A month has pass and this time it is a very bad month for most of us.

As written in the article here, http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/11/the-aftermath-of-us-recession-on-asia/, we will have many bad years ahead.

My savings have passed the $10,000 mark. Still wondering if CitiBank’s saving account http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/09/introduction-to-citibanks-step-up-saving-accounts/ is still a good choice hmm…

On other business, my current company announced a 0.5 bonus with a AWS of 1 month. So which means, I will be receiving 2.5 months of pay check for December (Yeahh!!!)

That’s not quite bad as I expected lesser bonuses or some other cuts in benefits.

Back to managing money, I have just got a Investment linked Insurance plan from ManuLife Financial. Due to the recent AIG breakdown, my confident went to other insurance companies such as Prudential, Great eastern and ManuLife. So I got one, at $100 a month, or $1,200 a year. Conside this as an investment hmm… Read it here: http://www.dennisquek.com/2008/12/my-manulife-investment-linked-insurance

Savings: $500 ($10,000)

Bonus: 2.5 months * $X (x is a mystery…)

Passive earnings: $6 (step up interest)

Insurance: - $600 (6 months)

School fees: - $3000 (:<)

Good years ahead !

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, 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 ?

If you have a website, or wants to know what’s with a website and the web analytics stuff, here’s where you can find some. In this post, I’ll give you an idea on the why, the how, the where, the when and the who.

I’ll just give you some simple explainations:

Why do people visit to your site ?

The reasons are simple. You setup a website with some sort of information or resources, and then they come to view or use the information and resources. It might also be some sort of search engines “picking” up your web site’s content and keywords too.

Or maybe they love what you offer them, or a “community” that you already have eg. forums, as well as some other free information just about any topic under the sky. A resource might be an E-commerce shopping facility eg. Amazon.com or some help sites like Microsoft’s support site.

How do people visit to your site ?

You see, the why tells you pretty much why they came, but how to you proof the real reasons they came for? To do that you need the How!

Web traffic, people like you and me who surfs the net, usually gets to a website (I like the word ‘resource’) via these 3 methods.

1) Search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN)

2) Referals (a link of your site on someone else’s site)

3) Direct (someone who types in your site’s name on his browser)

So it’s pretty much easy to look at web traffic analysis if we look at how people enter your site.

Where do people visit to your site ?

Firstly, I have to clarify. Theres 2 where. It’s where your traffic came from (which country) and where do they visit.

The country part is pretty straight forward. By looking at your IP address or your ISP’s gateway or proxy, it is easily determined. A range of IP address has been pre-registered by your ISP, managed by ICANN (www.icann.org) which then reveal where that ISP’s country is in. So that’s just that.

The other is where your visitors are looking at. In other words, which are the pages or topics that interest your visitors / which are the higher viewed pages / content.

When do people visit to your site ?

In my oponion, this isn’t very important. Because we all have different time zones, its going to be messy. Also, does it matters if your visitors browse your site in the day or night ? Your website runs 24/7 (your webhost should guarantee that!)

Who visits to your site ?

This is a little tricky, because the who involves a certain level of identification and if you can’t identify them, then this ‘who’ will be out of the question. Typically, if a visitor registers and logs into your site, then it is possible for you to tell who has logged in.

The ‘who’ shouldn’t be of great importance, since it doesn’t matters if it was Bill gates or Obama who visits your site. That is not the aim in Web Traffic analytics!

 
We’ll go into some other areas in web analytics and traffic analysis in the next few posts !

Jeet Kune Do, is a translated version of “Jin Kun Dou” and in cantonese, it’s like saying, “cut fist art”, or the proper term “The way of the intercepting fist”.

Jeet Kune Do is both a philosophy and a martial art. It is like theory and practical. Most martial arts out there never teach theory, and only touch on practical, which is very bad.

For the Jeet Kune Do philosophy, I view it more like Sun Tzu way of war, but here, it is Bruce Lee’s Way of fighting. On a more layman’s term, it’s like teaching us how to win a fight assuming we humans are like basic animals, with two hands and two legs.

In summary, the most important thing I’ve learn after going through this enlighting journey about Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do, is that all human body and the way we think are different. Since we are different, it is best we use something that we are better at, instead of trying to learn from someone else who may be good, but yet different.

It is mentioned many times that it is about how good the man uses and controls the martial art, not how good martial art is used and controlled by the man. (though there are still people who believes in the latter.)

