Let’s see how fast iPage.com sticks to this ANYTIME money back guarantee of theirs.
Which really was the reason that I tried taking them up, cos their offer was irresistibly good:
1) Money Back Guarantee
This eliminates any risk of potentially getting stucked with a service or product that I’m not happy with.
2) Low Yearly Fee
Let’s face it, when are we unmoved by the price factor? Sure iPage’s plan wasn’t the lowest, compared to other hosts’ but I just had this itch to switch to another host and at this moment in time, price had to be one of the factor.
3) They Looked The Look
I know, I know, never judge a book by its cover and I may be a sucker for their ‘image’ here , in falling for their marketing cosmetics but that’s how it really goes on in life, without most of us giving any though to it. The more professional it looks, the more inclined you’re going to part with your money. Right?
So why the sudden urge for a refund?
Let’s just say I wasn’t a satisfied customer after a purchase, which I wouldn’t go deep into at the moment.
And please don’t think that they’ve got bad services or poorly designed products, because they’re actually quite good.
Plus they’ve really done well and came back strongly into the web hosting market, especially after a hiatus a few years back, and especially so with a “No questions asked”, “Anytime cancel” policy.
And where I thought that I didn’t have to come back to the office today, on a Sunday, I eventually had to and so Sunday’s mood recap was: Bah.
Busy, chaotic. hell, redemption, routine, football and bah was how the week felt.
Early week and mid-week was hell and I think I knew how I managed to stay sane.
When you’re mentally prepared, you raise your game that little bit more.
I knew that the Food Hotel Asia, or FHA, event meant that we’d have a damn busy week+weekends, but thanks to pre-empt heads up from the regular customers, I guessed that this much it helped in staying sane.
That errors in prints amounted to just 1, considering the amount of information that I’ve had to digest from the various contractors, meant that the ship has successfully navigated away from the storm.
And I attribute the level of efficiency down to… a paper and a pen.
That’s right, nothing helped me more during that period than a piece of paper and a pen.
Countless times where someone mention something to me and I acknowledge it, expecting to remember later on, only to forget everything about it.
It’s fatal to merely hold onto a thought when you have phone calls flying at you, customers sitting beside in a discussion, and an incessant workload of graphic layouts to be done on the PC.
Whatever years of experience that I’ve racked up, I’ve learnt that anything that’s worth remembering, it’s definitely worth writing it down, no matter how strong you think your memory is.
All it takes to save your ass, especially in this line, is a piece of paper and a pen, and I was bloody prepared to write down with blood if ink ran out.
Thankfully we had plenty of pens in the office.
Write it down if it’s worth remembering.
Had I not written down my mood recaps in the early morning, I’d probably not even remember how I’d felt at the start of that day.
And now I’m able to relive those moments again.
Coming on the back of chaotic days, I remember approaching Thursday on a lighter mood.
I wrote down ‘Redemption’, because Thursday was the day that made every single minute spent in office worthwhile.
It was the day which meant that I wouldn’t mind coming back every Sunday for work if I had to.
It was also the day where every chaos and hell turn serene and rosy, for a while.
And I’m pretty sure that this is the day that everyone works for at the end of the month, and I guess I’m counting my blessings that I get to receive it twice a month.
More or less.
Yep, it was Payday, and Mar loves Paydays because it means that he gets to settle any overdue bills that he has and avoid receiving any further red letters and/or ‘please pay up’ sms-es.
Life is about paying the bills at the end of the month right?
… fans of a club support it through thick and thin, because at this moment these vocal fans who ask for the axe sound more like disgruntled shareholders, except they don’t own any shares…
… one of the main reason that Torres’ full potential is nearly unleashed, that Gerrard decided to stay when Chelsea courted him, and that the mere mention of ‘Liverpool’ in Europe meant a team that’s never to be discounted…
… Liverpool have over the years proven how strong they are when they go into the second half and especially when their backs are against the wall…
And maybe I might add just how myopic these fans are who are simply impatient for the silverware, and don’t they know that success is sweeter the longer it takes and the harder it gets? Maybe I’m too optimistic, but at the very least, I’m the least bit pessimistic — and Pessimists never gets anything done and never achieve anything that they want, because they tell themselves that it’s impossible. I just happen to think that in life, anything is possible.
Likened to an Intention Manifestation Model thingy, but just that much more simpler, believe you can, and you will, but believe you can’t, and you won’t.
My message to Rafa Benitez, if he’s by a one in a Billion chance that he’s reading this, well, you’ll never walk alone. It’s a Red thing.
