Back to Work after so Many Holidays
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.
Google's Panda update is really killing my websites!
I could see from my StatCounter account, the website traffic plummeting! At first it hit my authoritative travel site, it went down by 60%. Along with it my income dropped 50% from it too. It was a lot of hard work compiling the facts and writing them, and had to contend with webmaster plagiarizing my site.
Later Google hit another of my travel site, which also reduce its web traffic by 70% and there after like a bulldozer it started to bludgeon all my websites! This month I see that it is also going after my blog with downward spiral of 70% from the original website traffic! I get only about 30% of the web traffic of what I use to get for the past many years.
My blog website is down
In their own words,
One of our server currently in unstable issue that keep rebooting.
Date: 09th November 2011
Time: Since 01:00AM
We are still checking on the root cause.
All user website hosted under server (setali.cynethost.com) will keep experience a short downtime at this mean due to server keep reboot.
We will keep you next update as soon as possible and sorry for any inconvenience caused.
UPDATED PROGRESS
Date: 10th-November-2011
Time: 01:00AM
UPDATE:
The server still in unstable stage after we have update and reconfigure the server after 24 hours. We are now do a checking on hardware part by part and replace it if any problem found.
All user website hosted under server (setali.cynethost.com) still will keep experience a short downtime at this mean due to server keep reboot.
We will keep you next update as soon as possible and sorry for any inconvenience caused.
Thank you.
Cynet Hosting Team
Oh, well...
[update 11/11/11]
My website is back! But... I think Cynet used a previous back up, because my latest post as well as some maintenance update were missing! The maintenance I could do again, but the post! Argghhh...! I have to rewrite all over again. I didn't keep the Word document after posting it. Waste of my time writing and posting it!
Thumbs down from me for Cynet Hosting. I know, I know, this really budget hosting only costing me RM45 per year, so don't expect too much. Then again, the web hosting services are very competitive and there are many good web hosting companies out there. Aw, shucks, just too bad for me that it happened while I was making a post. Other than that unstable server situation, Cynet web hosting has been pretty decent so far.
Should drink Farmhouse milk tho expensive; Marigold taste a bit weird
I found Farmhouse milk taste better though it is almost twice as expensive than Marigold milk. I know the milk prices has been hiking up unprecedented. If in order to keep price low by adding fillers into the milk, eventually it is going to taste weird. Many food price in Malaysia has been soaring as much as 30%. This is way above the official CPI of 5% which is incorrect. Milk is no exception and has been going higher and higher month by month. My colleague who has dealings with Nestle and Dutch lady often came and reported that they face very difficult price pressure from imported milk. Milk processing nowadays is just not milk, but it includes additives some for enriching such as calcium to give it a marketing selling point. But sometimes fillers can be used such as silica, though they are inert and passing through our gut harmlessly they do nothing for the benefit except to lower pricing and remain competitive in the market. I don't know what Marigold has put into their milk, but it sure taste funny. So whenever I felt like saving a couple of bucks and bought Marigold milk, I do regret as it didn't really taste like milk. I guess the best way is still to pay for quality and get Farmhouse milk which perception wise felt more like real milk! |
[20/1/2012 Note: about Malaysia inflation in relation to carton milk]
The official CPI or inflation rate in Malaysia is about 5%. But the actual is far higher since the official CPI can be manipulated (CPI rate is based on a basket of goods, some of which has very low or no inflation due to government controlled item, and those that soared, would be taken out of the basket so giving it a low CPI average rate eg housing and cars are not in the basket of goods) to fit the government propaganda machinery to attract foreign investment. For the man in the street, the CPI is meaningless. I recalled in early 2011 a carton of Marigold milk was RM4/carton. And early 2012, I saw Marigold was retailing at about RM5/carton, so that's about 20% increase in a year!
Device failure one after another! Must be Murphy's Law
[update 15/11/11]
Fixing my Intel D915 GEV computer system
Spend the better part of my late nights fixing up the good old Intel D915 GEV motherboard PC. Apparently the hard drive died causing the whole system to freeze up. Hard drive kaput means just change the dead drive without having to purchase the entire PC system, because if the motherboard died, it would be a major replacement. Unfortunately due to the flooding in Bangkok, Western Digital plant is underwater, and that plant account for 50% of the world's hard drive supply.
Which means there is a shortage of hard drive in the market driving up the prices 100% or more! When last I check some vendors are selling at double and some at triple the price! And in All IT Digital Mall section 14 PJ, much to my indignation the sales guy didn't even want to sell to me and was reluctant to give me any price indication!
I'm not going to spend that money yet until Bangkok recovers and Western Digital production is back online. Fortunately I still got an old 40GB PATA IDE WD 7200rpm drive. Well it won't be as fast as a SATA drive, but it will have to do for now.
Working on public holiday
Should have checked my calendar before saying yes. So now I will have to do some work on a public holiday, today. Anyway, it could still be a good point and show willingness to work on off day. I do get a replacement leave for it which was not too bad. However, my timing with wife and son would be a little skewed for matching. Anyway looking forward to another family time together next round. For now, show some work enthusiasm, hopefully would get into the good books of eccentric boss. Bible always says work not unto man for they will have a tendency to let you down but instead, work as unto a worship to Lord and build your treasure in heaven. For now, just be thabkful that I have a job, though it has poor direction, but I still able to sustain through all its misgivings and live through it to tell the tale and get an income from it! |
Time for car wash! At Esso near Damansara toll
Yeeach! Shouldn't have parked under the tree, it was splattered with bird droppings! So time for car wash! When will city hall organise a crow shooting coz the population is increasing and now my car is very beautifully decorated! Anyway it has been a long while since my last car wash however being a holiday weekend, most car wash centre around my house has packed for the weekend. Fortunately manage to find one at the Esso station just after the Damansara toll exit. Fortunately the queue wasn't too long as many people has gone for some holiday somewhere or balik kampung to see their family. Usually car wash centers are packed during weekends but this time round was rather short. My car washed and after back home applied the Rain-X for rain repellent. Most likely as luck would have it (in my experience) it always rains after you have washed your car! Haha! Cheers! |