I further asked her how do I payback the loan if I wanted an early settlement for the 24 months tenure. She told me that for an early settlement, I need to pay the balance amount in full plus an additional 3 months interest and a penalty fee of RM200. I said "What? I have to pay a penalty fee for an early settlement?", she answered that is for the breach of agreement when you've signed the release of the loan.

Let me summarize the figures back for a much clearer perspective:

Loan Wanted: RM3000
Option 1- Payback for a 12 months tenure: RM301
Option 2- Payback for a 24 months tenure: RM177
Cash that will be received after loan release (option 2): RM2369

The deductions:

3 months security deposit (We selected option 2): RM531
Processing Fees: RM100

Early Settlement:

Penalty Fees: RM200
Interest Fees: 3 months interest of 3%

Here's another summary of how much the bank wins back their money:

Loan given to you: RM3000
Option 1- Money being paid back to the bank (12 months tenure): (RM301 X 12 months)= RM3612
Option 2- Money being paid back to the bank (24 months tenure): (RM177 X 24 months)= RM4248

From Option 1, the bank gets back RM612
From Option 2, the bank gets back RM1248

Just look at how much the bank is making money out from you if you've decided to get the microcredit loan. I've finally decided not to apply for the loan as it will take away almost 20% of my current income as soonest the loan is approved and I'm stuck with it for 24 months of repayment. I don't want to give the bank more money, they've already sucked out a lot of other people's money. Just check out their financial statement and you'll find out that the numbers always grow every year eventhough the economy is not so good.

Bottomline, if you can find money to borrow from other alternatives, go for it. Don't deal with the banks or even worse, loan sharks. For me, I think I have to do some savings and review back my money management.

Update 25/11: I've found the website. Check out CIMB Xpress: Xpress Cash Personal Term Loan.

Technorati Tags:cimb banks, xpress cash, microloan credit, malaysian banks, personal loan

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I Attended eBay Explained 2006

2006-11-17T17:01:00.000+08:00

This post should have been written earlier but lately I am a bit lazy to write. Anyway, last Sunday 12/11/2006, I attended eBay Explained 2006 held at KLCC Convention Centre. This was the first time I've attended eBay conference, I never knew eBay had a conference last year. The crowd was not that big as Microsoft's seminars but the people were quite excited. I arrived there half wet because of the rain shower during the afternoon. Waited for like an hour before they finally open up the doors. By the way, the snack was good.

While waiting, I spotted someone who is somewhat familiar. It was LiewCF. I'm one of his RSS subscriber so basically when he updates, I read whatever he writes. I never knew that he is a tall guy, he is way much taller than me though. He was circled by a few of his blogging friends I guess. While hanging out on the hallway waiting for the conference door to open, I heard LiewCF telling the guys, he doesn't sell anything but buys more stuff which is quite funny. Not that I'm not a friendly person, I don't know why I didn't wanted to shake hand and say 'hi' to him, maybe it is more fun to stalk behind him rather than asking him directly..Haha..

The conference started with a couple of success stories video clips. I really like the Indian Singaporean guy who eventually opened up his own office selling tech gadgets. I find the guy selling 'leaves' picked up in front of his apartment a little bit awkward because his business is unique and I cannot relate to it. Anyway, it is interesting to get to know small and strange businesses running especially on eBay.

For some people, they get really excited and motivated to implement their ideas after they are exposed to a new discovery. I was one of them, but I've seem to lost touch of the enthusiasm simply because my old habit seems to hard to overcome. I went home early because it's just too painful for me to see so many features and ideas coming up after getting to know eBay much better with eBay Explained 2006. However, I still love freebies and I picked up a couple of these:

I should have taken more but I wasn't carrying a bag and I don't want to look like I'm stealing something. Anyway, eBay Explained 2006 was a good insight and probably I'll go for next year's conference. If you wanted to know who LiewCF's friend who was circling him, they did a much greater explanation over their eBay Explained 2006 experience. Here's their link:

Colbert Low

CJCM and IT

Tips To Drive In A Flash Flood

2006-11-13T11:29:00.000+08:00

In Kuala Lumpur where I live, when it is reaching year ends, there will be rain almost every evening. This would last for several weeks. Maybe it is the monsoon season or the cloud get saturated, I don't know, ask the Meteorology Department if you want to know more. Last Saturday was my re-exam day for my Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA). I finally finished my first semester, now another 3 more semesters to go. After the exam, I went and had lunch somewhere in Shah Alam. I then went to Seksyen 2 in Shah Alam to meet friends of mine. They're having lunch there and asked me to join them. It was raining badly by the time I got there.

My car's air conditioning is broken so I had to wipe away the moisture built up inside my car with tissue paper. I hate driving in the rain. So, I arrived at the eating place where my friends was eating lunch. A few minutes later, the water level rose up above our ankles. People were still hanging out by then and was hoping for the rain to fade away soon. The rain kept pouring in and since the eating place was just next to a big drain, the drain was however clogged though, the water kept on rising. Then people started panicking, the dining table almost got washed away by the streaming water. I had no choice but to save myself. I then saw a couple of cars were now submerged by the water rising. I was concerned about my car so I rushed back to my car while walking through the knee level flood water. Luckily the water level at where I parked nearly touched the lower portion of my car so my car can still be driven. It was a horrible experience.

I didn't manage to get any pictures while at the eating place because I left my camera in the car. On my way to Klang, there was this horrible traffic jam just before the Sg. Rasah Tol. The reason:

I somehow manage to maneuver through the flood water and made my way to Klang City. I saw many stranded motocycles and cars while going through the flood water.

Tips To Drive in A Flash Flood

Make sure all your car windows are closed because you'll never know some lorry or bigger cars will barge through the flooded area and splash a big amount of water right on your car's window.
You must be confident enough to drive your way across the flooded street, if you have a lowered car or the water level can seep into your engine, then just don't cross yet.
While you are driving your way across the flood, DO NOT release your accelerator pedal or else the water can go inside your exhaust system and of course, stall your car.
If you drive a motorcycle, make sure your engine is kept warm. The flood water can immediately cool off your engine block and causes your piston to be jammed and you'll get to nowhere.
Last thing, if you can afford it. Have your insurance policy covered with flood protection or you'll have to pay for your own repairs.

Have a safe rainy journey ahead.

Why Do You Need To Take Care of Your Laptop Battery

2006-11-06T11:34:00.000+08:00

Last month, I wrote about Keeping Your Dell Laptop's Heat Under Control. Earlier this month, Kelvin Chu from Tom's Hardware wrote about How Notebook Batteries Work and Why They Blow Up. If you are wondering how laptop batteries look like, here's an image after dissecting it:

Well, this laptop battery is a bit ugly and quite different from the others but you can see now that it's no more of a bunch of rechargable batteries wrapped and connected together. The larger the battery, the longer it could last. However, I'm still sad about my laptop battery which has already cooked. I wish I had known this information before I've gotten a laptop. Oh well, the next laptop I'm going to purchase will have my fullest care.

Can You Read This?

2006-10-31T10:17:00.000+08:00

A couple of months ago, I read this paragraph on Anina.net Lifeblog. Try it for yourself:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

Pretty amazing what your brain can interpret. Don't you think so?

Offline For 4 Days

2006-10-28T01:45:00.000+08:00

It's the much celebrated Hari Raya Festival after a month of fasting. I haven't been online for the past 4 days because I went back to my parents place way up in the Northern part of Malaysia. With no internet connection, here's what happened to my Gmail account:

It will take a while for me to clear those e-mails. Luckily I've unsubsribed to most of the newsletter I'm to subscribe with. Alright, need to get back to work after a long festive holiday.

Lasik or Natural Vision?

2006-10-19T16:53:00.000+08:00

I hate my glasses. I also hate the fact that I'm nearsighted. I've been wearing glasses full time since I was 16 years old. My prescription is -2.5D for my left eye and -2.75D for my right eye. When I was young, I told myself to make sure that when I grow up, I will not wear glasses like my parents do. I am so sure that myopia is not a heredity.

