what is interesting this week (Aug 15th 2007)

Looks like this is the only posts that I can maintain every week. Glad I manage to get it posted even 1 day later.

1. Here you go, top 25 SEO blogs

2. Do you aware that comments in wordpress blog contribute to SEO-unfriendly? Check this post

3. How to motivate yourself

4. Mr. Uptime will monitor the website availability on behalf of you

5. This post seems not related to any blogging tips or internet related stuff, but frankly speaking, I’m impatiently waiting to see the real car from proton – read the review from paultan

Win ipod for naming hockey website

ipod Win ipod for naming hockey website

I’m not Apple fan club, but when someone is giving away free iPod for reviewing their contest and naming their new hockey website, I won’t hesitate to join it without 2nd thoughts. Michael Kwan’s blog who want to be known in internet as freelance writingg and his friend, Ed who want to be known as personal blog are give away not only 1 iPod, but 2 iPod to the winner for their contest and to the loser on a random draw

To join the contest, choose the best domain name for their upcoming hockey blog and send it to them, the winner will receive 8Gb iPod. And to stand a better chance to grab another iPod, write simple review on the contest and another iPod is waiting for you.

If you’re interested to join this contest, I will suggest you using bustaname since it make your life easier in hunting for a good domain name. Good luck

Will Core 2 Duo double my blogging?

While traveling to KL last weekend, I was able to free my self and visit Malaysian computer ‘heaven’, Plaza Low Yat which famous with hundreds of shops selling telecommunications, gadget and computer stuff with the prize that you can get anywhere else (legally in Malaysia)

I’m not a computer geek, but this time, I tried to build new system from scratch based on advice from my friends and some tips from lowyat.net forum. I end up buying motherboard, graphic card, switch and etc that I capture some of them below, but without my Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz that I bought in Penang earlier. Added to this family would be Dell 24″ wide screen LCD that will be received probably by end of this week.

I’m displaying also my old but gold systems, that are loyal to me, give me less troublesome and service me well since my earlier day on Internet entrepreneurship (my notebook) and old P3 (2nd hand) with 19″ Dell LCD that has accompanied me since 3 years ago.

Building you own system from scratch will definitely give you satisfaction in terms of performance. On the other side, you will spend more since you’re using quite high end parts that do not necessarily important if you’re use it solely for blogging purpose. The solutions, grab more games, or buy more gadgets to fully utilized it (don’t listen to this advice)

Btw, I’ll test this rig with the podcasting set that I win from createbusinessgrowth blog couple of weeks ago. I have no idea how it works, but I’ll definitely give it a try before deciding if it worth to keep it.

Old system, on my workstation

oldrig Will Core 2 Duo double my blogging?

New system, in progress..

newrig2 Will Core 2 Duo double my blogging?

what is interesting this week (Aug 8th 2007)

This article should be posted earlier, however it was delayed due to some personal matter that I can’t avoided… and I’m working on 2 new domain that I bought few days ago. Check it out some of the interesting post that I manage to read from my RSS reader

If you keen to submit your articles to free article directories, but you feel lazy to googling around, browse to articlepromoter, they have over 850 websites

Strongest blog in Malaysia, this post is quite outdated, but I feel it rather interesting for you reference

Recommend-it plug-in is basically a wordpress plugin that allowing readers to recommend certain interesting posts to the new readers. I haven’t installed it yet, but it looks cool!!

SEO is dead?

Saya terleka mambaca MohdIsmail.com harini walaupun domainnye berextensionkan .net . Cara dia menulis memang umphh!!! . Kagum pun ada , sampai terlupa nak sambung kerja(I was carried away when I read this blog, the writing style is damn interesting!!)

Wondering why the search engine does not return relevant result, SEOmoz has some of the answers

My journey

I have no Internet connection this weekend as I’m currently in Perak, Malaysia attending my wife’s cousin wedding ceremony. As usual I have my trusty Latitude accompanying me all the times, and with wife for sure.

How I start?
Sitting quietly without internet connection made me thinking what have I achieved so far.
My journey on internet entrepreneurship and blogging goes back on September last year, roughly about 3 months after I start working in Penang. Due to high workload and unfamiliar environment I’m facing of, I feel uneasy, stress and tension and start hating my job. It takes sometime for me to get familiar with it and right now, I’m pretty satisfied and happy with my job. In my opinion, there are huge different between working with local and MNC, small and big company.

Remember
Whenever I’m on this kind of situation, I always said this to myself. I should be grateful and feel lucky of what I have now. Think, there are million people out there who live in pain, hungry and stress multiple times worsen than me. That what we called human’s nature, you won’t be able to satisfy your desire and needs, all the time

Looking back around, my childhood friends, my neighbors, I was thinking what am I going to do now if I’m not study hard and push my self to be better that my parent (we’re below average family back then). I’m so grateful to have parent and family who love me so much and have awareness of what world with no proper education, which then push me to study hard. Thanks mom and dad and my family. Your kindness towards me is invaluable lesson which I can never forget.

Cert means success?
Well, cert won’t guarantee success for sure, and without cert, doesn’t mean you can’t success. I’m not saying that you need bunch of certificates to be success, but the process of getting it is more important since we’re exposed on many kind of interesting things, we meet a lot of friends, getting touch with latest technologies and etc. Unless you’re coming from middle class family, I should say that you have less of opportunities to taste this kind of thing, or be friend with some whiz kid who have genius plan ahead.

Back to my internet entrepreneurship journey, my effort is starting to be seen in terms of income although not much and my presence in internet started to be noticed (not by peoples, but by search engines, hehe). I have back my initial investment in web hosting and domain names within 3 months (RM150), which is beyond my initial plan. Consistency is the most important thing here, plus some technical skills, communications and don’t forget luck. Getting there on time, choosing right things at the beginning, your mentors and support from your family among other thing that cannot be denied in influencing your success here

Challenges
Journey won’t complete without challenges, but don’t forget, challenges make you stronger. At the same time, you will learn invaluable lesson from there every time you manage to get rid of it. As a family man and doing this on part time bases, it will be hard for me to balance between my day’s works, family and my internet stuff. When I just started, I spent too much time in front of computer, but soon after that I schedule my task, prioritize it and at the same time ‘work smart’ not ‘work hard’. Use your MS Outlook or Google Calendar to assist you.

Opportunities are everywhere
Internet business is booming every year and everyone is looking for an opportunity to get a slice of this multi billion dollar business. But how many of them is successful or at least manage to earn some income from there? I have no idea either, but you must have read in forums, blogs before about this, where most people is facing difficulties to earn from internet after even after spending hundreds or not thousands from their days work income.

Spent wisely
To be frank, I spent less than RM100 buying e-book, which are Paypal instruction and blogging starter kit from 2 Malaysian internet marketers. I buy both only when I need it. The rest… I find it myself. Its not those e-books is not good enough, but I don’t believe in myself to fully utilizing it, which I’m wondering will end up become one of my archive files. My principle is, when I need it, only than I’ll look for it. Asses or evaluate yourself before buying something, make sure you will be able to make most out of it.

Duplicate your formula
When you have 1 success formula, duplicate it and make it better. Plan your own route properly. Asses what your competitor has as new competitor appear everyday

I’m interested to know how you get involved in internet business or blogging. Are we on the same boat? Share your experience below.

p/s: Looks like this is the longest post I ever made so far. Apologizes for any grammatical mistakes