All posts by The Artist

Computing & Internet

Microsoft New Search Service Bing

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Microsoft has a new search service which they have decided to name “BING” and hopes to give Google a run for their money.

According to Microsoft people, the sound of BING is like the sound of “I FOUND IT’. Funny, I thought it was TING! instead?

So I went to the website Bing.com and sure enough, it has been acquired by Microsoft but the site is empty right now at this point of writing. They are really slow. I think if they are thinking of threatening Google and trying to acquire a share of the search pie, they do have quite a long way to come!

Computing & Internet

Website User Friendliness

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In a previous post, I mentioned how important website user friendliness is. Lately, I have been surfing to a lot of websites that list used car for sale and have been having a hard time looking for the used cars that I am interested in not because they do not have these on the websites but because I just could not search them out and narrow down my search results in an easy, friendly way.

I find that if a website requires me to do more than necessary to get to the information that I want, I tune out and then close my browser. That’s pretty easy to do. LOL

I would write to these sites with suggestions if I have the time or know that they would appreciate feedback like this but I have had a bad experience last time and stopped doing so. Not that I have the time to be a busybody, in the first place.

General

Beauty Courses

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I have been planning to take up a beauty course but could not decide if I should enroll in a nail art, make up or hair school. I have interest in all of these beauty courses but do not know where my talent and creativity lie, if they exist at all in the first place!

If I have the time and funds, I would learn everything that has to do with beauty, just like what my sister is doing. Perhaps one day, we could combine forces and start our own all-inclusive exclusive beauty saloon.

Of course, first I must enroll in a recognized beauty school and gain professional working experience upon graduation. With recognized certification, that should not be a problem, right?

Blogging

Questions From Blog Readers

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Almost everyday, I would receive questions from readers pertaining to a blog post or another that I wrote previously. These readers are people who landed on my blogs from searching Google and other search engines and not my regular readers.

I wonder if they know the difference between a blog and a website, particularly an official website based on the questions they ask me.

For example, from the one too many posts I wrote on Celcom, Celcom’s mobile phone, 3G and broadband services and Celcom billing problems, I get people writing in to me to ask me to send them their bills, ask me about the latest promotions, ask me to activate their SIM card, etc.

Hello, I am not Celcom and I cannot help them with any of these problems. Even though I do publish their comments I doubt if Celcom staff would read and respond to them. Sometimes, I feel like letting these people who that they have written their long enquiries to the wrong person but most times, I just let them be because I simply don’t have the time to explain.

Computing & Internet

Acceptable Downtime

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I was complaining to a friend that my blogs were offline for about 16 hours that day due to server overload and I had to get that resolved before the server administrators would put my blogs live again.

My friend told me that I should host with him and that his up time is great. However, he added that 16 hours is not long. Imagine my shock. I wonder how long a downtime is acceptable. 16 hours is definitely not OK in my books. Even with my blogs 30 minutes offline would make me pull my hair out already.

I am not going to host my blogs with him simply for the fact that he thinks 16 hours is no big deal!! Luckily, since my server problem has been resolved, I have not faced another “outage” but during this time, my friend had issues with his own server as well.

Finances

Gold, Silver & Precious Metals

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Malaysia has just announced a projected contraction of the economy in the coming months. Even though I am not surprised, I still have to mentally brace myself again for more difficult times ahead. Can anyone ever be really prepared? I don’t think so!

A friend told me that those who are far sighted enough to have invested in gold, silver and other precious metals would not suffer such a big impact because the world prices for these are very stable unlike those of us who are holding on to hard currency only.

Even though I keep telling myself that I should start investing in gold and silver, at least, I always end up buying gold and silver jewelry instead. I know I should do more to protect my “wealth” and stop procrastinating!

Computing & Internet

Yahoo! Mail Unavailable

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For the past couple of months whenever I remember to log in to my Yahoo! Mail account to check my junk email (yes, that account, my very first email account has been taken over by spammers), I received a notice that my email could not be accessed and that I should try again later, failing which I should contact Yahoo.

The thing is, this shouldn’t happen in the first place and for numerous times too. Even though this account has more spam mail than legitimate email, when I check it, I expect to be able to access it and not told to come back later. After all, the internet never sleeps, does it?

Also, I was told that I should contact Yahoo and quote a certain error code. The problem is, where should I write to? Shouldn’t Yahoo make it easier for us to seek help by providing us an email address in the note or at least a link to their help centre?