When I was 16, I noticed that I can't see what the teacher wrote on the whiteboard. That was when I realized that I am now a myopic dude. So, I went to an optometrist and made myself a pair of spectacles. At that time, my presription was only -1.25D for both eyes. I then searched for information to cure my myopic eyesight and found ISEE Website. I searched rigorously for other information especially on Natural Vision Improvement and even downloaded a complete ebook of The Bates Method. I lost the ebook prior to my hard disk failure though. This was all 8 years ago.

I soon got used to the glasses that I'm wearing because I have to see things clearly and as detail as possible. I tried contact lenses but it doesn't really gives me the comfort so I seldomly wear them. Eventually, I settle for glasses and learn how to deal with it in difficult situation. I wish I could get rid of my glasses. I then found out about LASIK. Since I've gone through a neck surgery when I was 16, surgery just gives the creep out of me. I don't like the fact of undergoing a surgery ever again. I even blacked out everytime a syringe penetrates my skin.

Anyway, I was browsing around and found Mike Davidson: Thinking About LASIK. I read the whole post including the comments. It's interesting to read what other people comments apart from David's post. Here's two interesting links that I found just by reading the post:

LASIK advice?

Bitch Slapped

Oh..look what I found:

If you are wondering what device is that. It's called The LASIK@Home device. For just $99.95, now you can have the LASIK procedure done by yourself. If you are broke like me, it's very tempting to order this product. However, I can't bare of thinking about losing my eyesight, it's better to wear glasses than being blind. If you notice, even the doctor who's modeling for the device wears glasses. How on earth would you believe that. The only sales factor that would make this product sold is the hope of having a 20/20 vision. By the way, this stuff is a hoax. You can read about it here.

No. I'm not going to order that device. I need to find out local LASIK centres to seek out more information about it. Here's a few LASIK centre I found online:

Optimax is the most prominent one I see with all the testimonial on their website from Malaysian athletes and even celebrities. I would have never known that one of my favourite singer had a LASIK to improve his eyesight.

Their website is a kind of ugly but as long as there is information, it's okay.

I passed by their office I think a few years ago. It's near the Star building in Phileo Damansara.

Now come the part where we find the downside of LASIK. Here's a website created by a n unfortunate person who underwent LASIK and had problems:

It's a pity for him to have a distorted vision. After spending thousands of ringgits for LASIK, he now has some eyesight problems.

You can search and find a lot more of LASIK experience from people elsewhere or else read this.

LASIK surgeries cost money. I don't have that kind of money yet. I think I'll find money first. LASIK can wait.

technorati tags:lasik, malaysia, natural, vision, glasses,

Which Malaysian Debit Card Should I Choose?

2006-10-15T12:36:00.000+08:00

Nowadays, bringing a lot of cash can be quite dangerous. You'll never know when you'll get robbed or you dropped your wallet somewhere and the best part, if you are a serial spender, you can't track where your money goes. That is why credit card is invented to make it more convenient for you to pay without bringing a lot of cash money. The downside of having a credit card is, you can somehow spend more than what you can afford. This is one of the reasons I heard on the news recently that there are more than 80 thousand people in Malaysia who are declared as bankrupt. Most of them are young people such as me.

Being in my current financial situation, I am not eligible to apply for a credit card. My confirmed yearly income is less than RM18,000. It’s somehow hurtful to see such low income I have. I heard that living in Kuala Lumpur, if your income is less than RM1,500 per month (RM18,000 per year), you are considered “Poor”. Anyway, I’m trying my best to earn money from other source of income or would be considering changing to another job.

I love the online world, it is fast paced, easy for me and I’m online most of the time. Having a credit card would be useful for me such as, verifying my PayPal account and doing online transactions for online shopping and online related stuff. Since I cannot apply for a credit card, there is another way of doing it, Debit Cards. A few years back, Malaysian banks doesn’t really emphasize on this product, now they do and we should take advantage of what is available for us today.

Alright, I have 4 debit cards available to choose from. Every one of them is cool however I would prefer the best debit card that suit my geographical location and where am I going to spend it. Here we go:

BCB MasterCard Electronic

I have a savings account on BCB (now it's called CIMB Bank) and I use that account to withdraw my salary. The company I work has an account on CIMB Bank. There's a mini branch just down my office and there is also a branch nearby my house. This debit card one is on top of my list now since it gives me a lot of convenience. Here's more info about this debit card.

Ambank NexG Prepaid MasterCard

This MasterCard prepaid was launch earlier this year by AmBank. The building where my office is located is owned by AmBank Group. So, there is a AmBank branch just downstairs. The card is also available at 7 Eleven but what I don't like is the high fees they charge. Here's more info about this debit card.

Public Bank Visa Electron

This is the only Visa debit card I found. I once had a BSN Visa Electron but I've never used it before. It is actually almost the same whether Visa or MasterCard but MasterCard because of it's branding strategies look far more superior than Visa. Maybe I'll apply for one when I have excess cash on my hand. Here's more info about this debit card.

AffinBank Debit MasterCard

This debit card was launched last week. It has Touch n Go facilities with it. I have a Touch n Go card which I use frequently so this debit card would be useful. However, I have to open up an account with Affin Bank first before I can apply for one. AffinBank has a branch located nearby my house but I have to cross the road to get there. BCB (CIMB Bank) branch is just the opposite of it. Well, I prefer to not to cross the road here in Kuala Lumpur. The traffic here is crazy. Here's more info about this debit card.

My decision now is to go for BCB (CIMB) Prepaid MasterCard. I'll update you on the process I had to go and details stuff when I get my hands on the card. If you can read Malay, SmartUsaha.com has an interesting post about obtaining a debit Mastercard Electronic.

technorati tags:malaysian, bank, mastercard, prepaid, visa, electron,

Keeping Your Dell Laptop's Heat Under Control

2006-10-08T17:27:00.000+08:00

My Dell Inspiron 630m is the most precious tool in my life nowadays. Without it, my life would be ruined so I take care of it very carefully. Unfortunately, tools no matter how careful you handle it will sooner or later develop problems of their own. Same goes with my Dell laptop when the battery just gave up even after it had survived the recent Dell battery recall.

Because of that, I am now using my laptop without the battery attached. At first I thought by doing so will solve my problem. However, the heat problem I'm facing hasn't fade away yet. I'm not so sure with my country's climate (hot and humid) plus with the latest haze problem is worsening the temperature of my laptop. Anyway, here's some photos and screenshots:

Whenever I type something, my palm will be resting on the position as shown above. Sometimes, it gets so hot that I had to cover the heat spot with a cloth or something.

Just look at the temperature on my CPU fan detector software. It's burning HOT!!

I had to find solutions to this problem and did some searching online. Wikipedia is a great place to find information. They have a special topic under Dell Inspiron Overheating Problem. After reading the article, I downloaded this piece of software.

The tool is called Dell Inspiron/Latitude/Precision fan control utility. It can overide the default setting of your dell laptop fan so that you can cool off your CPU manually. Anyway, I don't really want to do that because there are certain risk involved and it is not under warranty if something suddenly malfunctioned. So, far I've manage to track what is the cause of problem which is my CPU is working hard processing on something while it should be idle whenever I'm not using the laptop capability to the maximum.

Here's a few other links which I find good for you to understand and keeping your Dell laptop or any laptop heat under control:

Mac Help - Laptop Temperature Information
System Idle Process
Cold Wheather Tips for Laptops (If you live in a cold country of course)
Computer Cooling

technorati tags:laptop, heat, control, temperature, dell, inspiron, 630m

Business Proposals..Is it Worth Writing?

2006-10-06T11:59:00.000+08:00

Over the week, I wrote a lot of business proposals for my sales director in the company. My sales director is an aggresive old man who will keep on calling if he doesn't get what he wants. However, he has no clue on what to write for his proposal to what he has market. My managing director on the other hand wants to tailormade himself each and every business proposal that is going to be submitted. Eventually, as the sole remaining person in the company who can read and write English better than anyone else in the company, I had to edit, proofread, print and bind those business proposals. Sometimes, when the upper management is lazy, I had to figure out the proposals myself. When some misspelled words were discovered, I was blamed for not doing the job correctly.

