Laingan.com

I just came to know that there is a Blog Action Day even though I have been blogging for two years 🙂 The date of this special blogging event falls on 15 October.

So, what is Blog Action Day all about? Well, this is an event where bloggers from all over the world get together and discuss an important issue. The tagline of this blogging event is : “One issue, one day, thousands of voices.”

This is the third year that BlogActionDay.org has been running the event. This annual blogging event is targeting to get bloggers to post about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs. The topic for this year is on climate change. The aim is to spark discussion around global warming.

This Blog Action Day 2009 event implies that Blogs and new media are getting important. They can help spread the message of an important global issue concerning you and me.

Click to register your Blog to participate => BlogActionDay.org

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I started my Laingan.com personal Blog on 25 August 2008 and it’s one year already. Just how time flies? This “My Piece of Sky Blog” turns 1 year old today.

I have written 252 Blog posts including this one. It is not unexpected for me to have come this far in updating my WordPress Blog quite regularly. Thanks to my persistence 😛

This is my little piece of sky for myself to share my views, express my thoughts, record my daily activity, put my feelings into words and so on. The purpose is to amuse myself during leisure time. In fact, this is an entertainment for myself and I feel happy for being able to own this little piece of sky.

While most people enjoy watching TV programs, I would rather spend time doing my writing and reading. They might not understand the amount of joy that this Blog of mine has brought to me. I really enjoy the process of writing every single Blog post.

The enjoyment starts from preparing for the topic that I wanted to write about, organising my thoughts, designing the graphics, editing the photos, uploading the files to the server, publishing the Blog posts, reading my own posts and so on.

I might have come to a point for being long-winded at times because the writing juice will just flow as I write along. But this shows that I can really write 😛

I notice from the Cpanel that people from various countries are following my personal Blog quite regularly. If you are one of them, I thank you for visiting my Little Piece of Sky Blog. I appreciate it 🙂

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I saw an advertisement in the newspaper 2 days ago and got to know that Alvin Phang of GatherSuccess would be holding a free Internet marketing seminar entitled Blogging Mastery this evening.

I was interested to attend the seminar as I’m following GatherSuccess Blog closely. So, I went straight to the seminar after work without taking my dinner.

Actually, I have had attended Alvin Phang’s seminar before but it was a paid one which was not too cheap 🙁 Luckily, this Blogging Mastery seminar is free 🙂

I saw Alvin Phang’s mother and wife when I was doing the registration at the counter. They were helping him out with the administrative work there. They also provided free snacks, coffee and tea so I think it was worth to attend the Blogging Mastery seminar 🙂

As compared with the previous paid seminar, I find that this evening’s seminar is a better one in terms of presentation. The message that Alvin Phang was trying to convey was much clearer than the previous one.

Although the topics that Alvin Phang had covered are standard Internet marketing stuff, those audiences who are new to Internet marketing and Blogging would find it very attractive and informative. 

At least, Alvin Phang ensures that anybody, including non-Internet-proficient people, can pick up the required Internet skills easily if he or she is willing to work hard and put in a lot of effort. 

I also believe that anybody who has the urge to succeed will make his or her dreams come true.

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I have published 201 Blog posts on this Laingan.com Blog so far and yesterday’s Blog post on Happy Mother’s Day was my 200th post. Wow, I almost cannot believe it that I have come this far!

Actually I could have reached the 200th Blog post earlier if I were diligent enough to update it daily 🙂 Well, the fact is that I’m not lazy as I have been busy working on my new website design since April. There are a lot of stuffs for me to think, plan, organise, write, design and so on before letting my new website go live.

I have been thinking about my website design these days and have not spent much time in organising my thoughts as to what topic that I plan to write about for my Blog post. The writing juice just doesn’t flow when your mind is just too tired and can’t think of anything to write about.

Anyway, I’m planning to finish up my new website design by this week so that I can move on to other new project that I have given myself. Hopefully, I can find time to update my Blog regularly after that.

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I started my first Blog in the classroom during my WordPress Jumpstart course that I had taken up in August 2007. This course was a joint venture between my ex-colleague and his partners. 

