Forgiveness

After reading a thought for today message (see below), I thought: Hmmm... between one who is only 10% responsible for a problem, and another who is 90% responsible, I think the latter need forgiveness more.

I think to forgive someone is regardless of the percentage of responsibility he/she is to be blamed for, which is again regardless of ... whether this percentage is a fact or is what we imagine of.

There are two parts, one is forgiving, and the other is redemption. Forgiving does not erase the need for redemption, while the redemption need not be demanded by the forgiver.

I think God is right, He is in a very unfair situation, but He forgives freely.

---
From www.ThoughtForToday.org.uk: "Why is it hard to forgive others? Usually because we believe that they are 90% to blame for the problem, that I am not as bad as they are. So I start to carry the load of other people's actions. If my ego is too hurt, I will have the sense of correction, of justice: 'I know I am right', 'That is not fair'. But if I start to forgive from the heart, sincerely, then this kind of feeling and attitude begins to dissolve. I remain humble and this forgiveness will bring me closer to others. Then I do not carry regrets or anger, I just let go and remain light."

Drivers and frogs

Recently, after some good news about creating more transportation bandwidth, here comes the expected increase number of ERP gantries and cost of ERP charges. See news article: Will changes to ERP reap desired results?

My answer to this question is "NO!" Here, drivers may be comparable to the frog in water that is being boiled. ... Why so? The slow rate of temperature increase did not trigger the frog desire or need to change its current state. Similarly, the relatively slow rate of increase and small increment as compared to the cost of their car, their career, their appointment with clients, will not trigger drivers to change their current mode of transport.

More of my views on the ever increasing transporation.

Ecommerce shopping cart article

This is a piece of good advice from shopping cart software company, Ashop, for bosses of online shops: Boost Online Sales with Additional 800 Numbers.

This ecommerce shopping cart article discusses the benefits of having 800 numbers. Having 800 numbers can fill the lack of human touch of an online shop. It should be within the budget range of operating an online shop. It caters for many potential customers who prefer making call then filling up an online order form. It can be innovatively used as a way to track your cost per click online advertisements. Click on the link and read it to learn why these can be achieved.

Recently, even Dell, which has been doing mainly direct sales, has started to make use of traditional retail spaces such as Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. According to Lionel Menchaca, Digital Media Manager, explained that "these strategies are meant to augment the direct model, not replace it." in his blog post More Details on Wal-Mart, Adding Sam's Club Soon. Between black and white, there are many grays.

Pure black or white are extremes, but shades of gray are usually appealing. Don't over restrict your business model to an online-only type. The ability to nicely blend existing traditional useful business methodology, such as 800 numbers, will bring you more sales.

In regard to the cost of having 800 numbers, I have two ideas to share with you:
1) outsource to the call center empire India rather than employing locals to do it or answering calls yourself;
2) sacrifice a little bit of quality and consider VoIP such as fring.

Ashop Commerce sponsored this post.

Ad + Auctions = Aductions

What is Aductions? According to their words, it is
i) the Search n Trade Ad Platform;
ii) a patent pending, Advertising Platform that connects advertisers to publishers through a search engine;
iii) a search engine that helps advertisers find the best ad spaces;
iv) a transparent ad platform that promotes publishers;
v) an online trading platform where advertising inventory can be traded freely.

Although none of the above mention the word auction, but the name Aductions seem to suggest it has something to do with auction, unless it was intersection of Ad + Abduction instead. Although all of the above goals are good, it kind of leaves me a little unclear about what fundamentally are they trying to achieve. May be that's not important, as long as they can generate value for advertisers, publishers, and not forgetting the traders.

Then, what advantages it offers to the advertisers, publishers, and traders?

For the advertisers, you can check out the statistics of the ad space before committing your money. I believe they will come up with new strategies and ways to let advertisers feel secure to buy ad space through Aductions.

For the established publishers, its transparency provides a better way to valuate your ad space. Of course you can always show case your statistics, but wouldn't it be better that this be done by a 3rd party?

For publishers like me who don't have good statistics, this transparency would probably work against us since advertisers can filter us out. However, as a whole, I have to support such transparency for the good of the online advertising industry.

For the traders, you have a new market to explore. However, you might have to wait as this market is so new that its chance of survival is still unknown. While writing this, I realize the value of traders. I think you are the ones who make the pricing fair. For example, if you find my selling price too low, you would buy it and resell it at a higher price to advertisers, and these activities determine the fair market price.

Lastly, its payment is the fastest I have come across. From the usual minimum US$100 or monthly such as AdSense, to S$11 such as EmailCashPro, to fortnightly such as SponsoredReviews, to weekly such as Smorty, this one is at any time with minimum amount more than US$1.00! I really hope this arrangement is sustainable.

Let me end with a note tht I am surprise to learned that I have earned 1 cents. I know, that's a very very very small amount. Still, it is greater than zero :D

If only we could check eyesight online!

Remember Zenni Optical: Sell Rx Glasses $8 with case! that I mentioned very recently? Here, let me show you some pictures of the stylish frames they offer:

Plastic Fashion Full-Rim Frame ($8.00 only!)	Half-rim Hingeless Stainless Steel Frame	Rimless Flexible (Memory) Titanium

Of course you can choose from the available frame colors. In addition, you may specify if you want AR Anti-Reflection Coating (@4.95), clip on polarized 80% Sunshade (Only $3.95), how much lens tint (@4.95), and a couple of other options.

