Sorry I haven’t written for so long, but I’m really terrible at time management and I’m trying to juggle between two big projects I’m working on now. Well, as big as it can get on a personal level, anyways.

So, I just wanna say, thanks for the readership thus far, and I hope to see you in my new blog (http://www.rapidpcfixes.com/blog), where we demystify technical issues there!

Oh, if you feel like it, join our forums as well! (As you guessed, http://www.rapidpcfixes.com/forum)

Once again, thank you so much for the readership in such a short time, and I really hope to continue this blog in the future when I get better at managing my time!

Happy Chinese New Year to all ~

I’m sorry about that…but I don’t think I’m going to actually redirect my custom domain that I bought to this blog, since wordpress enforces a 1 yr subscription at $10 to do that…and I’ve spent enough this month on all sorts of goodies…

Besides, it’d make more sense if I downloaded wordpress files from wordpress.org, and then start over again, then use this blog to redirect to my other blog. Then, there wouldn’t be any confusion for my valuable readers, and there wouldn’t be any extra charges incurred. (Errrgh…the credit card fallacy…you’d think you paid for something, but when you don’t actually deal in cash, you get the horrible feeling of having no control…like having leaks in a bucket of water – a hole which keeps widening)

Well, looking forward to do more posts (and managing the hundreds of scripts in wordpress…)!

As usual, thanks for the support and readership!

(Amicitiae nostrae memoriam spero sempiternam fore.

Do you guys think this is possible in cyberspace…where anonymity reigns?

Share your thoughts here (leave a comment…)! XD

Finally, after a painstaking wait, I’m gonna write this!

Sorry about that…it has been a crazy month, with us moving and pipes bursting and attending the GIS and all that…it’s been hard to take time out and blog.

Well, without further digressing, here it is.

Going to GIS…literally blew my mind away. I mean, in the mere presence of those power players, the patina of awesomeness they exuded, I felt humbled. I truly felt a world of difference between the audience and the stage, despite the speakers’ efforts at convincing us that there’s not a lot of distance betwen us (literally…and figuratively).

So then, I thought, ‘well, the pro guys speaking up there on stage SHOULDN’T be lying.’

The more I pondered, the more I became convinced that there’s not so much difference between ‘you and me’ (quote unquote, ‘you’ being us newbies, and ‘me’ being the gurus).

I mean, looking back at the SIMPLEST model of internet marketing available, email marketing, all you have to do to get started:

1. Conduct market research (finding rabid buyers)
2. Conduct keyword research (finding those that have a modest search volume, and which you can dominate, without much competition)
3. Buy your domain name and webhosting, and transfer your DNSes to your webhost (you have to wait for it to propagate – that’s to circulate in the world’s DNSes)
4. Find a product (either buy PLRs, that’s Private Label Rights, or MRRs, Master Resell Rights) or develop your own
5. Design the marketing graphics that go with it (banner ads, text ads, front covers, etc.)
6. Build a squeeze page and FTP it to your webhost’s server
7. Link the optin form to your autoresponder
8. Write a series of emails (start with 7?) without the greens in mind and including a load of content (use ethos, logos and pathos to help elicit empathy and establish rapport)
9. Research related products that have affiliate programs
10. Contact the support team to get a sample portion of the product and review it
11. If it’s worth it, sign up. If the quality is awful, then search for another one.
12. Check conversion rates and commission payout rates (reputation of those affiliate programs and webmasters) to make sure you actually get the commissions on time.
13. Get your affiliate links.
14. Post them whenever the etiquette is appropriate in your emails (content that links to it).
15. Automate your emails using an autoresponder service.
16. Promote your squeeze page using traffic generation techniques (Q&A sites, Social media, Social bookmarking, eZines, article directories, Blogs, review sites, etc.)
17. Wait for commissions to pour in.

I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds W-A-A-A-A-Y more logical, doesn’t it?