I don’t code in Lingo anymore and neither do I indulge in lines and lines of Actionscripts, but somehow the blue and yellow forums of Flashkit.com never fail to keep me away.
Occasionally browsing over the photography section, the arena (where plenty of brilliant photoshop tennis takes place) and most notably hanging out in its coffee lounge, a place where we deliberate on anything and everything, Flashkit or FK has been a constant haunt for me.
The quirky minds and scandalous witty retards retorts that resides among its pages are what keeps me glued after all these years.
So how many forums can you claim to be a part of, of which you’ve spent nearly a decade lingering around? After a certain period of time, it feels like home.
And threads like “Can we file a class action against Apple?” entices the professional thinkers to come out and present their arguments onto the table, and without Bush in the White house, it’s topics like these that gets the Flashkit’s wandering minds into focus and a pretty slick debate.
Flashkit were the place to be if you were gonna be a flash developer back then, but the site’s well past its glory days, although the forums are still alive and kicking. It’s like the threads have taken a life of its own and there’s just no stopping.
And that’s all that I’m there for, to nibble on the breadcrumbs of these professional’s minds and also the antics of the misdemeanours, and to perhaps learn a few graceful thing or two.
So can we start with the lawsuit already?
Wait a minute, but why should I?
If I would, is it because I’m a programmer who only knows how to use Adobe’s Flash CS5 to make apps for the AppStore?
And now that it’s taken away from me, that I have a valid reason to do so?
Baseless.
That’s how I see it really, whenever someone claims at how unjust Apple’s move is.?
The way I see, Apple owns the hardware, the software, the online store and I just don’t get the part where it’s not right for them to decide what’s best when they’re playing on their own turf with their own game?
It’s like your mom decides that no boys who listens to Justin Bieber should date her child, and then some random fella cries outrage and contemplates filing a suit against your mom, just because.
And you, the child, is a BIG FAN of that tiny prodigal singer, so do you date someone else or lock yourself in the room and cry for 13 nights straight?
Seriously, I may get or feel the outrage that Adobe has against Apple’s latest move, but I don’t quite understand the level that it’s reached. Seems to me that Adobe is seriously in a bad mood because Apple refuses to go out on a date.
Relax, just sit back and relax.
That’s right Adobe, calm down, and instead of throwing a tantrum, tolerate and abide by it. No point venting your frustrations if you don’t try to find a solution.
In fact solution abounds, ‘cos Adobe can now focus and redirect their energy towards companies that do want to adopt application development with CS5.
Apple has just given them one less platform to think about, and possibly narrowed their marketing budget, and everybody knows that when you have to many options, you get spoilt for choice.
So instead of fighting fire with fire, that energy is better redirected and channelled it into other ares, like maybe a new technological development or a smart marketing campaign.
Fan not, the flames of the problem.
In life, problems are the best thing that can happen to anyone, because only they give us the opportunity to learn to cope, endure and solve.
And when something can’t be solved, well, we live around it.
I just read an article which teaches how to grow plants and I swear that I’m not turning into a botanist anytime soon, as I stumbled upon it after Googling for “nutrients that plants need”.
The word I was searching for turned out to be Fertilizers, which I eventually read off one of the search result’s pages.
Strangely for a few hours, ‘Fertilizers’ was missing from my head and frantically trying to remember a forgotten term is painfullly irritating, like how you thought you knew a certain phrase a while ago but now just simply unable to put anything to it, the moment that you needed it?
The mind ends up racing in chaos, trying to find that rogue term.
So I was searching for ‘Fertilizers’ because I wanted to start this post with a “These few days, if I was a fledgling plant, it felt as if all my [insert rogue term here] were being taken away from me. — but I ended up with a better gem.
At least I thought it was a gem, because in that article I mentioned earlier, a paragraph mentioned “All plants need these seven things to grow: room, right temperature, light, water, air, nutrients and time.” and I can’t help but to come out with a list of things that a man needs to grow.
And brilliantly ecstatically, I came up with: iPod, EPL, FHM, xbox, DOTA… ok k k.. just kidding.
So where plant needed the 7 things to grow, I was quite certain that we humans too had a list for us to grow, and so I did a simple 15-minute doodling of random stuffs, while watching American Idol. I drew a half eaten cake, some cats, or what might looked like cats, and even doodled a rocket that’s about to launch.
As it turned out, the doodling exercise done on purpose, never really had any purpose, and I was back to when I first asked myself the question: what is it that humans need to grow? Fertilisers?
Like An Epiphany.
Answers like food, family and money are perhaps tangibly more than correct but I wasn’t quite satisfied with them and I looked back at my useless doodles and slowly, I smiled.
