Google App is no longer free

I know this news about Google App being no longer free comes a bit late from me, but phew, been really busy! Didn't really have the time to blog or tinker with my websites!

I was rather surprised that Google was pulling out the free version of the Google App. However for those who has already signed up before 8/Dec/2012 news announcement were indeed rather fortunate! Google has been shrinking the free account features starting with reducing the number of inboxes available from 50 free users to 10 free users on 10/May/2011 for new signups. And now the bombshell, no more free Google app account offering!

Messed up my Wordpress Blog and now lags, trying to find a solution

I think I really did it this time round and messed up my Wordpress blog big time! While playing around with StoryTlr, I noticed it was hogging up a lot of server space. Yeah sure, I'm using a very low cost hosting but figured it was good enough for my current needs. I decided to get rid of StoryTlr since I couldn't get the auto update to work anyway. However, after deleting it, much of my server space were still being hog. I said no way, how could it be?

So browsing around trying to find out where the culprit files were, I decided to delete many log files in the /home directory figuring it would be of no use. Finally I chance upon the main culprit error log file in Wordpress which was hogging about 70% of the limited server space. Zap! And that's it, deleted the offending large file.

Panda and Penguin, very potent web traffic killer

The recent Panda and Penguin updates has severely affected many web site traffic. Being very busy myself, I have not the time to do a proper cleanup of the Panda and Penguin traffic killer factors. So much to my dismay all the hard work of getting website traffic is now going down the drain and not many people has much clue as to how to gain back the traffic.

Basically, Panda is more about content and on page ranking factors while Penguin is about off page ranking factors particularly about inbound linking. When Google came up with the plan to limit the effects of these factors and come out with penalties, many websites were affected.

Too much on my mind or getting forgetful

The last many days has been very busy for me. Too much on my mind, could be a contributing factor to my forgetfulness! I may not have the best memory but it has been said you could train your brain for better memory retention. Probably true to a certain extent. Having to remember as much details on a road trip for my blogging sure helped out. Still there are situation that I found I could not remember simple things. Probably just too many pending things to do in my mind.

With a new boss changeover in the company, I suppose there will be added burden to get him settled in while at the same time trying to secure new prospects for the company. Not to mention the recent and not recent changes in the Google SEO scene meant I need to do a lot of things to clean up my sites both on site and off site ranking factors. It can get complicated so sort of procrastinating on it much to the detriment of my website traffic.

Galaxy Hotel in Shanghai, and the surrounding area

Galaxy Hotel in Shanghai is quite a nice hotel for business stay. It's quite pricey at RMB¥689, which is far more expensive then PJ Hilton with our company's corporate rate. It is located next to Rainbow Hotel which I've stay once during one my holiday tour to Shanghai.

Flight from KL to Shanghai was rather smooth despite me getting a mild cold. The last many days running around in the hot humid weather of Kuala Lumpur really wore me down. So the 28°C was a nice change. It wasn't too warm and neither was it cold.

The check in counter was located on the second floor so when I arrived I was a little lost as to where to check in! This was the first time coming to Shanghai not on a tour group so many things have do on my own. I was told to take either a taxi or bus, taxi would be quicker but costly at about RMB¥200 while the bus ride cost RMB¥24. Walking around the Pudong Airport I somehow ended up at the bus stop rather then the taxi stand.

Google Penguin Anti-Webspam update again causing website traffic drop

I'm seeing another significant drop in my website traffic from the recent Google Penguin Anti-webspam update which was recently launched around 24th April 2012. The Google dance is getting me spinning in circles! After suffering 60% drop in website traffic from the Google Panda update, the latest installment of Google attempt at reducing webspam is again killing legitimate authority sites. According to Google, this should affect 3% of the websites (but based on many kvetching, could be more than 10% affected websites!).

Lots of Interface Changes with Google Services and Facebook, for better or for worse

There's been a lot of changes with the user interface of various Google services and Facebook and others (which I haven't gotten around, but I'm sure there are and would find out about it when I next log on to them). Getting something shiny and new is nice, but not always. So call me one of those few who are resistant to change.

