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My Piece of Sky Blog

Archive for April, 2009


Pepsi Logo Design Evolution – A $10 Million Dollar Logo Design


Almost everybody is talking about how the global economy downtown has caused great impact to their businesses or to their jobs. Most if not all of the companies are cutting back on their spending and even on investment.

But one of the famous companies is going against the flow during this global economy slowdown. This daring company is a household-known soft-drink company called Pepsi. It is reported that Pepsi has spent an unbelievable $10 million dollar for their new logo design.

The intention is to revamp their entire product range’s images as part of their $1.2 billion campaign. The huge amount of money is going to cause people to raise their eye-brows after hearing the news. Wow, the latest Pepsi logo costs $10 million dollars to produce. It seems like this is one of the most expensive logos ever designed.

 The new Pepsi logo looks very simple which has two circles with a little wavy line and nobody could ever believe such a simple logo design would cost $10 million dollars. I agree that a great logo doesn’t have to be complex because a simple logo could give people a long-lasting impression than a complicated one.

In fact, a simple logo design could cost less than a hundred buck if it were to be designed by a decent and low-cost design online shop such as LogoVale.com

Anyway, you can see how Pepsi’s logos have changed over time by watching the video clip below. It shows the recycled version of an old Diet Pepsi logo from the 80s and then we come to the motif of the logo.

Enjoy watching the Pepsi Logo Design Evolution video clip!

Happy 11th Birthday To My Chubby Nephew 2009


My dear chubby nephew has turned 11 years old today. He is so cute and lovely as ever despite this little boy is getting fatter and fatter 😛

My nephew just wanted to have some toys to play with and didn’t want to have a birthday cake. He is allergic to seafood recently so he didn’t even request us to buy his favourite crabs for him to eat.

This lovely chubby boy had been nagging at me for many many days to beg me to buy him his favourite toy so I brought him to the Toys “R” Us store to pick his toy. 

Guess what? He had chosen quite an expensive toy set and burnt a hole in my pocket 🙂 Just look at the photo below :

Ben 10 Alien Force :

ben10-alien-force

He wanted to eat pizza so we ordered 2 large Hawaiian pizzas for him and the family.

Hawaiian Pizza :

hawaiian-pizza

We just have had a simple birthday celebration for our cute little prince today. I wish my chubby nephew happy, healthy, lovely, cute, handsome and clever forever.

Happy Birthday to Siang Siang!!!

Lunch At Jade Restaurant On Sunday


My sisters and I went to the Jade restaurant to have our lunch today. The restaurant was quite packed with people especially on Sunday. Despite this, we still managed to find 1 or 2 empty tables around.

We got ourselves settled down and then started browsing through the menu. The captain came and gave us his recommendation of their popular dishes. He is a middled-age man who is very polished in his customer service skill. His friendliness and helpfulness made people feel comfortable. 

We listened to his sweet talk and ordered a few special dishes besides our favourite Dim Sum. You see, sweet talk always works 🙂

Sea Cucumber & Mushroom :

sea-cucumber

Lobster with Ee-Fu Noodle :

lobster-ee-fu-noodle

All of the dishes tasted good and we have no doubt about their standard as this is one of the reasons why we have chosen to visit Jade restaurant. Furthermore, we were well-served by their captain. So, we have had a delicious lunch and pleasant day today.

Hunting For Ready-Made Interactive Forms Using Javascript and PHP Scripts


I am busy searching for ready-made interactive forms using PHP scripts online these few days while working on my new website. 

I plan to set up a Contact Us page and a request form but I find that it is not so straight-forward to do if you do not know how to embed Javascripts and PHP scripts to the HTML pages to make them work properly.

Here is a snapshot of the Contact Us page :

PHP contact form with image code verification

Fortunately, there are many useful PHP tutorial online to help people in this area. I would say most of these programming sites hold people’s hands and show you step-by-step how to set up interactive forms.

They list down the content of the PHP script files and explain to you what the steps are doing in details besides showing you the look-and-feel of the interactive form. Some of the programming sites even go the extra mile to let you download the sample PHP script files.  

The best part is that most of the sites provide all these information for free. I believe there are many good people out there giving tutorial to people out of passion. 

So, you do not have to purposely go and take up some short courses to learn PHP offline. Internet is the best place to look for information if you wish to learn something.

Happy Earth Day 2009!


The 22nd day of April is Earth Day and its celebration is the holiday of environmentalism.

We just have had our Earth Hour Day close to one month ago (28 March) and it is now the Earth Day. 

But, what is Earth Day actually?

what-day-is-earth-day

Hopefully, each and everyone of us can do our part to show our “Earth Day spirit” — not just on Earth Day itself, but 365 days a year. Happy Earth Day to everybody!

The Progress Of Designing My New Website


I’m in the process of designing the webpages of my new website and targeting to complete it by end of this month. So, I’m rather busy but I enjoy the process of working out my website very much.

I came out with an action plan in the beginning to list down the items that I need to carry out in order for me to stick to my schedule.