I realised that after all that doodling, I was a really bad artist.
Or maybe the pencil wasn’t sharp enough? Bah.
But more importantly, it was also that the doodles didn’t benefit me or developed into anything, that I wished it had. Although I knew I wanted to doodle, I didn’t knew what it was exactly that I really wanted to doodle about.
You see, my doodles weren’t targeted with any purpose, and everything added up, tallied lost and randomness.
As it turns out, there and then, I knew that the answer that’d satisfy me would be…
…read on…
… that humans grow by feeding on purpose!
And not just feeding on purpose, as in feeding with intent to eat and be full, but rather about growing and developing as a whole by having intentions to pursue and missions to complete.
Yes, humans grow by feeding on ‘Purpose’. There, I feel a little satisfied now.
Go Ahead, Take Away My ‘Fertilisers’.
I was just feeling how work have been sapping away my energy lately, forcing me to stay up in the office till late and having to wake real early the next day, so I can rush and cram in more working hours for the day.
I’m never a fan of waking up early, but lo and behold, I’ve been reaching the office before 9am daily, this week, and just to put my point into perspective here, to prove that I’m not gloating about being an early riser or eager-worker, for the past few months I’ve been reaching office between 10am and 11am.
Yep, guilty as charged.
So you could say that just by being in before 9am, was quite a feat for me, and all this after wearily chasing my customers (and vice-versa), after sitting hours at stretch glued to the computer screens and after not having much rest.
I was mentally growing weary with little sleep to go and irregular meals, and so what if it rained mercilessly on me last night, I rode shivering on my bike, in my drenched clothes and shoes, on the way home.
The thing is that I managed to wake up early, shrugging off that desire to catch a 5minute wink.
As it turns out, not long after washing and dressing up, I was off to work — early and purposefully.
I knew I had deadlines to meet and customers to not disappoint, and that somehow propelled me forward.
Waking Up With A Purpose.
I suppose I’ve grown slowly away from that lazy fella who hits the snooze button as often as a certain David Ngog misses the chance to score for Liverpool, and THAT is a hell damn lot.
For a long while I’ve been looking for a magic pill to help me wake up and reach work in time, like others do, and I’ve always envied how they do it, and for the past few days I’m glad that it was no pills nor new ringtone.
I’ll guiltily admit that for a long time I’ve not instilled a purpose to need to reach work early in the morning, but rather to haphazardly just wake up for the sake of waking up.
In the context of this blogpost, in the context of being an early riser and in the context of how to stay refreshed even when you’re sapped of energy, I suppose it helps to have a purpose.
I know it has helped me that little bit more in waking up, getting my engines running and enduring the day.
I just had to have a change. I had to. I needed it, no, I BADLY needed it.
Something about the previous ‘feel’ made me cringe a little each time it showed up on my screen, or maybe it’s the reminder of the ‘me’ back then when I first started to blog regularly.
It was colourful, pompous, fun, and something that really wasn’t me professionally, and I think it’s time that I started shifting towards a cleaner, simpler and clutter free ‘feel’.
Actually for the past few months, it’s what I’ve been trying to do with everything that concerns me.
Eliminating old clothes, unread books and torn socks are relatively easy when compared to eliminating the clutter that resides in your mind, your actions and your habits.
Before one starts to clear away the ‘unwanted’ from your cabinets and closets, it really has to start from that single place upstairs, that is your mind, or your thoughts.
It’s important to note that what the mind sees, the mind thinks, and what the mind thinks, it executes actions, and actions become habits.
A blog, to me, is more than just a website where journals are chronicled and shared, but rather a home or observatory for the mind. A place where thoughts reside and stay sane.
After a very long search, over the months, I’m very pleased with what I’ve found in this latest theme. It’s clean, it’s clear, it’s uncluttered and it’s the sort of place where I want my unconscious mind to be.
In case the theme looks strangely familiar, it’s Chris Pearson’s handywork for Brian Clark’s Copyblogger, a blog which I happened to stray around a few years back and have been lingering around since.
From a hosted blog with Blogger.com, this blog have growned along with me — although I’m not quite sure just how much I’ve grown since then — and I’d like to think that I’ve grown much, not just physically and emotionally, but habitually as well.
Unfortunately habits have a knack of not dying off easily, but as I mentioned earlier, everything starts with the mind, and what the mind sees or senses.
And I like this new clean theme. There’s no more annoying song playing in the background, even though I’m still in adoration with Avatar’s soundtracks, and most evidently is that there’s no more Shoutbox.
Sorry guys, as part of my elimination process, I’m cutting off my Shoutbox account, which was a paid account by the way (which helps to fend off spam and moderate posts) and it’s exclusion surely would save some $$$ and TIME along the way.