How nice if they can incorporate a way for viewers to check their own eyesight online! Any researchers in this field reading this?

Post Sponsored by Zenni Optical.

Will PC phone replace the fixed line phone?

Fixed line phone is still around although mobile phone is doing more and more proportion of all calls. The high cost of mobile network might be the reason why fixed line phone is still around.

The about us of Internet Telecom claims that they "believe that the PC phone will be replacing the fixed line phone in the future." The "PC phone" is still some kind of fixed line cordless phone. The main differences are that the "fixed line" is a broadband Internet cable rather than a phone line, and the "wireless" technology used is wifi or bluetooth.

Try out their new service free, where you can make a free call by SMS.

The main obstacles for this type of business is they cannot start slowly. I still couldn't enjoy using fring on my N80 because people I know don't use it :(

Be yourself

In the Taiwan variety show 国光帮帮忙 I watched recently, they accounted a very casual and short encounter in a toilet. An advice by 孙鹏, who is a more senior artiste, to 林宥嘉, who was participating in 超级星光大道, a singing competition, is taken seriously by the latter. The advise is be yourself (做自己). 林宥嘉 eventually won the champion of the competition.

However, this phrase, when used unqualified, might encourage people to do all sort of funny things, immoral things, or evil things. This phrase should not be seen as an excuse for doing wrong things.

On one hand, we dislike people to tell us how we should live. On the other hand, we ourselves need to be very clear how we should live. "Be yourself" doesn't mean it is up to each person's choice with no regards to the society. As what is said below, the essence is if our life is honorable or not.

The late Mormon church president Hinckley said in an interview with The Associated Press in late 2005. "We're a little different. We don't smoke. We don't drink. We do things in a little different way. That's not dishonorable. I believe that's to our credit." Quoted from the news report of his death.

Be yourself means don't be overly dictated by what others tell you, but it doesn't mean there is no guideline. It means you have to make up your own guidelines consciously and in accordance to the societal norms.

DIY your spectacles

Great Discovery: Zenni Optical

If you are planning to get a new spectacles but you have information about your eyesight measurements, consider Zenni Optical $8 Rx Glasses.

Best Thing Found: Zenni Optical

Even if you do not have your measurements now, don't discard them when you get your next pair of glasses, or may be you can visit those shops that provide free checking of eyesight. This way, you can get glasses from Zenni Optical at low prices. The Secret to Zenni’s Low Prices is that they sell only their own manufactured frames direct to the customer, with no middlemen and virtually no advertising budget.

How I wish they can include shipping out of US.

This is a sponsored review.

Recommending Page Nation

I should have stumbled on this site a couple of times but didn't quite notice it. Just now I stumbled on it again and am impressed by its automatically generated texts on any spot you click on a map. I like that!

Yesterday a friend asked me for the address of another friend. I should have send him to this webpage that contains lots of information regarding this spot that is near the address:


Since it isn't obvious, so I state here that this isn't a sponsored post.

Expenses vs Investment

I read with interest this article dated back in July 2006 about the cost of remodeling your house. Differentiating between an expense and an investment is tricky. Is buying a house an investment, or an expense? We have to know is the house an asset, or not. An asset will bring in revenues. The post talk about renovation of an existing house and Forbes reported that most remodeling and renovations did not bring in profit, or even recover its full cost.

In essence, I think the author put it clearly and nicely here:
"Real renovation investments involve cheap improvements to the house that make it look good, right before a sale. You generally try to spend as little as possible to make the house look a lot better than it [currently] actually is." (I don't think we should cheat to make it look better than actual.)

Especially in my country, I heard that renovation is not considered when a home is being valuated because the assumption is that most buyers will re-do it to their likings.

Post Sponsored by Free The Drones Personal Finance Blog.

Tag cloud / label cloud

Notice the cloud of words at the top of my blog? Thanks to phydeauz3 blog for providing the codes and detail instructions here.

Four stretch mark creams recommended by Diva

Diva, who works in a hair and skin salon, created this blog about skin care. She (I guessed) is sharing her knowledge, experience, and performances of products used by her clients. She just posted a review on stretch mark creams. You may wonder why I, being a guy, choose to talk about stretch marks. My first reason is my wife is having this problem and so I would like to know more, and indeed Diva's blog is a good start for me. On further reading, I realized that I had the impression that stretch marks only happen to pregnant women, but I was wrong. Any fat guy or gal who managed to slim down can have it.

I guess it is a bit late for my wife to prevent stretch marks now, but hopefully during the next pregnancy. Nevertheless, I know of this good source for skin care products review and recommendation. Find out why Revitol stretch mark cream won the first ranking in her review, and also which the other three of the four best creams are.

In addition, you can read about others' experiences and solutions in the comments, and you are welcome to share your knowledge if you are also good in skin care.

This is a sponsored review.

An example of a flat world

I read this interesting report about a school boy putting up an angry message from the wife of his Dean after he called their home phone to ask a question regarding snow day.

