Becoming An Online Advertiser

In 2004, I was an online advertiser trying to make money online using Google Adwords alongside with Clickbank. I did however achieve to get a small amount of money back from a USD245 investment made through my mum's credit card. That excludes the RM900 1 day course fees. Because of the exchange rate was quite steep at that time plus I was apparently unemployed back then, I had to put my dream of making money online on halt for a while. I still sustained my Google account, obtain a Gmail account and also made a Google Adsense. Here's a screenshot of my Google Adwords:

Becoming an online advertiser is of course a dream come true job for home maker or if you wish to hang out at your place and make money from it. Of course, in order to fulfill a dream, one must go through a lot of obstacles before their dream can come true. That would also applied to me also. One way to assist your dream is to have a mentor, meaning that you have guidance from people who has been through all the obstacle. They will guide you through all and give you short cuts so that you can arrive at your dream much faster. All of that requires work and also resources, not to mention time management, self management etc.

The latest news that I've just heard is, Google launched Adwords Qualified Professional. If you have what it takes to be a Professional (A pro is someone who gets paid doing what they do best instead of amateurs), check it out The Qualification and Certification on How To Become a Qualified Google Advertising Professional.

As a conclusion, dream and work on it everyone.

Chinese New Year & 1427 Awal Muharram

Yesterday was Chinese New Year, tomorrow is the New Year Maal Hijrah 1427. It is an all new year moment alright. Some of my friend are getting themselves a new phase of their life. 3 of my friends had their wedding the last weekend. I must be lying if I don't think about mine..haha..however, I don't know how to answer that one. Still, I need to focus on my career development and of course a cash asset before I could plan out on that one. Not to mention who will be the lucky one that I'll be choosing.

I am killing my time here with answering some question taken from someone else's blog:

1. What is your current ringtone?
- I'm using a Nokia 3200 with 50 Cent P.I.M.P ringtone

2. What is your current wallpaper?
- Myself in front of my previous Daihatsu Charade Aura car

3. Do you own a picture phone?
- Nope

4. If so, what was the last picture you took?
- N/A

5. Go to your text message inbox and type the 10th message. from who?
- 32001 Finder Service: You have granted permission to 012-669 **** to access your

location from now on

6. How many contacts do you have on your phone?
- No time to count, 82% memory used

7. Go to your missed calls. Who was the last call from?
- Khan, my friend from high school

8. Who was the last person you spoke to on your cell phone?
- My friend, Stim

9. Who was the last person to text you?
- Ayie

10. At this very moment, how many bars do you have for your battery?
- Full

11. Who's on your speed dial number 5?
- Never set the speed dial thingy

12. Do you have voicemail?
- Nope, it's a penny waster

13. What does your voicemail message say to callers?
- N/A

14. How many contacts that start with the letter D do you have?
- 6

15. Who do you call the most(s)?
- Not at this moment

16. How many text messages do you get a month?
- How do I know?

17. Can you send pictures?
- I think so

18. What are the last 4 digits to your number?
- 6122

19. Go to your message inbox, what does the 8th message say? from?
- What color am I in ur heart? Choose 1 only.
1-Orange
2-White
3-Red
4-Pink
5-Green
6-Yellow
7-Blue
8-Purple
I'll send U da meaning after U reply me..
From Boo

20. What about the 15th?
- Private & Confidential

21. Who's the last person that you called?
- My friend, Sarman

22. Last person that texted you?
- Stim.

23. Last person you added to your contacts?
- Nora

24. How many minutes are on your plan?
- RM30 equals to...Too much of a hassle to calculate

25. Do you like your phone?
- It is just a tool


After answering all those question. I see my life as somehow pathetic socially. The good thing is, I can always search for more time to improve my current situation. Maybe for you all readers, you can do the same. Have a nice new year for those who celebrate.

How I Relief Stress

Stress is a common thing in whatever you do in your life. If you are a student, you'll be stressed out during near exam period. If you are jobless, you are stressed out because you don't know what to do. If you are working like myself, you have datelines, inconsiderate boss or colleague, unappreciative employer, mega projects etc..that would all contribute to different level of stress. Of course there are times when it became boring, happy, joyous etc but yesterday was a very stressful moment for me.

