From the monthly archives: March 2008

Tagged 5 Facts

By On · 691 Comments · In Blog It
Lol, I got tagged and to be honest I originally wanted to be tagged and then I didn’t want to be because I would get lazy to go and reply to the tag request. But here’s me being not lazy and answering a tag by fellow blogger Joshua Ong. His original post had lots of things to be tagged on, but I’ll stick to the tag that had been going around for a while. So let’s see.. Five things that people never knew about aronil. Fact 1 Since I was a kid, I never liked the dark. It took me a long while to sleep by myself in a room and I use to bunk in me parents room till a quite ripe teenage age.

Scared of the Dark?

Sad.. yeah that was until I got my own room and then I managed to sleep alone..but of course i would need a night light on ^_P I still don’t like the dark and I’d prefer sleeping with a night light. It doesn’t annoy me as much as some would think any sort of light would distract them from sleeping Fact 2 I was an avid collector of earrings. The amount of them is absolutely maddening. I’ve got earrings ranging from the dangling ones, to studs, to big hoop earrings, to weird ones with feathers.

Earring collections

I still collect them, but the odd thing is that now I’ve gotten pretty lazy in actually figuring out which ones to wear during the day. When I’m lazy I will wear a pair of earrings for about a good week or so, like the big hoop ones. I remember I had one favourite one, which was a pair of silver ball earrings. I wore that for a good month over without taking them out. Speaking of which, the silver has stained and I need to go clean them now. Fact 3 I was extremely obsessed with Warbook on Facebook last year.

Warbook

Very very badly addicted. During working hours, when I wasn’t working, emphasis when I was free!! I visited the warbook page a fair amount of time, so I could wipe out a number of people, have online meetings with three other people by using our resources as a collaborative force and get to a high level. It was crazy.I could jump from a level 1 – level 25 in matter of two hours, with acreage of nearly 100 million over. It was MAD!!! and the money was wonderful… bwahaahahaahaha…Power hungry ^_P Fact 4 When I was in kindergarten…They would pick a kid every Monday morning to raise the national flag as all the students sang Negaraku. I was always very eager to raise the flag.

I hadn’t been picked yet, so i decided to practice at home. See I had this one window, where the curtains will be raised upwards like the flag. So during the other days, I would practice singing the Negarku and raising my curtain flag. Hehehe and preparation paid off too. After a few weeks I got picked to raise the flag wheee. Fact 5 As much as I hate teeny boppers. I was.. indirectly a teeny bopper too at one point in my life. I had the most ridiculous crush on the actor Devon Sawa… which when I think about it now.

Teeny Bopper

I really have only one thing to say, which is ihck ichck ichhhhkkk… What the heck was I thinking????? Like eeew eew ewww… Ohhh ghastly the horror to think i had stooped to the teeny bopper level… aiiiii So there we go.. The 5 things, no many people would know about Aronil. ^_^ Oh and now I’m going to tag back 5 people.
  1. Nessa
  2. Amy
  3. Sheon
  4. Valerie Dweams
  5. Pinksterz
By Random yeah ^_^

Celebrity Apprentice Is Over

By On · 292 Comments · In Uncategorized
Probably I’m behind on this and it was already over months ago, I’m not too sure. But i just watched the last episode of The Celebrity Apprentice which is by far the best season ever of The Apprentice. Trump is really really one smart man and he handles himself extremely well to television viewers. I wrote about it here a while back.

Donald Trump

Back to the last episode of The Apprentice Season 7 which ran for 13 episodes, I have to say it is the most dramatic season I’ve ever seen. First off maybe it’s because they are all celebrities and thats why they have to dramatise everything up. Either that or we can really say celebrities are always over the top in personality ^_P.

Piers and Trace the Finalist for Celebrity Apprentice

In the last episode we had Trace Adkins the famous country singer up against the fast witted and sharp tongued Piers Morgan. Trace Adkins is fighting for the FAAN (Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network), while Piers was fighting for the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. The whole season was fighting for a cause, and none of the causes are any less important than the other. However it is still a competition and each celebrity had to bring all they could to get the big prize money which was $250 000 for their charity.