The only difference is in the numbers. We’d probably make a few do

Lots of $$

llars – a couple hundred of bucks, while the gurus are doing this in the hundreds of thousands of dollars PER MONTH, and possibly 7-8 figures, depending on their viral marketing strategies.

So, what’s the catch?

After all, these 17 steps LOOK simple enough, aren’t they? They LOOK simple enough, don’t they…..

The catch is simple. It’s the terra incognita factor in play again.

It’s the fear of the unknown.

It’s the technicalities.

GUESS WHAT?! IT’S REALLY NOT THAT DIFFICULT!

But again, it’s not the separate components that are difficult, it’s STRINGING THE COMPONENTS TO FORM A COMPLETE PICTURE THAT IS.

What do I do with the domain name? How do I configure custom emails? How do I access them? What services should I sign up with? What happens when I do build my squeeze page?

Again, it’s really as the gurus said on stage.

‘…most people fail…because they get CAUGHT UP.’

Period.

You get caught up in life, caught up in the finer details of each step, caught up in a snag…

There’s no end to it.

So, WHAT’S THE SOLUTION???

That’s the whole point of this post. I really wanted to share my thoughts to this seemingly impossible conundrum…

But instead of being direct, I wanna use a slightly roundabout manner of expression…

So, I’m going to leave with Ewen’s slightly comical (but true) quote, with a slight extrapolation…

‘…the most important skills you must have in Internet marketing are: copy and paste.’

- Ewen Chia

A slight addition:

‘…the most important skills you must have in Internet marketing are: copy, paste AND UNDO.’

No biggie. Just one more shortcut, one more key sequence to remember (*hints hints* UNDO)…

There it is.

Do share your thoughts here (leave a comment)!

http://rapidshare.com/files/316172524/UPDATED____04.12.09__-_GIS_notes_.zip

Thanks for the support, and look forward to future updates!

Coming soon: The aftermath of GIS… (explaining what REALLY keeps us from setting up an internet business!)

Here’s a few pages of the notes that I took during the seminar, and I’ve uploaded them here, hope they’re gonna be useful!

I re-organized the notes by speaker, since I folded each A4 page into small A5 booklets, I wrote a page number on the lower left hand corners of each page, so we can easily identify the order. Do excuse me if it is a bit sporadic…but here it is.

Here’s a preview:

Download zip file (with all pages) here: http://rapidshare.com/files/314385079/GIS.zip.html

Do leave a comment here!

By the way, if you liked it and think friends can benefit, simply share it through the sidebar to the right, where it says ‘share this blog’, and literally, share this blog through your favorite social media sites! XD

Sorry I haven’t written for such a long time! It has been a hectic month. We’ve gone through flooding in the house during winter (yeah…the pipes exploded and completely submerged our house, wait ’til you hear about it, it’s uber-epic), to being kicked out of our apartment (we’re renting), and having to move in a matter of a week! That probably doesn’t sound very difficult, but when you’re actually moving with your family, a small operation can turn into a major hindrance…especially when there’s discord among the crowds…

Oh well, before I digress, I’m going to jump straight back to the point: I’ve finally decided, after contemplating for months, to get my own domain name. Well, call it contemplating if you would. Just a matter of entering your credit card number and paying for three Starbucks coffee for a year’s worth of domain name purchase.

The new domain, as you might have guessed, is…

http://www.imicrothinking.com/

…!!

Thanks so much for your support, faith and readership, and I’m absolutely committed to delivering top quality content to all readers, so if you liked or hated (either’s fine XD) a part of the blog, leave a comment, or better, spread the word and recommend it to your friends through your social networks!

As you can see on the sidebar to the right, there’s a button called “Share this blog”, which gives you access to a whole load of social networking sites, which you  can use to easily tell your friends!

