Jan Leow's Blog Page

Turned down an ad offer

Although it is good to get some extra pocket money from my personal blog, however sometimes I will have to turn down offers for ad placement on my website. Personal blogs may be as good when it comes to adsense income, but one should not be so desperate as to accept any offer for ad placement if the terms are unfavorable.

I have received some good ones and acceptable ones, but the most recent on the offer was just pushing beyond any sanity.

The requested offer was for several links sitewide and lifetime. I think that is asking for the moon and the stars!. Most ad links are usually one or two links on one page for one year. The payout wasn't very great either, I could have just done it, pocketed the dough for Christmas and that be the end of it. But I decided I didn't want to spoil the market.

Besides I would lose out in the long run, 5 links for lifetime would mean losing my Google PR juice from every web page of mine for such a small return.

No way hosay! Bad SEO I would say. The extra doough is nice but I'm not that desperate. I would prefer a long term partnership than a small short term returns with a long term loss.

Sure my personal blog may not have so good website traffic, what else do you think it would be? It is after all a personal blog with random ramblings with more misses than hits on topic wise. Most personal blogs do not have good website traffic. If I do focus and narrow down my topic focus I'm sure I will get better website traffic, alas this personal blogs is for my random writings that don't fit to my other websites.

Anyway, I have my reasons to accept or reject an ad placement offer. So if you guys out there are finding it difficult to earn from your blog and desperate enough, these people may come around and well, up it is up to you to take up their lopsided offer.

Back to Maxis again

Went back to Maxis again, this time with the necessay forms signed by MD. Hopefully will be able to smoothly apply for iPhone 4 for boss. Corporate account application is rather more complicted than personal application in that you will need letter of authorisation, copy of boss ID, Maxis forms signed by MD, etc. I suppose it is to prevent any hanky-panky but does make for a tedious application.

If for individual it is straight forward, but unlike for corporate, for an individual to get the iPhone is on a first come first serve basis, so it will very much depend on your luck whether there are any iPhone 4 stock available when you attempt to apply for it on that day. No resevation is allowed unfortunately.

For corporate, just submit the relevent forms, and wait for the stock to be ready and you would be able to get it, though not on the day you apply, but you wouild get it within a fortnight I was told.

So now here I am waiting for my turn, muzzling a cup of hot San Francisco cappucino which is getting cold as I waited for my number to show up on the display for my turn on the customer service desk to do my thing.

This is going to be a long wait. That's the way it is in Malaysia even for a private telco. Always waiting, waiting and waiting to get things done because of the long queue.

Finally, baby asleep!

Sometimes it is not easy to get baby to sleep! Youi need to know baby behaviour and pattern. In my baby case, he will cry a lot when he needs to sleep. In lieu that mom is not around means I will have to somehow console baby till he knocks off!

Usually a drink of warm milk should get the process going, unfortunately he didn't doze off! Placing baby in the baby cot didn't help either.

Tried carrying baby to sleep, but in an standing upright position for baby didn't quite help out either. Baby rub his face on my shirt which was a good indication that he wants to sleep but could not quite get himself to dreamland.

Feeling weight on my arms, I was getting tired. Not to mention a somewhat strained right elbow from overcarrying baby from last time.

So finally placed baby back into the baby cot and let him cry awhile. After that tried the pacifier and even dangling some baby toys, to no avail. In the end i just needed to get him into the side sleeping position and patting him to sleep.

Phew! Tough job!

Long wait at Maxis

Whenever you need to do something at most telcos, you have to wait. And here at Maxis is no different. I waited about an hour and a half before I could speak with Maxis customer care consultant.

Since the task that I need to do was a corporate job, I could do the needful. I was here to apply for an iPhone package to get an iPhone 4 for my boss.

Since this requires director signature I guess I will just have to come back again and of course wait out in the queue yet again! Sheesh!


[update 27/12/2012]

Fancy bumping into this old post of 2 years old. And after all this time, the Maxis center were as busy as usual! The TTDI branch was always pack and long wait is surety. One way is to find branches that were not so conspicuous and thus you can avoid the long wait. I found the eCurve Maxis center to be least people on a weekday. They were a little hidden in this section of the mall. However on weekends they were just as packed. I guess while you were shopping may as well pop over to Maxis and to make changes to your mobile line package, upgrade or whatever nots.

Nowadays there are also those authorized Maxis dealers which could also make changes and signups. However they don't have full authority for some services. But it was still good enough to ease off some of the congestion from the main Maxis branches.

Busy December

Holiday season and holiday mood but this December is really busy! In some aspect some industry is picking up and yet others are in the doldrum.

My websites are doing remarkably well and hope it will grow even further. Meanwhile I'm catching some small jobs here and there for some Christmas and New Year bonus! All praises to God! Not too bad for a year end busyness. Hmm is that word correct?

Haha, will have to look it up in the dictionary!

