Discover The Shortcut to The Brilliant Adobe Creative Suite 4 Launch Malaysia (11 November)

Image via WikipediaAdobe Systems is holding a free end-user event in the Sabah Room of the Shangri-La Hotel KL from 8.30am – 6.00pm on Tuesday 11 November, for the Launch of Adobe Creative Suite 4. Free seat reservations are at http://www.adobe.com/go/asiaevents. You must reserve to ensure a place! “

Discover the shortcut to brilliant, with Adobe: exciting new tools and services, improved features in all products, and tighter-than-ever integration all add up to make Creative Suite 4 a must-have solution. Join Adobe at the launch and discover how you can get brilliant faster. “

It will host a series of talks which include:

• Innovation in Print and Design by Tim Cole (Creative Evangelist, Adobe Systems)
  
• Powering Video Production with HP Mobile Workstation (Hewlett Packard Speaker)
  
• Video, Video, Video by Karl Soule (Creative Evangelist, Digital Video & Audio, Adobe Systems)
  
• Extraordinary in Web - Digital experiences, interactivity and inspiration by (Paul Burnett, Senior Worldwide Evangelist, Creative Solutions, Adobe Systems)

And Lucky Draw!!!! For sure they are giving out free Creative Suite 4.

Check out the full press release here.

OPENSOCIAL GADGET CONTEST: MALAYSIAN DEVELOPERS COMPETE TO BUILD HOT SOCIAL NETWORKING APPLICATIONS

In conjunction with Google's first ever Google DevFest held in Singapore today, Google is organizing an OpenSocial Gadget Contest for local developers to use their coding skills and creativity to build OpenSocial applications. The main objective is to support the developer community and encourage innovation on the OpenSocial platform.



Malaysian Developers at Google Fest (Singapore)

Google will award 4 prizes in Singapore and 4 prizes in Malaysia to local developers whose applications are picked by a panel of judges from Google, eXo Platform, Friendster, Globant and hi5. The top winner in each country will receive a Nintendo Wii and the rest of the winners will get an Apple iPod Touch. More importantly to the developers, the winning OpenSocial applications will be promoted to drive widespread user adoption on OpenSocial partner websites to potentially reach hundreds of millions of Internet users worldwide.

Developers can register and submit their OpenSocial applications at http://code.google.com/events/apacdevfest/contest from November 15, 2008 to January 10, 2009.

Google DevFest saw over 400 Singaporean and Malaysian developers in attendance being hosted by Google, eXo Platform, Friendster, Globant and hi5.

Press release about Google DevFest and futher information on the OpenSocial Gadget Contest is attached here. Please feel free to call me or Rene Leow (017-883 0848) for further inquiries.

Check out here for full press release.

Juniper Networks and IXIA Announce Telecom Energy Efficiency Metric

Juniper Networks, the leader in high-performance networking, and IXIA, a leading, global provider of IP performance test systems, today announced the formation of the Energy Consumption Rating (ECR) Initiative — a framework for measuring the energy efficiency of network and telecom devices. Juniper, Ixia and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs collaborated to develop the energy efficiency metric in response to increasing requirements from service providers, enterprise businesses and government agencies for better methods to estimate, project and regulate energy efficiency of telecom and network equipment.

The vendor-neutral ECR framework and methodology offers a turnkey solution for reporting, measuring and regulating network component energy efficiency. The ECR draft specification 1.02 establishes a framework for classifying network equipment and a methodology for measuring energy efficiency. The final "performance-per-energy unit" rating, expressed in (watts) / (Gigabit per second) can be reported as a peak (scalar) or synthetic (weighted) metric that takes dynamic energy management capabilities into account.

"Energy efficiency is an increasingly important factor in customers' decision and evaluation process, but to-date there has been no reliable, standardized method for testing the efficiency of networking equipment. The ECR Initiative is an important step toward making energy efficiency ratings for telecommunications a reality," said Wan Ahmad Kamal, Juniper Networks Malaysia Country Manager. "Our service provider customers are focused on energy efficiency for maximum operational savings, service quality, reliability and the environmental impact of their networks, and our products are designed to help them meet these objectives. By participating in the launch of the ECR Initiative, Juniper is not only helping advance the industry towards its efficiency goals, but is also validating the advantage Juniper's platforms such as the T1600 have in this area.""

The Juniper Networks T1600 Core Router was the first system to be tested (today) under the ECR, and has been verified as the industry's most energy-efficient core router, with a performance-per-energy unit rating of 9.1 watts per Gpbs. The tests were performed at Ixia's iSimCity in Santa Clara, California using its IxGreen energy measurement solution. The Juniper Networks T1600 is a core router that can deliver 25 percent more routing capacity at half the footprint and with up to 40 percent less power than competing solutions.

Press Release:

MALAYSIA – October 29, 2008 -- Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR), the leader in high-performance networking, and IXIA (NASDAQ: XXIA), a leading, global provider of IP performance test systems, today announced the formation of the Energy Consumption Rating (ECR) Initiative — a framework for measuring the energy efficiency of network and telecom devices. In an event hosted by Ixia, key definitions and methodology of the ECR initiative were unveiled to the public, alongside a live technology demonstration.

In response to the increasing requirement from service providers, enterprise businesses and government agencies for better methods to estimate, project and regulate energy efficiency of telecom and network equipment, Juniper Networks, Ixia and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs collaborated to develop a vendor-neutral energy efficiency metric.

The ECR metric creates a common energy denominator between different network and telecom systems operating within a single class. The ECR methodology defines the procedures and conditions for measurements and calculations, and can be readily implemented with industry-standard test equipment.

Check out here for full press release.

Stretch Your Dollar With Horizontal Marketing

Partnering with a company that shares your target market saves you time and money.


It's not an offer you see every day: "Buy a House, Get a Free Electric Car." But that's exactly why Chris Schneider, owner of Honda Motorwerks, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, decided to use such an attention-grabbing sales tactic.

Schneider, 51, has been selling environmentally friendly cars for 30 years, but it hasn't been easy to persuade people to make the switch to alternative-fueled vehicles. Over the years, Schneider has tried many tactics to woo more people into buying energy-efficient cars, but it was teaming up with the real estate agent for his "free car" stunt in July that made the biggest impact.

"It certainly gained a great deal of attention. We did this on a Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon I had already received three messages from people interested in the car," he says. So far, no one has purchased the house, but foot traffic at Schneider's dealership has noticeably increased.


Schneider has learned what many business owners have: Horizontal marketing--two businesses with different products but similar clientele join marketing efforts--is a smart way to increase your customer base without increasing your marketing budget.

"Horizontal marketing is easier and cheaper than just about any other form of marketing," says Shel Horowitz, author of Principled Profit. According to Horowitz, competitors can become some of your best allies.

"In the case of horizontal marketing, a competitor might be someone who overlaps with you but doesn't duplicate your offering exactly," Horowitz says. "Both of you benefit by being able to offer a wider range of services and by pleasing clients who might otherwise have felt a need to go elsewhere."

Of course, you don't have to give away an expensive product like Schneider did to please your customers. There are many innovative ways to market your products and services by getting together with another business. Here are three more creative and cheap ways to jump-start your own horizontal marketing campaign.

Cross-endorsement. "If you're a small company without much brand identity, you can ride the coattails of a stronger brand by offering them some type of promotion for their customers, whether that be a product, coupon, etc.," says Denise Patrick, vice president of creative services for Pierpont Communications. "For example, let's say you own the local miniature golf park. Offer the big movie theater in your neighborhood a ton of 'Buy One, Get One Free' tickets. It's a free gift for the movie theater, credibility for you and access to all the teenagers looking for a fun place to take their dates."

Dr. Desiree Edlund, founder of OC Back & Body Doctors, a chiropractic office based in Irvine, California, that offers acupuncture and physical therapy, has been cross-endorsing with a neighboring gym for seven years. Edlund, 37, offers gym members discounts on services and periodically stations a representative in the gym offering free on-site body fat analyses with the results written on her business card.

