Welcome to my Blog!

On the article http://www.dennisquek.com/2009/01/how-i-manage-my-money-for-december-08, buy online viagra viagra I mentioned buying a new shelf from IKEA.

After looking around for cheap alternatives for a shelf and one that fits right into the corner of my room, I turn to IKEA, with their solutions of the DIY shelf. It features different heights, and different sizes of planks. It amounted to about $98 for me, which is way better than shelves that made and cannot be change.

This is not a tutorial about how to DIY a shelf, because its really hard to show you. But I have some pictures that I took in the process of doing it.

Maybe after a few years, I may decide to add more planks in the between the spaces.

This is a video taken during my Malaysia KL trip. Theres a mini theme park in the Times square shopping mall (10 storeys high !) itself and this one of the roller coaster ride that goes around the building!

I didn’t have the guts to ride on it, afraid that my food will spilled all over after the 360 turn !!!

This is a night shot taken on the Pavilion at Bukit Bintang, which is considered the one of the largest shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur.

These were just 2 cute little piggy buns I had in one of the Chinese restaurant at the basement of Pavilion. Aren’t they lovable? Anyway I ate them in 3 bites.

That is all for my Malaysia Trip report !

These are some of the web analysis metrics used to measure a website’s traffic performance. We usually hear about them on news where they report a particular Blockbuster’s view rate. That’s similar to this metrics analytics.

Hits

Hits are geenrated when your browser downloads a file from the website’s server to your computer. Any files that are requested is considered a hit, eg. php, wav (music files), jpg (pictures), PDF, RAR, DOC etc etc…

This metrics is useless, because everytime a page is loaded, you may be receiving up to 5-10 hits. The reason is because a page consists of several files, which the server has to pass it to your browser in order to display it correctly.

Page views

This is a more accurate metric commonly used in web publishing. A page view is considered whenever someone refreshes a page / a piece of content / a text on your web server or web application. This means it counts by page numbers, for an entire page.

This is more accurate than hits, since 1 page view may consists of 5 hits. This figure is especially important on CPM(Cost Per thousand iMpressions) advertising campaigns where they take into consideration how many times an ad is flashed onto someone’s browser.

Visits

A visit is considered a connection session between the computer and the server hosting your site. Because of the way internet browser works, a connected session may last not more than 60 seconds or a cut off value, depending on the configurations. This means that a single computer may be initiate several visits to the site within that few minutes.

This metric is a little tricky, because once the web content is downloaded to your browser, the connection terminates. And if you click a link on the site, it counts as a new visit. But if you session stays alive throughout, it may be considered as one visit. So this gives you a rough guide on how many visits you have served.

Unique Visitors

A unique visitor is the most metric in today’s web traffic analytics. Given the right tools of awstats and google analytics, we can tell the number of unique visitors accurately (or almost accurate). This is important because it tells you how many unique visitors are visiting your site.

It represents an individual visiting viagra buy online your site once, by tracking each individual IP address. Assuming your IP stays static, a visit means a unique visit for the month. This way, it is a clear indicator about how many people actually check out your site, instead of how many times someone refreshes his browser.

On the article http://www.dennisquek.com/2009/01/how-i-manage-my-money-for-december-08, I mentioned buying a new set of Sofa.

Since I thought it is quite nice, I got a picture of it after it was in my living room. This set of L-shaped Sofa cost about $800, and was just perfect for Chinese New Year. As for the color theme, I thought this was quite modern. Red for Chinese New Year, black because it doesn’t get dirty at all.

It sits in the middle of my small living room, facing my LCD TV, and mainly for my parents to sit and doze off…

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On the article online buy viagra target=_blank”>http://www.dennisquek.com/2009/01/how-i-manage-my-money-for-december-08, I mention that I was eligible for a Ipod Shuffle. And thank you UOB Bank, I had redeemed my Ipod Shuffle 1GB, that’s worth SGD78.

In the first place I already intended to get this promotion and sell this off, so this is where I sell off this Ipod Shuffle 1GB, for $65 SGD.

It is in blue color, and very smalll… Its width is about 2 fingers and its length is about finger 3 fingers.

Technical Specifications from Apple

This is quite useful while exercising, so if you love to jog or workout at the gym, you should get this too.

Below are some pictures:

This is not the original color, just playing around with the inverted color.