In Chinese, there is a common phrase "有话好好说" usually said to some angry fellow to suggest him to calm down and talk about the issue at hand constructively. In this era where anybody can publish and broadcast, this has become very important. The Dean's wife should have politely responded to the student in a voice mail, even if she has to be assertive or use an accusative tone, since she has the right to be angry. With Internet, she is now made famous where virtually everyone can listen to her voice mail.

Actually, similar incidents have happened here in Singapore and Malaysia a couple of times already. Seems like the US is a bit lacking in this aspect :)

Are you too man?

It is getting more fun to do review as it is an enriching exercise. This time, I learned something new about an aged old problem - hair loss. For those who have this problem and are impatient to read further, go straight to check out the reviews of some hair loss products.

The above linked .org site is specially designed to provide a place to review products based on the problems these products target on. On the issue of hair loss, the top product in their ranking is Provillus, and it has the most number of reviews. If you are still solving your hair loss problem, check out the Provillus review.

So, for those who still have the chance to learn about it while not having it, it is a man problem. I don't mean woman won't have it. It is a man problem, as in how man are you? It happens to people who are "too" man. That's what I concluded after reading the guide on their site and wiki out what is Dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is responsible for the formation of male sex-specific characteristics. However, too much of it leads to hair loss.

Basically, health is not a race where the extreme is the ideal. Health is about balance. Thus, be man by all means, but don't over do it. Have a balance diet!

Lastly, this problem looks trivial, but don't overlook it as it is about a person overall health state, not just the hair and look.

This is a sponsored review.

My Alexa rank

This is not impressive at all. Just a note that I saw my Alexa rank on my PayPerPost page as 9460077. Previously it was 12, but means the daily average number of visitors.

Adam, where are you?

Just like the first man in the Bible, Adam, humans hide when we are shameful. Very true, isn't it? However, the hiding is an illusion. Just like the song "God is watching us from a distance," we may try to hide and think that we are hidden, but in fact, we can't hide.

How about hiding from other mortal human beings? It is getting more difficult. We are now empowered with easily available information. The author of the book "The World is Flat" mentioned in it how did his daughter easily found the addresses of her friends by searching their phone numbers using Google.

I bet you know Google is not an address book, but a powerful search engine. Thus, anybody can do a background check, and this "anybody" could be our potential employers, future parents-in-law, future spouse, school mates, colleagues, etc.

I hope these are not scary, but beneficial to many by better knowing their potential partners in work and life. However, Google search is general and form the cyberworld that has both true and fake information. SentryLink provides search services on specific backgrounds such as driving, credit, property, and one of them is Criminal Background Check using public records obtained from state and local government offices. I hope this does not make job hunting more difficult for ex-criminals. Instead, may be such available knowledge can help to avoid awkward situations since employers can know in advance and can be better prepared to work with ex-criminals from the very start if they decide to employ any of them.

Furthermore, there are jobs which are not suitable, and vice-versa, for ex-criminals. Thus, respective bosses can do a criminal check through SentryLink on their potential employees.

Although it reminds me of the book "1984", it is not about the technology, but about how the technology is used. I doubt we can prevent these technological advances. Thus, the best is not to have anything to hide and live according to our conscience. Such transparency should encourage an honest society and world.

No Sex Allowed - Milo Turk

CD: Available from cd Universe.

Video: His performance during the American Idol audition, on youtube:

Lyrics: this is the best I could manage to put together the lyrics found on the web:

I'm sitting around minding my biz
Something is wrong and I don't know what it is
My love comes around she's an Oedipus Rex
She starts playing with me, all she wants is Sex
But take it from me hear what I say
I don't need that there's a better way

So I promised her love as she sings along
Cause sex is weak and love is strong
Whoooooooo
No Sex Allowed
I don't want to be part of your crowd
No Sex Allowed
If you don't like it - Get out of Town!

We touch and we feel our bodies just so
whether she's satisfied, I don't know
She complains that she wants to go all the way,
I think about it myself, but then I say
"Stop it now, the subject's getting old,
cause you don't use no birth control…."

She said "listen boy, what's the matter with you,
don't you dare deny that you want sex too,"
I said "it's something that you can't explain,
you're headed for the sun like a fool in the rain."
HIV, pregnancy, and then what's next,
is it really worth it to have sex?

An advertisement free guide to web hosting

I am quite impressed with this guide to web hosting by web hosting choice. I am at the moment considering getting my own domain name for this blog, and also checking out hosting and website software/templates for another up coming website. Then I got this opportunity to review this site. Thus, I look into it with interest and as I read on, I find that they are sincere, factual, no boasting tone, and truly as they claimed that it is an advertisement free guide.

I find their Learning Center useful, especially the sections on scam and cheap hosting. I did some search and found a really cheap plan $12/year, but looking at these:
Disk Space 1000.00 MB $6.00 for each extra MB)
Data Transfer: 2.00 GB / month ($18.00 for each extra GB)
comparing with another at $4.99/year with these:
Disk Space 50.00 MB ($1.00 for each extra MB)
Data Transfer: 5.00 GB / month ($3.00 for each extra GB)

A small suggestion for the site is about the default numbers in the Quick Web Host Search box. I believe most visitors are first timers and many of them are not prepare to pay anything near to $40/month and $25 setup fee. On the other hand, isn't 25Mb disk space too low when even my Nokia N80 have 40Mb RAM and 2Gb mini SD card in it?

