All posts by The Artist

Finances

Buy Gold From The Net

Leave a comment

My father has been bugging me to help him buy gold coins from a couple of websites. He doesn’t have a credit card, you see, and doesn’t know what other payment options he has.

Although I am not discouraging my father from investing his money in gold coins, I just cannot find time to read through how to buy gold coins and basically research on the topic. As you know, there are so many scam websites around, I am afraid that my father would end up not getting his gold coins or my credit card information will be compromised.

I have bookmarked the website of US Gold Bureau and hope to find time to read through all the articles first before helping him with his purchase but I don’t really have a mind for investment and would feel sleepy and lose concentration every time. My father asks me why I don’t feel the same when playing social games and could sit at the computer for hours. LOL

Computing & Internet

Spreading The Load

Leave a comment

A friend, who runs a home-based online business, told me that with a few web properties and setting up even more websites that would generate additional revenue for him, he is looking for another reliable webhosting company.

According to my friend, although he is rather satisfied with his current web host, he is not going to put all his eggs into one basket. If you are a webmaster, I am sure that you would occasionally experience server downtime once in awhile. With the current set up my friend has right now where all his websites are hosted under one master account, he said that any downtime suffered drastically affects his online revenue and since he depends on this for a living, he can’t afford to not do anything about it.

That’s one smart move. Even for me, a small-timer, I have three different hosts so that if one goes down, I still have two live which would still be able to generate earnings, albeit lower. Since my friend is going to start new sites and not transfer his current sites to a new webhost and server, it will not be very troublesome.

I sent him the link to Web Hosting Choice so that he could read for himself and compare the top ten web hosting companies. While all of us are trying to save cost due to the lackluster economy, looking for a cheap web hosting plan is not the only consideration. We also need to look at other features like money-back guarantee, free set up, disk space allocation and data transfer and very importantly, we need a company that has 24/7 technical support and friendly customer service.

*** This post has been sponsored.

In The News

Web Content Monitored In Malaysia

Leave a comment

Although the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. M, has promised that the internet will be as free as it could be when he was in power, the current Prime Minister has said that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), which governs internet and mobile communication in the country, has the right to act on users in the country who abuse these services.

By “abuse”, he means that people who incite racial and religious among the various religions in the country as this could cause tension and unrest in the country. From what I understand, MCMC does have the power to do so but has not implemented these policies too strictly so far.

Of course it is wrong to abuse the internet and I personally think that web users who generate content have a responsibility towards their readers and know where to draw the line but it would be interesting to see how MCMC will handle this. Looks like the ball is in their court now.

General

Taking A Break From Driving

1 Comment

My parents have asked me not to drive for a few days to give my knee a rest. It was strained due to the 7.5 months that I spent taking care of my dog when I squatted for extremely long hours to be on the same level as him as he was incapacitated.

I went to see the doctor and he told me that there is no use taking an X-Ray as it would come up normal since damaged ligaments won’t show in X-Ray films. He told me that right now, the only thing that he recommends is physiotherapy. He said that if I was older, he would prescribe supplements to me but due to my age, if I get started on supplements now, I may have to take them for decades.

I used to buy Glucosamine for my dog and now I am buying it for mom. It helps with the pain in the joints of their knees. I am afraid I would be next. Well, for now, even though I am not allowed to drive my car, I will continue driving on the information superhighway.

Computing & Internet

Google Settles Buzz Lawsuit For US$8.5 million

Leave a comment

Remember the huge blunder that Google made when it first launched Buzz in February this year? Gmail users created an uproar upon discovering that their contacts have been shared among all their other contacts, if you know what I am saying. This really shouldn’t be such a big deal considering that we can see who our Facebook friends are being friends with, unless we want that concealed. Well, it’s the same concept, isn’t it?

Although Google subsequently made changes to Buzz and gave us the option to opt out of it and teaching us how to remove Buzz from our Gmail account if we do not wish to use it, after accidentally clicking that we are opting in to the service when it was first launched and we didn’t know better.

Whatever remedial steps that Google took wasn’t enough and the company was sued by a Google user, Eva Hibnick, in February. After so many months, a settlement has been reached and Google will have to pay US$8.5 million for their mistake. According to a copy of the settlement that was made public on Friday, proceeds from this settlement will be donated to internet privacy groups that have yet to be specified at this point. Well, that is whatever money is left after paying the lawyers. LOL

General

Setting Up A Wedding Website

Leave a comment

A friend is getting married at the end of the year. With relatives and friends in almost every corner of the world, she is planning a Wedding website and is asking me to help her out and I have agreed. From what she told me, she plans to stream her own wedding reception live over the internet via her website.

I estimate that she is going to spend quite a lot on her wedding and asked her what happens if there is a glitch regarding any aspect of her wedding that causes her to lose money and sleep. She doesn’t know that there is something called Wedding Insurance and it is getting very common these days since getting married is not cheap and it’s wise to subscribe to a wedding insurance policy by just paying a low one-time premium for peace of mind.

I think it’s risky for anyone to put so much time, money and effort into planning a wedding and not get insured for that so that the wedding will run smoothly and even if it gets cancelled for whatever reason, monetary loss is minimal. Wedding insurance covers for payments of up to two years prior to the wedding date, anyway.

Computing & Internet

Dr. Chua Denies Having A New Facebook Account

Leave a comment

Dr. Chua Soi Lek, the current MCA President, or more popularly known as CSL, has denied that he has a new Facebook account and stresses that whoever posting under his name has impersonated him.

According to Dr. Chua, he did have a Facebook account last time but it was hacked and he had it closed soon after. From then till today, he has yet to see the need for a new Facebook account. Dr. Chua says that if and when he registers for a new account n Facebook, he would make an announcement.

I can certainly understand that there are people who are too free who would go around setting up fake Facebook and/or Twitter accounts of well known figures in society or celebrities but it beats me why anyone would want to impersonate CSL.