Taken on my piano bench with my piano as background

Please leave comments or email me on my contact page if you are interested, before I open it on market sites to sell it off. Only if you live in Singapore !

Its the last month for 2008, and perhaps this is a bad year, or would 2009 be worst ?

In 2008, we all work hard for the first few months, and its only towards the last quarter that we get the financial tsunami waving from United states, to Europe, and to Asia.

I predict 2009 will be worst for personal job security. It is ok if our investment fails, but it will be very bad if our job is not secured.

For those who know I am studying for a part time IT Degree, this will be my last semester. But because I had to retake a course, so I have to pay 2X what my peers are paying, in order to finish my program and graduate.

Luckily I paid the fees separately, using the UOB One Card, and because of the difference of the payment dates apart, I can repay the bank in 2 separate statements, in December 08 and January 09. Why I used UOB one card ? Theres a sms saying whoever spents above $2000 between 15 Nov and 15 Dec gets to receive a free IPod shuffle, and so I am eligible for it.

Heres a breakdown:

Savings and Earnings

$500/mth Citibank Step up
$300/mth POSB MySavings
$6.xx (interest) Passive earnings

Expenses

$148 A Epson TX200 All-in-one printer (Photocopier / Scanner / Printer)
$98 A shelf from IKEA (DIY)
$30 buy viagra online A 7 seater Cab to transport my DIY shelf home.
$700 for a new L-shaped Sofa

I’ll put up pictures of these items in the next few posts.

Tonight will be the first day of my part time studies, and my last module ! Or my last “course” as defined in University of Newcastle.

This course is special because it’s my “Final Year Project”, where we do a project and hand up, so there’s no exams involved. Which means to say at the end of February, after handing up my projects and finished off with the presentation, I am done ! Graduated!!!.

Graduation ceremony would probably be held at the later end of the year I guess, so which means I will officially graduate towards the end of 2009… If I consider the end of this course as graduation, I will receive a Bachelor of Information Technology awarded by University of Newcastle in Australia, and by being a degree holder, a graduate by 24. This is consider quite early in terms of Singaporean context.

But having said so, I actually failed a course in 2008. That was the time when this blog was started, and I had too many things to focus on. Also, I had a Kong Hong trip and a national service call up for a week… and I guess that was the reason why I failed. So now I have to retake this course during 2008 May - June, which is quite sad for buy viagra on line me as I haven’t failed a subject and have to retake, especially in academics context.

I hope to graduate together with my current classmates. Oh well… time to stop blogging and work on my proejcts.

I was thinking through some of the decisions I make in life, big or small, long or short term and I realise I have it similar to that of playing a chess game.

In school, my chess playing skills are consider at the top 10% level, where I compete with the best say 10 games. There was this game where hes good, and I could only beat him 1 or 2 games out of 10. For the rest, it was an easy meat…

So back to the point. Chess game is a very strategic or turn based game. Its based on the moves and styles you use, and could potrait your character very well.

For example, some prefer to eat all the chess pieces of your opponent before ending, while some prefer to kill the “king” as fast as possible. That is similar to pool and 9 ball player I suppose…

This challenges your thoughts on tactics and strategies planning. In our real life, every move and decision we make will affect us in the short and long term. I am not referring to daily routines like eating and sleeping (though sleeping will affect you the next day), but rather those that happen with you at work, with friends, and your personal life.

Plan ahead your “moves” and make sure what you do is meaningful has can change your life in future. Plan it ahead like 3-4 steps, or rather 3-4 years to make it simple. This helps you to think ahead, rather than to worry about it when it happens.

For example, on the very first day you start a new job, you should probably think how long you are going to stay in this job, and what is your next job like. Never ever think about, “if this job is good, I’ll stay, if its bad I’ll quit.” This is a very bad choice.

What about analysing your opponent’s movements and anticipating their strategies? This is very interesting because if you attain that level, you are actually preparing yourself beforehand, some of the threats that might affect you. Seeing though is one thing, making a decision fast enough to overcoe this is another.

As a saying in Sun Tzu:
故曰：知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。(故曰：知彼知己，百战不殆；不知彼而知己，一胜一负；不知彼，不知己，每战必殆。)

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will fight without danger in battles.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, viagra purchase online you will always endanger yourself.

source: Wiki

The enemy could be problems you face, not a “someone”. Some prefer to escape the problem. Others will tackle it, but not with a very good solution. Some have already predicted the problem. So how do you tackle your own problems and decisions ?