"Working with the gym has worked out very, very well because the type of people who work out are people who care about their health and wellness, which is exactly the type of customers we like and who like us," Edlund says. "The discounts pay for themselves in repeat business."

Spread out the cost. Patrick encourages neighboring businesses to "think mall" by turning your businesses into a destination "buying experience."

"For example, say you're a bookstore owner located in a strip center along with a children's clothing store and a discount linens store," she says. Together, you can create 'Build a Fort' afternoon for children. The linens store provides the sheets for the forts, the children's store provides costumes and you host a reading."

Offer a full-service brand experience without increasing your overhead. What other services would your clients like to receive? Michael Hart, a small-business marketing consultant for over 20 years, helped one of his clients reach a wider range of customers through a simple horizontal marketing tactic that any business can use. Hart helped a heating and air conditioning company recruit eight other businesses that had similar clientele to be featured in a full-color, 10-page home services coupon catalog. The businesses in the catalog all offered different services--termite and pest control, lawn care, carpet cleaning--but they all marketed to the same type of customers.

"Each vendor increased sales by 20 percent or more, reduced their advertising and mailing costs, and expanded their client base eight-fold," Hart says about the catalog's success.

No matter what type of business you have, there are creative ways to increase your clientele through horizontal marketing. From product giveaways to coupons and discounts, you'll be able to stretch your marketing dollars further by forming a friendly alliance with other businesses in your area.

Installing MSSQL Together With Software Application

You want to install MSSQL and your software application together in the same installer without having to run through separate installers (in a Windows environment). You intended to run the installation from a CD where users only have to click once.

So, how do you invoke the MSSQL installer from other installer ? Assuming that you are using Visual Studio Installer to build the installer for your software application, you can't.

You can't even run batch file (*.bat file) from it.

You have to resort to either of the followings:

1. Custom made installer.
   
2. Using installation studio which supports custom scripts such as Wise Installation Studio. (Which is not free)

The best solution that I could figure out is:

To invoke the MSSQL installer using command prompt.

Check it out..

MSSQL 2005
MSSQL 2008

It works, you can put the script inside a batch file.

And instead of trying to use the installer for your software application to invoke the batch file, you can actually invoke everything from a batch file (including your software application installer).

Thus, the content of your eventual installation CD would look like the following.



The content of SetupTAS.bat is:



Start /wait .\SQLEXPR_ADV\setup.exe /qb INSTANCENAME=AnvizDB ADDLOCAL=SQL_Engine,SQL_Data_Files,Client_Components,Connectivity PIDKEY= SECURITYMODE=SQL SAPWD=test123 SQLACCOUNT= SQLPASSWORD= AGTACCOUNT= AGTPASSWORD= SQLBROWSERACCOUNT= SQLBROWSERPASSWORD=<br /><br />nosql -U sa -P test123 -S localhost\AnvizDB -i .\SetupDB.sql<br /><br />.\Anviz.msi

Or download it from here.

So, the idea is to run everything from command prompt with scripts in a batch file. Use the 'osql' utility to execute T-SQL scripts from command prompt.

Also, you can download the ISO image of the example shown above from here.

Other Issues:

• You may want to create a custom installer to execute the batch file (SetupTAS.bat) because you don't want to expose end-users with the 'sa' password. You may also want to compress the batch file and T-SQL scripts into a zip file and password protect it.
• You may also want to disable Windows Users from having access to the database for extended security; allowing only 'sa' access.
• You may also want to use the sac.exe utility to configure settings for the database instance installed.
• You may also want to perform a check on dotNetFramework version before process with installing MSSQL 2005 which requires at least version 2

Pretty neat huh ?

The New MacBook - Apple Oct 2008 Event

At the recent Apple Oct 2008 event...

State of the Mac

Sold 2.5 millions mac (last quarter)

How they did that ?

1. Better computers
   
2. Better software
   
3. Compatibility (Enables Windows to run natively on the Mac)
   
4. Vista (Hasn't lived up)
   
5. Marketing
   
6. Retail Stores (247 stores in 8 country) - 400k visitors each, 50% new conversion.

• Outgrown the market in 4 years.
  
• Revenues share 30% (1 out 3 dollar is spent on Mac)
  
• Top supplier of notebooks for Education sector 39% (47% for major universities)
  
• The real momentum is 71 M in 2007, q1-q3 (2008) 71 M.

New Ways to Build Notebooks

The challenges of building thin and light notebook is to make the structure strong and robust.

The old MacBook was made from assembling small units of structures.









The revolutionary Macbook Air reinvents the wheel by doing the opposite - started from a solid board, removing away unwanted parts to cater for the features and it results as 'unibody enclosure'.










New Graphics for Notebooks

Combine the chipset and embedded graphic processor all in one part - Nvidia GForce 9400M.

• Chipset + GPU
  
• 70% of die area is GPU
  
• 16 parallel graphics cores
  
• 54 Gigaflops
  
• Up to 5 times faster than Intel integrated graphic

New Trackpad

• 39% larger
  
• Multi touch for gestures
  
• Glass
  
• Entire trackpad is the button

Conclusion of the new MacBook Pro:

• Unibody Enclosure
  
• LED backlit display
  
• Next generation graphics
  
• Multi-touch glass trackpad
  
• Mini Display Port connector
  
• Backlit keyboard
  
• Built-in iSight and microphone
  
• Stereo speakers
  
• Magnetic latch.
  
• Environmental friendly.
  
  
  • Arsenic free
  • BFR free
  • Mercury free
  • PVC free
  • Highly recyclable material
  • 37% shrinkage of the packages

What I like about it is the removable hard disk (solid state drive) known as 'slot-loading super drive' feature.

Still expensive for Ringgit Malaysian conversion and thus Apple computer is still a luxury thing in Malaysia. I still think that my next upgrade of Notebook will be Lenovo Thinkpad T61. I would love to have a tablet PC but the screen is usually just 12 inch (too small).

Juniper Networks Extends Edge Routing Leadership with the Intelligent Services Edge

Juniper Networks, the leader in high-performance networking, today announced the Intelligent Services Edge, a fully integrated portfolio of new hardware and software features that address business challenges for customers building and expanding high-performance networks. As providers continue to rapidly expand their service portfolio, the ability to converge services across a set of intelligent edge routing platforms will greatly enhance scale, performance and operational efficiency. Leveraging the architectural integrity of the powerful JUNOS® software and Juniper’s advanced M- and MX-series platforms; the advancements facilitate intelligent convergence at the edge, which drives network monetization by speeding deployment of new services and reducing operational costs and complexity.

The Intelligent Services Edge will extend the power of the JUNOS operating system by adding the following advanced edge services:

• Broadband Services Routing: extends subscriber management technology from the market-leading E-series Broadband Services Routers to the M- and MX-series platforms
  
• Dynamic Application Awareness: leverages Juniper’s leadership in security and policy management to provide stateful, subscriber-aware application monitoring, enabling advanced, application-specific service levels and QoS treatments
  
• Intrusion Prevention: provides application layer security leveraging Juniper Networks advanced Intrusion Detection and Prevention (IDP) technology
  
• Session Border Control functionality: manages VoIP and multimedia sessions to ensure quality of service and security for VoIP and multimedia applications.

“JUNOS has long been a key differentiator for Juniper, and with the Intelligent Services Edge, we are further extending our leadership by leveraging JUNOS as the foundation for many more advanced edge services such as application awareness, broadband routing, security, voice and multimedia,” said Wan Ahmad Kamal, country manager for Juniper Networks Malaysia. “Our customers will continue to benefit from the operational efficiency and simplicity of a single network operating system in additional parts of their network and, together with the Partner Solution Development Platform, can create and deploy a virtually limitless number of services on JUNOS. This will enable service providers to monetize their networks by improving service flexibility and velocity, while also delivering maximum scale to meet increasing demand for new services.”