I put each action item in an Excel spreadsheet so that it is easier to manage this way. Like what most of the successful coaches often say : “You cannot hit a target that you cannot see”. I think they are absolutely right. 

Make a plan of what you want to do will help to get things going. Basically, what I have planned out is to draft out the website structure and layout on a piece of paper. Then, I transformed the ideas to the Excel spreadsheet in an orderly number listing.

I set priority for each item so that I will do the most important things first rather than trying to do everything all at one go. I also set the date, status and use different colours to alert myself of the progress. 

I would say I’m following my action plan closely although I have missed some of the dates. Anyway, I’m happy with my website design progress.

Inspiring Story Of A Four-Finger Pianist


I came across a video clip featuring a young Korean lady who only has 4 fingers but this doesn’t deter her from being is a pianist.

Her name is Heeah Lee who is 103cm tall and her weight is 33 kg. She was a deformed baby due to her mom had had taken some car-motion sickness pills during her pregnancy.

Heeah Lee can play piano better than ordinary people. She plays piano in the Church and she does it so well that all of the people who attended the Church were so inspired by her talent.

Click to watch and get inspired :

Take Time To Do Whatever You Need To Do


I came across an inspiring poem when I was doing some reading in the 90s. The message that the poem is trying to bring across is to advise people to take time to do whatever you need to do.

Coincidently, one of my seniors also shared the same poem with me during the early days of my working life. She was full of enthusiasm to spread joy to others. I remember that my senior would grab whoever walk near her and read out the inspiring poem to the person.

She did it repeatedly without feeling tired or troublesome. However, my senior’s act made some of our colleagues feel that she was a bit insane and forceful. Anyway, I feel that she was just too passionate about bringing inspirational thoughts to others so as to help people to live a better life.

Want to know what it takes to Take Time To Do Whatever You Need To Do?

Here is the inspiring poem :

Take time to laugh
     It is the music of the soul.

Take time to think
     It is the source of power.

Take time to play
     It is the source of perpetual youth.

Take time to read
     It is the fountain of wisdom.

Take time to pray
     It is the greatest power on earth.

Take time to love and be loved
     It is a God-given privilege.

Take time to be friendly
     It is the road to happiness.

Take time to give
     It is too short a day to be selfish.

Take time to work
     It is the price of success.

~ ANONYMOUS

So, I think we need to really slow down at times and take the time to do whatever we need to do besides just working hard like a cow. After all, we are human beings rather than a working machine.

Thus, let us slow down a bit and learn to appreciate life.

Britain’s Got Talent 2009 – See How Susan Boyle’s Pure And Beautiful Voice Had Shocked The Audiences


My friend, the GFF, sent me an email with a YouTube link in it featuring the recent performance of Susan Boyle at the Britain’s Got Talent 2009 contest. Intuitively, I clicked on the link and expected to watch some interesting performance by the contestant.

susan-boyle

When I was watching the video clip, I was quite surprise to see a middle-aged lady was marching her way to the centre of the stage. Her name is Susan Boyle whose appearance looks more like a comedian than a future singer to me 😛 Just like what Amanda the judge had commented : “We are all very cynical”.

Susan Boyle seems to be a very plain and down-to-earth person from the way that she presented herself when she was answering the judges’ questions. Another way to tell that she is an unassuming person is to look at the start of the video clip when other contestants were sitting and waiting for their turn but she was eating her sandwich. It’s pretty funny 🙂

However, I was stunned when Susan Boyle started to sing the “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables song. I felt as if it was sung by an angel! I must admit that she really has a pure and beautiful voice.

Frankly speaking, I didn’t expect Susan Boyle to sing so well. Perhaps, I was judging a book by its cover as I’m used to marketing gimmick. But, the fact is that talent overrides marketing hype for Susan Boyle’s case.

What inspires me is that Susan Boyle is close to 50 years old and she is pursuing her dream. She has optimism and self-confidence. Many people at her age might think their chance is over if they didn’t crack the nut in their prime, say 20-30 years old.

Honestly, I was moved to tears by Susan Boyle’s wonderful performance. Her victory gives talented people a sense of hope. She shows to the world that age is not a matter if you have talent. Bravo!

Click To Watch :
Susan Boyle’s Excellent Performance at Britain’s Got Talent 2009

Walking Exercise – A Cooling Walk In The Evening


I received a phone call from my friend after 6 o’clock this evening to ask me whether I would like to join her for a walking exercise. 

Although I felt that it was quite a rush to go for a walk after work, I made a swift decision and told her that I will be joining her after 8pm.

As the petrol was running low, I drove my car to the nearby petrol kiosk to fill up the petrol tank. Then, I bought a couple of Delifrance chicken pies at the counter. 

I went home to take a shower and then a light dinner as I was running short of time. I did everything pretty quickly and I was set to go for an evening walking exercise.

I met my friend at the national park and we started our walk after 8pm this evening. As expected, there were not many people at the national park as compared with doing the walking exercise in the morning.

I find it nice and cooling to walk in the evening so I won’t have to worry about getting sun-tanned. It is indeed a very relaxing and cooling walk in the evening after a hard day on the work.