After a day's job, I went home and it was really a relief because I don't have to deal with all kind of stressful things at the office. I had a good shower and then dinner. The best part was watching TV since I am a TV'holics'. In the end, I slept in front of TV because my mind was kind of tired to digest the entertainment. After a good night sleep, waking up in the morning feeling fresh and revitalized. Having 'going to work' in mind makes me stressful again as I need to deal with all sort of stuff again. I need to plan out something to get out of this stressful 'rat race' and go someplace else.

By the way, last night on 8TV. There was this horror movie (before I went to sleep halfway of it), it was about a mysterious website feardotcom. Digged out a few info on the movie, it was a 2002 movie and I think it was full of crap. By the way, there flashes of nude woman in the movie and also a few flashes of 'boobies'. It was an unpleasant thing knowing that 8TV is aired nationwide. Probably the censored division or Paul Moss, the art director of the TV station could have work harder to screen out those thing or just simply put that movie away.

Oh well, got to go to work now. Cheers...

Konsert Seroja Bersama Mawi

I must admit, I am not really a big fan of Mawi. I see Mawi as an average guy just like myself only that a lot of people would really like to see. I know plenty of people who doesn't really know "who is Mawi?". I ask that question last year until Mawi appeared in the local newspaper. The rest is history. If you really don't know who Mawi is, check out this fanatical Mawi Fan Club.

Last week, my company was asked by my client to donate and join the Konsert Seroja Bersama Mawi. You can read about the concert here. Since my company was paying, my boss doesn't have anyone else to ask but his staff to go to the concert. I was guessing the consert wouldn't be that official but when I heard that Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak was coming, it was something big since the deputy Prime Minister came. It apparently was a high profile fund raising event. It was said that nearly RM400,000 were collected from corporate donation.

The invitation card was quite catchy, the table of 5 people is priced at RM2,000. The food was average but the dissapointment was the sound system. It was awful.

The setting was nice, there was also a gimmick during the starting of the concert where someone disguised Mawi went into the red carpet from the front entrance. A lot of people were fooled, anyway it was entertaining to watch.

The event was not entirely Mawi's. The other AF3 counterpart finalist was there as well. They were Felix and Akma. Not to mention Datin Seri Rosmah (Datuk Seri Najib's wife) had a 6 songs karaoke session with a few duet song with Mawi. The host, Raja Azura and Azlee Senario was quite hillarious although their jokes are sometime a bit too extreme.

Personally I think Mawi had done his job as a performer, he doesn't let the crowd down. By the way, I would like to imagine how if Mawi grows his hair a bit longer. Someone sent an e-mail and showed me a few photographs.

Not too bad ehh?? The overpriced dinner concert wasn't worth it if I had to pay for it personally and I heard that Mawi was paid RM70,000 just that night. Could be just a rumour but imagine 200++ tables with RM4,000 for just one table. That is quite hefty money for the management, right?

I wish Mawi all the best in his career...

Is Changing Career Easy?

I have been extremely busy even before the last weekend. There were sudden policy changes over the project that my company is working on which in result causing me to go back at 3am in the morning. I am not the type who can stay up at night doing work so I hated that. After giving some thoughts, I think I can nag all day long but that will not change anything. I need to do something to change my situation. Eventually, I justify all my unsatisfactory towards building my career to complement my lifestyle.

I can't give up now, especially after reading this very interesting letter:

What School Don't Teach You About Money!

From the desk of Wendy Tan,
CEO, Globe Engineering Sdn Bhd
& Globe Success Learning Sdn Bhd

Dear Ashrufzz,

There are very few people in this world who can truly say, "I don't need to know about finances because I'm financially secure". Most people in fact, wonder why they aren't making more money than they already have. The other wish that most people have is to increase their savings for the future.

To improve your financial standing, you need to really look at how you treat money. What type of spending attitude you have towards money? Where did your 'Money Beliefs' come from?