Perhaps the maxim, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule should be followed. Having getting very comfortable with the way an interfaced was used, the Google and Facebook threw a curve ball at users and for better or for worse, we just have to grind our teeth and use whatever web interface these big boys throw at us.

Let's start with Gmail, I like the previous interface as the spacing was more compact and there was less wastage of space estate on page. Plus I could easily see more messages in one go. The new interface wasn't so nice in terms of spacing whether in message listing or composing messages. Although I could compact the message list to a certain extend but still a lot of space wastage. I still can bear with it though. But I would still prefer the old interface.

Eulogy for Abraham Kenny Seow

It is always sad and much heartache when a loved one has to depart from the earthly home to a heavenly one. But that is life and we shall all go on that journey someday. It is just that some will go through it sooner than others.

Abraham Kenny Seow had good prolonged life considering that he was diagnosed with a terminal nasal / brain cancer four years ago. It was a fight that truly transformed him and strengthened his faith to the Lord.

As an elder brother-in-law, he has done some deeds that grieved family members, but eventually he has redeemed himself throughout the ordeal. And of course God sent him a good wife who stood by him for better and worse, who loved him and help him to turnaround his life.

Unexpected Road Change in Damansara Perdana

This is one of those days where you get caught with your pants down. The morning rush hour was under way with the rain the heavy rush hour traffic would be bad. But I never expected it to be worse as I made my way to the usual road interchange at Damansara Perdana Penchala Link for the U turn to head back out to Petaling Jaya via the LDP congested highway.



Surprise, surprise! The road was blocked due to modification of the road with the entrance pushed backed earlier at IPC/Curve shopping mall rather than below the underpass.

I believed many were caught unaware too as there was no way to make any U turn except to head out all the way, pay the road toll, to Sri Damansara Kepong and U turn from there.

Google Panda update info graphic and Google Venice update

Happen to bump into this Google Panda update info graphic which gives a good quick overview of what this update is all about. And yes, this update is a real website traffic killer and it won't care whether your site is an authoritative site or not as long as your web site contain negative points that shows up in the Google Panda algorithm, you will be whacked!

So far I have tried to clean up whatever I can, but I have not seen any re-bounce to the website traffic that I had earlier. Perhaps my site still contained a lot of negative points which are deemed less useful and thus not worthy of inclusion into the better ranking on the search term.

On the other hand some sites owners seemed to have good inkling as to what Google wants and has managed to take steps to rectify their site and get better results. But with so many tweaking done by Google, chances are it is a long uphill climb to the former higher traffic for most of us hit hard by changes. I guess there are many points to fixing the Google Panda update penalty.

Back to Work after so Many Holidays

It is back to work as usual after a string of public holidays in succession. Not just for the day job but also for my various websites. It is indeed very difficult to move to high gear having slowed down for awhile. This was not to say I took leaved, I still went to work, but the mood was not there to push for more sales. Besides the wretching cough and sniffling flu made it difficult. I'm still trying to recover from it, in fact it became worst the last few days with me losing my voice! Argh!

No choice now but to see the doctor again for a course of antibiotics and other anti-inflammatory medicine. According to doctor, if the flu and cough persisted for so long, it is no longer a product of virus as that would usually clear after a week or so. Most likely it would be suspected bacterial infection. Since it has cause inflammation, some anti-inflammatory medicine should help ease the transition for full recovery. Well I hope so, I have tried many traditional remedy and it didn't help, so looks like it was back to Western medicine.

This year, work would be a new challenge both for my day job and part-time. Since my pay is mostly stagnated and the cost of high inflation (no thanks to the current Government who is more interested on their own agenda than the rakyat) has pushed up the cost of living, supplemental income would become more important. No thanks to Google 2011 Panda Update and many other Google algorithm tweaks, my various website traffic has been reduced significantly.