I happened to bump into my ex-colleague in the street and he persuaded me to enrol for his course. I was thinking that I could learn a new skill and the course fee was not expensive so I took up the offer to sign up for the WordPress Jumpstart course.

Surprisely, I was his first batch of students. There were 9 students, 2 trainers and 1 admin assistant in the class. Apparently, I was the guinea pig of their joint venture 🙂 This is how I started up my Blogging journey.

The trainer told us to prepare 3 topics and then narrow down to one for the class assignment. We picked the topic that we wanted to use and then wrote 10 articles about this topic. After which, we shall put it in our first Blog and got ready to publish them.

The trainers also taught us on how to apply for Adsense account so as to monetise from our Blog. Besides this, we also learnt some other Blogging techniques which were so new to me. 

Frankly speaking, all these techniques were really like aliens to me as they involved a lot of technical skills and I was not internet-proficient during those days.

Anyway, I’m glad that I had taken up the WordPress Jumpstart course and have learnt a new skill. Perhaps this is one of the best courses that I have ever attended.

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As I had mentioned in my previous Blog post, I already know the techniques of creating a free-hosted Blogger Blog as well as a paid self-hosted WordPress Blog. This is because I had taken up a WordPress Jumpstart course in 2007 so I’m actually very familiar with the WordPress Blog setup process.

Thus, I don’t think I have learnt many new stuffs in the Wealth Academy business skill workshop on the topic of Advanced Blogging except for the type of software used for installing the WordPress Blog. I was taught to use Fantastico to install Blog since the WordPress Jumpstart course as it is one of the most popular installation softwares so far.

Fantastico De Luxe icon is a blue smiley which can be found in the web server under the “Software / Services” section once you log in to the cPanel administration panel. Fantastico is a commercial script library that automates the installation of web applications to a website. Its scripts are executed from the administration area of cPanel.

However, one of the drawbacks of using Fantastico is that the WordPress software version is not the latest. For example, it could give you an older WordPress version such as version 2.5.1 when a newer version, say 2.6.2, is already available. You need to upgrade the WordPress Blog version after you have installed the old one.

Actually, I didn’t know about this Fantastico drawback until I had attended the WA business skill workshop on Advanced Blogging. The trainer, Stuart Tan, told us that one of the methods to overcome this drawback is to use the Simple Scripts which is a one-click installer that automates script installation.

So, I think one of the benefits of attending the WA business skill workshop on Advanced Blogging on 02 March is to discover Simple Scripts and learn how to use it to install the latest WordPress Blog software. Well, it is still a gain after all.

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I attended a business skill workshop at the AKLTG last week. It was a 4-hour workshop that started from 7pm to 11pm on 02 March.

This business skill workshop was not open for the public as it was specially conducted for and catered to the graduates of the Wealth Academy program to attend. Obviously, I’m one of the WA graduates since I was invited through email.

The various business skill workshops are in fact part of the Wealth Academy program to equip its graduates with more skill sets besides learning the techniques on the stock market investment and personal development aspects.

The topic of the business skill workshop as conducted on 02 March was on Advanced Blogging. The purpose was to teach the WA graduates on how to Generate Income Streams through BLOGs via the workshop.

Stuart Tan was the trainer of this workshop and he is an established internet marketer cum NLP coach. He had covered quite a number of items in this business skill workshop on Advanced Blogging.

Basically, Stuart Tan was showing the WA graduates on how to set up a free hosting Blogger.com (or Blogspot) Blog and  how to set up a paid self-hosted Blog using BlueHost service with a domain name.

He even went into details on how to register an Gmail account, how to apply for Adsense and Adwords accounts with Google. Besides this, Stuart Tan also showed his audiences on how to set up a FaceBook and Twitter accounts to drive traffics to our Blogs.

Frankly speaking, I have already learnt and known most of these setups except for the FaceBook and Twitter which I don’t have the intention to register for one at the present moment.

To my surprise, many people who attended the workshop have not heard about most of the internet terms as mentioned above before. Whereas, these terms are not aliens to me and I can boldly say that I am ahead of many people.