I came from a very poor family and once thought that I was a nobody, and I did have problems in relationships and business that I was desperate to solve, just like everyone else. I credit the Money and You program in helping me initiate breaking my mental barriers. And I applaud you being open to resolve the things that obstruct your path to success by going through powerful programs like the Sales Ninja Training.

(Ashrufzz Note: There are plenty of money making programs in Kuala Lumpur alone)

~~THINKING IS THE HARDEST WORK THERE IS ...THAT'S WHY SO FEW PEOPLE ENGAGE IN IT~~

Thinking is crucial because the quality of your thoughts will determine the quality of your life. But how do you start thinking in a more productive manner?

The answer lies in surrounding yourself with friends who ask from you more than you ask of yourself, being in environments which supports your growth, and around masters who have walked the talk.

Today, we have so much quality information that will help steer you in the right direction, providing you with choices in areas which you choose to undertake.

We have superior bookstores that stock excellent business, financial and relationship books that can guide you on how to do enhance every aspect of your life.

There are also first-class coaches, mentors and masters who can give you expert guidance on how to discover your potential, in your work, finance and business, relationships; great coaches like Shantelle Gold who's been supporting Money & You for over 20 years - experienced in clearing your blocks, Roger Konopasek who has an entertaining way to show you how to create powerful unique marketing propositions that enhance your marketing strategies or like Sen Ze, a 1-of-a-kind Internet Entrepreneur, who can teach you to get out of the rat race and start your own low-cost, high-profit internet business, and Hanzo Ng - Sales Ninja exponent.

~~FOR THINGS TO CHANGE, 1ST I MUST CHANGE~~

To achieve success, you have got to engage yourself in a thinking process that wealthy and happily successful people engage in…

This means removing any obstacle that blocks your success. It wasn't easy for me to embark on my fresh new crusade.

I had feared change, just like I'm sure at times you do too.

Really, once we are comfortable in a routine, we fear upsetting the status quo, and we fear what the future holds if we make drastic changes in our lives.

But we can't expect others to change for us. We can't expect our boss to change, our business partner to change, our spouse to change, our friends to change, our family to change, our parents, brothers or sisters to change, our children to change. Only we can do it for ourselves.

Try it.

Once you get rid of all the things that aren't working in your life, a feeling of empowerment and control over your own life will occur.

To start making changes though, it's absolutely crucial that you are completely honest with yourself. The very last thing that you want to do is be in denial of your current situation, financial or otherwise and rob yourself of a chance to make a difference in your life - designing the life you want to live.

Tonight, before you go to sleep, get a piece of paper out.

Write down what your goal in life is.

Then, write down what are the obstacles that block your progress towards that goal.

Next, write down what the changes you can do to move forward, to reach your goal.

Place these written notes somewhere where you can see it.

I know that these are elementary techniques, but your mind is a powerful tool. And doing this will actually help you visualize your goal.

Action beats In-Action. Do it and experience the changes yourself.

In my next letter, I will share with you the habit of millionaires I myself have used towards achieving Financial Freedom… dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World by Albert Einstein himself. It is the secret that makes people incredibly rich and all you have to do is to start small!

Wishing you COURAGE to go beyond your comfort zone & explore new horizons,

Wendy Tan
CEO, Globe Engineering Sdn Bhd
& Globe Success Learning Sdn Bhd
(+6012-335 7339, wendy@globesl.com)
www.globesl.com
www.excellerated.com

Wendy Tan is an embodiment of Professional Asian Businesswoman. She has successfully made several career changes over the years, from sales to accounting to administration and operation, to financial management and marketing.

Since 1989, she has been involved in the fire protection and plumbing contracting. Together with her team, she has successfully completed more than RM200 million worth of contracts and the company is still growing by leaps and bounds using the knowledge learned from the Excellerated Business School.

She is now the CEO of Globe Engineering Sdn Bhd and three other subsidiaries - Globe Express Services, Globe M&E Services and Globe Success Learning. She is also the Director of D'World Hair Academy and Alif College. She firmly believes in lifelong education, caring for others and
growing the people in and around her business.