Alright, I think you heard enough of my whining. Now, let's look into our topic of the day. In my line of duty, I've read a lot proposals. Some were short while some are xtremely long. Business proposals are like a thesis a university student would produce for their graduation, except it is focused on making a sale for the company's revenue. Here is a few questions you should ask if you are making a business proposal for a potential client or so:

What is the objective or purpose of this busines proposal?
What is the client's best interest over the solution that is proposed?
Will this business proposal would develop a one time occurence or a long term business relationship with the client?
Will the client make or save money by using what is going to be proposed?
Is the client technical or just making evaluation?

Writing business proposal is just one part of the process in making a deal. The ultimate objective is to begin the transaction so the company can make a revenue. Money is oxygen in a life of a business.

technorati tags:business, proposal, writing

The Basement Guru: A Must Read

2006-10-01T13:24:00.000+08:00

I 've been reading a few successful web entrepreneurs blog that I'm planning to model. I like the way they work because they are very different from the Internet Marketing model that I used to read about. They work really hard to accomplish what had been plan and they are very unique in their own kind of way.

In my country, the only basement I know is the basement car park. There are no basement in homes that I've seen because it's not a practical thing to have. Eventhough Google was first established in a basement, not all web entrepreneur started out in a basement. It's just an interesting term to use. If you ask me, I would prefer to call them 'Bedroom Guru' because all it need is a computer and an internet connection in a small room just beside the bed.

Anyway, here is the website:

So now, the only thing to do is to search within myself and move forward toward my personal goal.

technorati tags:web, entrepreneur, guru

I Hate The Federal Highway

2006-09-29T16:26:00.000+08:00

It's almost a week now I'm practicing fasting which I do every year. I now must leave my office before 5pm to avoid the traffic jam in KL City. I hate driving in the traffic jam because it is a waste of my petrol money I've poured in for my car. Take a look at this video taken by some dude at PJ Hilton Hotel. The building is just nearby my building and it has a good view of how the Federal Highway looks like when it is jammed pack.

Happy fasting to all my muslim friends

Broad Horizon Vs Narrow Horizon

2006-09-27T01:15:00.002+08:00

Once in a while, I go to this cycle of complacency. It happens to all of us whether we are poor, middle class or rich. The reason is because we have our own comfort zone and we love the feeling of having security in our lives. The cycle would then goes down and this is where I feel the urgency to take charge of my life and start to change. However, the sensation feeling is short lived and later on, I would be back again with my same old routine and habits. I’m not really sure I love or hate this type of cycle but I do know that I badly need to change.

I just finished watching the final episode of Third Watch on my free national television. Did some searching on Google and found out that Third Watch started airing the show since September 1999 and ended on April 2005. I loved that show very much eventhough it may be fictional, but it gives you a glimpse of what going on in the real world or at least what is happening out there. Plus on every episode, there will be a moral of a story usually subconsciously embedded.

Going back to the head title of my post. I guess you all heard that we need to diversify in order to survive or you need to take risk or don’t put all your eggs on one basket, spread it. These advices are all given by so called experts. Do they really apply them in real life, I’m not so sure about that. From my experience here is what I’ve found.

I had this idea of setting up websites and blogs for specific niches. I did all the research, set up plans and draft out some process plan. Unfortunately, the plan remains on the piece of paper I’ve drafted and never went out for production. What was I’ve been doing wrong? It then hit me when I’ve been reading other blogs that we are all given the same equal amount of time in a day. The one who can position and leverage what they do is the one who will be on top of what they do. So, what leverage do you have right now? Me, I underutilizing the leverage I have so most probably I need to sharpen the skill that I have with me.

The other thing that really bugs me is, should I be focusing broadly or narrowly. My career seems to not going anywhere simply because I’m doing all kind of jobs in all kind of direction. Having focused on too many things lead to my failure for advancement. I do think I need to reprioritize my goal and most importantly write it down and recite it everyday. Normally we fail to do that when complacency starts kicking in.

How To Produce A Quick Business Proposal in 2 hours

2006-09-21T22:51:00.000+08:00

Today, I had a presentation meeting for my company with avery big well known organization. Well, thanks to one of our competitors whoever they are, we won’t even have to finish up the presentation.However, we had to come out with a proposal for them.

In the company where I work, I’m the only person who is qualified and has been doing the dirty work of producing countless proposals for the past nearly 2 years. Normally, my boss write up most of the proposal but eventually I am the one who had to edit and proofread whatever he had wrote. Sometimes,he will come to me and ask for what sentence should he use to write. His spelling and grammar is the worst I’ve ever read. I’m not sure of because of my blogging skills built up during the years has improved my writing, but I do know that I can write many times better than my boss. There are times he spent hours and hours just for 2-3 pages on a proposal. I could just have just crank it out in just a few minutes if he just had the courtesy to pay me or give me a raise or something. For whatever reason, I still need his approval before whatever proposal under the company's name can be submitted.

So how do you write a quick business proposal for a client in 2 hours? My advice is very different from a conventional book or articles. Here is 10 bulleted points of what you should have before you can write a quickbusiness proposal:

You need to have an extensive amount of details over what you are going to propose
You are able to use Microsoft Word or whatever word processor, like the back of your hand
You need to be able to handle the printers in case of something goes wrong while printing
You are comfortable in crafting out formal sentences
You can mix and match the details and customize it according to the client’s need
You need to keep track of all the documents you have
You need to be able proofread the entire documents on screen quickly
You have done countless of mistake on countless of writings before
You are able to multitask by opening up a lot of active tabs on your windows taskbar
You can handle the application crashes if it happens

Now there you have it. There is no short cut if you wantto be good in something. You have to spend time and effort in whatever things you do.

technorati tags:writing, proposals, proposals

Yahoo Photos Phishing Prevention

2006-09-18T00:18:00.000+08:00

In early May 2006, I lost my almost 10 year old Yahoo Account to a phishing site which looked exactly the same as a login for Yahoo Photo. Wondering what lies behind the site, I simply key in my yahoo account information eventhough I was logged in to Yahoo on a different tab. 10 minutes later, I was automatically logged out involuntarily. I tried to log in again but didn't succeeded. Tried to recover my password but the phishing system was way too advance to scramble my information detail. Searched for some hackers but they charged a hefty $150 for one account but I have doubt that these hackers will just take away my money, steal all the details on my address book and emails and laugh at all my emails. So, I had to let go of my Yahoo Account permanently.

After so much of waiting, finally Yahoo introduced a new system that could actually prevent you from the phishing site:

Basically, what this thing do is it labels your Yahoo login site with your own colour and label tab. The step below is how you do it.

First you can choose whether to have a seal text or an image seal tab.

For my login, I chose to have an image and the colour red.

An authentic and legitimate seal for my Yahoo login.

The only problem is it's limited to your browser of choice and it can only use on your own computer. Let me elaborate on that, I use Flock and Firefox both at the same time. The image seal above is created for my Flock browser. My Firefox browser doesn't have the seal. So, this mean it must be configured to each and every browser that you use. Still, it's a good practice to prevent your account from being phished. Yahoo is now using Ajax in it's web application. They are now are almost cool as Google. We'll see a lot of features from Yahoo in the next few months till 2007. Untill then, stay cool..

I Waited 53 Days For My Car

2006-09-09T19:26:00.000+08:00

I can't believe I've waited 53 days for my red Proton Iswara Aeroback 1.3 to get restored back to its working condition. That is equivalent to almost 2 months of waiting. On the 4th of July 2006, my car got robbed under the sunny daylight at the DBKL car park of KTM Komuter Segambut Station. You can read all about it here. My car is covered under Kurnia Motor Insurance since it is still under finance of a bank. I didn't fork out any money because I have agreed and gave the permission for the workshop appointed by the Kurnia to take care of my car.