Press Release:

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, October 22, 2008 – Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR), the leader in high-performance networking, today announced the Intelligent Services Edge, a fully integrated portfolio of new hardware and software features that address business challenges for customers building and expanding high-performance networks.

Check out the full press release.

When Vista Reaches 80% of Memory Utilization

When Windows Vista reaches 80% of memory utilization ...

It is time to restart.

My Thinkpad R60 is equipped with 2GB RAM, on average the memory utilization is 50%. It is rare to reach 80% and when it does, it is time to restart because things will start to behave in a funny manner. X-Files (You can't prove it but it happened).



One of the funny moments I had was the scroll bars started to misbehave such as the vertical bar tends to move down and stay at the bottom. The horizontal bar tends to move right and stay at the right wide.

I attribute this over memory utilization to overusing Firefox browser, such as playing games on Facebook. Firefox for one reason, seems to consume a lot of memory but very little CPU resources. This means that the program uses a lot of objects but with very efficient algorithms which can process tasks with the shortest time possible.

So, is this the best practice for software engineering ? Firefox is one of the most downloaded software application.

I Still Want to Buy iPhone

Take a look at iPhone's marketing..



and Nokia's N96 ..



I choose iPhone regardless of the price.

How come Nokia don't have budget for marketing ???

But wait, they have created another product to fight with iPhone; Touchscreen 5800.

The Call Of The Entrepreneur

EC-COUNCIL Receives NICF And CITREP Endorsement

Singapore Infocomm professionals to benefit from National Infocomm Competency Framework (NICF) and Critical Infocomm Technology Resource Program (CITREP) endorsement

SINGAPORE, October 16, 2008 – EC-Council, the worlds’ leading e-business and security certification organization, today announced that its’ Certified Ethical Hacker certification (C|EH) and Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator (C|HFI) programs have been accepted into National Infocomm Competency Framework (NICF) Infocomm professionals competency requirement list.

In addition to the inclusion, Infocomm professionals training to be certified for the EC-Council programs at NICF accredited training centers, will be entitled to receive partial funding from Critical Infocomm Technology Resource Program (CITREP) upon certification completion.

Check out the full press release.

Adobe CS4 Now Shipping & Adobe Flash Player 10 Now Available

Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced the immediate availability of the Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 product family, the highly-anticipated release of industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow.

Packed with hundreds of feature innovations, the new Creative Suite 4 product line enhances the creative process across print, web, mobile, interactive, film and video production. New Flash integration and radical workflow breakthroughs bring down the walls between designers and developers. Adobe's biggest software release to date brings to market Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design editions, Creative Suite 4 Web editions, Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, Adobe Master Collection, as well as 15 point products.

Estimated street price for the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium is RM$7,379, RM$6,969 for Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium, RMS$6,969 for Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, and RM$10,239 for Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection. Photoshop CS4 is priced at RM$2,869, Photoshop Extended CS4 at RM$4,099, Adobe InCopy CS4 at RM1,029, and InDesign CS4 at RM$2,869.

To reward customers for staying current, Adobe is offering Creative Suite 3 customers moving to Creative Suite 4 a lower upgrade price than it offers to those moving from older, qualifying versions. The CS4 Master Collection upgrade from CS3 is priced at RM$3,689, the CS4 Design Premium upgrade from CS3 at RM$2,459, the CS4 Production Premium upgrade from CS3 at RM$2,459, and the CS4 Web Premium upgrade from CS3 upgrade from CS3 at RM$2,459.

Adobe also announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Flash® Player 10 software. Interactive designers and developers can leverage the new expressive features and visual performance improvements in Flash Player 10 for unprecedented creative control to deliver the most compelling Web applications, interactive content and high quality video to users across multiple browsers and all major operating systems.

Adobe Flash Player 10 builds on the capabilities of the world’s most pervasive application runtime with new support for custom filters and effects, native 3D transformation and animation, advanced audio processing, and GPU hardware acceleration. Building on over 25 years of Adobe expertise with text, the highly flexible new text engine in Flash Player 10 provides interactive designers and developers with more text layout options and better creative control. Adobe Flash Player 10 also extends the expressive capabilities of the Adobe Creative Suite® 4 product line (also available today – see separate press release) with new levels of Adobe Flash technology integration to streamline collaboration and enhance the design/develop workflow.

Press Release:

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA –October 15, 2008 - Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of the Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 product family, the highly-anticipated release of industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow.

Check out the full press release.

Juniper Networks High-Performance Application Acceleration Platforms Win Computerworld Malaysia Readers' Choice Award

Juniper Networks, the leader in high-performance networking, today announced the Juniper Networks WXC application acceleration platform has won a Computerworld Malaysia “Readers' Choice Award" in the WAN Accelerators category.

The Award was received by Sandra Wong, Juniper Networks Distribution Manager for Asean & India; from Avanti Kumar, Deputy Editor of Computerworld Malaysia (see pic attached : photo courtesy of Computerworld Malaysia) last night at the 2008 Computerworld Readers' Choice Awards ceremony dinner in Kuala Lumpur.



Juniper's WXC application acceleration platforms help distributed enterprises accelerate application delivery over the WAN, more effectively leverage WAN investments and boost user productivity.

Press Release:

MALAYSIA – October 14, 2008 -- Juniper Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: JNPR), the leader in high-performance networking, today announced the Juniper Networks WXC application acceleration platform has won a Computerworld Malaysia “Readers' Choice Award" in the WAN Accelerators category.

Check out here for full press release.

7 Days Left to Receive USD$10 Millions from Google

The submission date for Google's Project 10^100 is on October 20th, 2008. That means there's 7 days left for us to submit our ideas for a chance to be picked to receive funding of USD$10million to turn our ideas into a reality. It's USD$10million for a good cause to help as many people as possible. What best way to celebrate their 10th birthday, by giving.

Ideas on how we can help our own communities is something quite noble, it does not have to be hi-tech or grand. Let's encourage Malaysians to submit as many ideas as possible to make the world a better place to live.

Check out the full press release.

The End of Financial Industry ?

It has been 10 years ever since the dot-com crashed. While most of those young people like me who gotten ourselves into the industry while we were in college during that period would admit that it is fate that got us this far, we are often unfazed by the fact that there were so much to lose out had we gotten ourselves into other arenas.

It is now 2008 the world is at it again, this time it is affecting the financial industry. The media has dubbed Oct 2008 as Black October and for the first time in history, we are witnessing big nations coming together trying to solve one problem, to prevent the riches from getting poorer.

Well, fair enough, everybody deserves to protect their own interests. But the problem with this financial crisis is far from beginning. In fact, not many layman would not have had any bad experiences yet so far.

The software industry is going to be affected severely, with anticipation that consumers will cut back on investments into software and even upgrades. Software companies need to plan harder now to keep-alive and cash flow is very crucial. (Well, it is for everybody).

It will be a mistake to think that software industry has immunity from the recent financial industry turmoil because there isn't much requirement for capital in the software business. Point taken, but one can't expect to sell software like selling shoes whereby a finished model is finished and the fate of the sales are in the hand of the sales and marketing department. A software, you still need to provide continuous support and that it unlimited cost. Never buy a software which doesn't have any support team, that is a waste of money.

We have to crack our head now to think about where to find cash flows. We can guess that piracy rate will rise back and free software download will increase. Perhaps, software companies can look into providing at least one service on open-source such as deployment or training. People are definitely going to love their Excel more now and they are sure going to ignore new brands and try out new things.

One thing for sure, people are going to move back to fundamentals and nevermind those add-on features which are going to make you sleep better. And this reinstates the uniqueness of iPhone whereby I guess that the sales will not be affected much for the reason that phone is a fundamental, the app store may be annoying but it is nice that it is there.