It’s really not that bad, because the Disqus Comments System is a great way to communicate and it really should be abused as often as possible — so go ahead, abuse it. ; )
In any case, I’d love to hear any disagreements on this new theme, if any.
It’s a fresh restart for me, and it does feel as if something’s brewing somewhere out there.
When work’s just plain crazy, guess what’s the best thing to do when there’s simply too much to do for the day?
Yep, you stop working and go home to rest, and then continue tomorrow — what, you weren’t expecting an answer like “continue working and burn the midnight oil” did you?
No, I’m not advocating running away but rather a smarter way to solve or finish them. When one’s tired, mentally and physically, any work that’s done in such a state is just sloppy and more accurate than David Ngog’s scoring touch, the unintended mistakes will start accumulating.
It’s true, a tired mind simply isn’t as alert and reactive as a fresh, eager mind so next time that you have too much to do, take a break have a kit kat and just go take a rest, as much as you have to, and continue back when you’re done.
I’ll personally vouch for this advice I’m giving (or otherwise I shouldn’t be giving advices right???) and myself, I’ve felt the ‘resurrection’ everytime I take a power nap, a short but purposeful nap to give yourself a quick energy boost. If you’ve heard of polyphasic sleep, well no this is not it.
I remember back during my Primary School days, whenever there was extra classes in the afternoon, our teacher would make us sleep, close our eyes and be devoid of any activity, and simply rest, before beginning her afternoon lessons.
When it’s time to wake up, everyone would moan, but minutes after that, almost none would feel sleepy and tired during lesson and in my case, I’ve to thank her, my teacher, Mrs chia, for introducing me to power naps.
Even in my Secondary School, we took power naps after lunch. It sure helps us to focus greatly later on, now that’s studying smart.
Working smart is no different either — take a break if you think you need one, and who cares if the job’s on hold, as long as you’re able to meet its deadline right?
Take a rest if you think you’re going to have to go on for a long time.
And *drum rolls* take a good sleep if there’s just too much wor for you to complete tonight. Continue tomorrow, and work smart.
Work never really ends or gets finished anyway, so do your body a favour and work smart.
Then sometimes, when you’re tired from slugging it out at work, when your bike’s at the workshop cos the engine failed on you that morning, and when the taxi ride home made its claim for a pole position in the Singapore GP, you’ll realise just how lovingly cats are, as they greet you at the door, sleepy eyed and yawning at the same time brushing against your legs and purring away.
Awwww, I’m so lucky to have these 2 cats welcome me home when everyone else in the family are snoring away.
But why do I have a hunch that my cats are nudging me for a quick treat and a back rub at 1.30am in the morning?
I’ve watched a couple of movies lately, Clash of The Oh-It’s-So-Good Titans, It’s Complicated, The Men Who Stare At Goats, The Green Zone, and rewatched My Sister’s Keeper again.
These are all really good movies, entertaining in their own rights, and never quite disappointing, but the latter has never failed to move me with every repeat viewings. No I don’t get that same level of experience like when I’m taking on Avatar, but the nostalgic flashbacks that I get of my own first hand experience of living with someone who’s terminally ill, well that’s how My Sister’s Keeper keeps me glued.
Watching the girls’ battle against their mum’s will, seeing how the older brother gets mildly alienated in the process, and how the father keeps up the strong front of trying to keep the family strings together, well in very simple words, it’s all admirable and reinforcefull.
Nevermind that I didn’t quite like Cameron Diaz playing the Mother role and couldn’t really evoke as much eagerness, sadness and force as, say a certain Renee Zellweger or Sandra Bullock, but she did not bad on the whole.
Overall the movie moves back and forth in time and narration of the various leading character leads the shifts and tells you a story of love and release and how a Mother’s love can be strangling, despite all the care and concern — because sometimes, you need to learn how to let go.
In short, My Sister Keeper is a show of how Mother comes to accept her child’s passing, only during her dying moments, not without a purposefully court scenes just to show her so.
The thing about this movie is that I loved the strengths and weakness of each characters, and particular the understanding and accomodating nature of the Father’s character. Comparing from an Asian context, I wonder how many Asian fathers would react like how Jason Patric did. It’s simply and admirably charming.
So go ahead, if you’ve yet to watch a sappy lovely drama of family strengths and acceptance, go give My Sister’s Keeper a chance and who knows, maybe you’ll find your own strengths and weakness and learn to embrace them as well.
Let’s see how fast iPage.com sticks to this ANYTIME money back guarantee of theirs.
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