After getting my car out of the police station, I waited patiently and made regular calls to the workshop who is charge of the process. Unfortunately, I was turned down regularly by the delay the Kurnia Insurance adjuster. The workshop told me that it is normal for that to happen and they are working hard to push them to make the claim approval quick. Well, that didn't happen. I'll summarize the entire wait I had to endure:

5/7 - 31/7 (27 days)
1/8 - 10/8 (10 days)
11/8 (the day Kurnia approve my claim)
12/8 - 26/7 (15 days of waiting for the appointed workshop to restore my car)

The claim that Kurnia Insurance awarded me was RM3800 gross. I don't really want to know how much is the exact cost the workshop spent for my car because I'll be wasting my time just to find that information. Beside, I haven't spent anything eversince the incident occured back in July. I just wanted to get my car back so that I can hit the road again. A piece of advice, better send an e-mail to Kurnia Insurance rather than calling them. For some reason, it's very difficult to get through their operators.

Look at the images I've compiled below:

View from the rear

The driver's seat view

All done and nice.

I also updated and made a new gallery for the above pictures taken. You can access it using the links below:

Ashrufzz Red Proton Iswara Aeroback 1.3 Restored

My insurance coverage will be expiring by December 2006. I think I'm going to change insurance company due to my policy expiration. I recently find that there are so many motor insurance packages available and the banks are also offering such packages. The insurance industry is really taking off at such rapid pace these days. Unfortunately, I wish they pace up their process instead of taking such a long time. Mine was 37 days before the claim got approved after all the required documents were submitted.

One more thing was, a week after I've picked up my car from the workshop. I received a phone call from the workshop and they told me that I need to send the car back to their workshop for a re-inspection of the insurance company. So, I sent the car to them last Thursday. Kurnia Insurance procedures is really strange. I think it's time to change to another insurance company in hope for a better service.

In the future, I think I'm going to try my best to avoid any engagement that involve insurance companies.

International Hacking Competition 2006 at UiTM

2006-09-03T11:31:00.000+08:00

Yesterday after my Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) class, I went to an event at the main hall of the university. If you didn't know, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) was my former university where I did my diploma there. During my years there, the facilities were being upgraded and there were a lot of development for new building and infrastructure. I could only experience a few of them before I finished my studies there back in 2003. This year, I'm back again as a student eventhough I'm not taking a major course.

The event I went was:

You can click on the image above to see some pictures the student have taken. I'm just giving out my reviews on what I saw and experience yesterday. Firstly, I wonder why they call it 'International Hacking Competition' when there was no international people participating. However, I do want to congratulate the effort that was done by the organizers. There were a few other organizations that opened up their booth. I didn't go the talks they've conducted because of time constraint but I wish I had went to the 'hacking class' on Friday.

Overall, I could see how hacking is an interesting subject. Hacking is not a bad thing, it maybe useful in an event of certain circumstances. I can pretty much do hacking myself given time and determinations. Hacking is learnable if you have the will, the brain power and creativity to resort on other alternatives. The key is to try, try and try until you succeed. You'll never know what you can achieve when you never done it. So, DO IT!!

Experiencing Back The Bus Ride in Kuala Lumpur

2006-09-01T22:07:00.000+08:00

It's the month of September already. My schedule are so packed already eventhough it's a new month. Anyway, I got back my car after nearly 2 months of waiting for it to be restored. I'll write about my restored car it in my next post.

Last 26th August 2006, since nobody was available to send me to pick up my car at Setapak (the workshop appointed under my insurance policy) I decided to go to the place by bus. Eversince Rapid KL took over from Intrakota, I have no idea of how their latest bus fare is like. So, I did a bit of digging on the net before I got on the bus, but the official website of Rapid KL is so confusing. The maps were too small for me to see and it dissapointed me because I had to search for the information. I have no clue about their bus sytem eventhough I got off the bus. I then found that Wikipedia provide a better more comprehensible information about Rapid KL System. I'm puzzled of why is a big corporate government owned body could not provide the essential information about their own services on their own website. Why?

How To Get To Taman Danau Kota From Sungai Mas Plaza, Jalan Ipoh.

I live nearby Sg. Mas Plaza, Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur. The bus station is a 10 minutes walk from my house. It would cost me RM3 if I were to take a taxi just to get to get to the bus stand. This is the landmark of my place:

Here is the place where I took the Rapid KL bus. It is one the hub in my area:

The routes available here are:

210: Sungai Mas - Taman Batu/Taman Muda/Ampat Tin - Warta Lama
222: Sungai Mas - Jinjang Utara/Taman Beringin
225: Sungai Mas - Taman Bukit Permai
234: Titiwangsa - Jalan Ipoh - Sungai Mas
236: Sungai Mas - Jalan Kepong - Metro Prima

I need to go to Titiwangsa and switch to another bus to get to Taman Danau Kota. Here's the bus I took:

The journey then took about 20 minutes before I arrived at Titiwangsa bus stand. I was glad that the bus stick with its routine unlike the old days where some buses waited for people to cramp into the bus before they took off.

At first I thought I just paid the bus fares once and I can just go anywhere using the ticket I bought for the whole day. That is what Rapid KL advertised on the radio, television and their brochures or billboard. I then found out that it was just for certain travel within the zone. I got confused but I paid the fares while switching the bus. I couldn't figure out what buses is available at Titiwangsa because there were too many of them.

The above picture is how to spot the colour codes that Rapid KL has implemented in their network routes. To read more about the colour codes, read all about it here.

The above image was the ticket I bought. To get to Titiwangsa, I paid RM1 which I can use to get back to where I was from. I then bought the RM2 to get to the destination to pick up my car.

I didn't sweat much since the bus is air conditioned and it was comfortable enough despite of the crowd. If I'm not mistaken, I took the bus number T20 (Titiwangsa Jln Pahang - Jln Genting Kelang - LRT Wangsa Maju Giant: Hulu Kelang). The journey lasted around 15 minutes.

Glad to found my car has been restored before I went up to the workshop's office. I don't really mind walking a few distance as long I can get there. The whole journey took me about 55 minutes. Compared that to if I'm driving, I could have save 20 minutes. Oh well, at least is comfortable and safer than riding the motorcycle. I saw two minor motorcycle accident this week. I also save money by taking the bus. A taxi ride would have cost me around RM20 from my house to the destination I was heading.

As a conclusion, I still prefer if I had the bus information earlier instead of trying to figure it out by asking people and observation.

Why Does Your Laptop Battery Deteriorates

2006-08-22T01:00:00.000+08:00

My Dell Inspiron 630m is 7 months old (I've blogged about it here). It belongs to the company I work with. Before I even use a laptop, I was using an old Pentium 3 500MHz Optiplex to do all kind of stuff including developing the company's website. For me, as long as it is a computer, I can do a lot of things with it.

After 7 months of usage, shortly after Dell recalls it's 4 million laptop batteries (Click Here to read about My Dell Laptop Survived The Battery Recall, I got this message on my Dell laptop:

It had just been 7 months, why is it that my battery's life is coming to its end? So, I clicked on the more information link to get more information.

Oh no! my laptop battery is not covered under the warranty. What did I do wrong? Is the battery manufacturer is trying to get extra profit by reducing the battery's life span?

I was losing 2 hours of battery usage compared to when I first got my hand on the laptop. I also noticed the past few weeks, my Dell laptop is generating some excessive heat but I ignored it because here in Malaysia, it is always hot and humid. Little do I realized that heat dissipation consume a lot of energy thus reducing it's life span.

Laptop batteries are expensive. Being dissapointed, I searched for some resources which hopefully could revive back my poor Dell laptop battery. I found this article:

How To Prolong Lithium-Based Batteries

Based on my reading from the above article, I've concluded what I've done wrong:

Heat: I contained my laptop from dissipating it's heat. My house is really warm and humid. I'll sweat like crazy if the ceiling or the standing fans is not operating. What I should have done: Only use my laptop in a cool place or in an air conditioned room. Keep it COOL!
Choose between Battery or AC Power: I'm just too lazy to took out my batteries while pluggin in to the AC Power simultaneously. I spent countless of hours on AC Power while neglecting my batteries. The laptop just baked the batteries and I thought it wouldn't do no harm. What I should have done: I should have just stored away my laptop battery in a cool safe place and use the AC Power adaptor instead.
Charging Up and Fully Discharge: I thought the way to make a laptop battery longer was to discharge it frequently so that it doesn't remain dormant. I was constantly charging the batteries at it fullest. Lucky it didn't burned out. What I should have done: I shouldn't frequently rely on my batteries since my house has extra electricity cord all over. In my office, I don't do mobile computing much often, my laptop is always plugged in most of the time. My batteries were suppose to be just on standby whenever I needed to go mobile. That's it..

