Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Warren Buffet....and his LIFE

A very meaningful summary from Warren Buffet interview

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:
1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from deliveringnewspapers.
3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha , that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or afence.
4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or securitypeople around him. 5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largestprivate jet company.
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals> for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.
8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with WarrenBuffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of
Warren Buffet.
9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.
His advice to young people "Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself Remember:
A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
C. Don't do what others say, just listen them, but do what you feel good.
D. Don't go on brand name; just wear those things in which u feel comfortable.
E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on them who really in need rather.
F. After all it's your life then why give chance to others to rule ourlife.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Blogging for big bucks article in the local daily.

I thought i share with everyone.

Blogging and big bucks
By CHRISTY LEE S.W.
The appearance of blog-advertising agencies is giving Malaysian bloggers a chance to cash in through online advertising. Bloggers share their thoughts on this new development.
According to a March survey on advertising expenditure by media services group ZenithOptimedia, Internet ad spending (adspend) is predicted to grow at 28.2% this year, seven times more than the rest of the market at 3.7%.
Advertising agencies are expected to spend about US$445bil (RM1.56 trillion) this year and about US$495bil (RM1.73 trillion) in 2009.
In the same timeframe, Internet adspend would grow from 7% to 8.7%, while newspaper adspend will drop from 28.3% to 27%, the report said.

NEW VENTURE: Tiah (right) and Cheo, founders of Nuffnang, a local company that puts up advertisements on homegrown blogs.With more people turning to the Internet for all sorts of information, news and services, it is no big surprise that advertisers are also eyeing the online space.
Typically, businesses place ads on professionally-developed content websites with high traffic, such as news portals.
Nowadays, advertisers are also keen to tap into a previously unexplored domain of self-published content sites – blogs.
Though blogs may attract a lot less web traffic than an online news portal but as long as there are viewers for blogs, it becomes a valid medium for advertising.
For bloggers, putting up ads on their blogs would seem like a nifty way to earn some pocket money through user-created content.
A new way to advertise
Timothy Tiah Ewe Tiam, 24, is one of the bloggers who thought he could earn some money through blogging during his varsity years in Britain.
When he and a friend ran a humour-themed blog several years ago, it became quite popular, and they used the advertising system AdSense by Google.
"Our earnings were low and Google made you wait till your account generated US$100 (RM350) before you could start cashing out. We waited forever to get anything out of it," Tiah said.
"So much for wanting to make a fortune from online advertisements," he mused.
When Tiah graduated, he teamed up with Cheo Ming Shen, to set up Nuffnang Sdn Bhd (www.nuffnang.com.my) – a blog-advertising community, the first of its kind in Malaysia.
If you're wondering why it's called Nuffnang; the name comes from a quirky combination of two slang words (spoken in inner city London) meaning "real good" or "real cool", according to Tiah.
Basically, Nuffnang enables local businesses to put up advertisements on homegrown blogs, and for bloggers to make some money off ads from their self-published sites.
"We saw that there was no system here that enables local companies to reach out to the blogging community – advertising on traditional media is very costly and the cheaper method of passing flyers is not effective," said Tiah.
Another advantage of blog-advertising is that it has a more specific audience which advertisers can target for more effective promotions of products, said Josh Lim, director of Josh Lim and Associates.

THE COMPETITOR: Lim (second from left) together with the Advertlets.com team. Wong (first from left) is the owner of the kinkybluefairy blog. Lim’s company deals with blog-advertising and is the direct competitor of Nuffnang.A month after Nuffnang's opening in February this year, Lim's company set up a similar community called Advertlets (www.advertlets.com) – a play on the words advertising and alerts.
"There's no point paying a lot to put up an online banner ad on a major website when it is not relevant to half its visitors," Lim said.
"Knowing that each blog has its own demographic allows advertisers to put up more relevant ads," he said.
Both sites generally offer a similar type of service and features. Both systems also work almost the same way.
Being in direct competition with each other, these two agencies have been diligently improving their offerings to best each other – much to the benefit of our local blogosphere.
While talking to members of the local blogosphere, In.Tech also discovered that bloggers have their own favourites.
At press time, Nuffnang reports to have over 20 million ad impressions monthly (every time an ad loads on a blog) while Advertlets currently has close to three million.
How it works
Basically, bloggers who sign up are asked to provide some initial data through a survey, which the blog-advertising system will analyse to create a profile of the blog.
Tiah believes that asking a blogger himself is an accurate way of finding out what his blog is about and who its visitors are.
"Bloggers know their readers best, and we believe they will tell the truth," he said.
However, these blogs must first have a certain average of unique visitors a day.
For Nuffnang, a blog needs to have at least 20 unique visitors per day, while Advertlets requires 50.
If a blog is deemed ripe for advertising, it will be put on the waiting list for advertisers.
A potential advertiser will then specify its budget and target demographics, while the blog-advertising system looks up blogs that match the advertiser's requirements.
Once the agencies get a nod of approval from both advertiser and blogger, an ad campaign would be created and the ad would appear in selected blogs.
Blogs would be grouped into different "bands" depending on the average number of unique visitors it had received a week ago, said Tiah of Nuffang's system.