I am not sure about this, but since all martial arts came from Shaolin, and it comes from Da Mou, it has split into so many forms and styles we see today. Jeet Kune Do is just trying to tell you to learn all of these arts which favors you or your body. For example, I may tell u the best way to stop an attack is to tap someone else’s knee, but you prefer to parry or counter as your first immediate instinct…

Oh yea, lastly, theres a group of people teaching Jeet Kune Do which teaches the Bruce Lee’s “style” of fighting. So it end up that Jeet Kune Do has split into Jeet Kune Do philosophy, and Jeet Kune Do Martial Art. One group tries to teach with Bruce Lee’s “style” of fighting while another group promotes Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do “way” of fighting. These are 2 very different stuff…

I like this instructor alot:

Now Jeet Kune Do, originally by Bruce Lee, consists of basic forms from Wing Chun, Boxing, Wrestling Jujitsu, and some other art. Forgive if I am wrong, as I don’t really know what he had learnt. The stuff that we saw in Bruce Lee’s movie are just for showmanship; he never kicks above waist level in combat.

I hope I have answered everyone.

Let’s Sing together everybody~~~~
Latest Christmas carol for 2008..

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

It’s hitting you once,
It’s hitting you twice
It doesn’t care if you’ve been careful and wise Recession is coming to town

It’s worthless if you’ve got shares
It’s worthless if you’ve got bonds
It’s safe when you’ve got cash in hand
So keep cash for goodness sake, HEY

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town!

Finance products are confusing
Finance products are so vague
The banks make you bear the cost of risk So keep out for goodness sake, OH

You’d better watch out
You’d better not cry
You’d better keep cash
I’m telling you why:
Recession is coming to town !

Hope you like it !!!!!!!

I’ve decide to put in additional $300 monthly into this savings account provided by POSB-DBS that offers a 1% interest P.A based on the $300-$799 range. Though they say saving your money in bank is the most stupid choice, but for a start hmm…

Hopefully my monthly passive income in my monthly summary announcement will increase by that few dollars!

This photo was taken during my Hack in the box training tech #3, held in KL last October. Its a web application attack and defense training so now I am a certified web pentester ha ha ! Though I am still pretty new at it.

My last day @ Hack in the Box 2008 Kuala Lumpur. There was this conference going on with some events held outside.

These are the crazy hax0rs whose main job is to attack each other while defending themselves, called “Capture the flag”.

My Kuala Lumpur trip during October #1

If everyone insured are healthly (supposingly nothing should happen), it will be perfect for an insurance company. That’s provided nothing happens between your insured period (say 15-25 years). So this is more or less a gamble, looking at 100,000 people in probability, how many in % will meet need to claim insurance.

Recently, I realise I should just go ahead, since my agent is pretty experienced, unlike those who are young and ignorant (who will probably quits after 2 years). She calculated my networth, as well as other stuff I need to know.

So back in October (sorry for being dated!), I took up this plan, which is more or less what I think is ideal. This is an Investment-linked Insurance plan, meaning the premiums I put in monthly, are channeled to investments, rather than a savings. At the end of maturity, what I get back is a sum of money from investments, instead of traditional savings which are at most 2-3%.

This plan allows you to put your money directly with the fund managers, where they pool in a large sum and buy stocks and funds directly. You get to select how you want to allocate your funds (I am a super high risk taker … hehe), very similar to putting in actual cash in investments and letting these people do their jobs, but yet not risk losing it all.

After all it is an insurance, and that is ultimately what you need is protection. The investment is just a portion where you get 2 benefits out of 1 plan. So this will amount to $1,200 a year, and hopefully if nothing happens to me I’ll get back a huge sum of money. Besides this is the best time to buy in stocks from the stocks market as prices are very low. (though it may go further down)

So what’s your insurance like ? Share it with us here!

Problem
Recently I have been trying to market a new product, put them online, and sell them through Clickbank. I found it very insecure to sell E-Products online, with a sales page in general. Why are they insecure ?

1. You setup a sales page, with a thank you page / download page.
2. You put your E-product online, somewhere in a directory.
3. You use whatever method you could (Joomla Plugin / Clickbank), to automate the payment process
4. Buyer gets redirected to a download page / logged in to download your E-Product.
5. In actual fact, your E-product is sitting somewhere for everyone to download.

How it is done
No matter how random or wierd you rename your E-Product, it is still susceptible to web app scanning. This can be done with free or commercial web app vulnerabilities scanners. In short, a scan of your domain, will reveal all files within your subdirectories.

There are ways to do this, but I don’t think IM guys are aware of this. Having said that, all Clickbank publishers actually have their E-products exposed, because upon payment, you are redirected to a download page. In fact, if you “guessed” the thankyou.html page beforehand, you can easily gain access to the E-product. Once again I am using a web app scanning tool instead of “guessing”, which might be against the laws (or whatever reasons when legal issues are concerned)

I am still in the midst of testing a solution to solve this problem, so as to protect valuable assets. If you have a solution for this, I would love to have you share with me and the rest of the internet marketers.