Since the damage is already done. I can only minimize the damage and make sure that my spare battery (I'm considering to buy one) would not go to through same thing again. I hope by sharing this experience, I hope my readers would appreciate take care of their laptops better than what I've done.

My Dell Laptop Survived The Battery Recall

2006-08-17T13:10:00.000+08:00

A colleague of mine last week asked around if there was anyone that is using a Dell laptop. He told me that Dell was recalling back laptops. I thought it was no big deal until I read this. I then immediately checked my laptop to see if my Dell Inspiron 630m battery needs to be handed over or not. I wasn't so happy if I needed to hand over my stuff to someone because I know I wouldn't get it back so soon. It is almost like my car where it has been stored in a warehouse waiting for my insurance claim repair for more than a month already. Now the car workshop couldn't give me a time estimation over my car repair eventhough they are for sure will get the money from the insurance company. Companies are so corrupted these days.

Back to Dell Laptops. From my experience, laptops can get very hot when they are crunching a lot of datas. They also get hot when you use the CD ROM and if the air ventilation on the side near the CPU is blocked. If you live in a country where the atmosphere has a high level of humidity, it can get even hotter. So, it is recommended that you use your computer or laptop in an air conditioned room if you want maximum performance. Well, that would compromise my mobility because in my bedroom, I don't have air conditioner, only a small fan.

Never mind that. Here's a few shots of my Dell Laptop Inspiron 630m and let's see if my battery needs to be replaced or not:

My Dell Laptop Model

I've removed my battery to check out the battery model.

Logged on to Dell Battery Recall.

Compared my Dell laptop battery and..

my Dell laptop battery doesn't match.

So, I don't have to return my laptop and I'm saved by a Korean battery. I happen to love watching to Korean Soap Drama. I've never noticed that my laptop battery is made in Korea. Now I know. Funny how we didn't even notice the thing in front of us until when something happen.

SEO-I Should Practice More Of It

2006-08-15T22:41:00.000+08:00

As someone who is practicing blogging and website writing as a hobby, the excitement of finding my pages and writing in search engines is just exhilarating. recently, I found my page to rank first in MSN Search:

I read about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) all the time since I've subscribed to a couple of SEO blogs on my RSS reader. However, I seem to spend more time reading and submerge in the topic. I should have start practicing while still keeping myself updated about it. Discipline is an area where I still lack. Maybe I should join the military to get hold of 'discipline' more firmly..Nahh..I'm not joining the military. I wouldn't qualify..I think.. :-p

Success Tip from #1 Best Selling Author Mike Litman

2006-08-13T20:52:00.000+08:00

My weekend is over. So, it's going to be a new week tomorrow. Let's look at this awesome to stay motivated ahead.

Mike Litman, recently called "the Next Tony Robbins" unveils a success tip that has changed his life as well as the lifes of thousands of others.

Have a fantastic week ahead.

Bumped Into Kidino

2006-08-09T20:42:00.000+08:00

This morning, while walking to get to my office. I passed by Starbucks Cafe, Amcorp Mall (where my office is located) and then saw someone whom I met way back in 2004 during an event I participate called The Total Wealth Seminar conducted by Marco Robinson. At first I thought I mistakenly recognized him for someone else, so I shot him a comment on his blog. He replied back and said it was him alright. After lunch, I tried and search for him before bumping into him on the escalator. Kidino is a rare breed of online entrepreneur who quited his job and ventured into the online business full time. He makes money selling digital products, online web tutorials, affiliate marketing, Google Adsense and many more. While he was at Starbuck, he manage to make out this amazing salesletter telling about Mike Filsaime latest product. In the world of Internet marketing, Mike Filsaime is a big shot.

I envy so much of what Kidino can do. Of course I know that he spent years learning, doing and perfecting what he has achieved right now. As a jack of all trade, I think I'm not moving ahead these days. I need to change and the change has to come from within. I'm thinking of finding a mentor but I'm afraid that I couldn't commit on it. In another perspective, I think blogging is now becoming a career. You can make a full time income as proven by a number of people committed to blogging. Problogger is one of the big shot in the world of professional blogging. I took on Problogger Quiz and here's my result:

I'm just blogging as a hobby. Well, it is fairly true enough. I need to go pro. I need to change. I'm changing it NOW!

What is Microenterprise?

2006-08-08T10:25:00.000+08:00

Let's go back to business shall we? I just read in my local newspaper about a government bank will be providing microfinancing. We all know that electronic gadgets are getting smaller and smaller, big companies are outsourcing their operation to smaller companies, and small is cute. However micro for me sounds to small. So, what is Microenterprises?

According to the newspaper I read; "Microenterprises are those employing fewer than five employees with an annual turnover of RM200,000 to RM250,000." That would mean I'm working for a microenterprise company since in my office, only 4 person is occupying the space. Small is simple, easy to manage and maximizing everything that we've got.

Which one would you prefer? A big corporate environment, a small and medium enterprise or a microenterprise? I preferably would go for microenterprises at this moment (I'm actually part of it though).

This Flash Movie is So Cute!

2006-08-07T15:27:00.000+08:00

After spending an awesome weekend, I'm still in the mood of a holiday. Here's a video that could cheer you up and make you say, "How cute!".

Dont you just love cute little thing? ;-D

Your BroadBand Connection Slow? Try Using This..

2006-08-04T18:14:00.000+08:00

I lost count how many times I have complained about my internet connection. Lucky for me, since I'm using a laptop. I have these options to go online:

I have a wireless internet connection at home (WEP encrypted)
I have a wireless internet connection at my office (also WEP encrypted)
I have a wireless hotspot account using TMNet Hotspot
I have a free TimeNet account (There's a Star Buck just down at my office shopping mall building)
I can just go and connect to a free wireless internet connection at my favourite shopping malls around KL

However, I don't really like surfing the internet at public places so the 2 places I often online is at home and my office. Sometimes, well a lot of the time actually, the internet slows down. After reading what LiewCF wrote about OpenDNS, I tried and configured my wireless router. I hardly feel any difference but probably because of the psychological affect of what OpenDNS has wrote, it does feel a bit quicker. You can try OpenDNS for yourself:

Happy safe surfing..

I Now Use PF Blogging Editor Tool

2006-08-03T13:42:00.000+08:00

I just created several other blogs. There are a few blogs that I've created is targeted to a very specific niches in order to monetize it. As long as I could get a few extra dollars using Adsense, I think there's nothing wrong with that. You should read about Article Underground as it tells you about why hand created website is much more valuable than software generated one. Anyway, writing articles is hard work for me. I can't write a lot of articles because I'm not trained at it yet. I'm practicing it at the moment to focus on writing more. At least it will keep me occupied rather than just reading crap about internet marketing.

Why use a blogging editor tool? Basically tools are created to save time so that you can focusing on doing things that is more important. It is also called 'leverage'. By leveraging, you can do more than what you are capable of. Who doesn't want that, right? So, here's my blogging tool that I use:

Performancing Firefox is one of top rated blogging editor. I'm still getting the hang of using this tool. I used to log in to my blogger account, write in the post section, preview it and then post. Now I don't have to log into my account anymore, the software does that for me. It's integrated with my Firefox Browser so I can just blog away while I'm surfing a page. It's very convenient. My only hope is that my blogger account or any other blog accounts that I need to log in, doesn't get hacked by some bad guys. Try and have a go on Performancing Firefox.

Business Approach to Wealth Maximisation

2006-07-31T15:40:00.000+08:00

I had a wonderful weekend. There was Mega-Sales all over the shopping malls. They were packed with people spending money. Goshh..spending money is so easy. It is engrained in our head to spend money all the time. Thinking about it in a business context, there's opportunities all around us simply because people spend money.