BE SPECIFIC: A specific blog that has high traffic of above 4,000 unique visitors a day can net the owner RM5,000 to RM10,000 a month, says Davies."The higher the blog is on the band, the more money it can earn per ad campaign," he said.
Once a blogger has generated at least RM100 in earnings, he will be given the option to cash out.
A cheque would automatically be generated and delivered to the blogger, said Tiah.
Tiah said that in future, Nuffnang would be introducing more advertising models, such as pay-per-click and cost-per-action. Lim said Advertlets would also do the same.
When asked by In.Tech, both Nuffnang and Advertlets refused to disclose how their systems would actually calculate these earnings.
Joyce Wong, 24, owner of the blog titled "kinkybluefairy" (www.xanga.com/kinkybluefairy), modestly admitted that her blog earnings are slightly above RM1,000 – from running two ad campaigns by Advertlets in a month.
Her blog receives an average of 2,500 unique visitors a day, she said. "Seeing that this type of blog-advertising is still new here, it is more than I expected," Wong said.
Lillian Chan, who owns www.5xmom.com, wrote on her site that she earns three-digit figures per week from running Nuffnang ads on one of her personal blogs, which receives almost 3,000 unique visitors a day.
Gareth Davies, 29, who owns ShaolinTiger – Kung-Fu Geekery (www.shaolintiger.com), said his blog recorded around RM300 earnings this month from running Nuffnang ads.
He said his blog had an average of 800 unique visitors a day in that month.
Big bucks in niche blogs
One would think that a blog like Screenshots (www.jeffooi.com), one of the most visited sites in Malaysia, would be raking in thousands of ringgit a month from its ads.
However, its owner, Jeff Ooi told In.Tech that the Google ads on his blog only brings in about US$150-US$200 (RM525-RM700) a month, which is mostly used to pay off its webhosting fees.
Ooi uses AdSense, a contextual advertising system by Google.
Though Google AdSense is commonly used by bloggers, it is not suitable for every type of blog, according to Gareth Davies.
AdSense works by analysing what a site or blog is about and automatically generates contextually relevant ads from a database of advertisers.
The system would then calculate earnings based on several advertising models, including:
If a site or blog contains various subjects from travel to technology, the ads generated would be less relevant compared to a blog that talks about one subject in particular, Davies said.
"Only bloggers who write about very specific topics can use AdSense because the ads generated would be consistent and relevant to the content," Davies said.
Relevant ads means visitors would be more likely to click on them, which generates money for the blogger through the pay-per-click model.
"A specific blog that has high traffic (above 4,000 unique visitors a day) can net the owner about RM5,000 to RM10,000 or more a month," Davies said.
On the contrary, non-specific blogs – even if they have high traffic – would not benefit from the system.
A "general" blog with a fairly decent amount of traffic (around 1,000-2,000 unique views per day) would only generate earnings of around US$30-US$40 (RM105-RM140) a month, Davies said.
Fortunately, the new advertising model by agencies like Nuffnang and Advertlets is excellent for these type of blogs, which make up most of the blogosphere here, said Davies.
"Also, the ads are very localised, so Malaysian visitors would likely click on it as it is relevant to them," said Davies.
According to an online survey conducted by Microsoft MSN in November last year, 74% of Malaysian bloggers said they have no particular agenda for writing their blogs.
However, the big money is still in blogs that talk about specific subjects.
"Some of these bloggers who blog for a living own five or six blogs on different subjects – with each bringing in about several thousand a month, they can earn a cumulative of RM20,000 to RM30,000 monthly," Davies said.
In addition, full-time bloggers could also get paid for sponsored reviews. By signing up their blogs on ReviewMe.com (www.reviewme.com), advertisers could hire them to write reviews for a price, Davies said.
Another way these bloggers earn their keep is through TextLinkAds (www.text-link-ads.com), where bloggers sell the space in their blog posts for advertisers to put up their text links.
For the sake of money
Owner of the Fird's Domain blog, (http://fird.kucing-kelabu.com) who only wants to be known as Fird, says he has sometimes thinks about becoming a full-time blogger, because of how lucrative it has become.
