All posts by The Artist

WordPress Issues

Upgrading 17 Blogs To WordPress v3.0.1

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Although I have been a blogger for 3 months short of five years and started hosting my own blogs and websites, mostly powered by WordPress 3 years 7 months ago, I have never liked the technical side of hosting blogs myself.

Yesterday, though, in a fit, after reading about the hacking incident of a Blogger blog that belongs to an old Chinese temple in Penang, I quickly, well, as quickly as I could, upgraded all my WordPress blogs and backed up all my databases of these blogs as well as my 7 or so Blogger blogs. One can never be too careful.

When I told my friend that I have WordPress powered blogs to upgrade, he said, “No sweat, it’s just a matter of one-click upgrade.” Well, of course it’s easier said than done. Unfortunately, some of my WordPress was older than 2.7 and the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin doesn’t work anymore and I had to do the upgrade manually.

This took time, obviously, and to create even more frustrations, once, my computer froze and I had to do a force restart and start the process of uploading the new WordPress files to my server all over again.

However, I am glad that all is done now and I learned something new during the exercise of upgrading and backing up. Well, when there is no one who was willing to help or even have time to help, one is forced to learn.

Fashion

Luxury Timepieces Specials

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My aunt told me that she will be celebrating her 30th wedding anniversary later this year and seeing how her husband loves watches, she is planning to buy him a luxurious watch. My aunt has no knowledge of fine timepieces and asked me for my help.

I have come across Ulysse Nardin Macho Palladium previously through a friend and thought that it would make a great gift for just the occasion. My uncle, who loves luxury timepieces, would surely appreciate such a watch.

I don’t know what is my aunt’s budget for this gift but I am going to help her look for specials in luxury watches but if my aunt could really get a Ulysse Nardin Macho Palladium for her husband, it would really be impressive and stand out among the pool of gifts for he couple. Don’t you think so?

Computing & Internet

Domain Management

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As mentioned in a previous post, I registered a .MY TLD through a friend who holds a master business account with a web hosting and domain registrar company in the capital city. While I have registered all my domain names myself, this time, I had to go through someone to secure a TLD because registration for .MY domains is only open for businesses, from what I can tell.

So, registering for the domain was pain-free. However, when I wanted to point the DNS to my own nameservers since I already have hosting package with another web host, it took such a long time for this owner to take action. I know that it was a public holiday but isn’t customer service and technical support, especially for web based businesses, provided 24/7? If it isn’t, it should.

I am surprised that my friend, the account holder, do not even have access to the domain and he has to go through the office. Duh… I have set up websites and blogs for more than ten times and each time, my site was live within just hours. This one, I had to wait for more than 1.5 DAYS!

Although this company offers hosting at a cheaper rate than what I am currently paying, and I have considered migrating some of my sites to cut down cost, I have changed my mind because of this incident.

Technology

True HD Video Conferencing Via Gmail

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This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of faceVsion Technology USA. All opinions are 100% mine.

The internet and associated technology have opened a window of opportunity for business people to go global. As a small time business owner, I find myself relying on the internet as a primary means of communication, either through email, audio or video conferencing.

Being a one-person business entity, I am always looking for ways to cut cost. I have tried out quite a few low-cost video conferencing solutions but have been dissatisfied with the quality. At the same time, fussy as I am, I cannot afford similar services from more established brands. As you can see, because of these limitations, I was not able to video conference at all. I didn’t want to jeopardize my business image with low quality video conferences, you see. My associates need not know that I am a one-person company either!

Fv

I have been looking at FaceVsion Technology USA recently and am really interested to try it out myself. I love the fact that we could easily integrate faceVsion FV Express Combo with our Gmail account (who doesn’t have a Gmail these days?) and hold true HD video conferencing with our Gmail contacts easily, cheaply. For your information, your Gmail contacts will be synchronized to your HD video conferencing contact list which means that you could video conference with virtually anyone who is in your contact list.

What I mean about “true” HD quality is that unlike other “HD” webcams, FV Express Combo, thanks to its H.264 hardware encoder and decoder chip set, is able to achieve true HD quality video calls over the internet without sucking your computer resources or bandwidth.

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Computing & Internet

Registering a .MY TLD

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A few days ago, I registered a .MY top level domain. Although I have known of its availability for months, I didn’t get to register because if not mistaken, I would have to submit documents to my registrar to show that it’s a business registration. I am, of course, just an individual and it is for personal use.

A friend told me that he is registering a domain name for his website, changing from .com.my and told me to register one for myself because of the value of a .MY domain name in the future since it is getting more popular now. Apparently, even non-Malaysians are registering them.

So, after maintain that I would not be able to register, my friend said that he would register for me, which he did. I paid him back, though the domain is currently in his name, until I am able to produce proof of company registration before it could be transferred to me.

Although many bloggers would like to have their own TLD that’s short and sweet, when registration is only open to companies, it makes it hard for us, and hence, a lot of short names are still available.

General

Overcoming Technophobia

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I am glad to note that my parents are getting the hang of operating a computer, though they only know how to email and browse the internet. My mother is especially finding it interesting to run searching online on questions that she has had for a long time but I haven’t found time to help her seek out answers. I’d head to the internet too, obviously.

However, I remembered to tell my parents that they should always read authority sites for more accurate information, whether they are looking for a beauty school in Wichita or symptoms of a medical condition.

In any case, I am happy to note that my tuition is finally bearing fruit. At least, now, they don’t call out to me every other five minutes they are at the computer.

Technology

Maxis “Unlimited” Mobile 3G Internet

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My friend told me that she canceled her subscription to Maxis 3G mobile internet which had unlimited bandwidth. Well, although these packages are advertised as “unlimited”, there is still a cap. if not mistaken, Maxis has a cap of 6GB per month while Celcom has a cap of 5GB per month.

According to my friend, this is no longer the case and anyone exceeding the cap would have to pay additional charges, though discounted. And this was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her.

Seriously, I don’t know how true this is because I have just signed up for a package with maxis and was told by various parties that there is no additional charge if I were to exceed the bandwidth. However, the speed will be throttled. Naturally, I signed up for the cheapest package for the time being to try the service out and gauge my usage. I will upgrade later if necessary.