Her commitment, dedication and determination to uplift professional and personal development in people have been her passion since she attended Money & You in 1998 and BSE in 1999.

I'm tired of being a personal development junky. I'm going to work out something this year. Blog again soon...

P/S: Changing career is an option if you are fed up with your current jobs...However, there are many other options apart from that..just find a way, you'll find it eventually...

I Need To Chill Out!

2 days I've been pressured by my employer. He doesn't seem to realize how he is giving me a lot of stress eventhough I've been giving him a lot of body languages. I guess he is too busy or too dumb to learn about psychology and how to read body & facial expression. I hate him for that. On the other hand, I give full credit to my new superior, a new Project Manager specially assigned for a special project the company has been long lobbying for. I like how he manages his own people including myself and progress further and moving on.

Recently, I have been made Project Coordinator. It's not an easy task having to juggle multiple jobs in a small company. Having a promotion doesn't mean having a raise on my salary. I still receive the same amount of pay without any future sign of any kind of pay raise. It is a dissapointing thing not being paid for the huge responsibility that I'm carrying. Still, I have to shift my focus elsewhere just to avoid thinking about my peanut's salary. My boss isn't considering anything for his own employee except for his well being. Eventhough he doesn't say anything, his action says everything if you ask me.

Yesterday morning was the most disturbing moment. I was bamboozled by the director of main contractor which is attached for the million dollar project. My boss was just in front of me but he didn't even bother to defend his own staff who has been working his ass to support the award of the project. He is too busy maintaining his high corporate image level that he even demoralized me for not doing the job properly. I guess he doesn't realized on the most valuable asset which is stated on his own company's profie, The Employees. I wish my project manager was there to defend my position unfortunately, I had to take the blame at that moment. It was so stressful, I even had created a few plans to jeoperdize the company or going on a solo strike. Luckily, I changed my mind on that because I have created much bigger plans for my own future. Thanks to my boss, I have now created small plans and big plans on how will I use my management level knowledge for my own leverage to get what I want in life later. Why do I have to care about the company who pays me so little. I have nothing to lose, right?

After all the stress, dissapproving, neck and neck yelling. It is time to take a break. It is a good thing just outside the view of my office, I can see this:


Have productive day ahead of you.... 

A New Website

Last year, I sold two domain names to a friend of mine. Unfortunately, he only did a few pages on his 50MB hosting and half-way, the website never seem to get further develop. I have this urge to kick my old habit of reading e-mails and surfing the internet for crap so I told my friend to hand the domain and hosting back to me so that I could get something done.

It sure is a difficult thing when you are accustom to something that you are comfortable with. Change is definitely harder when you are use to do something. Since the things I've been doing is not a productive activity, I had to force myself to do something which I have been long planned but never really got any follow up. So here what I did:

It took several hours just to create this page alone plus some additional hours for a few more pages. I would have never thought by just customizing a page (yes, I'm not a designer..I like to customize) it would take hours. I speed up my skills after that. What I need now is more practice and a better direction. Customize and design can get you lost somewhere especially when all the things are in your head, I would suggest you right it down somewhere before you get a mental lost.

I'm doing more pages as I'm through with just reading all this time. More ACTION this year...Owh, its the year of the DOG..Let's bark..Woof..Woof.. ;-p

Repairing My Car Air-Conditioner

The good thing about blogging is, we can search back our blog and see what is the highlight of your day. So, September last year, I bought a car with my father as the guarantor plus I borrowed some of his money for the downpayment. You can read about it using this link. The bad thing that I didn't realized was, buying a second hand car has some disadvantages which will come eventually. So, last month, I was slapped with a few hundred ringgit of repair as the CV joints cover was torn and my rear bearing is squealing.

Celebrating the new year, my car air-conditioner failed after a few weeks of another squeaking noise. Apparently, the compressor had worn out and it nearly jam my car's engine. This time, I had to fork out RM375. Darn, I'm broke right now. Now, I had to borrow some money from my family as my budget is slashed to debt. The lesson here is, if you cannot afford something, then you better find a way to live upon your need.