He thinks blog-advertising is a double-edged sword.
"Sometimes I find that those bloggers who earn money from advertising tend to overdo it," said the 25-year-old technical support staff who works for a multinational company. "You can see that some of them focus so much on advertising efficiency that they clutter their blogs with affiliate links and ads everywhere – in the end it becomes almost impossible to read the actual content," he said.
And then there is the problem of splogs, or spam blogs, which are artificial sites created just to promote other websites.
Sometimes, creators of these splogs even copy content from other sites to be republished as their own posts.
"Most people won't complain if you make money from your own blog, so as long as you don't annoy other bloggers by advertising your blogs on their personal sites," Davies said.
Wong (of kinkybluefairy) agrees.
"Blogging for money is fine, it's just like publishing content in a magazine which you can sell,"
"When it comes to blogging, people can see whether you are writing sincerely or just doing it for the sake of money," she said.
Wong believes if a blog does not have good content, it will eventually lose its viewers anyway.
"However, even if a blog is bad, if it has posts containing keywords it will still show up in search engines," Fird said.
"People will go to the site and it will still get hits in the end," he added.
To blog or not to blog
According to Davies, who holds a day job in IT security, online advertising is still not very mature in Malaysia – and blog-advertising is only a small part of it currently.
"Online advertising is already big in North America, but it is still very new in Malaysia as we have yet to cultivate a habit of purchasing products online," said Ooi (of Screenshots), who works as an Internet and e-business consultant.
"There is almost a complete lack of e-commerce here," Davies added. He said that during his time in Britain, he did almost all of his shopping online, except for when he was buying clothes.
Davies added that it also does not help that Malaysia is blacklisted in certain countries as a hub for credit card fraud.
"It is a cultural thing in Asia, where people need to see and touch a product before they purchase it," said Ooi.
For now, Ooi believes that advertising will still mostly be led by the mainstream media, such as newspapers.
"Print media will still be in command and that would be followed by electronic media, while online advertising has a huge curb to climb, particularly in Malaysia," he said.
"Most local advertising agencies have not really understood the dynamics of online advertising," Ooi said. Davies agrees.
"Global companies such as Sony, LG and Intel already know the value and have started to invest in online and blog-advertising, but the local companies are still generally set with print ads," Davies said.
Perhaps this is also because, unlike traditional media, there are no reliable ways to measure the effectiveness of an ad campaigns in blogs or to even verify if a blog has as much traffic as it claims, Ooi said.
"Businesses confidently advertise in traditional media because there are reliable statistics that calculate the cost and effectiveness of it, which blogs currently do not have,"
Ooi believes the situation would improve when the Audit Bureau of Circulations Malaysia launches an audit process for websites at the end of the year, which it announced during its "Lie Detector" campaign in March 8.
However, he believes that in Malaysia, traditional print media will still command the majority of advertising budgets.
In the ZenithOptimedia survey mentioned earlier, even though Internet adspend is growing at a fast rate globally, television, newspapers and magazines will still make up the largest piece of the pie for several years to come.
For the next five years at least, Ooi does not expect that blog-advertising in Malaysia would take off in a really massive way.
"Bloggers could probably earn some decent pocket money from it, but it might not pay the bills well enough for them to quit their day job," he said.
Despite this, Ooi said he would still give local blog-advertising agency Nuffnang a try and even put up one of their ads on his blog.
"They're the aggregators of online advertisement, and I'd like to support the industry so that it may grow," Ooi said.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Vincent Chow's blog.....Paypal and VMI card

