Shhh! I’m reading…

Went to the MPH Bookstore in Gurney Plaza yesterday. This huge tome caught my eye: Starting an Online Business all-in-one Desk Reference for Dummies. At 840 pages, it’s not a book for the faint-hearted, heh heh. I’ve started to plough through it. I’ve been a For Dummies fan for a couple of years, and have bought plenty of the books in the past. Not so much now, as book prices seem to keep getting more and more expensive. This book though, seems to be worth it (I suppose I could say the same for all the Dummies books I’ve bought in the past!)

Ciao for now, off to read my book.

Traffic everywhere

Just got back from work tonight. Argh…the traffic downtown is terrible, because it’s a two-week school holiday break now. Cars everywhere, with some ignorant bastards behind the wheels. Some of these morons change lanes or make turns without signaling, pedestrians cross the street without looking (they must be Superman’s relatives), and the motorcyclists…they are a scourge.

It’s times like these that I enjoy some classical music, to keep me sane. I love listening to some Bach, Haydn, or Mozart while driving. I like other composers, too, and always make sure I bring along some classical CDs before starting a road trip. This does make me feel more relaxed behind the wheel, thank God.

Now where’s Mad Max when I need him?

Moving house, part 4

OK OK, I’m about to do it. I’m going to start a basic web hosting account with Lunarpages, which will cost me about US$120 for a two-year package. I just seem to have cold feet wondering whether I can tackle all the website-building stuff, but if I don’t try, I won’t know! So wish me luck and part 5 should be coming soon.

Startup woes

This morning, I powered on my computer, and…nothing. Vista refused to start. There was just a plain blue screen (not the BSOD aka Blue Screen of Death) with no icons, no wallpaper, no taskbar…NOTHING. I figured it was a video driver problem, so I uninstalled the present nVidia drivers, downloaded fresh ones from the Net (I could do all this because I booted up using Safe Mode with Networking).

Installed the new drivers in Safe Mode, rebooted, and…same problem. Made me wonder, so I uninstalled the nVidia drivers, rebooted and asked Vista to look for new video drivers. Did this in Device Manager. It did so, and after one more reboot, voila! Vista started up with all the familiar icons, wallpapers, etc.

Man, this OS can be picky about video drivers. So a good thing to try would be to let Vista connect to the web and download the drivers it deems “suitable” for your system. This was what I did with my oldish Creative SB card, and I’ve had no problems with that.

Coffee in the morning, Part 2

Did some grocery shopping at one of the local supermarkets here. I happened to see this Home’s Cafe Hazelnut white coffee 3-in-one. It’s all pre-mixed, ready to drink, just add boiling water. Perfect for lazy people like me. Coffee does make my world go round.

And the aroma, even before I open a sachet, is superb! Glad I tried this. And it’s made in the town of Ipoh, Malaysia. Kudos to the manufacturer!

The great things about the Internet

I was just thinking of this while folding my clothes . Here are a couple of things I came up with:

1. Help and advice are readily available, provided you look for it. And most of the time, people don’t even think about charging you.
2. A sense of belonging. This is especially true in a great forum such as BigBlueBall, where I’ve met lots of nice folks. Furthermore, with Instant Messaging such as Windows Live Messenger, you’re never alone.
3. International brotherhood. Yeah, I just coined this up. Tied in with #1, because while you can search for help and advice, you can also contribute ideas and solutions. It’s an international win-win situation.
4. Opportunities. Granted, there are thousands of scams on the web, but there are also genuine opportunities. This is something I am really looking into!

Any thoughts? Please drop a comment here (no moderation or approval in my blog, your comment will appear immediately).

Moving house, Part 3

I know in Part 2 I said I was considering Startlogic as my web host. But after reading some negative reviews about them on the web I’ve decided I might not go with them. Lunarpages is another host I’m considering, and since I have a friend who is hosting there (snigger, you know who you are, D) I could wrangle some help from her if needed.

That’s why I’ve been silent for the past few days. Pondering about this over and over in my head. Want to get it right the first time instead of regretting and canceling my account later on.

The Miniature Earth

My BBB fellow member Fanatic posted this YouTube video on BBB last December, and it has stuck in my mind ever since. It literally brings one back to earth, showing how fortunate we are, compared to millions of less fortunate people. Whenever I start complaining about what I don’t or can’t have, this is the video I’ll watch, to bring me back to my senses. Hope you’ll enjoy it.

Decisions, decisions

I’ve been mulling (or rather agonizing) about using Startlogic to host my new website, since my last post. Man, I didn’t know it would be this tough to make a decision, arguably so because I’m going to be spending some money to host my new site (my previous host in Geocities was free). The weather also wasn’t on my side-it has been hot and dry lately, which makes me want to turn on the air-conditioning for the whole day. Won’t do that, otherwise I’d end up with an expensive electricity bill.

I’ll probably ponder over it for another few days or so. No sense rushing into it, but I’m also not going to put it off too long. Have been writing a book and plan to sell it on my site. Looks like exciting and challenging times are coming up for me.

Moving house, Part 2

I’m sure you’ll agree that moving house is one of the most traumatic experiences one can ever go through in life, next to divorce or the loss of a loved one. I know, I had to move house once, and it took at least a week or two for the dust to settle. And hopefully I won’t have to go through it again.

The feeling seems (for me at least) to be the same now that I am strongly thinking of moving house on the Internet. My old Geocities website just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore, and this present WordPress blog of mine, though free, does have its limitations. So there are 3 big steps I have to take:

1. Find a suitable web host and obtain my own domain.
2. Import my WordPress blog into this new domain, and integrate it.
3. Do a lot of work on this new website (the new house).

For #1, I’m considering either Startlogic or Lunarpages. Both offer very competitive rates, and have a ton of features available. I should know, I got all glossy-eyed just skimming through all that information. #2 I’m not so worried about, as importing my WordPress blog into it shouldn’t be that hard.

#3 is a different kettle of fish. I’ll probably be spending the most time on this, because I want to make a good first impression when I launch my new website to the world. So I’ll have to hunker down with lots of patience and determination (and not forgetting the coffee) but it just has to be done, lol.

If anyone has any good advice, I’m all ears. And I’d also like to thank my friend and fellow geek Doris, for her unending words of wisdom and cheer. Doris, when my website is ready, you can come over and visit (I’ll make sure the guest quarters are ready, heh heh).