Post Sponsored by Web Hosting Choice.

Do educators serve the students or their school?

Some JC classmates had a short "reunion" at the 1st month celebration of the daughter of one of them. A friend mentioned about the recent issue of a principal told 27 girls the school wanted 100-per-cent passes, and advised them to seek transfers to the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) since they were unlikely to do well in the GCE O levels.

In general, we think it is better for students to be told frankly and honestly which road might be better for them. The friend said, rather than at the end of the year a boss telling him he wasn't performing well, he would preferred to be told at the beginning that this job or career does not suit him, if the boss already confidently foresee it from his experience. Further, it would be better for a road map be shown at the various decision making junctions in a student life. This should reduce the wastage of resources for many to be trained in a profession but never practice it, and many who are practicing, but unhappily because they made the wrong choice when young.

However, for a principal do so because his school wanted 100% passes is ridiculous! Yet, this has been happening all along I think. My own experience is as early as before mid 80's where half of my class repeated a grade because, according to rumors, the school don't want high failure rates at O level while public is not informed of their passing rates at other grades. Nevertheless, most of them got into university compared to those who "luckily" and barely avoided the repeat.

When the alternative of taking only 3 A level subjects, Junior Colleges (JC) principals started to persuade students from taking 4 A level subjects. Someone I knew experienced that "coercing" when she started JC1 in 2005, but she insisted, which I did encourage her to. It must be some uneasy days or weeks for her to insist. The good news is that she achieved straights A's and distinctions, and also passed S-paper. There seems to be a struggle between being students' principal/teachers and being a school's principal/teachers.

Not just another online shop

First of all, it is not an online shop because it doesn't directly sell the products listed on it. It provides price compare services, and listing the cheapest price they know.

There are sites that claim to do so but only have a limited number and categories of products listed. Here, I think it has good coverage. For example, as I was looking for a magnifier for my Nokia N80, I searched for the word magnifier, and it found 77 products in 30 categories.

Next, does it the best price? I didn't do a thorough review, but only a simple check on one of the magnifier, Rectangular Illuminated Magnifier, whose listed price here is £4.99. Then, I did a search in eBay and find the similar item at US$15.95. Thus, at today's rate of US$1.95289 = £1, £4.99 = US$9.7449211 is the cheaper price.

Among the many features, I like these two, which I think are uncommon. There is an option for you to search only those "shops you know" which refers to the very established and well known shops. This is useful for careful people who would prefer to buy from known shops. You are allowed to specify your budget range.

Anyway, I didn't get the magnifier because it is still above my budget at the moment.

Savebuckets sponsored this post.

More than a blogger

I have just added the ShareThis button. Find it at the end of each post. Try it out! (If not there, click on the "read more or ShareThis")

This seems originally designed for website rather than free hosting domain blogs. However, recently it can work on blogs. They have a customize code for WordPress, while I searched and found out how to incorporate it into blogspot.

Anyway, I feel honored to be considered a publisher by them, whose site has a interface for users, publishers and developers. So, I shall be more aware that I'm not just throwing words that I want to say here, but be more concerned about who are the readers, and what are interesting and beneficial to them.

My review of an online furniture shop

This website is buyer friendly. It doesn't just dump their entire catalog into the website creating a maze for visitors to get lost in it, like many other online shops that I visited.

Here, they list their items into logical categories.
- by room, such as Living Room, Entertainment Center and Home Office
- by style, such as Platform Bed, Occasional Tables and Sleeper sofa
- by color

In sites that list only photos with simple names, it is difficult to search by text. Here, I noticed that they have quite a couple of words describing photos of each item.

They also list other furniture items that you may also like based on your selection of one of the item. This helps to focus the buyer's search among the many items they have.

I think the feature allowing customers to chat with their customer service reps is an important feature. However, I didn't manage to get hold of one at this time of writing this review. Probably it is not during their office hours, or may be it is not meant to be an online chat. If so, I would suggest they make it clear on the page.

The color scheme of the site looks nice and warm to me. The blending is so good that I didn't notice the zeros under the quantity column initially as they look like some round text bullets.

The enlarged view of the item image is clear and easy to manipulate. However, I didn't have success using their zoom feature. This should be a minor technical fault that could be solved easily.

Correctness

I just learned from friends that an elder we know often say these words, roughly: "It is not about I am correct or you are correct, but what is correct?"

In science, those theories and hypotheses supported by many experimental results are taken to be more likely as correct. It is not about if any of those experimental results are correct. Rather, it is about whether the hypothesis is correct. Logically, if results from one valid experimental say otherwise, then the hypothesis correctness would be discounted, or invalidated.

Thus, if a concept is correct in the views of a group of people, but validly incorrect to another group of people, then the correctness of this concept is questionable. Arguing or fighting over which group is correct is fruitless.

However, when a hypothesis is invalidated in science, it is not thrown away but fine tuned to become a better hypothesis.

