Google is 2008′s most powerful brand


Google has topped Millward Brown’s Most Power Brands ranking for the second year in a row. The internet giant has a brand value of
$86.1bn (£43.2bn), according to the annual BrandZ Top 100 ranking

2008 top brand Google is 2008s most powerful brand


Among technology giants on the top 100 list are including

  • Microsoft    3rd
  • IBM    6th
  • Apple    7th
  • Nokia    9th
  • HP    16th
  • Intel    27
  • Oracle    26th
  • SAP    29th
  • Dell    41th
  • Blackberry    41th
  • Yahoo    62th
  • eBay    65th
  • Motorola     92th


No Malaysia brand on the list however. And no oil and gas company listed on the the Top 100 too

China Mobile is the most powerful brand in Asia, ranked 5th follow by Toyota and  ICBC which ranked 12th and 18th respectively.

Other than overall list, there are also list categorized base on region and industries. Full list available here (in pdf format)


Happy earth day 2008

Do you know that today is Earth Day? Every year at 22th April, Earth Day which was founded by John McConnell in 1969 celebrated by many countries including Malaysia. There is not much publicity of this event in Malaysia, and of course there is no holiday. This is also the first year I’m aware about this Earth Day, when the company that I working at, are having events such recycle day, plant tree and short video about earth.

320px Earth flag PD Happy earth day 2008


It’s still not too late for you to participate on this event. In fact it is everyone responsible to keep our earth greener. Not only for us, but for our next generation. As a blogger, show your support by blogging and spreading about this day.


What else can you do to participate?


  • Save energy
  • Use less water and electricity
  • Reduce/reuse/recycle
  • Handle toxic properly 
  • Play games and do puzzles, avoid video/computer/PS2/Nintendo games
  • Car pool to the office
  • Stop Blogging for 5 minutes (just kidding)… and many more

 

Looking for more information? Read more at Wikipedia, earthday.net and regeneration.org

  


what are the signs that your blog need little make over

On previous post, I was rambling about how I make little make over. It looks better now (at least to me) There are a lot of reasons why you should change your website’s looks. Some make sense but some are non-sense.
  • You last updated your blog’s looks years ago.
  • Your readers complaint that your blog looks ‘outdated’ and ‘cheapo’.
  • Your readers thought that the blog’s author is 40++ year old uncle/auntie, but the truth is, the blog is authored by a 20+ year old student who have yet graduated.
  • Your fellow bloggers have changed their themes a few times in a year.
  • You have highly customized the theme, until you lost count of what were changed.
  • Your theme is not CSS and HTML valid
  • Certain ads are not performing well or have less clicks

    extreme makeover what are the signs that your blog need little make over

    copyright of TVSA

  • You plan to open your ads for private ads, but certain ads format is not compatible/unmatched with your theme
  • You blog’s loading time keeps increasing over the year
  • You feel bored with your own blog until you feel lazy to maintain and write anymore. Dude, this is critical. You must change it ASAP!!
  • You feel jealous with other blogs which look stunning and have web 2.0 style
  • You have changed blogging platform from Blogger to WordPress (Time to change for those who haven’t)
  • You have changed your niche. Imagine you’re blogging about politic but with ‘girlie’ theme. No offence to girls and women okey icon smile what are the signs that your blog need little make over
  • You get your first Adsense or Kontera payment (or other make money online source). Time to spend on your blog!!!
  • You’re banned from Adsense. You’re mad at Google so you want to close your blog. So, don’t update your blog. Hehehe
There are perhaps thousand more signs that I could write. But after all, what I have written is not necessarily TRUE. You can work more on your contents, and let it do the talking. Happy make over!!

Sunday make over

I spent the whole weekend doing a little make over to my websites including blogjer.com. You know, it’s been a while since I had last changed the header, which was taken from one Windows Vista Wallpaper that I had cut and put wording on it. There you go my logo. When it was first put up, I didn’t even know that it will lasted almost a year even though it looks quite dull. I have little talent on graphic. Haha.

Slight change on the looks
As you notice I have a new header, but still,  it looks old fashioned. No web 2.0 styles. I know I can get the web 2.0 banner elsewhere on the net, but the free version has similar traits, reflection at the bottom of it. Do you like this?

thisislogo Sunday make over


What else? I removed the background image and changed the background colour to give a simpler and whitey looks. I gave my RSS form a new look (a little), so it will stand out from the rest of the contents.