Meanwhile baby is growing up fine. He can sit, rolling all over, and when he is on the baby walker, boy, can he really move!

And for now, just enjoying the season finale of History Channel Top Shot. The shooting challenges were tough, but there can only be one! Spoiler! Don't read on if have watch the season final yet. Iain Harrison got the title of Top Shot and the 100,000 price money! Close fight with Chris Cerino!

Ah, time to sleep and get some rest!

Milestone, baby can sit!

Oh, yes! Just today, placing baby in sitting position without any support, he could balance himself while whacking at his baby toys! I tried it yesterday and he toppled over onto my hands, so this time round I prop him up and he could sit without any support! Of course I still place my hands nearby just in case, he still looks a little shaky, but by and large he is sitting pretty much on his own!

Crawling still not there yet, though he just might judging from baby pushing his butt upwards. However he likes to sit on the baby walker and move around. So those motionless baby rocker as well as that chair sitting trainer my wife bought is no longer wanted. In fact baby make a tantrum if you place him on those as he couldn't get himself mobile!

Sometimes just can't sleep in hotel

I don't know what happen, but sometimes just can't sleep in hotel. Last night after dinner, went back to Syuen Hotel in Ipoh, don't know just what happened despite the nice comfy bed, I just couldn't get much sleep.

Well I had to ferry my visitors around yesterday and we had a nice big hearty dinner. Drank some shoujiu and beers but i controlled as i need to be alert the next day for the long meeting and long drive to factory, KLIA airport and hotel in PJ and KL.

The visitor's schedule is spread out all over the place so it looks like a long tiring drive all over the place.

Could be the thought of the long drive ahead and many things on my mind causing my little nigth insomnia. Ah, just one of those nights I suppose.

iPhone 4 package from Maxis is just way too popular

iPhone 4 package from Maxis is just way too popular. My boss and my brother both also wanted to get an iPhone 4. The package from Maxis is quite good. Just pay RM1390 and sign up for iValue 1 plan for 24 months and you can an iPhone 4. The deal is pretty good. The iValue 1 plan requires a commitment of RM100 per month which include data charges as well as calls.

My boss made a study between the iPhone 4 plan in Singapore vs Malaysia determined that the Malaysian deal was much better. Besides, we already have an existing account with Maxis, so just need to change his line to the iValue 1 plan. The RM100 calls and data usage commitment amount can be easily achieve and very likely to be exceeded based on the current billing. Just that once his line is converted, we will lose out on the call sharing plan. Which means for the rest of us staff whose usage is below the committed amount it does not auto balance to his heavier usage. Looks like I just have to downgrade our current usage commitment further, perhaps to the RM30 usage plan. Yes, our usage is really low! 'Coz boss don't allow us to call suppliers using IDD, keep every conversation short or use email only. Ugh! How to work-lah?

Meanwhile, the iPhone 4 is such a hot item all the Maxis centres now do not have stock of iPhone 4 at all! Today I tried the TTDI Maxis centre and there was a large crowd of people queue to sign up for the iPhone 4 package despite having no stock of iPhone 4! For company line though, even if there is no iPhone 4 available we could just sign up first and placed on waiting list. Unfortunately to even sign up like this I have to be stuck in the queue! I decided to give up for the time being as I have other fish to fry.

I think iPhone 4 is just a crazy fad right now. Personally having given my wife's iPhone 4 a spin, I didn't really like the feature as much as Android. In order to download any app whether free or otherwise, you will need to provide a credit card number to the iPhone store even if it is free or trial / shareware program. Now doesn't that sucks?

Anyway, I review the iPhone 4 later. As of now, I'll just go for a San Francisco Coffee Latte with the free voucher my wife passed me. Then head back to office to catch up with work. Better spend my time to do something productive than to waste time on the queue to get a Maxis iPhone 4 that is not available.

[update 27/12/2012]

Selecting a better Maxis Plan


How time flies! The iPhone 4 contract was about to be due. Along the way I learned that the iPhone value plan was no good. If you have several supplementary family plus lines or using Value Plus plan for company line, the unused portion from the committed balance are not shared. ie if you have low phone usage user, the unused portion of the committed Value Plus could not be shared and vice versa.

Anyway the 2 years contract period would be over soon and I have done a study on the charges and values. The best now was to swap over the useless iPhone plan back to the Value Plus 50 or 80, and switch to 1GB data (now without having to worry about over quota as they would cap it under FUP (fair use policy) so no data charges if over quota).

Whenever you have supplementary lines and you have users that are low usage and high usage, using the Maxis Value Plus or Family Plus package plans are the best way to ensure optimum usage of mobile phone billing.

Nothing like home cook food

Nothing like having a home cook meal! It may be nice to go out for some fancy Malaysian food, but in the end, home cooked food is still the best!

Eating out the food may be oily, too much MSG, salt and perhaps less healthy. And yes, fancy Malaysian restaurants are nice but somehow home meals still hits the spot. Yes?