I waited for more than 2 hours before my car's air-cond was repaired. In the mean time, I took a few snap of the work that had been done.

If you don't know how a car air-compressor looks like, so here you go. There are many types of Air-cond compressor, it depends on what type of car you are using. If you are wondering why there is a need for a air dryer, well air-conditioning actually condense any moisture from the air making the air in the area dry. Normally, if the moisture in your room is quite high, you will be sweating like you are in a sauna.

So, now my old compressor is going to be replaced by a new. The truth is, the new compressor was actually a used one taken from some 'chop shop' car. I saw it with my own eyes how the 'tauke' took one compressor, cleaned it up and sprayed with an instant paint so that it looked new again. I thought he was going to order a recondition compressor. If the compressor goes broken after this, I will blame the tauke and ask for a new one.

I wish I can trade my car for another model. I hate my car but there's nothing I can do about it for now. The above picture is how the air-cond system is being refill with a R134 gas. The R134 gas is more expensive than the R12, but it is more environmental compared to R12. The R12 can harm the ozon layer.

Well, enough of automotive lesson for the day. If you want to read about How Air Conditioning Work, click on the link. I love to know how stuff work. As a conclusion, becareful when you buy a second hand car.

2006 New Year's Countdown Experience

I am not a fan of crowded places. Eventhough I have no problem mingling around crowded events, I'm not comfortable doing it. So, last Saturday night which was New Year's eve, I had to entertain a guess who came all the way from a nothern region just to celebrate New Year in Kuala Lumpur. The night before, she told me she wasn't going, all of a sudden she changed her mind and immediately came the day after. How girls change their mind so fast.

The last time I ever attended New Year's public event was back in 2001. At that time I came with my guys friend. It was so much easier going out with guys. I'm not saying it is not fun going out with girls, infact I went out with girls countless of time. It is just a platonic relationship, I haven't decided to go further yet.

Well, back to my New Year's Eve story. I left my car at my office and took the Putra LRT to KLCC. My best friend joined me afterward with his new girlfriend. I was surprised to see my best friend brought along his new girlfriend just having to know the girl for a couple of days. They look pretty intimate. I wish them all the best in their new found relationship. I'll let the pictures I took do the talking for a moment:

My camera is a crappy camera. I'm going to sell off my camera when I have enough money to buy a new one. Look at the picture I took, it looks dark and dull. Anyway, I took this picture while searching for the concert area. The damn organizer didn't even displayed any signs where the concert was held. A lot of the people were lost trying to find the concert place. I then used my common sense to find the concert place. Lucky I found the place during half-way of the PETRONAS OUTREACH COUNTDOWN CONCERT ‘LIVE’ FROM KLCC.

The concert was quite good at the beginning. Things started to get packed when a few rock song were performed. Most of the guys were foreign workers mostly from Indonesia by the way they speak. Suddenly one crazy drunk guy smashed a beer bottle right in front of me, then there was some other guy pushing and started punching. There was almost a fight which was just about to happen. I was lucky the debris didn't fly towards me, I got nervous so I back away from the scene. Eventually, some guy calm the place down and things were smooth after that. One of the reason why I like to stay away from crowded places. BTW, if you want to read a good yet disturbing story on crowd problem during New Year's event, go to Xiaxue's Blog. I was scratching my head when I read " The worst comment I read, was this girl who actually had a foreign worker insert a finger into her vagina." How on earth that could have happen?

I am a fan of 8TV's Quickie show. So I snap a shot at 8TV booth just outside the concert area. I adore Marion's fine beauty, I think she's gorgeous and trendy. I also love both Adam's and Marion's english accent, I hope to speak like them some time in the future.

The event highlight were of course, the countdown. So, as usual the firework starts to go off. The firework were not as long as last year. Even my next door firework show during Chinese New Year of some other chinese festival were longer. Still, I had fun. However, I don't think I am going for the 2007 celebration. But if I were invited to some private party of somewhere else, that would be an exception..hehe..

My new year's resolution is fairly simple, work smarter, automate and earn more money. Of course, I would definitely work for the better. Wishing you all a great year ahead.