Fallen Heroes on The Celebrity Apprentice

The fight down to the two of them in the boardroom was a great one. See it was one major event where the two teams were to collaborate with one another and Trump would see who did a better job. In terms of the auction sales and ticket sales. That said I can’t help but give a lot of praise to Piers despite his nasty attitude he must have a nice streak in him somewhere. He is absolutely brilliant and terribly smart. He can really make money out of nothing, has great presentation skills, a brain of creative ideas popping out and not forgetting his Brit roots of strategic annihilation of the oponent. Trace on the other hand, has a wonderful mannerism to him. A truly wonderful character which I am so glad is under God’s belt. I would sincerely like to believe that he is as nice as he is on television, because he is the epitome of every girl, lady and woman’s dream man. Charming to the core, gentle, handsome, sweet and intelligent….oh gosh his wife is so incredibly blessed. And on a plus plus plus note, he has a fantastic voice!!!! Sadly though I have to agree with the fact, that as much as I wanted Trace to win, cause he’s such a great guy and he’s really fighting for a cause that he holds dear to his heart. Piers would win because the name of the game really does mean it’s all about business and business is about bringing in the money, which Piers can certainly do. I do wish that Trace could’ve won it so that FAAN could find a cure for his daughter who suffers from food allergies. A bit more on the two noble charities. Trace Adkins connection to FAAN (Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network):
Trace’s 6-year old daughter had a severe, life-threatening reaction to peanut butter when she was just 18 months old, an experience Trace called “terrifying.” His daughter also suffers from allergies to eggs and milk. Trace feels that research could lead to greater understanding of food allergies, and perhaps someday a cure.

FAAN

 Vision and Mission
The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN) was established in 1991. FAAN’s membership now stands at close to 30,000 worldwide and includes families, dietitians, nurses, physicians, school staff, and representatives from government agencies and the food and pharmaceutical industries. FAAN serves as the communication link between the patient and others.
 
To be a world leader in food allergy and anaphylaxis awareness and the issues surrounding this disease. To raise public awareness, to provide advocacy and education, and to advance research on behalf of all those affected by food allergies and anaphylaxis. FAAN works to build public awareness of food allergy through the media and through education, advocacy, and research efforts.
FAAN staff conducts seminars and training sessions on food allergy and anaphylaxis for patients, school staff, government officials, health professionals, restaurant and industry leaders, and other policy makers.
 
FAAN works with policy makers on federal, state, and local initiatives in such areas as food labeling, epinephrine availability, and management of food allergy in school, camps, airlines, and restaurants. FAAN supports and participates in research studies focusing on the epidemiology of food allergy. FAAN publishes several newsletters and provides books, booklets, videos, and other products designed to educate about food allergy.
 
Piers Morgans connection to Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund :
This charity particularly resonates with him because his brother has fought in 2 tours of duty in Iraq and his brother-in-law has fought in 2 tours of duty in Afghanistan. They both have lost several friends and comrades and Piers feels that this is a great charity to play for.

Intrepid Fallen Heros Fund

Vision and Mission The Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund is a leader in supporting the men and women of the Armed Forces and their families. From 2000 to 2005 the Fund provided close to $20 million to families of United States military personnel lost in performance of their duty, mostly in service in Iraq and Afghanistan. In January 2007, the Fund completed construction of a $40 million world-class state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. Click here for more information on the opening.. The “Center for the Intrepid” serves military personnel who have been catastrophically disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans severely injured in other operations and in the normal performance of their duties. The 60,000 square foot Center provides ample space and facilities for the rehabilitation needs of the patients and their caregivers. It includes state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation equipment and extensive indoor and outdoor facilities.
The helping doesn’t stop there, you can help on these causes by going here. Now go on and help donate ^_^

WordPress.org New Look & V2.5 is out

By On · 535 Comments · In Uncategorized
Ooooh see my glee when i opened up my comp and Firefox this morning. WordPress has completely changed their layout from plain white, blue and black to something a bit more web2.0. Now who says wordpress is boring!!??? ^_P

Wordpress 2.5 New Look

I love the new look. Very clean neat and its now prettified. lol

Wordpress 2.5 new look

And reason for the change well probably cause now WordPress is out with their latest WordPress v2.5 Ooooh be that means upgrading time for me too. Hopefully no complications in the process. Go here to download WordPress 2.5 it now. Wonder if there any changes too for the wordpress.com blog profiles. Will have a looksie laters.

Wordpress 2.5

Blood – The Baby Blood Story.

By On · 445 Comments · In Uncategorized
Ok I have and must must share this video. Because it’s just too cute beyond words. Thanks to Hikaru for sharing it with me first ^_^ We have this toddler of a boy, who is trying to tell hi dad that his baby brother has got blood on his cheek. His dad is video taping this the whole time and he can’t help but giggle at his son because it’s just too cute. Needless to say though the toddler doesn’t think it’s funny at all when he shares his distress about his baby brother bleeding. lol have a look. Just look at his adorable face when he says blood. And now have a look at the full story of how the baby got the bloody cheek.

WordPress Books

By On · 534 Comments · In Graphic Design
As much as I love WordPress and the Internet for tutorials. Nothing beats learning some things than a good book or good ebook for that matter ^_^ When i was first starting out in learning WordPress my first book was this book. I will say that I learn a number of things from this book and it was real helpful as a startup. It was very easy to follow and it answered most of the questions I had on certain issues.