After finishing my article on Paypal. I came across Vincent Chow's blog. There happened to have an article on Paypal having a payment glitch to Malaysians account.

There are also alternatives ways to withdraw from Paypal. VMI card or Virtual Money Card to withdraw money from atm machines. But i believed there will be some charges or fees on it.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

pAYpaL..........

Malaysia where I am right now do not have any facility to withdraw FUNDS from Paypal. I'd read about how some Malaysians go about to get the FUNDS back into cold hard cash. It seems very troublesome. One of the way is to get a good friend in Singapore to open an account with Maybank. What we can do is to transfer the amount to paypal under your friend's name and ask him/her to transfer it via Maybank to your account back in Malaysia.

I mean, how many of us have friends in Singapore not to think whether they are trustworthy or not. Pheew.......

I am waiting for a friend of mine to come back from overseas. He's a GURU/SIFU in HYIP. I believe he's got a plan.

There's an article in the local newspaper today about Banks clearing cheques in half day rather than the 3 working days period. Local and outstation as well. That is a new development. I used to received US cheques and it takes 6 weeks to clear with high commission too.

I want to get this all right before I am ready to go deeply into blogging for money or monetize my blog. Some bloggers do make some crazy income from just blogging or rather internet marketing.

I have activated my GOOGLE ADSENSE account on my blog. Hope to see some result from it.

Cant wait for PAYPAL to allow us Malaysians to cash out from our own local banks$$$$.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

FLASH POSTING

AC MILAN 2-1 LIVERPOOL

New American Idol........Jordin Sparks

One Starbucks Coffee on me. Darn i lose a cuppa.

Good for her...she's really good.

The last song on the final is just simply.....no words can describe...can you imagine from a 17years old.

The American Idols franchise is really making tonnes of money. Not only for themself they do it for charity as well. Over USD70mil were collected over the charity drive.

Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul two tumbs up for you guys.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Champions League Finals '07

VS
My heart goes for Liverpool because they are from my favourite league. But....I put my money on AC MILAN.

Look at the the Italian trashed MU in the semis, no doubt they are a much balanced side.

American Idol........Jordin vs Blake



American Idols final day.




Who will it be? Is it gonna be the sweet and big Jordin or the boyband Blake.




My wife picked Jordin, I picked Blake. We bet on a cuppa Starbucks.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Adsense Activation

After just blogging for the past few days. I came across many many sites/blogs promoting Internet Marketing/Online business making money via websites thru Google Adsense and many more.

So, out of curiousity I applied for Adsense for my blog. Hoping...maybe I am able to get some side income out of it or even make a permanent income from it.

Some pioneers are already making good incomes monthly. The figures are really crazy.

Well cant wait to get my Adsense activation...........waiting for Adsense to get back to me.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Counterfeit Printer Cartridges

Well Malaysia is really famous at this trade.

Counterfeiting DVDS, VCDS, BRANDED CLOTHES and now PRINTER CARTRIDGES.

http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/5/19/nation/17766911&sec=nation

Cartridge Re-manufacturers have been in Malaysia for a long time. This re-manufacturers normally sell Reman cartridges at 50% the original price.

Preaching Environment Friendly Issues as their prioritites.

Now, it seems their priorities have change. International traders are actually buying the Reman cartridges from Malaysia. It seems the Reman cartridges produce here are of better Quality so good that they could match the Original Quality.

I personally know of a friend, who has been in this trade for more than 16 years.
http://www.recycsys.com

Malaysia Boleh!!!

Friday, May 18, 2007

Gold Savvy


Those GOLD investors out there.

You are are ON for a good time.

Check out this news i got from a fellow investor from Australia.