Several weeks ago, I read an article on New Sunday Times newspaper and I saw an article about "The Ways of Rockefellar and Carnegie are still relevant". If you not so familiar about the business world, Rockefellar and Carnegie is a total stranger. I've just know the two names last two years. Who are these people? Simply saying, they are ultra rich people who don't have to go to work like us in the rat race. ;-)

So, what does it have to do for you? Well, wealth maximisation is generally not for me because I'm broke physically, however we can always have a virtual mindset that is set to a 'wealth' mode. It's like what Napoleon Hill famous quote, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.". If you didn't know, Napoleon Hill eventually became broke. Oh well, everything in life must come to an end sooner or later.

Seperation of tasks

Studying about wealth maximisation, here's a number of job function that needs to be fullfilled:

CEO (chief executive officer)
COO (chief operating officer)
Administration & IT manager
Plan development manager
Operations manager
Review and control manager
Research and development manager
Various products and service specialists

All the job function is the traditional hierarchy as shown on the below image:

Coming down to our own personal wealth, we need to choose smartly which hat to choose to put on to ensure our own wealth maximisation method. Some of the role can be delegated but we need to becareful of that. It reminds me of the outsourcing job that is mushrooming in our world and taking away small tasks that normally big businesses used to handle.

So, as a conclusion, your personal wealth is the most important business. We should all be wealthy.

;-)

What Blogging Buys Me

2006-07-24T16:44:00.000+08:00

I've been blogging since May 2004 and there are times that I've almost gave up blogging. While sometimes, I've been blogging crap. I now see a constant traffic coming from keyword search from search engines. I guess, when the database is getting bigger, the search engine's spider especially googlebot loves to come and see what's going on here. Anyway, let's see what blogging has bought me:

NOTHING!

You should read this blog posting by one of the most influential blogger in the blogosphere, Problogger Darren Rowse:

What Blogging Bought You
More On What Blogging Is Buying Bloggers

I guess because I have no strategy of blogging, it became sort of like a hobby. I think I'll analyze and model on why these bloggers could achieve something that I could not. However, using my blog's PR4 on Google Toolbar, I can easily link website that I've created and in a short while, the website will get listed in Google. I think that is an advantage of having a blog that grows over time.

Well, need to do more reading and more action to get what I want. Work hard and play hard..

Why Is The 2nd Lesson Getting Harder?

2006-07-23T00:48:00.000+08:00

Each Saturday, I now take an extra class. So last Saturday, I went to my second class for my one year Cisco Certified Network Associate certification attempt. Since I'm taking the class on a part time basis, 4 hours of class once a week is not enough. I think I'm struggling to keep up with the huge amount of knowledge and information that I have to gain in order to answer each assesment test correctly. At first, the 1st class was easy. There was nothing much to think and memorize.

During the second class, there was 2 new assessment test and I had to answer the test eventhough I haven't read and understand the syllabus. Because of the time constraintment, I had to do what busy office people do, 'multitask'. Multitasking itself is another practice which requires time and perseverence to master. Since the course is done over a computer with an internet connection, it's not that difficult to open up another browser and try to search the answer by minimizing the test. With the use of search engines and the 'find' function on the browser, it made searching for the required answer way much faster.

Being fast doesn't really mean you can answer the question correctly. You still need to understand what the question is in order to answer each question correctly. It reminds me when I was in school where I was eager to learn during the first subject taught in class. In my mind at that time was, I could score an "A" for the subject with no problem. It then wears off after as the lesson get more and more advance. Well, I think I should take one step at a time rather than just doing an express study/revision or more better known as 'the last minute study'.

Should I Respond or Not?

2006-07-20T11:22:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, the Celebrity Fitness call person tried to call me. I purposely didn't pick up my phone because I don't want to upset the sales consultant. Am I too kind or what?

I also made a phone call to the workshop and my insurance company where my car is stored after the theft of my car accessories at the KTM Komuter Segambut Car Park early this month. She said that they are still waiting for the insurance company's approval before they could proceed the job. Since I haven't call my insurance company yet, I made an enquiry call and discovered that the workshop just submitted the documents required 3 days ago. Should I ask the workshop office assistant what the hell did she do? or should I just wait for the approval. So many things to think and so many decisions to make.

I think we all need to be constantly reminded and motivated to get things moving swiftly without delays.

What? Another Gym?

2006-07-15T20:15:00.000+08:00

I just got a call from another gym called Celebrity Fitness, Subang Parade. Telemarketers are relentless, I hate them. Oh I forgot, I was a telemarketer before. I know how they feel. Anyway, I guess my contact number just became a victim of someone who knows me and refered me as a potential lead to them. Probably the person just wanted the 7 days trial and paid the gym my handphone number along with a few others I guess. I'm not going to waste my time trying to find who that person is.

If you want to see the review of Celebrity Fitness, I present you the link below:

Free Trial at Celebrity Fitness

I've set an appointment on Wednesday evening to go and see the sales lady. I think I'm going to cancel them and gave up a number of people I hate..haha..Gosh, it was like last two years when I got numerous calls to join business opportunities and Multi-Level Marketing. I wonder who else would call me next?

Are You Health Conscious?

2006-07-13T00:33:00.000+08:00

Two days ago, I received a call from a lady who said she was from some kind of fitness centre. At first I thought it was from Fitness First because I didn't hear the other word apart from Fitness. After clarifying, it was from True Fitness another operator of modern gymnasium for urban citizen which is popping out in KL City. As a former telemarketer, I know how and what they are going to do, however I think it wouldn't hurt to make an appointment to see what they have to offer.

I went to True Fitness which is located at Desa Sri Hartamas. I normally go back and forth over the same route and see the Fitness Centre everyday but I haven't had the interest to see what it's like inside there. So, the consultant that made an appointment with me was named Vera, I'm not sure if she is a Chinese or a Malay or other races but she was nice. She gave me a tour of the facilities. The place is huge. It was bigger than the Fitness First Centre at Damansara Uptown and Subang Jaya where I went 2 years ago. They also have a lot of classes going on almost the same as Fitness First but the unique part is, there's Yoga Classes. They also have plenty of spaces for the members to do their workout.

So, after all the tour and sightseeing around the vicinity, now comes the hard part, The Membership Payment. I have no whatsoever budget to join a gym club yet. The consultant went ahead and showed me the catalog and the price. As expected, the price is too steep for me. Imagine RM500 just for the joining fees, RM90 for the application fees and RM215 per month, my god..I would have to bootstrap like crazy if I were to join this club. The consultant then act if she was going to help me with the payment, yeah she was right, she slashed a few ringgit here and there. That's not helping, that's just downsizing the figures and hope that I feel gratitude of her helping me. She then did the dissapearing act, as if she went to the managers room to get even a lower price. She's not going to fool me, I know that she didn't go and see her manager, she just went inside her staff room and waited a few minutes before coming out and pretend to bring good news. So, what I did, I did my dissapearing act while she was away. I ran out the gym, started my car and drove away. Oh, I also switched off my handphone so that she couldn't reach me. My phone then got an sms that she tried and called me 5 times. I have a feeling that she'll contact me again pretty soon.

What have I learned? I learned that I need to exercise to build up my body strength. I am becoming weak just by sitting down in front of this laptop. I have a free gym facility down at my office but I hardly ever use it. I'm so ashamed of myself. I need to change.

If you like to read more about gym reviews around Kuala Lumpur. There is one blog that I recommend:

Mun Blog | The site for the gym goers. Be Strong. Be Fit.

I not sure if the blogger is a 'he' or a 'she' but the reviews Mun Blog gave is very good. Read Free Trial at True Fitness (1). You can see pictures and other related stuff about the gym that I went.

Be Strong. Be Fit.

P/S: You don't need to have membership of a gym to have a healthy lifestyle. Save money and go for a jog at the park is sufficient enough to maintain a healthy body.

