Archive for September, 2009
With on the onset of the latest trends happening in the internet, borders are actually being teared down. Compared to 5 years ago the type of sites I am now building for clients is a totally different breed.
Back then, clients were all asking for sites that look sleek, cool and standalone. When I first built an ERP system for my second company Frontiera Group that was integrated with the EBay API, none of the other companies in Singapore were doing.
Nowadays instead of looking sleek and cool, clients are actually demanding for sites that are CONNECTED!
Yes! connectedness. This is the new buzz word with this web 2.0 trend that has dawned upon us. By connected it means the ability to populate multiple strategic places with our intended content with just the click of a button.
A simple illustration could be that of ThingsToDoSingapore.com, a single entry on ThingstodoSingapore.com results in a post on the Facebook Fan Page, your own facebook profile page as well as a post on the Twitter Page. Plus and update on Ping.Sg
At the same time, it aggregates contents from YouTube.com and other blogs too.
Not to say the other mirror sites:
blog.thingstodosingapore.com
thingstodonear.info
thingsfuntodo.com
Companies are starting to demand for increased ability to put contents in front the face of their target audience with less effort. That is the expectation that an IT company has to meet in the Web2.0 age.
Thankfully all hope is not lost, no single programmer has to spend long hours in front of the computer just to create those functions. We have the open source community to back us up. All we have to do is to just fill up the gap when we do find one. What we fill up, we give back to the open source.
In this web 2.0 day and age, power is no longer held in the hands of the few but divided amongst the mass.
Then again on the other side of things. while this utopian view is what most observe, conforming to social norms, a few tends to rise to the top. This commonly is called the black swan.
It is indeed worrying. Consider these black swans as the hubs and the rest of us as spooks. Suppose if someone does cripple the hub, the rest of us the spooks will definitely get affected.
Such a scenario was experienced on ThingsToDoSingapore.com when the Russians decided to do a denial of service attack facebook one day due to some renegade Russian expressing one radical view too much over the internet and harnessing too much support.
Due to the connectedness ThingsToDoSingapore has with the facebook connect API, it experienced slow loading times for the period until the facebook team fixed the Russian problem.
While it seems connected is a good option, it does have its pros and cons like all systems.
During a conversation with Jim, a few weeks ago, he mentioned how sub domains could actually be captilized and subsequently monetized. Having thought long and hard about it, this idea suddenly occurred to me.
The most important about domain names is not really how cool it sounds but rather how closely it matches a set of keywords very commonly searched but not much competed for.
I think ThingsToDoSingapore.Com was such a case. Just yesterday, while researching on google keyword tool, I chanced upon another new set of keywords Things Fun To Do, and hence I created a new site. ThingsFunToDo.com.
So why spawn all these site, think of it as investing in real estates. While most physical real estates are very expensive and allows you an ROI of in best case scenarios 100%, domain names are difference, costing as little as just $20 per year, it is like buying a vacant lot. What you do on this lot really determines its selling price after. Even a subsequent selling price of $2000 would mean an ROI of 1000%.
So why not go for it? The game plan thus is to generate content that reinforces the positioning of the domain name, thus over time, increases the ranking of the site on major search engines.
Once thus done, you would then have on your hand a cash cow which you could start milking. The easiest way is to put up the lot for sales at a premium price. However another even better way is to actually, sublet out tiny plots of that virtual lot and become a land lord. Why not? This will really ensure a nice and comfy income in the long run.
Recently I managed to find time and hence decided once again to start work on my Things to Do Singapore!
One of the new features I had in mind of implementing was this auto updating of new sites to the Things to Do Singapore facebook fan page. The other thing I had in mind to do was to decrease the loading time experience for the site. The third thing I attempted to do was to improve the usability of the site. The second and third issue I believe is a constant task to work upon.
So back to the first feature. I researched for a long time on the facebook api site on how to update the facebook fan page automatically. Apparently apart from using the Open Streams API there was no other way around it. I further read that this was a tedious and complicated process. Hence I thought rather than have waste too much effort in the process of recreating the wheel, I researched for readily available solution.
This was when i chanced upon this page that talks in details on how to do auto import entries from a blog to a facebook fan page. Thus I did. I am glad he wrote what he wrote. There are so many features on facebook that sometimes i don’t even know if one exist when it actually does.
After talking with Peter the other apparently it seems I need a chunk of code which I could use to list out the sub categories in my wordpress photography system over at photography.name1price.com
I found this chunk of code over here
if (is_category()) { $this_category = get_category($cat); if (get_category_children($this_category->cat_ID) != "") { echo "<h1>Subcategories</h1>"; echo "<ul>"; wp_list_categories('orderby=id&show_count=0&title_li= &use_desc_for_title=1&child_of='.$this_category->cat_ID); echo "</ul>"; } }
This is from Yoast
Let’s see if it is what I am looking for.
What a night! Alena who sat beside me on the bench was once again in tears. I watched her, not knowing what to feel. She seemed totally agreeable with the first two terms I set for our relationship but not the third.