Similarly, neither of these two camp of thoughts is to be discarded, but should be fine tuned. De-emphasize the contradicting and different portions and enhance the similar and parallel portions of the concept. The latter approach is to work towards bringing about concepts that are universally correct to all people. In other words, such concepts may be called the truths. These truths will demolish the walls between these groups, especially racial and religious groups.

Get your own real estate signs, quick, simple and convenient!

Just finish reading the second part of the book on a flat world and learned about this Build A Sign Company. Without need of any graphical software, you can easily design by customizing any of the many templates they have and build a sign of your own, within minutes! I have very little design gene in me, but I tried my hand using the site and created this mock-up sale banner for my place by customizing one of their real estate signs.

Viewing of the proof at the website (the word SAMPLE is added by me).

The photo in it is the nice view I am enjoying every day.

It is easy and convenient. Now while the real estate here is quite hot, agents should get their very own eye-catching banner!

Post Sponsored by Build A Sign.

TV drama lengths

I thought some drama serials from Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan are long, with some can continue for years at the rate of one episode per week. Only recent years I started watching some drama serial from US. In fact, theirs is even longer, not in terms of how many episodes and how long a drama serial continue, but in the number of years they cover. At about a series of about 10 to 25 episodes per season, 2 seasons per year, a 6 series drama will cover 3 years! Some examples come to mind are the Cosby Show, Friends, CSI, etc. We watch not only the show, and also the growing up of the actors/actresses, especially those younger ones.

Yummy citrus-marinated flame-grilled chicken

I enjoy Mexican food. My saliva glands already start working just by looking at the description of El Pollo Loco’s award-winning fresh Mexican chicken marinated in a special recipe of herbs, spices and citrus juices. Yummy!

If you love El Pollo Loco’s citrus-marinated flame-grilled chicken, you may like to share your passion for it in a recorded video. Why? You can participate (must be US resident above 18) in their Get Fired-up & Win Big! contest for the chance to win $1500 cash and plus caliente prizes!

Visit www.wherestheflamegrill.com for fun videos about flame-grilling.

Accountable advertising

Technology solves existing problems, changes the situation, resulting in new problems.

Wonder how advertising began. Actually no need to wonder, just wiki it and you can read more about it here, where one-way communication of commercial messages and political campaign displays are found in ancient Arabia.

Since it is still being described as a one-way communication, advertisers throughout history have no way to find what happen when their advertisements appear before the recipients. Did they notice it? Did they read it? Did they believe it? May be all these don't matter as it seems that businesses just have to keep advertising regardless of what happen at the recipient end.

I wonder if advertising channels are some kind black hole that sucks money from businesses. Singapore was quite clean in the sense that our streets don't have messy neon lights. However, in the recent decade or so, advertisements are invading virtually every area, underground pass, buses, on top of buses and taxis, bus stops, and etc. I must mention the one that I personally dislike because I ride bicycle: installing a display panel on the pavement that take up 80% of its width, thus blocking my way!

The similar is happening in the cyberworld. Very few businesses, if any at all, can choose not to have a web presence, which I think is quite useless for majority of the businesses. However, something is different here. In the cyberworld, virtually everything can be recorded. Thus, advertisement firms innovate way to give indicators of what happen at the recipient end. So, you may not need to pay for advertisements to just appear somewhere but nobody notices. Cost is incurred only when there is some indication that your advertisement has been noticed. For example, pay per click system such as Google Adsense requires a click on the link, or paid for viewing system such as EmailCashPro requires a minimum period of time that the page is shown on somebody's screen, or looking for blogs and sites with huge or related readership to put up advertisements.

The last one is similar to putting advertisement on magazines, but different in the sense that not all of them need or want advertising revenue. Also, even some welcome such revenue; it is too much a hassle for a business to communicate with many individual publishers, or for an individual publisher to invite many businesses. Thus, as usual, when this situation arises, someone starts to play the agent role. The first one I joined is PayPerPost, which I think is probably the first one in the industry and the best of the few I have come across.

Getting back to the problem of knowing what happen at the recipient end, the first two solutions are obvious, but the last one doesn't seem to address the issue. Indeed it didn't, but the issue is addressed from another angle, by considering the bloggers the recipients, it is very likely that they need to visit the advertiser site, read it, learn more about the company/product/service, then blog about it.

Thus, advertising in the cyberworld is moving away from a one-way communication, where advertising agents are expected to produce some kind of accountable indication of the advertisements. Currently, the soon to be launch PayPerPlay is under fire regarding how would they know if the 5 seconds audio advertisements are being heard. I think they can know if the audio is completely played. May be they can negotiate for the rights and trusts to determine if volume is not muted. May be they can even find out if the speaker is making sound by getting ways to receive a feedback from the viewers/listeners' microphone, provided there is one. Yet, they will never know if somebody's ears are attentively listening.

Have anyone question the TV station how would they know if anyone was watching the screen when their advertisements were broadcast? Of course yes, but TV commercial is still here.

Just as Internet became more secured, when there are demands for it. I speculate that there will be better techniques to find out more about what's happening at the recipient end of an advertisement.

Video Tutorials on Internet Marketing

Let me know if it doesn't work.

This is an advertisement from my emailcashpro mailing list for people interested in Internet Marketing.