A Refreshing Weekend

2006-07-10T14:56:00.000+08:00

I had a great weekend last Saturday and Sunday. Apart from watching The World Cup, I also went to great places with a few of my friends. On Saturday, I went to Cineleisure Damansara. The place is a brand new shopping complex surrounded by a few other shopping complexes. The crowd there was huge and cars were lining up to fill up the parking spaces there. If you have no idea where it is, here's a map for you to digest:

There's only a few shops open inside the complex. One of them is the Cathay Cineplexes where I watched Superman Returns. The cinema is a brand new cinema place so it's something for me to check it out. The best part of the cinema that I like was the spacious couple seats. I have no idea it was a couple seat when I first bought the tickets. Eventhough Superman Returns didn't turn out to be a great movie for me, I did had a great time on the couple seat with my lovely girlfriend..hehe..

Last Sunday, I went to Ulu Yam Recreational Area. Since it was a weekend, the place is full of people. Still, the water is icy cool on a hot afternoon. It was just so nice to be there:

I think I'm going back to that place pretty soon. Wishing you a nice week.

Getting My Car Out From The Police Station

2006-07-07T07:36:00.000+08:00

I took 2 days off just to make sure my process to get the car out from the police station and insurance claim run smoothly. Lucky for me I could adjust my days off with my boss and had everything covered by my team members. Nevertheless, I could work from home since most of my work involves stuff using the computer.

So, what did happened the past 2 days? A very good question to answer. Let's rewind back to the day after I did the police report at Balai Polis Jinjang. After my police report was printed out, a sergeant from the Balai Polis Sentul called me and asked me if I could arrange for the car to be sent to the his place (Balai Polis Sentul). I replied, I could find a tow truck and send the car as requested. I don't really know any tow truck so I called AAM (I'm a member since 2002) and they said they don't do towing for cars that involve police & insurance case. So, they refered me a panel agent. So, I called the man and luckily he was a nice and calm man and he said he could arrange everything. I was so relief after that.

The car was towed to Sentul and parked inside the police station. The nice sergeant processed my case and said that this could take some time and asked me to go home and come back in the morning. He said that at night the finger print and pictures are hard to see so they'll look for it in the morning.

The next morning, I went back. The sergeant then brought his colleague (the photographer) and took pictures of my car. He then said nicely to me to go home since this case is rather unusual and they'll look into it in in depth. I went back home and waited while doing my stuff online. At 4pm, I called the photographer (since the sergeant asked him to be in charge of my case) and he said the process is done so I could now proceed to get my car out to the workshop. He also explained that he didn't find any fingerprints in the car, which means that the culprits are professionals using gloves to cover up their act. The process explained the officer would probably take no less than 2-3 hours. I hardly believe that because it could take less time if done by 2-3 person.

I went to the police station and met with my appointed agent for AAM. He said that after the adjuster from the insurance company had taken pictures and process the case, the car will be towed out. I thought that would have been a quick process but then, the agent told me that I would have to come back again the next day to the office and bring along the necessary documents. The necessary document would be:

Car registration (I had to go the bank and ask for a copy)
Insurance cover note (mine was at the car dealer where I bought)
A copy driving license
A copy of my IC
A copy of my Hire & Purchase Agreement (I bought this car using a loan)

I got all of this done and the next day, I sent all this document to the office where my agent is from. My agent was at the police station when I arrived at the office. After submitting all the documents, I then waited for my agent. I waited for half an hour before one of the office assistant call me and asked me if I had called the insurance company and let them know about the situation. I then said, "I haven't called them up yet. I thought you were the one who was suppose to take care them for me". So, they called my insurance company and let them know. I wonder why was I supposed to call since it would have took me a long process to find the right person and stuff. I know how to deal with this type of calls because of my job but imagine if a shy person doing it. It wouldn't be a pleasant thing to do plus it is too time consuming.

After that, I was told that the 'adjuster' would call me before they could evaluate my car in order to get my car out of the police compound. I went back home and waited for the call. The adjuster never called, instead my agent called and told me to surrender the keys so that the car can be towed away. So, I sent my keys but I couldn't find my agent, only the tow truck operator was there. I called up my agent and asked about the process, my agent replied and said that the insurance adjuster will evaluate my car at their workshop (located somewhere in Wangsa Maju). He should have told me that earlier instead of making me confused. He said the facilities is well guarded with CCTV and limited access, so I can be rest assured over my car's safety. So, now I only have to wait and see what will happen next. It's a very long process though.

I was fortunate enough I could settle my documents fast because I borrowed my father's car (he was away from the country at the moment) and I could be there on time and could take a leave. Imagine if I'm caught up in some kind of project or meeting, that would have been a nightmare to juggle through. I just hope my car would be settled quickly.

My Proton Iswara Aeroback 1.3 Got Hacked

DBKL KTM Komuter Segambut Car Park Daylight Thieving

2006-07-05T12:18:00.000+08:00

If you are tempted to "Park and Ride", then you are at risk even more than saving pennies from taking the public transportation in Kuala Lumpur. My attempt to save some money by avoiding the traffic proved to cost me a lot more than when I drive to work. Imagine this, you go to work every morning, you park your car at the nearest Komuter Station (of course you'll try to find a nice free spot instead of the paid parking), for my case it is at the Segambut DBKL KTM Komuter Station Free Car Park:

At the end of the day, you came back from work heading towards your car and saw this:

I almost got a heart attack. My seats are GONE!! I was so devastated. Who the hell do this kind of thievery on a broad daylight in a public place. I had to check out my car. Since the car is mine, my prints are already all over the car, so I decided to take more pictures and I also tried to avoid contaminate the crime evidence.

I can't even drive the car. I'm so pissed. I've dedicated a gallery for all the shots I've taken. You can access it here:
Ashrufzz Red Proton Iswara Aeroback 1.3 Accessories Thievery Victim

My car is now at the police station and at the moment is undergoing some dusting and printing process. I'll write more about this when I have settle the paper work for my car.

I'm so sad ;-(

The Affiliate Business

2006-07-02T23:15:00.000+08:00

I've been wearing a lot of hats eversince I started joining the employment world. I wish I only wear just one hat but I couldn't resist having high ambitions for myself. The only problem is I have too many ambitions and I don't know where do I start off. Some of them I've already started but I got lost somewhere. I had my share of success but the only success I haven't achieve yet is financial success.

I am very fortunate to have a team, so I'm not that lonely. The most touching part is, they stood up behind me. They are very supportive of me for whatever decisions that I've made. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to provide them with the dreams that we have put up in our mind which is to form our own R&D Office doing online activities. We love the web technology but we were still unable to find resources to operate our operations.

Anyway, last Friday we went to the Securities Commission Malaysia at Bukit Kiara, Kuala Lumpur. The building is huge and they have great facilities there. I wish I had an office there however there were only a cafe there so it is hard to get food if you are starving. The seminar that we went to was titled "Online Biz Event" done by The Affiliate Solutions. Primarily is was a talk by a guy named Dennis. Oh, BTW here's a few shot taken at the event:

This is all of my team mate. They really stand behind me, I'm not really sure why but it's fun to have loyal friends.

This is the guy doing the talk. He really knows what he is talking about.

Let me recap a little bit of what he deliver in his speech. By the way, if you are interested to check out the website, you can go to The Affiliate Solutions website. The affiliate marketing business is said to be the next business model that is going to shape the internet business world. According to MarketingSherpa a research firm publishing, this year alone is USD6 billion in revenue is going to take place. That's huge ammount of money to tap to. If I could make a mere small percentage of that, I could be set off for life.

So, what is affiliate marketing? I'm not going to go further deep into that, you can download this free e-book to learn everything about affiliate marketing 101 and how you can actually make money out of it. You can also read about Affiliate Marketing Guide by Janet Meiners, awesome stuff she wrote.

Okay now back to the seminar, of course a seminar needs to sell something in order to make money. This is because they are doing business. So what did they offer? They offered an affiliate marketing coaching. Interestingly, the coaching only cost RM1,800 which covers a period of 6 months. That's so bloody cheap!! I was almost sold on the price alone because I've been to a more expensive course before. However, since most of the content of the seminar was about Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertisement, it's not something which I can't afford or do at the moment. I know the power of using PPC because two years ago, I did them for 4 months. It's very profitable if it is executed and strategized well. I think I better go for other methods before I could resume my PPC activities again.

