How I First Learned English

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

The Lucrative Business of Credit

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
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

Car Insurance Financing For Malaysian

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!

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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!

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

Generated By Technorati Tag Generator

I Attended eBay Explained 2006

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

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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

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?

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

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?

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.