Perhaps another way to counter this is to maximize availability and affordability and trade-off profitability. Bigger companies like SAP are going to feel the pinch as well.

Software vendors are going to have to work harder because the sales will come slower and internal IT executives will have to buckle up as well because there will be lesser budget for outsourcing. And all these will give 'lifestyle' a very bad name.

In retrospect, this may create a lot of vacancies in the ICT industry where stress is, because the harsher reality from within and outside of the industry will create immense pressure for the knowledge workers, particularly those in R & D, software development, sales and marketing. Talents would be more willing to shift into less stressful jobs but equally tiring jobs such as supports, customers service, management and consulting.

This will in turn create a gap in the technology innovation area because the smaller guys can't wait for 5 years to see huge profits due to constraint budgets and bigger guys can't afford to pay employees with good pay while maintaining a pessimistic outlook. Everybody it seems, have to help the CEO to bear the burden of this reality.

This technology innovation gap will benefit the following parties:

• Very big companies like Micrsoft, Google, SAP and etc
• Gung-Ho Start-Ups who doesn't need much cash-flow to survive
• Fanatic Students who Dare to Reinvent the Wheel

As a result of this, in another 3 to 5 years, approximately at the turning point of this financial crisis (2008), we may perhaps witness the birth of another Google,Microsoft, Apple alike.

But then again, perhaps this is the time to clear out the old and let the new guys move in. Older guys are definitely going to either stay low-profile or quit the industry totally because 3, 5 or even 10 years will be just too much of a long haul. Now you have to ask yourself, are you old or new ?

Adobe Acrobat 9.0 (Data Collection Management)

Image via WikipediaAdobe Acrobat 9.0

The 'Forms' feature allows one to perform data collection by distributing data entry forms (such as registration forms) in PDF format to recipients and have the responses collected and centrally managed.

It is simple, very easy. The steps are summarized as:

1. Create new form.
   
2. Adobe LiveCycle Designer will be launched (which is the real software for this function).
   
3. Select a template
   
4. Save the form.
   
5. Distribute form to Acrobat.com
   
6. Email will be sent to recipient.
   
7. Email link will connect to Acrobat.com
   
8. But you can't fill in the form in Acrobat.com, you have to download the file and open it from local.
   
9. Track your responses. Goto 'Form/Track Forms'
   
   
   
   • Check for new responses
   • Filter responses
   • Export responses
   • Archive responses

Check out pictorial illustrations below...

Select A Template

The editor (LiveCycle Designer)

The Generated Form

Distribute Form to Acrobat.com

Recipient Access Form From Email Inbox.

Open Form from Acrobat.com

Recipient Submits Form.

Track Responses

The good thing of using 'Forms' feature in Adobe Acrobat 9 is that recipients don't need to own Acrobat software to fill up PDF forms. Or other solutions such as www.pdffiler.com

Blogging From Singapore

Image via WikipediaI am currently in Singapore now.

Of course, the first thing I have always wanted to find out is the Internet speed.

My sister-in-law told me that they are having a 10mbps 8Mbps package from Starhub, without hesistation, I hastened to check it out with Internetfrog.



It recorded an average speed of 1.5 Mbps.

So, now the question is are we expecting to get 10 Mbps 8Mbps effective speed or is it like Malaysia where by paying for 2 Mbps, you will get an average of 200 - 300 kbps? This is about 10% - 18% of the promised speed.

One good thing compared to Malaysia's Streamyx is that over here in Singapore, you will get average of 1.5 Mbps day in and out. Well of course, I have tested it out for two days only.

Of course, one big difference that I noticed is that Acrobat.com can finally load like a desktop application.

RAFFLES EDUCATION CORP COLLEGE IN COLLABORATION WITH EC-COUNCIL

SINGAPORE, October 7, 2008 – Raffles Education Corp College (REC College) today announced its collaboration with EC-Council, which will see the integration of the EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker certification (C|EH) into one of the modules of Raffles’ Advanced Diploma in InfoComm Security.

The Advanced Diploma in InfoComm Security was introduced in REC College in response to the rising rates of cyber crimes affecting organizations worldwide. The course provides students with comprehensive academic qualifications and certifications encompassing the ICT security market.

Check out the full press release.

Tech Blog Malaysia Statistics (Sep 2008)

What People Search on Tech Blog Malaysia (Sep 2008) ?

As usual, check out the analysis for 2007.

For month of Jan 2008
For month of Feb 2008
For month of Mar 2008
For month of April 2008
For month of May 2008
For month of June 2008
For month of July 2008
For month of Aug 2008

For Sep 2008, we have ...

• A company providing HAPS technology (This company is popular!)
• The brand of this blog
• Malwares and phishing
• Malaysia education initiatives
• Information regarding a top computer networking equipment company in the world
• About a high flying techno CEO in Malaysia
• About Malaysia's recent telco initiatives
• An IT company in Malaysia

Overview:

• Total monthly traffic improved by 4.78%
• Traffic from referring sites improved by 1.53%
• Google still tops contributor (67.22%). Slightly down from last month.
• Top 5 countries (Malaysia, US, UK, India, Singapore). Check out here.
  
• 85.51% of visitors are new visitors. (A 3.78% increased from last month, this is attributed to the total monthly traffic surged.)

10 Mitos Top Ten Ranking di Google & Yahoo!

Mitos seputaran SEO dari tahun ke tahun semakin menggila. Ada yang mendasarkan pada realitas di lapangan, ada juga yang mendasarkan pada perkiraan perkiraan, dikarenakan sangat sulit untuk di buktikan action SEO tertentu seperti apakah yang dapat membuat search engine bereaksi .

Ambil contoh, ketika kita melakukan suatu perubahan pada satu halaman site, kemudian dalam beberapa hari anda akan menemukan posisi rangking untuk kata kunci tertentu di Google yang telah mengalami perubahan. Anda akan mengasumsikan bahwa perubahan rangking di Google di sebabkan oleh adanya perubahan halaman tadi. Sebenarnya alas an perubahan tersebut bukanlah 100% seperti itu. Ada banyak alas an mengapa rangking anda berubah, dalam banyak kasus sebenarnya perubahan ini tidak berkaitan dengan apa yang telah anda lakukan.

Mencampur adukan antara sebab dan akibat adalah hal umum yang paling sering dilakukan para pelaku SEO baru. Jika hal seperti ini hanya diterapkan dan efeknya pada pekerjaannya sendiri tidak menjadi masalah, akan tetapi informasi tidak berdasar ini kemudian tersebar di kalangan pendatang baru (newbies) melalui forum-forum dan blog-blog, yang kemudian memunculkan mitos-mitos baru.

Berikut ini adalah 10 hal yang terkait dengan mitos organic SEO:

* Mitos 1: Anda harus mensubmit URL ke search engine. Hal ini mungkin saja dapat membantu sekali waktu, tapi trik ini sudah terlalu usang dan tidak efektif lagi, 5 atau 6 tahun lalu melakukan hal ini masih biasa dilakukan.
* Mitos 2: Anda perlu sebuah Google Sitemap. Jika sebuah website telah terbangun dengan benar atau crawler friendly, Google sitemap sangat tidak di butuhkan lagi. Akan lebih baik jika memanfaatkan Webmaster Centre Tool yang lain milik Google, dengan memiliki Google sitemap tidak akan memperbaiki posisi rangking.
* Mitos 3: Anda perlu untuk lebih sering mengupdate website. Update website yang rutin dilakukan memang dapat meningkatkan search engine crawl rate, tapi tidak akan meningkatkan/memperbaiki rangking. Jika memang website tidak perlu untuk selalu di rubah, janganlah sering-sering merubahnya hanya karena menurut anda search engine akan lebih menyukainya. Kenyataannya search engine belum tentu menyukainya, banyak website dengan rangking tinggi di Google sudah lama tidak dirubah.
* Mitos 4: Beriklan dengan PPC akan membantu atau menurunkan rangking. Sangat menggelikan mengetahui banyak orang yang tidak mau menggunakan Google AdWords karena takut akan menurunkan posisi rangking organic di Google, ada juga yang yakin jika pasang PPC dapat menaikkan rangking. Semua itu tidak ada hubungannya antara PPC dengan organic rangking.
* Mitos 5: Website anda akan di ban oleh Google jika tidak mematuhi Google guidline. Semua yang tercantum dalam Google guideline tidak satupun yang menyiratkan rahasia, semuanya informasi umum. Jika mau silahkan baca, tapi bukan berarti dengan membacanya kemudian membuat kita langsung menjadi seorang SEO enginer. Google guideline menyediakan saran-saran yang bagus.
* Mitos 6: Website anda akan di ban jika membeli link. Mitos ini tidak memiliki dasar realitas, seperti Google (terutama Matt Cutts) suka menakut-nakuti orang mengenai hal ini. Mereka tidak ingin mengikutsertakan link berbayar dalam memilih suatu page jika mereka mengetahuinya, tapi lebih seringnya mereka tidak dapat mengetahui hal ini. Jikapun hal ini diketahui mereka, mereka tidak akan diperhatikan. Sangat tidak mungkin bagi mereka melakukan ban keseluruhan website hanya karena membeli link dari site lain.
* Mitos 7: H1 (atau header tag yang lain) menentukan rangking tinggi. Sangat minim bukti jika kata kunci yang ditempatkan dalam H tag akan mempengaruhi rangking, tapi kemudian mitos ini menjadi berkembang. Tes yang saya lakukan sendiri mengenai hal ini sepertinya tidak begitu berpengaruh, memang agak sulit untuk memastikannya. Gunakan H tag ini jika sesuai dengan desain atau cms anda. Tapi masih diragukan apakah membuat perbedaan atau tidak.
* Mitos 8: Kata-kata dalam meta keyword tag harus disebarkan dalam page. Saya dulu melakukan penyebaran kata-kata di halaman. Sebenarnya Meta keyword tag didesain untuk keyword bukan untuk diletakkan di dalam page atau halaman. Jadi bukan sebaliknya. Karena google tidak akan memperhatikan tag ini dan hanya digunakan untuk kata-kata tidak umum saja di Yahoo, jadi pengaruhnya akan sangat kecil sekali.
* Mitos 9: SEO copy harus 250 kata. Sebenarnya ini cukup menarik, karena ketentuan penulisan SEO copy sepanjang 250 kata dulu dikenalkan di akhir tahun 90an. Sebenarnya angka ini hanyalah jumlah yang paling pas untuk menuliskan kata dalam halaman sebagai marketing copy. Panjang atau pendek sebenarnya tidak mempengaruhi, yang terpenting adalah gunakan sebaik mungkin kata-kata untuk menyampaikan pesan anda.
* Mitos 10: Anda perlu untuk mengoptimasi long tail. Ini sama sekali tidak perlu. Dengan kondisinya saat ini, long-tail keyword phrase sangat tidak kompetitif, dalam arti tidak banyak halaman yang menggunakan kata-kata itu, dan tidak banyak orang yang melakukan pencarian di search engine untuk kata-kata itu. Karena itulah, rangking untuk long-tail keywords sangat mudah, sertakan saja dalam blog post atau artikel , maka anda akan dapat terangking untuk itu. Tapi tidak terlalu teroptimasi.

Sebelum anda menyebarkan mitos ini atau info SEO lain yang menurut anda benar, cobalah untuk melakukan tes sebelumnya di banyak site. Mungkin akan ada beberapa yang berhasil, tapi ingat selalu bahwa sebenarnya tidak akan selalu berhasil, atau ada faktor lain yang mempengaruhi.

Namanya ajah mitos….. beda ceritanya kalau yang punya search engine saya sendiri;))

seokita.com

6 Cara Untuk Menampilkan Website Anda di Halaman Pertama Google

SEO / Belajar seo adalah cara-cara untuk membuat halaman web anda dapat di-index oleh Search Engine (SE) dan mendapatkan PageRank atau ranking halaman yang tinggi sehingga dapat tampil dihalaman awal SE tersebut ketika sebuah kata kunci (keyword) dimasukkan. Dengan kata lain, Belajar SEO atau Search Engine Optimization adalah sebuah seni dan metode untuk membuat halaman website anda “menarik” bagi search engine seperti Google dan Yahoo.

Sebagai contoh silahkan anda membuka sebuah search engine paling top saat ini di google lalu ketikkan keyword “Belajar seo” di kotak pencarian. tanpa tanda petik. Nah… hasil pencarian yang keluar adalah halaman website yang telah di-index oleh google, dan dimasukkan ke dalam database mereka.

Hasil pencarian yang muncul di halaman pertama, terutama di halaman pertama posisi 5 teratas, adalah halaman web yang dinilai oleh Google sebagai halaman website yang memiliki pagerank paling tinggi. Halaman ini juga disebut sebagai hot zone.

Sampai saat ini tidak ada orang yang tahu secara pasti apakah kriteria Google dalam menilai ranking sebuah halaman karena hal ini dirahasiakan oleh mereka, dan kriteria tersebut tampaknya selalu berubah mengikuti situasi dan kondisi yang terjadi di dunia Internet marketing.

Semua usaha untuk optimizing sebuah halaman web dilakukan berdasarkan kriteria yang pernah diterapkan oleh search engine dan dengan cara mengamati dinamika yang terjadi di dunia Internet marketing

Praktek untuk optimasi website dimulai pada pertengahan tahun 90an oleh para webmaster (pengelola website). Pada saat itu langkah yang dilakukan oleh para webmaster adalah mengirimkan atau mensubmit alamat web (URL) mereka ke Search Engine, dan kemudian SE akan mengirimkan web crawler atau spider mereka ke website tsb, menelusuri halaman demi halaman lalu mendownload halaman tersebut untuk diindex dan disimpan ke database mereka. Selanjutnya program pengindex akan mencari informasi dalam website tersebut, untuk menentukan pagerank sesuai dengan standar masing-masing search engine.

Seiring dengan meningkatnya kompetisi di dunia bisnis online, para webmaster mulai mencari cara untuk mengakali sistem dari search engine demi memenangkan persaingan memperebutkan posisi teratas di SERP (search engine result page).

Hal ini juga memaksa search engine untuk selalu memperbaiki sistem mereka dari waktu ke waktu. Search engine merancang sistem index mereka dengan dasar beberapa faktor, antara lain:

1. Nama domain
2. Judul
3. Html Tags
4. Kata kunci yang digunakan
5. Nama file image (alt attribute)
6. Frekwensi update website
7. Sitemap
8. Kepadatan kata kuci
9. Dll

Selain itu link dari web lain yang menuju website bersangkutan (inbound links) juga menjadi pertimbangan yang penting.

Untuk membuat website kita dapat segera di index oleh search engine, kita dapat melakukan langkah-langkah seperti berikut:

1. Mensubmit alamat web kita ke Google
2. Aktif di forum yang sesuai denga tema website kita (misal topik tentang belajar seo, belajar internet marketing dll), lalu membuat signature yang menunjuk ke alamat website kita. Hal ini juga berlaku untuk membuat comment di blog-blog milik orang lain dengan menyertakan alamat website di comment anda.
3. Membuat blog di blogger atau blogspot yang sesuai dengan tema website kita, lalu membuat link yang menuju website kita - blogger.com adalah salah satu jaringan blog kesayangan google, sebuah blog baru disana dalam beberapa hari sudah diindex oleh google sehingga dengan meletakkan link kita disana crawler milik Google dapat segera mengikuti dan menemukan website kita.
4. Membuat bbrp artikel pendek yang kemudian kita submit ke artcle directory, biasanya article directory menyediakan fasilitas biodata pengarang dan memperbolehkan pengarang meletakkan alamat websitenya disana, satu lagi link mengarah ke website kita.
5. Selalu mengupdate website kita, minimal seminggu 2 kali, Google spider sangat menyukai website yang dinamis sehingga mereka akan sering berkunjung ke web anda.
6. Mengajak pemilik website lain dengan tema yang sama untuk saling bertukar link/banner.