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold prices could trade above $2,000 per ounce in 2010, possibly reaching $5,000, Robert McEwen, chairman and chief executive of Canada-based U.S. Gold Corp. (UXG.A: Quote, Profile, Research (UXG.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, said on Tuesday.
"I expect it to test $850 by the end of 2008, and by the end of 2010, north of $2,000, possibly $5,000," McEwen told Reuters in an interview.
That price is well above the current spot gold price of $669 per ounce. Gold prices have been rising toward the May 2006 peak of $714 in recent weeks, but have failed to break above the $700 mark this year after the sharp run-up in prices last year.
McEwen, who formerly served as chairman of Goldcorp Inc. (G.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, said although demand from jewelry makers would likely drop off as gold prices rise, buying by investors who are seeking a liquid investment would be the driving force.
Reuters Pictures

Editors Choice: Best picturesfrom the last 24 hours.View Slideshow
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That expected investment demand, coupled with rising costs to mine gold and political risk around the globe, should tighten the supply and demand picture for the precious metal.
Among the risks to production are the likelihood that governments will seek to increase taxes on mining operations as prices surge, similar to the measures some nations have instituted on their oil and natural gas concessions, he said.
"You're going to have excess profit taxes coming out of the woodwork," he said.
McEwen's U.S. Gold Corp. is currently operating five drilling rigs on land adjacent to Newmont Mining Corp's (NEM.N: Quote, Profile, Research sites in Nevada. The company expects to spend about $50 million to develop the site over the coming years

hahaha.......found it!!!!!!!SETHGODIN'S BLOG

Went thru GOOGLE SEARCH found Seth's blog.

Loads of info on "How to get traffic to your blog?"
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/06/how_to_get_traf.html

I need sometime though to go thru all those recommended steps. Kinda Lazy right now after a long and busy day and since it is midnight right now. Especially after my wife pour me some XO Hennessy.

I gotta go get BUSYYYYYY.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

*@#$%&

Now that I have a blog, how do I get people to come to my blog.

Eeeeyer......headache.

Got to go searching for HELP over the WWW.

Anyone out there, read of my problem please HELP.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Election Fever

The BN election units are working round the clock. Mobilising all represetatives to get down to groundroots and start working. Sure sign of election around the corner.

Some fellow bloggers are commenting on whether to continue support the ruling coalition party. In my humble opinion, BN will still RULE Malaysia for sometime to come. Even with all the allegations of corruptions and cronisms. Like it or not, if we do not have the Financial Fredom to move around the Globe why bother just vote for the Party you think is right at your Heart.

HAHAHAHA.......like all chinese would say.............."what to do?"

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

My Dear Tun Dr Mahathir

NST Online » NewsBreak2007/05/15
Tun Dr Mahathir Flown to IJN.BERNAMA

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed, who was admitted to the Langkawi Hospital Langkawi yesterday after complaining of breathing difficulty, was flown to Kuala Lumpur on a special aircraft today for further treatment at the National Heart Institute (IJN).
His press officer, Sufi Yusoff, said the former prime minister had responded positively to the treatment provided by a group of doctors from IJN and the Langkawi and Alor Star hospitals. “The doctors were satisfied with his positive response and as such, he could be transferred to the IJN.” Sufi said.

Malaysia in Badminton

Wowwwww!!!!!!LEE CHONG WEI a local boy from Bukit Mertajam, Penang, has done it again. He was a very small chap thin not so tall when he was younger. Look at him now tall and as tricky with his shots as always. Glad to know our players are no longer "JUARA KAMPUNG".

As for our doubles, KOO/TAN they seem to lose what they are there for. They thought they have the opponents at their finger tips. Still as fast and sharp but they tend to be very cautious with their shots now and dont seem to attack as much. At times playing too many tricky shots trying to fool the opponents. Those are signs of BIG HEADED.

Zakry/Tazari they seem out of place in the Indonesian Open Finals. Personally, I think they are lucky too have qualified to the finals even to beat some of the big names I still think they are LUCKY.

Anyways BRAVOOOO to Misbun and Rexy. I see Pang Cheh Chang was there too with Rexy in Indonesia Open.

Life Focus

Today I decided to start a blog. Hoping to release myself from the daily work stress. Running your own bizness can be really stressful........sales not up to mark.........chasing payment from customers........late delivery of raw material............machine down........grrrrrrr.

Went into stock/equity market get myself some xcitement from the BULLS AND BEARS of Bursa Malaysia and Sgx. Make tonnes of money as an avid investor.

The xtra money from stock market are pumped back into bizness to expand. Now both worlds are equal. Stress is still there equals with the adrenaline rush u get from the stocks market will make my life shorter, but what the heck Life is Too Short to Live anyways.