My mobile phones history, 1994 till now

I have used mainly Nokia phones. The few phones I had used are Philips Fizz, 3180, Ericsson (forgotten model), 3180, 3210, 3310, Sony Ericsson T23, 3310, 3250, N80 and N80ie.

Fizz was nice but Philips had quit mobile phone industry by the time my Philips Fizz died. I got from a friend Nokia 3180, which was a high end phone then. However, I knew it only now from web search and knowing that this friend only uses good electronic gadgets.

After it was snatched from me, I quickly got myself a replacement, the Ericsson model, which couldn't match the 3180, especially the buttons, that I bought another 3180. However, I stopped using pager, when I was using the Ericsson phone, which became my only time telling device. Thus, when I switched back to 3180, I was without any time telling device for some years.

Later, a friend kindly gave me a 3210 that provided me the time. When my brother upgraded to a new phone, I took over his 3310, which later was lost. Luckily, there was a spare 3250. I don't recall having any unhappy issues with these phones.

The Sony Ericsson T23 was not my phone actually. I bought it for my to-be wife then, and used it for a few weeks only. That was my first phone with color screen, it is much better compared to my experience with the Ericsson phone, and the sound was good. However, it is slow! If I were to buy a phone for myself then, for the same price, I would rather choose a Nokia model without color screen.

I got my Nokia N80 some time in Nov 2006. It was a big jump from my previous phone, Nokia 3250. In an earlier era, I once looked for a PDA, but ended up in a dilemma. PDA+phone seemed much worthwhile than just a PDA, while other than pricing being above my budget, I was worried of the risk of losing a single multi-functionality gadget. Anyway, in the later half of 2006, the 3250 battery was getting from bad to worse, and my age old desire to have a PDA gadget was burning. Thus, I decided to face the risk and started hunting for a new high end phone.

I found and chose Nokia N80. Some reasons are:
(1) Among other companies, my good experiences with Nokia phones.
(2) Among various models, I was looking for smart phones.
(3) Among various Nseries, I am not going for entertainment, or business use but I want wifi.
(4) Among various thumb down of N80, which the main ones are small battery capacity and low memory, I probably could tolerate with them.

The other features of N80 that attracts me are 3 megapixel camera, high resolution display (352x416), Symbian OS, and miniSD card.

My N80 only became N80ie in June 2007 after Nokia officially provided the firmware upgrade.

So far, there has been one repair related to internal speaker intermediate malfunctioning, which my guess is due to my non-N80 magnetic phone pouch causing confusion to the phone's magnetic mechanism that detects the sliding action.

Very recently, I just got a bluetooth keyboard for it as I think those un-typable small keyboard is of little additional value to me.

Looking forward, when shall I get an even better phone, and what features do I want in it? Probably when I am eligible to renew line contract. Wifi, still a must. Small battery capacity not really a problem as I am carrying my charger with me, and will likely to get one of those charger that can tap on to either main electric socket or USB port. They already have huge internal flash memory in the newer N81 and N82 models. So, N83 might be my next phone :)

Everything is risky, and to know the risk is the key

In the culture here, high-interest lending is called "big ear hole" (direct translation from dialect 大耳隆). Nowadays, there are more legal but also considerably high interest lending providers. I guess these are what nice names like "Cash Advance" and "Payday Loans" refer to.

Here, CashAdvance1500.com is a site that talks about loans providers who accept online application.

After seeing a number of these sites, I got curious to know more. I found this company, TeleTrack, which offer businesses a more in-depth portrait of their loan applicants. Thus, lenders know clearly about the risk of lending, and can appropriately offer loans to considerably safe borrowers.

CashAdvance1500 sponsored this post.

The Ultimate Goal

This is about soccer, but the word "goal" is more than a typical soccer goal.

It is about the belief that if children play together, they will grow up to work together.

OK, so what's so special about that? It is the location of this goal, Iraq, and that the players in the soccer teams will grow up to work together.

Read more about it at Funding a football league in Falluja.

Home of the Global Singaporean

I like this phrase "Home of the Global Filipino" under the logo of Philippines Today.

For various reasons, Filipinos have gone to work in many different countries. Similarly for other countries such as the more prominent ones being China and India. Here, there are people from Malaysia, Thailands, Mynmar, Vietnam, Europe, etc. In the meantime, Singaporeans have also moved to other countries, again the prominent China, US, Australia, etc.

I did a Google search but couldn't find the phrase "Home of the Global " with any of the words Chinese, Indian, Singaporean at the end. May be Philippines Today can trademark/copyright it for sale.

Another uninteresting post

Skip this if you are not interesting in my money making story.

I just want to note down some significant time points in relation to my blog for money adventure.

Today, I have received my first payment from the SponsoredReviews that I joined 2 Jan.

Already mentioned, my earnings from PayPerPost exceeded USD100 yesterday.

Not so bad, is it?

There was a time being legally declared broke was very bad. At least in my country, the laws changed some years back resulting in being broke isn't that bad now.

However, there are many who are actually broke, but not legally because their creditors don't want them to be broke. Thus, there is a new race, the "bad credit" consumers. From the many sites offering loans, not just normal loans, but bad credit loans, we may deduce that the demand must be huge.