Dalam Belajar SEO banyak sekali hal yang harus diperhatikan sehingga sulit untuk membuat sebuah web yang langsung sempurna SEO-nya, dengan kata lain optimasi sebuah website dilakukan secara gradual dan terus menerus berubah. Langkah-langkah diatas adalah langkah minimal yang bisa kita lakukan sembari kita terus belajar dan menambahkan optimasi secara perlahan sampai website kita benar-benar “optimized”

caksub.com
marketing-watch.com/blog

Agar Diterima Submit Website Di DMOZ.ORG

Untuk meningkatkan pengunjung website, kita perlu menambah website lain yang menampilkan link ke website kita. Salah satu cara yang paling mudah adalah dengan submit website kita ke web directory yang menawarkan free submmit. Salah satu directory yang sangat bagus dan terkenal adalah DMOZ.ORG.

DMOZ merupakan sebuah web directory yang mengAndalakan tenaga manusia untuk meriview semua website yang yang masuk, jadi kualitasnya terjaga. DMOZ juga digunakan oleh Google untuk membuat Google Directory. Struktur dan daftar website di Google Directory sama dengan yang di DMOZ. Oleh karena itu jika Anda mempunyai website jangan sampai tidak submit ke DMOZ.

Agar diterima di DMOZ tidak mudah, tidak sembarang website bisa masuk. Website yang berisi banyak iklan pornografi, pasti langsung di tendang ! Supaya bisa diterima di DMOZ, saya punya beberapa tips.

Tips supaya bisa di terima submit di DMOZ :

1. Jangan pasang iklan dan Affiliate program pada website Anda, termasuk Google Adsense. Anda bisa memasang iklan setelah diterima di DMOZ.
2. Buatlah content website Anda sebagus mungkin. Janggan su bmit website yang baru jadi dan isinya masih minim. Sebelum submit ke DMOZ isi website Anda dengan artikel-artikel berkualitas dan original untuk meningkan kualitas website Anda.
3. Fokuskan bahasa. Jika nantinya website Anda menggunkan bahasa campuran9Indonesia & Inggris), saya sarankan foukuskan dulu ke satu bahasa dulu. Dengan memfokuskan ke satu bahasa akan memudahkan Anda dan editor DMOZ memasukan website Anda ke direktori Indonesia atau Inggris. Perlu diingat meskipun saat submit Anda memilih kategori berbahasa Inggris, editor DMOZ kwmungkinan akan memindahkan website Anda ke direktori Indonesia jika website Anda berbahsa Indonesia.

Pengaruh bahasa ke depannya.
Pengaruh diterimanya website Anda pada direktori Indonesia atau Inggris sangat berngaruh pada target pengunjung website Anda, terutama pengunjung dari Google.

1. Website Anda akan dikategorikan website berbahasa Indonesia oleh Google, oleh karena itu website Anda akan mendapatkan priotrikan lebih baik pada hasil pencarian yang dilkaukan melalui www.google.co.id tetapi tidak di www.google.com.
2. Jika website Anda nantinya akan di pasang Google Adsense, saya sarankan website Anda menggunkan bahasa Inggris supaya Adsensenya bisa muncul.

Untuk diterima di DMOZ tidak secepat dan semudah yang Anda banyangkan, Anda harus menunggu anatara 3 sampai 6 bulan ! DMOZjuga tidak akan memberitahu apakah website Anda diterima atau di tolak. Jika website Anda bisa diterima di DMOZ, makaa Anda pasti sangat sangat beruntung sekali !

ismartshare.com

Istilah dalam Program Affiliasi

Dalam menekuni bisnis internet marketing, atau cari duit melalui internet, kita akan banyak menemui istilah (dalam Bahasa Inggris) yang perlu dipahami terlebih dahulu. Istilah-istilah ini akan sering muncul apabila kita hendak menjalankan program affiliasi.

Dibawah ini akan dijelaskan pengertian dari istilah yang paling sering ditemui.

Advertiser - Ini adalah rantai awal sebagai sumber pendanaan usaha periklanan di internet. Bisa berupa perusahaan yang menjual produk, jasa atau bahkan website.

Affiliate - Seseorang atau sebuah website berupa tempat dimana pengguna datang dan melihat tampilan iklan. Lihat juga pengertian Web Publisher.

Affiliate Marketing – Berperan sebagai perwakilan untuk menciptakan/menghasilkan tindakan tertentu bagi website lain. Sebuah web publisher biasanya dianggap sebagai sebuah affiliate dari Advertiser (Pengiklan). Tindakan yang tercipta bisa berupa mengirimkan pengunjung ke sebuah website lain, hingga terciptanya transaksi penjualan pada sebuah website. Salah satu penemu program affiliate marketing adalah Commission Junction, dimana advertiser dan publisher bertemu sehingga tercipta platform untuk berinteraksi diantara mereka. Kebanyakan interaksi dan peluang yang tercipta antara advertiser dengan publisher berbasis CPA.

Autoresponder - Autoresponder adalah sepotong software yang secara otomatis membalas sebuah pesan email dengan cara mengirim surat balasan yang telah tersedia dan telah disusun mengandung gambar, teks, file PDF, dll. Aweber dan GetResponse adalah contoh penyedia jasa autoresponder terbaik saat ini.

Banner (ad) - Banner adalah iklan grafis, umumnya berukuran 468×60 pixel (namun saat ini sudah banyak ditemukan banner yang tidak berukuran standard). Sebenarnya banner adalah bentuk awal advertising web yang sampai saat ini masih digunakan oleh website, meskipun akhir-akhir ini popularitasnya sudah mulai menurun, dan telah banyak digantikan oleh bentuk advertising lain seperti text ads dan iklan yang disamarkan kedalam konten yang terbukti sangat ampuh meningkatkan CTR (Click Through Rate).

Click Through Rate/Ratio (CTR) - Sebuah angka perhitungan yang didefinisikan sebagai jumlah klik dibagi dengan tampilan (impressions), biasanya berupa persentase, untuk menciptakan “click-through” ( “membujuk” seorang pengunjung untuk mengklik link yang disediakan oleh pemasang iklan). Dengan kata lain, bila dibutuhkan 20 tampilan (impression) iklan untuk menghasilkan satu click-through, maka CTR adalah 5%.

Conversion - Ini adalah istilah menujukkan jumlah pengunjung (user) website yang melakukan aksi/tindakan yang disyaratkan dalam CPA.

Conversion Rate - Sebuah angka perhitungan yang didefinisikan sebagai jumlah conversion dibagi dengan jumlah tampilan (impressions). Biasanya berupa persentase.

Cookie - Sebuah program kecil yang diberikan oleh website publisher ke komputer pengunjung (user) untuk memonitor tindakan yang diambil user tersebut, sebagai dasar catatan dan perhitungan dalam proses periklanan internet.

Cost Per Action (CPA) – Biaya yang dibayarkan oleh Advertiser apabila sebuah aksi/tindakan yang sebelumnya disepakati, terjadi. Tergantung bentuk aksi/tindakan yang disepakati, resiko paling besar ditanggung oleh Publisher dan resiko paling kecil ditanggung oleh Advertiser (karena Advertiser tahu persis apa yang akan dibayar dan hanya akan membayar untuk aksi/tindakan tertentu saja).

