Jan Leow's Blog Page

Black Apricot

Black Apricot
Decided to get some fruits after dinner. Got this delicious black apricot fruit. Doesn't look like black apricot to me but that's what the sign said at the fruit stall next to Jaya Grocer in Jaya 33. Looks more like plum. Not cheap too going for RM7.50 each!

Took it back, chilled it and after peeling it, ate it. Tasted ok, not too sweet, not too sour. Value for money? Not really. Just giving it a try. Many of the imported fruits are really expensive here in Malaysia.

Black Apricot

After free McD time for car wash

Car Wash in Bandar Utama

Not bad, not bad. McDonald gave a free Fish-O-Fillet set. I just top up with applepie for a dessert to complete my lunch pack. So that's my lunch meal for the day.

While having my munch may as well queue up for a car wash. Weekends is not my preferred date for a car wash as the queue was rather long. But I needed to have my lunch so may well go for it!

I haven't washed my car for more than a month, been that busy! And not only was it dusty, it recently acquired some bird droppings too!

So may as well now than who knows when! Since I got some grub I can munch some and blog a bit in between. Haha, my car interior got a fair bit of food crumbs from rush hour breakfast in the car and now McDonalds too! Yep, time to clean the car!

McDonald Drive Through free burger

McDonalds in Bandar Utama

Having done a little job now time for some grub. Guess what McDonald is having somekind of drive through promotion. Some free burger. We'll since I haven't got lunch yet and was thinking what to eat may as well give this a try.

Full Moon Baby Shower

Baby Aiden is fast approaching a month old. Hence the full moon baby shower celebration done by us Chinese.

Aiden is growing well. A little chubby on the cheeks. Must all the goodness of mother's milk. He kinda active little fella when he's awake. He will look here, look there, crane his neck to see I don't know what is it that spook his curiosity.

That's a good sign of healthy growing baby. A baby that is making so much movement or even making noise is always a relief for us parents. I remember a pastor once said restless children though disturbs the peace is much better then if they are quiet which would make you worry as that is a sign they are not well.

so come this weekend is happy full moon day and a little baby shower for baby Aiden!

Using blogger layout

Using blogger layout system is a little bit more difficult but it has added features the old template style do not have.

I finally came around to switch my CH website blog to the new layout system and it took me the better part of a day to get the look and feel similar to the previous template.

I could try making it 99% similar looking it would take too much work. I guess an 80% similarity is good enough. The color theme still matches as per the nav menu. I opt for a wider right side bar after all quick blogs tend to be short so a narrow body might be better suited. Besides it is using a fluid width template so it doesn't matter if my right takes up more space.

The Blogger new layout is a little tougher to get working but I was able to do it much faster than before by using this go blog layout template and modify from here. Just a matter of changing colours and alignment adjustment and there you have it!

Always updating stuffs

I'm always updating stuffs on my website. Sometimes it is just minor, like correcting a little typo here and there for those more important articles and pages. And other times to create meaningful links between related post so that visitors to your website might want to read further after landing onto one of your pages. Seems like a never ending job. But that's how it goes if you want to make website that is useful and the best perhaps even rival against your competitor for the coveted top spot in SERP.

Just like now I'm thinking how to use Google Blogger new layout, so how do I port over the old tabled web page design to the CSS tableless template? This might require some thinking about, and there may be some layout that may not fit. But as long as the general look and feel is there, I should be able to cobble up a web page template that should look similar to the previous one.

If I managed it, my SBI site would probably start using the tableless CSS template too. But I probably be unlikely to update my 250+ pages one by one like I did previously. Just way too much work!

And why should I port over? To take advantage of Blogger's new features not available in the older HTML template style. And ya, it may be a pain to code XML style, but it would certainly be worth it to gain the additional features!

Domain Expired

Oh, dear! Bluehost sent an email saying my domain would be renewed for free by giving me a free coupon. But I noticed they didn't renew my domain at all it is already 1 day pass expiration date. Bluehost support couldn't do anything and said I should check with the billing department. Since it was Sunday I will have to wait till Monday for a reply. No choice but to send in a ticket and hope they will set the correct expiry date. I think any moment now my website will be down. Let's hope they can do it on time!

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[update 21/6/2010]
Thank goodness! Bluehost managed to resolve this issue quickly! My domain was not down at all. Bluehost is not too bad when it comes to customer service.

Bluehost prices has been increasing lately. Probably cost has increased. For example if you take a yearly web hosting service, it is now $8.95/mo, up from previous $7.95/mo. And if you want to take up their $6.95/mo offer, it used to be for a 2-years period, now it is 3-years. Well, since I'm going to be with them for a long while, I went for the 3-years webhosting and save some money.

And they use to give whois privacy for free, now it is chargeable, just like godaddy, exabytes, etc. Oh, well, this service is nice, but not necessary. Just use a stonger anti-spam for that public email.