Again, the new domain is simply the current one without the ‘.wordpress’ part:

http://www.imicrothinking.com/

Here’s a sneak peek for what’s coming:

1. Loads of new principles coming up! (Trust me, if there’s one thing that you HAVE to have in life, that’s principles to guide you through it. Unlike your friends, families, girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses, etc., etc., they don’t change. That’s something to be thankful for in this ever-fluctuating world.) XD

2. I’m going to be doing a lot of new articles on computer science, and fancy as that sounds, there’s always a couple of myths and misconceptions floating around that’s bound to be fake. Since I’m also a novice in this area as well, learning about programming and hardware, I can truly understand how it’s like talking with experienced technical savvy people. Usually, they’re like ‘…multicore CPUs do not have an effect in concurrency…the division’s still based upon the same principles…and the thing to look out for is randomizing allocations of resources, since that’s exactly where most people neglect…’, and I nod fervently, even if I don’t understand most of it. Well, I’m kinda hoping to get the hang of Java, then move on to scripting languages like JavaScript, CGI, Perl, then familiarize myself with PHP, SQL, and look at new technology like Ruby on Rails. But, rest assured, that’s not going to all happen by Christmas.I’ll try and use my understanding of programming on the software side to help solve some common problems that people have, but again, when you commingle Java with things like .NET and Windows, things start to get a bit complicated, like my teacher said…

3. I’m really excited about this one…I’m hoping to set up a network of proper websites, which will be in development, which, again, will be delivering fantastic content on a variety of topics, mostly focused on internet marketing, software products, educational products on computers, and some self-development programs. I will make this promise to you: I will NEVER sell something, unless I think you’re getting more than what you paid for with hard-earned cash. Unless it benefits some part of your life to improve either your health, work, or relationship, I will NOT sell it. It’s only fair that I offer the best solutions to my valued readers in return for getting such wonderful support from this community.

Well, that’s about all there is for now! I’m sure that’ll keep us busy to no end until the end of year ~

Until the next post, keep the festive mood up!

Ever wanted to by a phone because you just 'felt like it'? (Source: http://www.mobilewhack.com/images/nokia_aeon_concept_phone.jpg)

Many times over, we experience something which we call ‘impulse’. Ever went to a shop and bought a new mobile just because you ‘felt like it’? Ever picked up the phone and called up your friends because you’ve ‘got nothing better to do’?

Whatever it is, we’ve certainly experienced this feeling before – acting without reasoning.

But do we really not have a reason for doing something?

I don’t believe so.

You see, right, we somehow attach a ‘reason’ to when we have a decision thrust into our faces, and we decide on a best course of action after thinking about different alternatives, and choosing the best one. The reason that we assimilate with decision making is, then, to do with feasibility.

But what about reasons like ‘it feels right to me’, or ‘I don’t know, it just feels…right’?

Perhaps what we’re referring to is gut instinct, the ability to decide on the basis of our past experiences that are interconnected to this contemporary instance. Or, perhaps, because we’re emotional beings, and anything we decide to do or not to do has an emotional root to it. So, if you’re looking at that car that you really want, the reason to buy it isn’t really ‘I just feel like buying it’, it’s more like ‘I feel like exchanging $100,000 for happiness and satisfaction’.

So, here’s how I categorize reasoning:

1. When it’s conscious, or when you actually take the time to think about it, reasoning has a basis on the external world, and depending on your culture, it can sometimes be rephrased as ‘the strength of your connection to the external world’.

For instance, you decide whether you want to murder that friend that backstabbed you, or to confront him/her openly. Upon thinking about the long term consequences, the second option seems like a more rational one, doesn’t it? So you made this decision on the basis of your connection to your external world, in this case, the strength of your connection to your friends.

Obviously, there are so many more implicating factors when reasoning, like, your own personality traits (level of decisiveness, obstinacy, etc.), the circumstances you find yourself in, the resources you have (mental, physical, tangible, intangible, etc.). But, taking aside stuff you can’t control, the basis that you have for reasoning while conscious would be, again, on the strength of your connection to your external world.

