I said recently that cheap web hosting can be good but one got to be discerning. I checked 3 things before I settled with my current web hosting provider:

• The response rate of the short-listed web hosting provider by sending a ticket with a question.
• A few blogger-friends’ sites who had similar hosting companies to test the speed.
• Online reviews.

I received a short email from yesterday inquiring which site I used for my research. That’s a tough question because there are simply too many sites reviewing web hosting providers. However, I used Web Hosting Geeks for independent review of the  top ten cheap professional web hosting services under $10 a month. Currently, it listed BlueHost at the pinnacle of its Top 10 Best Web Hosts, 2008. BlueHost received a very positive overall review of 98% with “Reliability & Uptime” at an impressive 99%. Still, when I clicked on customer reviews, I found extreme opinions on BlueHost’s technical and customer support. Many reviewers gave it a one-star while a few bestowed the ultimate 5-star salute.

What does it mean?  Simply that we must know what we can expect from the web hosting companies. If others received excellent or lousy treatment from a particular company, the chances that we shared the same fate are pretty high. However, more importantly, we must know what are the supports we are looking for. To illustrate, if you are running a simple website or a blog with plenty of text and a few static images here and there, I don’t see why you need to pay extra dollars for unlimited hosting space and all those freebies they threw in as baits. If you are selling adult products, it’s best that you go to hunt for that hard-to-find terms of service document to see if the web hosting providers prohibit or strongly discourage the use of foul languages, nudity, sex and so on.

If you are looking for cheap web hosting, you can look under it’s web hosting awards for more information on

• Best Budget Hosting
• Best Blog Hosting
• Best Forum Hosting
• Best Unix Hosting
• Best Windows Hosting
• Best PHP Hosting
• Best Email Hosting
• Best ecommerce Hosting
• Best Multi-Domain Hosting
• Best VPS Hosting
• Best Reseller Hosting
• Best Dedicated Hosting

Well, Ja, I hope the above will answer your question. I thought I put my feedback up as a post to share with more people.

Read related post on cheap web hosting at this blog:
Can Cheap Web Hosting be Good?

Technorati Tags: cheap web hosting

Popularity: 1% [?]

When you introduce yourself for the first time to someone you just met in a networking session, how will you sell yourself?

Think, and go through your self-introduction speech in your head before reading on. There’s a reason for this suggestion.

The conversation probably goes like this:

John: Hi, I’m John Smith.
Harry: Hi, John, I’m Harry Jones. What are you doing?
John: Oh, I’m in the insurance industry.

What do you think will happen if Harry’s mind has been programmed and conditioned by parents, siblings and friends that insurance agents (a.k.a. financial planners) always use fear tactics to get people to buy a policy that they don’t need and don’t want? Or, what happens if Harry has an unpleasant past experience with a hard-selling pushy insurance person? Either way, this conversation will either be terminated prematurely or be channeled to a safe subject by Harry.

Who is on the losing end?

Naturally, it’s John. Yes, John just lost a one-to-one, face-to-face opportunity to tell Harry of the values, benefits and solutions that can make Harry ’s life easier and better.

However, Harry is not on the winning side either.

It could have been a win-win scenario had the self introduction of John went this way.

John: “Hi, I’m John Smith.”
Harry: “Hi, John, I’m Harry Jones. What are you doing?”
John: “Harry, do you know there’s more than 60% of seniors in this country cannot afford the large medical bills when they fall sick or injured? My main focus is helping seniors aged between 70 and 85 to minimize, or even eliminate 100% of their medical expenses.”

Harry has an ailing mother of 72 and he is still paying the exorbitant medical bills when the old lady was hospitalized for five and a half month when she fell twice last year. And, Harry never knew seniors could be covered until 85 years old. How do you think Harry will response? I bet he said, “Tell me more”.

What’s the difference? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Saw Donald Trump ticked Aaron off at the 6th season of “The Apprentice”. When given an opportunity to shine, Aaron chose to keep his lips sealed in the boardroom. That proved to be a silent kiss of death as far as Mr Trump was concerned. He was fired eventually.

The business world is no nursery school where you should be seen and not heard. In line with Darwin’s theory of the “survival of the fittest”, you are supposed to express your values and make sure you are the distinguished crane standing tall, and commanding both respect and attention among the chuckling chickens.

That episode of “The Apprentice” reminded me of a few remarks I heard recently. It hits home that most people do have a problem with selling. In fact, they are downright apologetic when it comes to sharing something good.

A good friend sent an email to update his well-being, “Just want to share with you my experience after going through my 3-day course. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to promote the course.” With a big grin, I emailed back “Good things are meant to be shared and promoted so get it off your chest if you want. You can leave us to make the decision whether we “buy in”.”

Some friends who attended the National Achiever Congress were somewhat disgusted with every speaker closing their 2-hour talk with a sales pitch. Harv Eker promoted his “Millionaire Mind Intensive”, Blaire Singer talked about his “Sales Dog”, Roger Hamilton invited people to join his XL movement, etc. After I heard it in excess of 3 times that, “Yeah, Joe Girard was the best. He didn’t sell us anything”, I was a little concerned.