I use Paint.net and Snag It most of the time to modify or create a simple logo such as above. I don’t have Adobe Photoshop, and furthermore I feel Photoshop is far too advance for me. I had once hired a local designer to design the header, it costs me RM40. It’s quite fancy, but once I’ve known (not yet mastered) on how to use Paint.net and Snag It, I create all designs by myself.

New theme? Not now, but perhaps in future? I still love this type of theme, with each sidebar on the right and left sides of the main section. Maybe after Amit of labnol change his blog’s theme, only then I’ll follow his step. He is my idol, hehe.

Sometimes, having a good looking website will cost us elsewhere, such as the loading time. I won’t trade good looks for the sake of performance, hence I’m tweeking here and there, remove this and that to make sure this blog loads faster. I had disabled a few resource hungry plugins (I think) and the trick seems to work. Did you notice it?

Change web hosting?
NetKL seems to have a couple of little glitches recently. I noticed that this blog was inaccessible this morning and last few weeks. Upon checking on other blogs residing on similar server using MyIPNeighbours.com (thanks to catzer ), they all have similar fate (i didn’t go through all). But I’m not gonna do it soon, coz I had just paid another 1 year extension to my current package. As long as it is not too often, I can still tolerate it.


I just bought a custom semi-dedicated hosting package from a local web hosting for my article directories which is space and bandwidth hungry, so I may migrate this blog there when I feel it is convenient to do so. Previously I have to keep ‘repair’ing and ‘optimize’ing the MySQL database repetitively due to the limitation of the package. Otherwise the whole website is down. Now the problem is gone, but I need to fork out more money. So in case if you had encountered similar issue, it could be that your database has grown bigger than what your package can support.

More ads?
If you monetize your blog or website, you may want to have this optimized frequently. You’re not necessarily change ads, but trying on different format or location might provide a more decent earning. Who knows?? My Nuffnang started to provide a few bucks, but I have yet to get any special ads so far.

And don’t forget
make over your self to be a better blogger internally and externally!!
 

 

Success came from good judgement

Blog vs Article Directory

It has been 3 days since blogjer has had its last post. Pretty silent on the comment section, but traffic wise, it had almost the similar number. I’m not busy or on any outstation, but I’m doing something else. When I feel bored of blogging (it happens sometime), I’ll put my effort on my article directories. I think most of you know what it is. Initially, this blog was setup for the same purpose, to promote and blog about article directories, but somehow after 5 posts, I couldn’t write about it any longer. I have ideas, but I have no plan, and I’m lack of bandwidth to get it done. Sounds familiar to you? This is what I call ‘bidan terjun’ blogger, with no blueprint, no plan, no long term goal (except money) and no determination for success. Furthermore, at that time, my interest has grown to other areas such as SEO, corporations, technologies and etc. So this is how blogjer.com looks like now. Full or ‘rojak’ contents.

Is it different now?
If you ask me now, whether I do have any plan, goal or determination, I’ll say partially YES. I won’t say it’s a full YES, because I didn’t even know what the blogging blueprint meant at the first place, but… I do understand the concept though. It may not be as complete and as well known bloggers or internet marketers, but at least I have something on my head (and my keynote), even though I often missed it. It’s been 1.5 years, since I started online, time flies!!

I’d like to recall a quote that I found on one of my colleague’s signature.



Success came from Good Judgement, Good Judgment came from Experience and Experience came from Bad Judgement.


It’s Tom Horning’s quote, with some modification in front of it. In my opinion, it is better this way. It is experience that matters, even though it comes from bad judgement. The process of learning and hence experimenting, includes trying this and that, buying this and that (buying good e-book is among the hardest judgement) and trying and failing. On certain occasions, you have a great result immediately, while on the other, you failed miserably. Internet marketing is like our life, it is full of uncertainty and that makes the experience expensive! Continuous effort will determine where you’re at on the later stage.

Some folks said, the longer you’re in the industry, the better you’ll be. But is this correct most of the time? Each human is not born identical, and so how do we absorb and keep our past experience? Ok, how do you capture the experience? Through your brain? Yeah, you can, but can you ask how long and how much you can keep and how fast you can utilize it whenever needed? Unless you have the correct system to document your experience, your experience will be just simply a waste of time (partially). I keep saying partially, because experience is still worthy, it is not totally wasteful.

This is where documentation really works to help you keep those experience. You’ll need all those experience to help you make good judgements which in turn will determine your success. I made a big mistake when I had never documented whatever things that I’ve done. So when it became a success, I have problem to replicate it, or when I was able to replicate it, it wasn’t as successful as the first one.

I think I have been talking too much. Before ended, please remember the quote, yea!

p/s: I never thought that it was very difficult to came out with inspirational or motivational articles