You can also tell that I know the Advanced Blogging techniques pretty well by looking at my “Laingan.com” Blog 🙂

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I have started this “Laingan.com” Blog on 25 Aug 2008. You can tell that this is a personal Blog by looking at the sub-title or tagline called “My Piece of Sky Blog” in the header above. This Blog post is my 100th post. Wow, I didn’t expect myself to have come this far.

Reason being that I do not update my 2 other Blogs regularly as compared with this one. The most that the other Blog of mine can hit is only about 80-over posts. Whereas, this Blog has reached 100 posts as I have been updating it quite regularly. 

The longest break so far is 3 days. I didn’t write the posts during those days because I was too tired and went to sleep early. I think it is better not to have too long a break in between. Otherwise, you are going to lose the momentum and then stop Blogging regularly.

I think it is always good to make it a habit to update the posts daily. Once you stop it, your procrastination will discourage you from taking action. Therefore, your Blog will be inactive and idle. So, I would encourage everybody to write Blog posts with perseverance. Happy Blogging 🙂

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My 12-year old niece came to me and told me that school holiday will be coming soon while I was using the Internet. So, any problem with that? She then reminded me to set up a Blog for her as I had promised her a couple of weeks ago. I told her that I was busy at that time and I will set up the Blog for her during her December school holiday.

Wow, kids really have good memory. They can remember things so well especially those promises made by adults. Well, I think I would better keep my promise. Otherwsie, my niece is not going to trust my words anymore.

My niece was asking me whether it is better to use a free web hosting service such as www.blogger.com which is managed by Google or to use a self-hosted Blog like mine. I told her about the pros and cons of having a free hosting. If she chooses to use www.blogger.com, it is a free web hosting service but her domain name will look something like this “www.xxxx.blogspot.com” which is quite long and hard to remember.

She told me that she prefers something like my Blog site entitled “Laingan.com” which is short and simple. However, she hesitated after knowing that my Blog is hosted on a paid web hosting called BlueHost because it needs money to use the hosting service.

Anyway, I told her that I will be paying for her and why she has to worry about the money. Furthermore, a domain name costs around US $8.95 to $10.00 per year and this is something affordable. I can add her domain name to my web hosting server as BlueHost allows its users to host unlimited domain names as well as to host 100 MySQL databases. Meaning to say I can set up 100 WordPress Blogs on a single web hosting.

So, I asked my lovely niece to choose her favourite WordPress theme first and then think of an easy-to-remember domain name later. Once she has her favourite domain name in mind and I’ll start to buy a domain name from the domain name registrar for her. After all this is done, I can proceed to set up a WordPress Blog for her very soon. Stay tuned.

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My niece knows that I have a few Blogs and she often asks me how I set up the Blogs for myself. I would reply her saying that I know how to set up Blogs because I have taken up a WordPress Jumpstart short course before. I apply what I have learned in the course and this is how I know about Blogging. I choose free WordPress theme and then set up the Blog myself.

My niece is 12 years old and is very curious. She would often stand near me to see what I’m writing in my Blogs. My niece would also give me some comments about the type of Blog themes that I have chosen. She doesn’t like simple and plain Blog themes. I think kids like colourful more than plain-looking stuffs. Maybe because they find plain Blog themes dull.

Her classmates have their Blogs hosted on free web-hosting services such as Blogger.com. They shared their “xxxx.blogspot.com” web address with my niece and this makes her feeling there is a need to own a Blog so as not to lag behind her classmates. Well, my sister is against the idea of letting my niece to have her own Blog probably because of online security reason. 

However, I would think otherwise. This is because writing Blog post is a good way to practise my niece’s writing skill and also to learn to express herself in words. At the same time, it helps to improve her English. So, I would encourage my niece to own a Blog of hers.

I told my niece that I’m quite busy lately and I will find some time to set up a Blog for her during her school holiday that is not too far away from now. Hmm…I think it’s going to be exciting to have a young Blogger to join in the Blogging fun.

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