My friend, Dr Bob Koh, asked why I was disturbed by the above reactions. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]

I thought the 2012 London Olympics logo was not worth £400,000 and said so in an earlier post. I even made a comparison of the London Olympics logo to past Olympic logos as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympics logo. Until this post, I didn’t devote a solo post to talk about the “Dancing Beijing” emblem. I guess it’s because

- I like the Chinese seal that forms up the Beijing Olympics logo.

- I thought the usage of calligraphy text “jing” (meaning “capital”. The same word also forms the second character of Beijing) that gently morphed into a dancing athlete was a nice touch. It suits the Chinese cultural and social background. Calligraphy is not just a writing art, it is deemed extremely important in character building such that many elementary schools included it into the school curriculum.

- I believe that bright red is the definitive colour. It cannot be replaced by any other choice (not even gold, which is another auspicious colour) or other red hues. Bright Red is a symbol of good luck, prosperity, celebration, happiness and joy.

- I like the customized typography of the words, “Beijing Olympics”. The font was lively and looked animated, which made it a nice companion for the dancing athlete.

I liked it yet I didn’t write about it. On the other hand, I wrote on the London Olympics logo after it was newly unveiled. I have to admit that I had fallen into the trap of being too hasty to criticize and too slow to praise. It only occured me to write on the Beijing Olympics logo after I completed the post on “One World One Dream“, the official slogan of the game.

A quick search on the web regrettably shows that many people linked sports with a country’s political, social and foreign policies. There is a YouTube video showing a dissident hurling his body against the wall after being executed. The human imprint forms the “jing” and his blood is the idea behind the red seal backdrop. Another graphic representation shows dead Tibetian monks around the logo.

Other than the official Beijing Olympic site, it is refreshing to have Jessica Field sharing her critique on the Beijing Olympics logo at her LogoBlog. However, I like to add on one more observation:

Beside “jing”, the shape of the character also bears a slight resemblance to the Chinese Character ‘文’, which can mean culture or language.

I believe the Chinese people would want to take the opportunity to show the world the softer side of China - their languages, art, culture and the Chinese way of life. However, will the gracious side of China change the global perception that the Chinese government is repressive and authoritative? Well, we’ll see … in August 2008.

Additional Reading on Olympics logo and slogan:

“One World One Dream” - the official slogan of 2008 Beijing Olympics 

Alternative London Olympics 2012 Logo & Past Olympics Logo

London Olympics 2012 Logo worth £400,000?

Popularity: 3% [?]

I have an interesting tea party yesterday with a few blogger-friends. Almost everyone was lamenting that their wallets were getting empty faster with the impact of rising fuel price.

One said he will have to cut down on smoking, which actually isn’t a bad idea. After all, he is literally spending money to burn his life away. Another said she intends to replace branded food items with no-frill house brands to trim down household expenses. The cost-cutting conversation then sparked an interesting debate about cheap web hosting.

Cheap does not equate to no good. If cheap goods do not serve their purposes, they will not survive in the competitive markets.

Many blogged free of charge using blogspot platform. If you do not need to own your own domain name, free space is great especially when it is Google who owns it.

Bloggers with their own domains are likely to pay the lowest hosting packages over the top of the range that promises unlimited bandwidth. After all, most of us don’t need more than 100 megabytes of space, the basic package will do.

Actually, whether cheap equates to no good is not important. In fact, price should not be the only factor to consider when buying something. When I bought hosting space for this blog, I wasn’t thinking of price. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]

Regardless if it’s politically, economically or socially, China is a world that many countries in the west - and even some in the east - cannot understand. Lack of understanding unfortunately creates lots of suspicion, tension and wariness in relationships, country to country, man to man.

It was the intention of the Chinese government to bridge such a gap and hopefully unite the world in the Beijing Olympic Game. This aspiration gave birth to the new slogan, “One World, One Dream”, which replaced the previous one, “New Beijing, Great Olympics” that Beijing used to campaign for the city’s bid for the Game

According to the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG), “One World, One Dream” was picked from more than 210,000 entries received from around the world. It had launched a global search for a slogan since January 2005. The winning choice was painstakingly selected after experts from the sociology, sports, culture and language fields had gone through several rounds of reviews, analysis and short-listing. The slogan was selected because it had fulfilled the criteria of harmonious relationship between man and nature. Naturally, this is a simplistic interpretation.

The slogan was unveiled in Beijing’s Workers’ Gymnasium on 26 June 2005 and the official interpretation of the slogan is appended below: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]

Rising fuel prices and global food shortages have caused rice prices to increase 61.1% when comparing June 2007 to June 2008. Besides rice, soya beans rocketed 57.4%, corn soared 51.2%, wheat escalated 45.3% and even milk surged by 33.5%. What do all these mean to the ordinary Joes and Janes?