Cost Per Click (CPC) - Advertisers akan melakukan pembayaran apabila seorang pengunjung meng-klik sebuah iklan. Iklan berbasis CPC memberi beban resiko pada Publisher, karena mereka akan dibayar hanya apabila pengunjung mereka meng-klik iklan. Satu publisher bisa saja menghasilkan jutaan impressions (tampilan iklan) tanpa menghasilkan apapun bila pengunjung tidak meng-klik iklan di website mereka. Beberapa program iklan berbasis CPC yang baik adalah Google Adsense, Bidvertiser dan Adbrite. CPC dimaksudkan sebagai harga/biaya yang timbul apabila seorang mengklik sebuah iklan (banner, text atau bentuk iklan lain) dan beralih ke situs lain melalui sebuah link. Sebuah program affiliasi memberi bayaran yang kecil untuk setiap click-throuh yang mengirimkan pengunjung ke situs tujuan melalui sebuah link affiliasi.

Cost Per Lead (CPL) - Dimasukkan sebagai bagian dari CPA, dimana aksi/tindakan yang dilakukan pengunjung berupa mengisi formulir isian, mendownload sesuatu atau memasang program trial. Publisher dibayar apabila pengunjung yang dikirim melakukan tindakan diatas. Lihat definisi CPA.

Cost Per Thousand (CPM) - M itu berasal dari huruf Romawi untuk angka 1000. Ini adalah bentuk paling mendasar untuk mengukur tampilan iklan internet, yaitu harga untuk menampilkan 1000 iklan bentuk apapun (banner, text atau bentuk lain yang bisa ditelusuri). Pengiklan membeli impresi (tampilan) dari penerbit (publisher) dan membayar berdasarkan “per seribu” tampilan. Misalnya, seorang pengiklan membeli 1.000.000 tampilan iklan pada harga $10 CPM, maka jumlah pembelian adalah $10.000. Program CPM adalah cara beriklan paling menguntungkan bagi publisher karena tidak ada resiko; dimana resiko berada pada pihak advertiser (mereka membayar tanpa memandang apakah pengunjung melakukan tindakan tertentu atau tidak). Biasanya CPM ini dipakai publisher untuk mengukur mana yang paling menguntungkan dari dua affiliate program.

Cost Per Sale (CPS) - Lihat definisi CPA. Dimana publisher akan mendapat bayaran berupa komisi atas pembelian yang dilakukan oleh pengunjung yang kita kirim ke advertiser. Bisa berupa nilai nominal uang atau persentase dari nilai transaksi pembelian.

EPC - EPC adalah singkatan dari Earnings Per (100) Clicks. Masing-masing program affiliasi memiliki pengertian yang berbeda tentang EPC. Misalnya, Commission Junction mengartikan EPC sebagai “average per SERATUS click”, sementara network lain mengartikannya sebagai “average earnings per SATU click”. Mohon agar dipastikan benar sebelum mengikuti program affiliasi tertentu. EPC dapat dihitung dengan membagi komisi yang didapat dengan jumlah klik yang diperlukan untuk menghasilkan komisi tersebut. Untuk lebih pastinya anda dapat melakukan perhitungan disini.

FAQ - Adalah singkatan dari Frequently Asked Questions. Biasanya disedikan oleh sebuah website untuk mengantisipasi pertanyaan paling sering diajukan beserta dengan jawaban untuk pertanyaan tersebut. Biasanya FAQ berisi informasi yang berhubungan dengan problem-solving dan informasi lebih lanjut.

Hit - Ini adalah istilah yang paling sering disalah-mengerti dalam pengukuran web traffic. Sebuah “hit” tercatat setiap web browser membuat request untuk sebuah informasi, misalnya code HTML yang membentuk web tersebut atau grafik yang ada pada web tersebut. Sebuah hit dicatat untuk setiap elemen yang ada pada sebuah laman, misalnya akan tercatat 31 hit saat SEKALI me-loading laman yang mengandung 30 grafik (HTML + 30 element grafik= 31 hit). Hit adalah cara pengukuran yang selalu didengungkan untuk membuat sebuah web site terdengar “menakjubkan”. (misalnya, “Our new site got a million hits last month!” - dimana mereka tidak mencantumkan bahwa tiap laman website tersebut mengandung 100 grafik!)

Impression – Tindakan menampilkan sebuah iklan kepada seorang pengunjung website. Satu halaman website bisa saja mengandung beberapa impression (apabila halaman tersebut memiliki lebih dari satu unit iklan).

Merchant - Perusahaan atau organisasi yang berada pada sisi pembayar dalam hubungan affiliasi. Biasanya merchant adalah sebuah situs e-commerce yang memberi kompensasi bagi affiliatenya karena membawa pelanggan kepada mereka, namun dari segi pandang program affiliasi bentuk situs lain juga dapat dianggap sebagai “merchant”. Misalnya, perusahaan yang membayar untuk setiap pengunjung yang berlangganan free newsletter juga diperhitungkan sebagai “affiliate merchant” meskipun mereka tidak menjual produk.

Monetization - Jumlah pendapatan yang dihasilkan oleh sebuah website atau laman web.

Opt-in - Opt-in adalah metode atas kesadaran sendiri untuk mendaftarkan seseorang untuk berlangganan newsletter atau mailing list. Dengan kata lain, seseorang harus secara aktif “memilih” untuk bergabung dalam mailing list dengan memasukkan alamat email mereka dalam formulir pendaftaran. Biasanya upaya membuat Opt-in mailing list disebut sebagai “permission marketing”.

Opt-out - Sebagai bentuk kebalikan dari Opt-in, Opt-out adalah metode untuk mendaftarkan seseorang untuk berlangganan newsletter atau mailing list bukan atas kesadaran sendiri. Perbedaan mendasar antara mailing list dan Opt-out adalah bahwa seseorang harus menyatakan “Saya ingin BERGABUNG” untuk masuk dalam mailing list Opt-in, namun mereka dimasukkan kedalam mailing list Opt-out tanpa atas kesadaran mereka, dan mereka harus menyatakan “Saya ingin KELUAR” agar mereka dikeluarkan dari daftar mailing list. Biasanya kita dimasukkan dalam mailing list Opt-out bila kita membeli sebuah produk (”Mereka telah membeli produk kami, maka mereka ingin bergabung dalam mailing list kami”).

Pageview – Jumlah halaman yang dilihat oleh seorang pengunjung saat berada pada sebuah website.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Ini adalah tindakan membeli keyword (kata kunci) dari mesin pencari seperti Google atau Yahoo!. Pengiklan membayar dengan imbalan mereka akan mendapatkan posisi tinggi dalam hasil pencarian mesin pencari.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Ini adalah tindakan yang diambil untuk mengoptimalkan sebuah website untuk kata kunci (keyword) tertentu, sehingga apabila seorang pengunjung mencari melalui mesin pencari, maka website tersebut akan berada paling dalam daftar hasil pencarian.

Traffic Exchange – Dapat berupa pertukaran traffic di Internet termasuk pertukaran link (link exchange), pertukaran iklan (banner exchange), pertukaran foto, dan lain-lain. Prinsip dasarnya adalah anda mengirimkan seorang pengunjung ke website lain dengan imbalan kelak akan menerima kiriman pengunjung dari website tersebut. Bila anda bisa mengendalikan kapan seorang pengunjung berpindah dari website anda, pertukaran traffic akan menjadi alat yang ampuh. Saat mengikuti pertukaran traffic, waspada selalu karena banyak penyedia pertukaran traffic yang tidak jujur.

Two-tier program - Two-tier affiliate program menghargai affiliatenya dalam dua level, untuk dua jenis tindakan. Tier pertama menggunakan hubungan merchant-affiliate standar, yakni affiliate dibayar oleh karena memberi aksi berupa lead atau penjualan, dan Tier kedua memberi insentif bagi affiliate yang membawa affiliate lain bergabung dalam program mereka. Insentif yang diberikan kepada affiliate yang membawa affiliate baru adalah berupa persentase dari pendapatan affiliate baru tersebut. Kadang-kadang metode ini sering dianggap sebagai multi-level-marketing.