2. When it’s unconscious, or when you’re not thinking before acting, your reasoning has much to do with the innate nature of human psychology, in terms of our behavioural inclinations.

Reflexes would be a good example. When you touch a hot iron (classic, innit?), you quickly retract to prevent yourself from burning. Why? Because humans have survived this long on prioritizing self-preservation over any other factor.

Take another example. When your friends ask you out to the beach, you flatly refuse, saying ‘nah, can’t be bothered to go’, not on the basis that you don’t want to go as a friend of your gathering, but because of our tendency to avoid repetitive behavior when it exceeds a certain limit, or because the body is exhausted after a marathon from the previous day, or because of your tendency to not go to these social gatherings (that’s the law of consistency going against you, mate), and saying , ‘too lazy to go’.

So, really, any reasoning can have a basis in the external world or in you.

Just thought that was interesting. XD

I’d love to know what you think about this…share your thoughts here!

An ancient calendar

This is, again, another mystery to me.

Why are there EXACTLY 365.24 days in a year? Did we somehow come to decide it or was there a better reasoning behind it? Well, being the curious (and perhaps, illogical) person I am, I set out to investigate it.

By our reckoning, a year translates to the following:

1 week = 7 days

4 weeks = 28 days

1 month = 4.34812141 weeks

1 year = 12 months = 12 × 4.34 × 7 = 364.56

…which is roughly equivalent to the exact number of days there are in a year.

But of course, if we were to discuss days, weeks, months in general, we can’t talk of one and not of the history of calendars.

Historic artifacts have shown that our earliest attempts at recording time dated all the way back in 10000 – 28000 BC back in the early Stone Ages, or the Palaeolithic Era, as some may know it.

From then on, three types of calendars have proliferated across cultures and religions.

1. Lunar

A lunar calendar, eponymous to its name, depends on the phases of the moon to have a date assigned to it. If I understood Wikipedia correctly, apparently, every lunar year, it drifts from the solar year (one that is most used around the world) by 12 days, which doesn’t realign until every 33 years. However, most lunar calendars aren’t actually pure lunar calendars, since they won’t be in sync with the rest of the world otherwise (imagine that your year has 11 less days all year, that’s disastrous!). We call those lunisolar calendars, which are, simply, lunar calendars, except for the addition of an intercalary month (an extra month) that helps balance out the disparity.

2. Solar

We’re probably most familiar with this one. The solar calendar that’s also the most widespread in the world is the Gregorian calendar, after Pope Gregory XIII, who proposed it for ubiquitous use after Dr. Aloysius Lilius’ model of recording time. Surprisingly, for a calendar as accurate as this, it spread slowly throughout the ages since its decree (24^th February 1592). This reflects accurately the relative position of Earth while orbiting around the sun, and thus, the four seasons caused by our orbital track.

3. Lunisolar

As mentioned above, some cultures prefer to use the lunar calendar for various reasons, however, because it’s unable to synchronize with the solar calendar perfectly, which is more widely used that a lunar calendar, they have to add intercalary months to help even out the difference. An example would be the Chinese calendar.

So, why exactly are there 365 days in a year?

Well, as we’ve seen, 365.2425 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds is the amount of time required to orbit around the Sun, which gives us seasons, and since they interchange on a rotary basis, one such cycle would qualify for a year, logically.

The real question, then, would be: why are there 7 days in a week when:

365 days / 12 months = 30.42 days

30.42 days / 4 weeks = 7.60417 days / week ?

Probably…because we can’t conceive the notion of having 7 days 14 hours 30 minutes per week. If we rounded up, we’d have more time that actually exists, so the viable option, then, is to round down.

Pretty long-winded for something so trivial, eh?

What do you think? Do drop in a comment here!! XD

Source of photo: http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/S/spellbinder/images/astronomicalchart-01.gif

Huh? This apparently means, “We’re consultants.”

- What a manager communicated to his team,
‘Yes’ by Robert Cialdini