With so many choices, it would be nice if someone make a list for comparison. BadCreditOffers.com - A Free Consumer Resource - allows people to compare dozens of bad credit offers from major providers and find the best offer to fit their needs.

Most importantly, nobody wants to be in this "race" for long, so, they also list Credit Repair & Debt Relief services. Are they hoping that you only need their services once only? I hope so.



Post Sponsored by BadCreditsOffer.

Don't play play

Wow, this is exciting! The Wall Street Journal, something that is quite unrelated with my quiet life is now kind of linked to me via the new advertising system that I joined, Pay Per Play. How is it so? According to its blog, Pay-Per-Play is Ramping Up,

"Kelly K. Spors of the Wall Street Journal visited with Mike Knox for over 30 minutes to discuss PPP. This means that collectively we are shaking things up. The WSJ wouldn't have even noticed us if we weren't making such a large wake in the IM community. Best of all the WSJ came to us, we didn't seek them."

You can read the article, New Services Help Bloggers Bring in Ad Revenue.

Hey, earning money from blog is not a play play thing, else the WSJ won't be concerned. So, don't anyhow play, but play the audio ads from Pay Per Play!

I am so small

A two cents advice from a friend: "If you want traffic to any site/blog, you need only remember 3 things: CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT."

Very true, this blog lacks of it. It is time for me to do some good planning.

Some time back I blogged about my surprise that my Google AdSense income is above zero, while yesterday I read about somebody just make a couple of hundred thousands dollars.

I have been updating my earnings from sponsored blogging, but I know from their sites of top earners earning about a hundred per day blogging.

Very recently I joined Pay Per Play, but will it help for me to blog about it here, when I noticed others who blog about it receive so many comments.

OK, enough for the unusual sad tone. Knowing that I am small is a good start, I believe.

Change heart

Just read this news, Hearts from cadavers beat anew: study.

How about temporarily replace one's heart with an artificial heart, decellularise it, get it back to life, put it back into the body.

It is getting less incentive for doctors to teach the public how to live healthily.

This blog PR is 3 now!

Like I said, just another post for the event of this blog's PageRank is 3.

UPDATE: PR dropped to 0 on 26 jan 08 :(

Weblog

Yes, I admit, my recent posts on my blogging for money are not interesting to most people, and sounds like bragging.

Only a few days back I read about the so call origin of blog, weblog. I didn't read further, but I guessed it means a kind of log book on the web. Indeed, blogging is a form of diary and daily journal for many bloggers.

So the next one I am posting up will be another boring log of an event.

When MRT truly means MASS Rapid Transit

Many things that we take for granted were not around in recent history. I learned from a documentary some months ago that the concept and system of stocks and shares was invented only about 4 hundred odd years ago. Being creative, the human race has kept inventing new alternatives to existing practices.

Transportation has been a headache in many cities. The massiness [sic] of Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), a main public transportation in Singapore, is increasing and approaching that in places like Japan and Hong Kong. At the same time, owning a car here is very costly. I believe quite similar situation in the UK too: being over-massed.

An alternative in the UK is car leasing, where you can lease a brand new car and dealers listed on BuyYourCar have agree to deliver it right to your front door, free of charge.

How much? I did a search at their site and found £80/month + VAT is among the cheapest rate for a Chevrolet Matiz Hatchback 1.0 SE+ 5dr, contract hire term for 24 Months and annual Mileage of 10000 miles.

That should be about S$300/month. Compare this to a daily MRT fare of roughly S$2/trip x 2 trips/day = S$4/day = S$100/month for a person, and may be roughly 2.5 x S$100 = S$250/month for a family. I would say it is quite comparable. We can consider the additional cost if any, buy us the additional comfort in having a private car.

Post Sponsored by BuyYourCar.

Exceeded 100!

My earnings from blogging exceeded USD100!

If by IZEA (aka PayPerPost) alone, it would be another 4 more days. However, when including earnings from Smorty, this date is being brought forward to today!

A review of a reviewing site

This site aims to provide a place where user can give their reviews of cash advance products such as payday loan. Potential users can benefit from the reviews from people who have been helped by these products.

I think the idea is nice. Unlike testimonials on most companies sites, where only their products are being discussed, not to mention testimonials are one sided, this site make it easy for consumers to compare different products and read not only positive reviews. Thus, this site has the name TrustSource to reflect this aim. It also has a more detail guides on these products in general.

Similarly, as this is a review, I should also point out the following observations:
(1) it does not restrict itself to payday loans only. However, I am not sure if it is intentionally or not that they don't provide a list of products that they host reviews on;
(2) the home URL is about stop smoking products. I spotted some pages such as "How Do We Rank?" and "Disclaimer/Terms of Use" are not yet updated. Having said this, I trust that most readers of this post should find the page updated by the time you read it.

As the saying goes, "to err is human," and I guess it is a new site, and probably not a very commercial one since I don't see it trying hard to sell things, lets us wish it may grow to become a good, neutral and trust worthy source of product reviews from real users.

This is a Sponsored Review.

Is this a too good an Alexa rank?

I hope this isn't an error, either technically, or my wrong understanding, but... This blog Alexa rank is 12! I seriously suspect something is wrong.