Term 1 : We will never ever have kids
Secretly still I think she is coveting that I will have a change of hearts 5 to 6 years down the road. Seriously though I have no intentions at all of bring another child to this world only to be imprisoned by life immediately. Memories of my childhood behind locked doors and grilled bars and afternoon stuck bored brainless in school are still vivid in my mind.
Term 2 : We will never ever commit to the purchase of houses
Was out with Madelyn the other day, heard from her she and her husband just got themselves in a 30 year mortgage. I guess they should be old and immobile by the time they finish paying off their loans. My life out of prison has just started, I am a freeman!!! I don’t really feel any motivations to head back in again for another 30 years of my life.
Term 3 : I will need to wander off alone for months
A life of wandering is the ultimate symbolism of freedom in its purest essence. Being restricted from such would be no different from a life of imprisonment, such a life is no life at all!
I wonder how she would not come to see of it this way? What is the point of keeping me around always, when I will only get more grouchy and restless, causing more annoyance than good to those around me with my presence. My feet is begging for the taste of hitherto unwalked paths and the horizon beckons.
It seems like I have over the past few months dug out all the most unlikely haunts there are to be found on this tiny red dot and am almost to the extent of being able to memorize all the places like the back of my palm. It was so torturous. I just need some new playgrounds to get lost in.
Truth is recently, the sight of my family and Alena only reminds me of the invisible chains they have in their hands. Chains they unknowingly but inevitably will use on me. Chain which Alena aims to build using her tears and quarrels and my parents their constant nagging. Instinctly I felt threatened, very threatened. Even my visit to my relatives yesterday didn’t help.
Oh yeah, this relative of mine was out with serious intent to do some brain washing. “????” The fruit thus fallen soon becomes the root. That was the four lettered gift she bestowed before I left. Prior to my departure, I agreed to have those four words written in my diary but nothing more. Quietly, I actually thought to myself she could go screw herself with that four word of hers. No offence but who is she to dictate how I should live my life. Just the thought of it left an extremely foul and pungent taste in my mouth.
Debts owing should be coming in over the next few weeks. I have finally put a curb to the two most massive drainage to my capital over the past 12 months, Alena and my parents.
I have paid my dues to my parents for the year at least and Alena is on the brink of starting her job in Singapore. Not that the pressure I exterted on her didn’t help. One could look at it as cruel but I don’t really feel the incentive to provide the fish forever. I don’t run a charity organization. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or in my case a constant free lunch. She has been feeling stressed recently from her job search. Hey tough life! too bad. Time for her to seriously get her kick together and move along.
Chains chains chains… All these chains, the time will soon come to drop them all. Lucky on the commercial side there are not much new bondages coming in. Good keep it that way. It will facilitate my shifting. Perhaps I am selfish, perhaps I am heartless. If such is the case, so be it. I only live once and I aim to live it!
Of late, it seems like I am beginning to experience a growing sense of claustrophobia. On occasions when I was unfortunate enough to land up in the CBD area due to some business issues, I do see myself only reaching home in the wee hours of the night, just as so to avoid all traffic and crowd.
It seemed this place is getting so overcrowded recently. I can’t help but feel totally drained each time I set into to the train stuffed with people. This sardine tin can syndrome seem more and more the norm instead of the exception.
Thankfully Alena is finally settled in Singapore properly. She would be starting work soon. One battle, or I would rather call it a campaign, done and over with. In a sense I do really have to thank my lucky stars. We managed to pull through the past 1 year together without me eventually forced into some full time position, and thereby dragged inevitably into the rat race. Once more I managed to avoid being dragged into the mill where all souls get crushed to smithereens.
In retrospection, I just wondered how it all managed to happen and come together of its own accord. All these deals I managed to close and deliver these past few months. It was like suddenly hopping onto an express lane I previously didn’t know exist. Crossing path with Satheesh and then Peter through Justin.
Oh well, life always have its own store of surprises.
One thing though that was made very clear during these entire few months and further reaffirmed what one of the external consultant lecturers from my Technopreneurship classes as well as my cousin Johnson said is that people will always be willing to part with a large chunk of cash, if they can avoid a high level of pain as a result.
Scams and get rich quick methods don’t really work in the long run, as opposed to common beliefs. The only true way to survive and prosper is really to constantly seek out better and more efficient solutions to relieve the pain felt by other businesses.
Come to think of it, now that Alena is finally settling in, there suddenly is no longer any need for my presence. I don’t see any visible big battles nor conquest ahead of me on this path I am travelling along.
I told Alena that day about my need to drift along. I was surprised with her over reactions. I wonder why? We had our arguments. It is good that she finally come to terms with the fact that she is fighting a losing battle of attempting to tie down a drifter.
Attempt to tie me up and before you know it. I will be long gone. Recently I have been hearing the waves crashing on the shores of the Indian Continent. Perhaps that should be the next place I get myself lost..