I recently listened to a recorded tele-seminar and one thing that really catched my interest. It's a classic story of a reporter asking a robber/thieve "why did you robbed the bank?", the robber simply replied "That is where the money is". So, we should go where the money is which is "In Business".

Have a great productive day.

Am I Mad About Blogging?

2006-07-02T07:42:00.000+08:00

I found this interesting self discovery quiz and the title was "Does your weblog owns you?". I don't think I'm too devoting myself for my blogs but it doesn't hurt to take a shot of the questionnaires and see what the outcome would turn out. Here it is:

37.5 %

My weblog owns 37.5 % of me.
Does your weblog own you?

I was a bit surprised to see that result. I thought I wasn't so self embrace with my blogs but seeing the percentage that I scored, it is a quite significant. Anyway, I should see this a sign of strength rather than a weakness. Take on this quiz and see what you score.

Ashrufzz New Blog Layout

2006-07-01T11:17:00.000+08:00

I have difficulties designing my layout. As you know, I am not a designer so what I normally do is I copycat other people's design and customize it to my own preferences or I search for templates and customize it. Thanks to Gecko&Fly, I now have a great layout which I like it very much. I wonder how a webdesigner brain works?

But the most important thing a website should have is of course a good and original content. Anyway, I captured a comparison between my old layout with my new layout:

Yesterday I went to a great place and attended a great talk. I'll blog on that in my next post. Tell me what you think if you have any comments for my new blog layout.

Bouncing Tyres Video

2006-06-30T11:40:00.000+08:00

I'm revamping the look of most of my blogs that I've created. I also created a new blog which I'll reveal later. So, it is time to take a break for a while. The video below is quite interesting. I don't understand what is the message but it's fun to watch:

Microsoft Mobile & Embedded Devcon 2006 Event

2006-06-29T12:53:00.000+08:00

Last year, I went to the MEDC 2005 where I blogged about it (click here if you are interested to read all about last year's event). This year, I went to the event again but in a different location. To be honest, I like last year's event better than this year one. Also, how time flies, it's been a year already? Damn...

As usual, I took shots of the event and tell you reviews of what I thought. Here's the first shot:

Probably because of the venue, there seem to be less people than last year. By the way, I got my new laptop bag from the event. It's only a matter of time before my last year's laptop bag shoulder strap snapped. The bag is bigger than last year's though.

I paid an early bird price of RM50 which was the same amount I paid last year. If not, I had to pay RM80. That's not a good sign, soon they'll probably increase the price the following years which I hope would not.

The montage of the stage is blue. I like blue. The music is nice too, some techno music they put on.

They have these nice plasma displays. I wonder how much does it cost to buy one.

One of the speakers is a big guy, his name is Tan Loke Uei. I like his presentation, he emphasized on the difference between a designer and a developer. As for him, he is a developer so he's not really particular with the design, as long as it can work, it is fine with him. Hmm..let me think, I'm also a developer but I like to do design too. So which part am I? Most probably developer because my design sucks..haha..

Last year, I tried the Hands-on lab they provide. This year, I was relunctant to try because my company doesn't focus on mobile application yet. If so, I had to juggle with all the time consuming paperworks and office management apart from managing the company's website. Oh well, I should learn to delegate now. The booths at the conference is not as many as last year's.

So, the conclusion. I went home early and didn't stay until the end of the event. If only some companies can pay me a full time job developing mobile application alone and not doing unnecessary other stuff that I'm doing right now. I got another another seminar to go tomorrow about affiliate marketing. Hope it could give me a few ideas to execute the plans I have in my head.

Career Change? Maybe..Maybe Not?

2006-06-26T08:00:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I went to one of the most busiest shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur. As usual, during the weekend, the Midvalley Megamall is packed with thousands of people. Some went there for shopping, some for dating and some to window shopping. I went there for a Career and Job Fair at the Midvalley Exhibition Center, located at the upper most floor, the same level as the GSC Cinema.

With the increase of business activities, the human capital is a huge industry and involves big money. No wonder how jobs portal keep springing up these days. I can even buy and customize my own job portal using open source web software available on the internet, of course I need someone to help me as I'm only good at installing and changing the usability and appearance. I'm not good on PR, seeking sponsors and most importantly, finding new clients. Anyway, JobsDB.com has done a good job expanding their business, so kudos to them.

Let me walk you through my entire experience attending this Career & Education Fair 2006. To get into the exhibition hall, you need to become a registered member of JobsDB.com first. If you are not a member, you can register using the computers available:

There was one chinese lady who got fed up with the online registration (I must say that it's quite tedious), she just left the place with her mouth complaining about the form. I know in today's ultra competitive world, list building is the most profitable thing to do these days. However, I think it should be made easier or else it will turn off a lot of people.

After the registration, you'll received this:

Now this is the first time ever I had to wear a wristband in an exhibition, I wore a waterproof wristband before but for an amusement park. It feels strange but I then forgot that I'm wearing one.

Here's a few more shots inside the exhibition halls:

An online multi-purpose portal, I could build one myself but it's too much work plus I have to do too much work promoting it to get traffic there. By thw way, the portal uses ASP programming language which is Microsoft's programming language. I would prefer a more cost saving open source PHP+My SQL database. Oh well, these companies have loads of money.

The main organizer's booth. I think DB stands for 'Database'. Database is a crucial stuff for a company, if the database is corrupted, they are screwed. I wish I had the money to get a professional certificate in database administration. Huge salary would have been waiting for me then..haha..

Another high salary job is to become a SAP consultant. If you don't know what SAP is, according to wikipedia, "SAP is the third-largest software company in the world. It ranks after Microsoft and Oracle in terms of market capitalization. SAP is the largest business application and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution software provider in terms of revenue." So if you are an IT graduate and you can understand big systems with higher level of jargons (like I do..hehe), this is a great option to consider. If I'm not mistaken, the salary would be no less than RM4,000. A basic course to get a certificate with SAP is RM25,000. That would make a return on investment (ROI) in no more than 7 months, that is less than a year. Oh god, why did I took mechanical engineering before. I'm so lack of exposure during my course selection.

Anyway, because the life of a business is determine by cashflow, most of the companies are looking for people to do sales for them. It's not uncommon to see sales position everywhere, if you can do sales, then you are employable almost everywhere regardless of your qualification. Well for me, I have an interest in doing sales but it depends of what company,product or services I represent. If I'm sold to it, then it should be fine, but most of the time I feel like I'm forced to promote so it is a battle within myself to become a sales driven person.

This exhibitionis more preferable to me than the one I attended earlier. It's more focused, more hungry looking companies and there's little free giveaways. I don't really like bringing back loads of free stuff, brochures only to put it away in the trash bin. This event really inspired me to change my career that I spent a couple of hours last night drafting my cover letter and resume to be submitted to a company who has my interest right now. I think I have to deal with my fear of change first before I can proceed. I'm so comfortable yet I'm not satisfied with my life yet.

Through this blog, do you think I did a good job selling my blog to you? If so, do comment about it. I'm thinking of shifting to do corporate sales. I did the resume and cover letter, however I'm still not so sure whether to submit it or not. I have so many fears to overcome. So, should I switch career or not? A question only myself could decide. All the best to myself and to all job seekers out there!!

An Inspiring Video To Watch

2006-06-24T08:42:00.000+08:00

Have you ever watched 'Forrest Gump'? I like that movie, it has been played twice on my local television. It's a story about a straightforward kind of guy who just do what his mama says. Maybe it sounds like stupid to most of you but it's okay. Forrest Gump is one of a kind and I'm not sure if the man really exist or not.

I love YouTube. I can spend countless of hours looking at the videos there. I subscribe to a few other blog that catches my interest on my RSS Reader and I couldn't help but to blog about this amazing video I found:

Now here is a real life example of a guy who just do whatever he likes doing. Although he is not wealthy, I like that he just did whatever he wanted. It's sort of like fulfilling your dream. I think I need to plan something like he does but of course not exactly what he did. He also produced this amazing video which thousands of people are already watching. Guess what, he was sponsored by a corporate body. Take your time to watch this, it will worth it.