Arrrgh, after checking at the Alexa site, it is not a technical error, but my misunderstanding. This is a computed number from the average number of reach and pageview. Now I understand.

Wanna set up a shop?

Now almost anyone can do it easily!

A quick look at the Ashop Commerce site already impresses me with its fullness of features.

I believe they have all the necessary and relevant tools in any good ecommerce software. Other than the many standard stuffs that a normal shop in the real world should have, such as database and accounting systems, it also provides cyberworld necessities related to traffic to site, from search engines and what are the keywords being searched; visitors language and country; fraud protection; and many others.

They also feature some of their client sites so that you can go and experience their system, and may be even buy something from some of these sites. Now is the era of outsourcing and offshoring. Bosses can start to consider outsourcing and offshoring netters all over the world to run their [cyber-]shops.

Ashop Commerce sponsored this post.

Conservative

The first definition found through Google search for conservative is "resistant to change"

In this modern world, I suppose most are not resistant to change. However, that doesn't mean they welcome any change. Change by itself is neutral. Thus, to label someone as conservative or liberal is too simplistic.

Wait a minute. What does liberal mean? Google search returns:

broad: showing or characterized by broad-mindedness; "a broad political stance"; "generous and broad sympathies"; "a liberal newspaper"; "tolerant ...
tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition

Wow! Reading these, I wonder how many would still consider himself/herself as a conservative person?

Are those being careful in deciding before making changes conservative? I think they aren't resistant to change by being careful.
Do liberals accept any kind of changes, regardless of if its consequence is obviously bad?

In between physical and spiritual

This shop is fun. It has Metaphysical Supplies of many things under the theme of metaphysical, or as they have it in their URL, "The Spiritual Dimension".

It is not limited to only some beliefs or traditions. Its range includes items and traditions of the Chinese, Catholic, Egyptians, Asian, etc.

The Suncatchers catch my attention as it looks similar to wind chimes, which also can be found at their site, but it catches sunlight rather than wind.

I guess these things assist us to communicate with the spirit world.

Post Sponsored by Metaphysical Supplies.

Smorty is quick

My returns from Smorty is quick!

Joined on 26 Dec, blogged on 28 Dec (29 here), approved on 28 Dec, and here is my first payment!

"Don't waste food!" but say it to people in the kitchen, not in the dinning hall.

I like this Minister, Mr. Mah, whom I heard many dislike. My brother also have to thumb up to him for covering up many loop holes in policies, although that cost him many money making opportunities.

On the issue of insufficient public housing for rental to the needs, and in relation to the high divorce rate, the Today newspaper reported:

-----
... But a harder and more worrying problem to resolve is the impact of rising divorce rates on housing options, he added.

Said Mr Mah: "We are looking at more cases where couples break up and the flat has to be sold due to a court order. Either the husband or wife, with custody of the children, will not be able to afford a new flat and come to us for a rental flat.

"We'll have to look at it from the more fundamental issue of why divorces are going up, and other things like housing options for a family that has broken up."
-----

Some might think he is pushing away responsibilities, but I say he is clear about who should handle what and problems should be handled at their roots.

I feel similarly for the issues on single moms. Yes, they are having a difficult life. While the society shouldn't cause them further problems, I prefer resources to be used in the area of reducing the number of single moms rather than making the lifes of single moms as nice as the average person.

As I have realized only a couple of years ago that many like me have been wrongly accused of wasting food when not able to finish everything on our plate, which was filled by someone else with more food than we need, and sometime with reasons such as there were more than abundance food prepared.

The Key Point

In an email regarding GPF 2007 Philippines¹, M. Trombin said:

"... the key point is the same. If we, together with our partners, do not work practically and invest in changing the life and conscience of the people for the better, we will never achieve the goals proposed by Hyun Jin Nim² via the GPF. For that we need to act on short and long terms projects and becoming a real movement for change."

¹Interested people can view a video here.
²"Nim" is a for of respectful way to address somebody in Korean.

Custom Bedding

As the world is becoming more digitized, fewer films were developed into paper photographs I guess. While at the same time, digital image can be very flexibly made to appear in many forms.

How about photos and album on bed? No, I don't mean just to put your photo album on your bed. How about making your bed a photo album? Have your photo printed on your bedspreads, duvet covers, bed-, throw-, and lap-blankets, pillow shams, complete bedding sets, and wall murals!

That is, you can have custom bedding using your favorite photos, be it scenery, your love ones, friends, pets, etc. You can also put more than a photo on it. You can have a few bedspreads with different photo collections.

So, would I myself want to sleep on some photos? Will I find it strange? Probably yes, but strange feeling is not a big issue to me. I think a picture of trees and streams will attract me to the bed, while one of thorns and insects might deter me, which is something I might need more of :)

VisionBedding sponsored this post.

Moving into 2nd gear

Almost exactly 4 months into payperpost blogging, I am now moving from 1st gear into 2nd gear in money blogging by signing up into some more similar systems.

Advertiser companies have benefited quite a lot from the additional advertisement space in cyberspace. Now, as in many areas, individuals are given such opportunities to create their own assets: advertisement space on their blogs.