Web Publisher - Lebih umum dikenal sebagai website, ini adalah tempat dimana pengguna atau pengunjung datang dan melihat tampilan iklan.

semuaorank.com

Tip Pencarian secara Efektif di Google

Anda terbiasa melakukan pencarian melalui search engine Google hanya dengan teknik input kata/frase dan klik Search ? Tahukan Anda Google menyediakan berbagai teknik pencarian untuk mendapatkan hasil yang optimal. Berikut beberapa teknik pengetikan frase pencarian di Google dan manfaat yang dapat Anda peroleh :

* define:istilah : untuk menemukan daftar arti atau definisi sebuah istilah. Misalnya ketikkan define:blog untuk mencari definisi tentang blog.
* n1+n2 : untuk melakukan operasi perhitungan, n adalah nilai angka perhitungan. Gunakan + untuk penjumlahan, - untuk pengurangan, * untuk perkalian, / untuk pembagian, ^ untuk pemangkatan, dan seterusnya (daftar operator selengkapnya periksa di http://www.google.com/help/calculator.html). Anda juga dapat melakukan perhitungan secara kompleks, misalnya ketikkan 2*100/4, maka Google akan menampilkan 50 sebagai hasilnya.
* frase_pencarian filetype:ext : untuk membatasi hasil pencarian hanya pada tipe file terkait. Misalnya ketikkan tutorial presentasi filetype:pdf untuk mencari tutorial presentasi dalam format file PDF. Cobalah ulangi pencarian dengan ekstensi file lain untuk melihat perbedaannya (misalnya xls atau doc).
* n mata_uang1 in mata_uang2 : untuk mengonversi kurs mata uang. Misalnya ketikkan 10 USD in IDR atau 10 US$ in rupiah untuk menghitung nilai kurs 10 dolar Amerika (USD) dalam Rupiah (IDR).
* books tema buku : untuk menemukan link situs-situs yang menyajikan informasi buku dengan tema terkait. Misalnya ketikkan books cara merakit pc untuk mendapatkan info buku tentang cara merakit pc.
* movie:frase_pencarian : untuk mencari resensi film. Misalnya ketikkan movie:cinta, maka akan muncul daftar resensi film yang berjudul atau terkait dengan cinta (aktor, lokasi, dan sebagainya).
* site:situs.com : untuk menampilkan daftar seluruh halaman web sebuah situs yang diindeks oleh Google. Misalnya ketikkan site:smitdev.com untuk melihat daftar halaman web smitdev.
* link:situs.com : untuk memeriksa daftar situs yang merujukkan link ke situs yang dicari. Misalnya ketikkan link:smitdev.blogspot.com untuk melihat daftar situs yang merujuk ke blog SmitDev.

smitdev.com

Why is the Japanese not able to keep up with iPod ?

To cut things short, portable music was invented by Sony and the most famous brand is called the Walkman. Personally, I had a few walkmans in my life. In fact I could remember that I bought my last Japanese stereo cassette recorder by Aiwa before iPod surfaced in the market, that was probably 8 years ago. It is still with me, sitting there doing nothing.



Walkman was cool, everybody wanted a piece of it.

Ever since Steve Job swept us away with iPod, we have almost forgotten about where we come from.

Anyway, it was intriguing for me to want to figure out furthur while I was planning ahead of my venture into the software industry; I have to think about how others have come and evolved and try to figure out the best piece out of it.

So, the obvious question is why didn't the Japs carry on their legacy of the Portable Stereo Radio Cassette Player Cum Recorder into the next renaissance which is what iPod, The Zune, Creative Zen and others are doing right now ???

Big questions. The Japs are smart guys right ?

Some claimed that it is due to the Japanese culture where motivations are driven by external factors while some think that Japs are not as good an innovator than the Americans. Well, it holds weight in both cases as is visible these days, the Japs seem to be losing out in the consumer eletronic markets. I suppose that they are still doing well in the automotive market.

The breakthrough of the answer came from Steve Jobs himself. In the not-so-recent joint interview between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (on All Things Digital), Steve mentioned that it is due to one reason; software.

So, the Japs can't write software ? Impossible, I can write software.

As I was thinking it through, it came to me naturally as a concept which I already knew.

The question is actually, what type of software ? (Software is a big word)

The answer is software technology.

Japanese don't have software technology, of course, they can write software as much as many Malaysians, but do we have software technology ?

Software technology doesn't just mean the SDK. It can be said to be a platform, but more precisely, it is the operating system for consumer market. You see, the consumer computing world only has basically three types of operating systems, that is Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Nevermind those for enterprise and industry specific such as military, satellites, telecommunications and etc.

Mac OS was literally Unix initially, its ancestor was NextStep, an operating system developed by the company Steve Job founded after he got kicked out from Apple Inc. Nextstep is what Mac OS X is today and I assume that most of the core team members of Mac OS X are from Next. So, the journey of these great Apple products was almost way back 20 years ago. Even Google hasn't got an operating system yet, why ? Because it takes time to build.

So, to build a new operating system or so-called platform is not easy, you got to wait 20 years to see the results. The Japs knew they don't have the luxury of such time.

And worst still, as much as they want to feel proud about themselves for having created the portable music industry, they wouldn't want to adopt other people's technology. Because if you are going to use some sort of Microsoft technology such as Windows Mobile to build a device, then it is a Microsoft technology. This is also the reason why Google are pretty much open source based, they are very much into Python and Java because they don't want to be associated with Microsoft. I mean, you can't claim to be competing against Microsoft when you are using Microsoft technology right ?

But why not Symbian platform ? The Symbian is an open platform for mobile devices and I guess that it is owned by The Symbian Foundation.

Perhaps back in 2001, when iPod was firstly launched, the Symbian platform was not yet having enough APIs for multimedia. I am certain that even if Sony were to adopt Symbian to compete with iPod in 2001, it may not work out that well (because Symbian couldn't match the richness of Mac OS). Now, perhaps so but it could have been too late. And according to this link, Creative Zen was evolved from OASiS operating system developed in India.

But it is interesting to see how Android-phone ever got into the industry, it is actually an effort by Google to build another platform for the mobile industry.

So the conclusion is that for the mobile devices industry which includes mobile phone, PDA, music players and mini computers, we can say that there are just four platforms.

1. Apple's iPod and iPhone
   
2. Microsoft's Windows Mobile
   
3. Symbian & Java (Sony, Samsung, Nokia, LG and etc)
4. Google's Android
   

So, you think Microsoft is going to close down soon ? I don't think so for the next century.

Having thought this through gives me a better perspective of how I should move ahead.

I haven't got an iPod but I suspect so soon, either iPhone or iPod.

And one last thing...

If you look inside the Walkman device, it is clearly apparent that it is so limited. The functions are limited to Play, Rec, Stop, FF, REW, Radio and etc and that is about it.





The next big platform is going to be The Cloud, but in case Google can figure a way to own it in one way or another, we still need a device, at least a mobile phone to connect to The Cloud. Once again, even if you can create a device out of some capacitors, transistors and integrated circuits, you still need a software technology right ?

Interestingly, Google was also launched in year 2001. Wow! What a year. And and and, I remember that moment, in 2001, I was a second year student in APIIT, and I remember that out of a sudden of using Yahoo and Alta Vista, all the lab computers' homepage been changed to this plain page of www.google.com.

Also, one more last thing.... I think this blog will be useful to help us, especially Malaysian technopreneurs to figure out where exactly we want to be, given that it is quite possibly impractical to establish pioneering initiatives in the mainstream computing industry. It is also a good reference for us to figure out where things are headed to and just where we want to fit in, how big the cake is and how much time do we have to make that happen before it is too late.

Malaysians also have to think about not only the fact that you can do things, imagine that even you have PhD in some specialize areas (or common areas) and you can do wonderful things, but can you do things which are totally new; totally pioneering ? There is no point to hoo-hah on having the ability to do something which have already been done and is patented. This is what I learned from Americans.