Cutting back unnecessary expenses, pre-plan menus, buy in bulk to gain volume discounts, buy with discount coupons or when there are sales. These are some of the immediate steps that can be taken. Sensing the financial anxiety, supermarkets were quick to roll out full page advertisements promoting no-frills house brands which cost less than the premium brands. A 10kg premium rice bearing the Royal Umbrella brand may cost SGD26 but a local supermarket house brand can be just SGD15. The difference of SGD11 is a big savings to the average family here and more and more are opting for the no-frills brands.

It’s perfectly understandable for international and local supermarkets to run a shouting match to rise above the din. However, even banks and department stores are jumping onto the bandwagon!

UOB Asset Management in Singapore has been giving rice to investors who subscribed to its United Commodities Plus Fund which was launched in 5 May 2008. Is the bank striving to reward it’s clients by rewarding them with things they find most useful and consider as important? Or is it a mere opportunistic marketing and public relations ploy to offer investors exposure to indexes tracking the energy, precious metals and agricultural markets? Some 18 private bankers at Citibank International Personal Bank Singapore were rewarded with bags of rice and cooking oil when they hit sales targets for April 2008. I bet the Citibank staff were extremely relieved that these rewards were made tongue-in-cheek and do not replace the usual cash incentives. Well, commodity prices are so high and anecdotes show.

When I read the above report, I really raised an eyebrow. It must be more than simply mass hysteria if even the marketing honchos have taken note of this trends. However, what really raised both eyebrows was the offer made by John Little’s, a well-known department store. The “first time ever, we are shaving 10% of all Electrical Appliances” didn’t get much of a response or an reaction from me. It’s this line that made my friend exclaimed,” It almost like a third world country!”:

“… And receive a FREE pack of New Moon Rice (1 kg) when you spend $60 nett in a single receipt. Hurry, these sensational offers are available from 12 to 15 June 2008 only, while stocks last.”

“It’s so cheapskate!” was another reaction I got from a girl friend.

“I can’t lug 2 - 3 kg of rice around town. They are assuming I drive! Why should I - when the petrol price is escalating and traffic is at a crawl on weekends?” That’s another outburst from a neighbour.

Now… do you call this a good marketing tactic or bad taste?

On the one hand, these marketers were quick to ride on market sentiments and give their clients exactly what they perceive as “valuable”.

On the other hand, where is the link between a mid-priced department store and rice? I found the explanation provided by UOB that it is “a largely symbolism of a component of the fund” a little tough to stomach, but at least I can see the relevance between a commodity fund and the rice gift.

What are your thought on this?

Info Source: The Straits Times, Singapore, 4 June 2008.,

Technorati Tags: global food price increase

Popularity: 4% [?]

My guest writer for May is an experienced marketer and publicist in the lifestyle and heritage sector, who relishes new ideas, refreshing approaches, and unconventional solutions to age-old problems. If you visit Walter Lim’s blog at Coolinsight, you will be fascinated with his candid thoughts on marketing and public relations and entertained by his many photographs taken while on business or family trips.

=== ===

Is Facebooking Fantastic or Foolish?

As anybody who has indulged in social media marketing would have known, Facebook is a fast rising star in the new media stakes. With more than 70 million active users around the world, the creation of 25 year old billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is now the 5th most trafficked site and 2nd most trafficked social media site in the world. In fact, over 20,000 applications have been built on the Facebook platform alone with 140 new applications added every day.

Facebook is hip, hot, happening and rising faster than any of its competitors for the moment. Which brings us to the question of whether we should try to muscle ourselves into the action. After all, wouldn’t it be a tragedy if you are not seen up there with the Joneses (or the Tans and Lims) with an oh-so-cool and to-die-for viral Facebook application?

Personally, I feel that the jury is still out on the effectiveness of Facebook as a marketing media. True, it is fantastic for connecting me to my long-lost ex-colleagues, classmates and old friends. It also has a huge truckload of multi-media applications, games, quizzes, wallpapers, matchmakers and goodness knows what to keep you busy for hours on end.

However, will I sign up as a member of a company’s grassroots marketing group on Facebook? Only if the benefits are exceedingly glorious. More importantly, will I attend the gazillion functions that I am invited to? Or spam all the hundreds or thousands of contacts in my list with an invitation to purchase the latest gadget, gizmo or gourmet package? Have to think hard.

At this stage, I guess the jury is still out. From what I have read, the lack of privacy for Facebook users seem to be an ongoing concern. As of now, there are already numerous Facebook groups with thousands of subscribers who declare war against companies trying to send them messages or post on their walls for commercial purposes. Relationships still matter most in Facebook, and users may be wary about “spamming” their diligently cultivated network of friends with the latest applications or games.

Having said that, there are organisations that have skillfully applied the social advantages of Facebook in furthering their agendas. Many of these are non-profit organisations, which I guess are less loathsome than the next money lusting firm on the line. Perhaps one day, people may be more open to using Facebook for transactions. For now, at least for me, just keep it strictly between me and my friends sucking the life out of each other or superpoking each other to death

Technorati Tags: Facebook, social media

Popularity: 6% [?]