WordPress 2 (Visual QuickStart Guide)

Description: Taking the average blogger further than blogspot can, WordPress allows bloggers to create more complicated sites with their open-source technology, rather than blogger which is limited by HTML changes to their templates. This easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide shows you how to install, use, and customize WordPress to get the most from the software. Includes tips that explain why certain techniques are better than others, how to watch for potential problems, and where readers can find more information. Author’s Site Reviews: by pcbookreview.com

WordPress Complete

The second book that I came across and I still refer too quite often is the WordPress Complete: set up, customize, and market your blog. I bought this book online and it didn’t cost too much and it was a worthwhile buy. You have a choice of either buying it as an ebook or as a paperback. I bought the ebook because I really needed it at the time. Furthermore since it’s a pdf its much easier to find particular issues using the word finder. Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us Description: It is an ideal tool for developing blogs and though it is chiefly used for blogging, it can also be used as a complete CMS with very little effort. Its versality and ease of use has attracted a large, enthusiastic, and helpful community of users. If you want to create powerful, fully-featured blogs in no time, this book is for you. This book will help you explore WordPress showing you what it offers and how to go about building your blog with the system. You will be introduced to the main aspects of a blog – users, communities, posts, comments, news feeds – and learn how to manage them using WordPress. You will develop the skills and confidence to manage all types of content, be it text or images, on your blog, and also understand how users interact with the blog. Reviews: by blog.dreamhosters.com | by freesoftwaremagazine.com

Blog Design Solutions (Paperback)

The third one I came across is actually a manual on the different types of blogging platforms out there. This was terribly helpful too. What I really loved about the book, was they gave a thorough overview on different blogging platforms out there, most of require you to pay. The book is called Blog Design Solutions by Phil Sherry , Andy Budd, Simon Collison , Michael Heilemann , Richard Rutter , David Powers , Chris J. Davis , John Oxton In this book, a team of renowned web designers take you through the ins and outs of putting together great blogs. They waste no time harking on about the philosophy of blogs, or the community behind them. Instead, they get straight to the practical details, showing how to set up a basic blog in some of the world’s most popular blogging engines – Movable Type, ExpressionEngine, WordPress, and Textpattern. With your blog set up, they then show you how to build great looking, usable layouts for your blog. The last chapter even shows you how to build your very own PHP/MySQL-based blog engine! With this book in hand, you’ll have found your way to blog heaven in no time! Summary of contents:
  • Chapter 1: The “Web Log”
  • Chapter 2: Creating a Local Test Environment for Your Blog
  • Chapter 3: Movable Type
  • Chapter 4: ExpressionEngine
  • Chapter 5: WordPress
  • Chapter 6: Textpattern
  • Chapter 7: Write Your Own Blog Engine
—————————————————————————– Below are some of the other books that I haven’t read yet, but I found them after surfing for a bit, and hopefully it will be of help to someone else out there. Remember our famous wordpress online helper Lorelle? Guess what she’s got her own book. To be honest I didn’t know that she her own book till i started searching for books. So well done girl for getting this out to help us hopeless bloggers ^_^

Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging.

Blogging Tips Book by Lorelle VanFossenBlogging Tips What bloggers won’t tell you about blogging by Lorelle VanFossenReturning to the basics, Lorelle VanFossen has put together hundreds of the tips you need to know before you start blogging.
  • Learn how to define your blog’s purpose.
  • Learn how to build your blog’s plan.
  • Explore the pros and cons of blog design.
  • Learn more about writing interesting and attention-getting content.
  • Develop your blog writing voice and style.
  • Tips on writing with keywords and search terms.
  • Learn how to encourage your readers to respond.
  • Deal with comment spam and other nasty comments.
  • Explore the new PageRank, TrustRank, and SEO techniques.
  • Learn how to improve SEO with podcasts, video, and other multimedia.
  • Tips to prevent blog burnout.
  • Tips on developing a blog plan of action in response to disasters, emergencies or accusations.
  • Tips on administrating and maintaining your blog.
  • Tips on online social networking and interaction.
  • Learn how to respond to copyright violations.
  • Learn about your rights as a blogger.
You can read more about Lorelle VanFossen book here.

WordPress Themes

For those who are always seeking to build a better theme, like myself, I’m still working at it. Maybe this book WordPress Themes by John Godley can help you out.

WordPress Themes by John Godley (Book) in Computers & Internet

Description:

A guide to creating your own themes with WordPress. The guide begins with a short introduction to installing WordPress locally on your own PC, and then follows with a thorough look at how a WordPress theme is constructed. A basic design is established and then expanded upon, ultimately leading to the creation of three example themes. An online accompaniment provides all themes and graphics for download.

Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress

Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress (Expert's Voice in Open Source)Description: Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress is authored by a team of experts. Robert T. Douglass recently created the Drupal-powered blog site NowPublic.com. Mike Little is a founder and contributing developer of the WordPress project. And Jared W. Smith has been a longtime support team member of phpBBHacks.com and has been building sites with phpBB since the first beta releases. ReviewDescription: Content management, blogs, and online forums are among the most significant online trends today, and Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress are three of the most popular open source applications facilitating these trends. Drupal is a full content management system that allows you to create any type of website you desire, from an e-commerce to a community-based site. phpBB enables you to set up a bulletin board or forum. And WordPress is the software of choice for the exploding blog community. All three technologies are based on PHP and MySQL. Summary by Apress

WordPress For Dummies

Description: From the Back Cover Includes coverage of WordPress MU community software Create a hosted, self-hosted, or multi-user blog, explore plugins, and more. WordPress is powerful software known for helping bloggers share their thoughts online. Whether you want to set up a blog in the WordPress community, add a blog in the WordPress community, add a blog to another site, or build your own blogging community, this book shows how WordPress can help. With this book, you’ll soon be navigating WordPress templates plugins, and themes with no problem. Discover how to:
  • Personalize WordPress settings
  • Understand common template tags
  • Manage and moderate comments
  • Deal with spam and trackback
  • Troubleshoot common problems

Sites that Soar! A WordPress how-to manual by Aisling D’Art

Sites that Soar! A WordPress how-to manual by Aisling D’Art

Description: How to use WordPress and free WordPress themes to manage websites, including content management system (CMS) tips. A 56-page book filled with step-by-step directions and screenshots, written for everyday people







Optimize Niche – WordPress

Description: Optiniche is a superb package if you’re interested in using WordPress to set up niche sites, or if you’re a blogger looking to make some income from your blogging. The key to using WordPress for niche websites is to make your sites search engine friendly. The same goes for getting more search engine visitors to your blog. No more searching far and wide for WordPress tips and tricks to get your niche site optimized. In my guide to optimize WordPress for niche websites, you’ll discover:
  • What you need to do before you even make your first post
  • How to create search engine friendlier titles
  • Some of the overlooked features of WordPress and how to use them to your advantage
  • Setting up your keyword and description meta data on every single entry
  • How to avoid posting extremes and set yourself up on a schedule
  • How to combat blog spam and one technique that is sure to keep your blog spam free – period.
  • And, of course, there’s more…

I’ve packed all of this information into a 25 page ebook, but don’t let the size fool you – it was intentional. Your time (ink and paper) is valuable, so I trimmed the fat and jumped straight to the chase. I want to provide you with a document that you can print and use as a reference to get you started the same day.

Review: by adventuresinnetmarketing.com and details by optiniche.com

The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie (Paperback)

For the girls who are too girly but do want to get into blogging here is a book written intentionally for the ladies.

The image “http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41gI32pxv0L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.Description: Inside you will find the need-to-know info to get your blog noticed: How to choose the right blogging platform or content management tool, select a web host, dress up your blog, manage blog content and keep your privates private! When you are ready for more, The Moxie Girls will treat you to insider dish on blog etiquette, analyzing blog traffic, blogging for business, creating podcasts and adding bling to your blog with plugins, add-ons and more. Throw in the refreshing cocktails, beauty tips and gossip with the Girls at the end of each chapter and you’ll be Blogging with Moxie in no time. So, what are you waiting for? The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging With Moxie is packed with the content you need wrapped in casual, engaging dialog and a cheeky, bite-sized format.
  • Bargain-blogging with tools such as WordPress®, TypePad®, and Vox
  • Choosing a content management system like Expression Engine or Movable Type
  • Managing blog content, using tags and moderating comments
  • Selecting a professional designer and choosing from off-the-rack templates
  • An introduction to podcasting and videocasting
  • Finding, joining and managing blog communities
  • Protecting your online identity
  • Using a blog to better your business

Building a Blog: A WordPress Guide for Real Estate Professionals by Kathy Tyson

Building a Blog: A WordPress Guide for Real Estate Professionals by Kathy Tyson (Book) in Business & Economics

This book is very niche and I found it intriguing that it is especially made for Real Estate people. Pretty cool, just goes to show how serious people can be by using WordPress or blogging platforms for the business modes.

Description: With the majority of today’s home buyers and sellers going online to shop and sell, real estate agents are learning that technology can be their friend! This easy-to-understand guide provides a step-by-step approach for agents to build a real estate blog. There ya go my list for now ^_^