Million Dollar Pages of Knowledge

Employees Termination WorldWide!

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 07:20:00 +0000

HSBC: 500 jobs

HSBC Holdings PLC , Europe's largest bank (when market value is considered) , plans to cut 500 jobs in Asia due to the global economic slump , says wire service Associated Press. The cuts will be made in various parts of the business, including back office functions, with about 450 jobs in Hong Kong to be shed, the London-based lender announced to employees on November 17. In September, the bank announced 1,100 job cuts worldwide in the wake of the financial turmoil. HSBC has been hit hard by the financial crisis. The bank was forced to reduce the value of its assets by $4.9 billion in the third quarter, as the cost of bad loans in the US continued to mount and the credit market faltered.

Citigroup: 52,000 jobs

Citigroup has announced it will cut more than 52,000 jobs in the coming months and reduce expenses by 20 per cent in 2009. It said it intends to reduce the total head count to less than 300 , 000 soon. In terms of expenses , the financial services major aims to save $ 50-52 billion in 2009. These cuts are expected to have a 'limited' impact on its India staff strength. Citigroup has about 22 , 000 employees currently working in India . Of which, 12,000 work for Citigroup Global Services Ltd. Citigroup had a workforce of 352,000 in the third quarter of 2008. In the same quarter , it reported a loss of $ 2.8 billion. In the first three quarters of 2008, Citigroup has reduced its workforce by about 23,000 persons.

Fidelity Investments: 3,000 and counting

Leading fund house Fidelity Investments will cut about 1,300 jobs later this month, followed by another 1,700 jobs in the first quarter next year. This means Fidelity is looking at reducing its 44,400 employee-strong workforce by about 7 per cent. Fidelity Investments, which managed assets worth $ 3 trillion as on September 30, 2008, has seen its assets decline sharply following the meltdown in the stock markets.

Royal Bank of Scotland : 3,000 jobs

The Royal Bank of Scotland will cut about 3,000 jobs in the next few weeks. 'The positions will go in its global banking and markets workforce, spanning more than 50 countries. Jobs are likely to go in the City of London , 'said a BBC report. The bank has about 170,000 employees, of which about 100,000 are in the UK .

Sun Microsystems: 6,000 jobs

Sun Microsystems has said it is eliminating 6,000 jobs or 18 per cent of its global work force. It expects to reduce its costs by $375-450 million in the current fiscal. Sun Microsystems is also reorganizing its software organization into new business groups. Besides, it will implement a restructuring plan aimed at reducing costs by approximately $700 to $800 million annually.

United States Steel Corp: 675 jobs

United States Steel Corp has laid off about 3 per cent of its production workers in North America as the global economic slowdown cut into the demand for steel used in construction, autos and appliances. The layoffs, effective immediately, include 500 employees in the US and 175 in Canada

British Telecom: 10,000 jobs and counting

UK-based telecom major British Telecom will cut 10,000 jobs by March 2009. About 4, 000 of the job losses will be direct BT staff, the remaining 6,000 will be from related employees. The cuts will mainly affect agency and contract staff and offshore workers, the company said, but sub-contractors and other indirect employees would also lose their jobs. BT has also said its India operations won't be affected. The move to cut jobs comes after the company posted an 11 per cent decline in pre-tax profits at pound 590 million for the September quarter. A report in The Telegraph said, 'BT has cut its headcount from 250,000 at privatization in 1984 to 160 , 000 today and indicated there is scope for more job losses. The company said 4,000 employees have already left the business this financial year and a further 6,000, mostly in the UK , will go by the end of March.' BT has a global workforce of 160,000.

Morgan Stanley: 19 per cent of its staff

Morgan Stanley has outlined plans to cut 10 per cent of its staff by the end of the year. The layoffs follow a 10 per cent cut made earlier this year. Morgan Stanley also plans to restructure its money management business by cutting 9 per cent of its staff. It was not immediately clear how many positions will ultimately be eliminated from the company's total ranks of about 44,000 employees.

Virgin Media: 2,200 jobs

The Virgin Media cable group will be slashing 2,200 jobs, or 15 per cent of its workforce, by 2012. This will result in annual cost savings of more than pound 120 million by 2012. The group said it would not start cutting jobs until the fourth quarter of next year, with the majority of the role reductions taking place before the end of 2010. It also said the cuts were not related to the strained economic environment. Virgin Media was formed through the merger of Telewest and ntl in 2006; Virgin Mobile was later acquired by it. The group has already reduced 4,000 staff jobs after the ntl and Telewest deal.

Yell Group: 1,300 jobs

Yell Group, the publisher of the Yellow Pages in the UK , is planning to cut 1,300 jobs over the coming year , which is expected to reduce costs by pound 100 million. The company has already cut 1,300 jobs since September last year, resulting in a saving of pound 150 million.

Nokia Siemens Networks: 1,820 jobs

Telecommunications solution provider Nokia Siemens Networks said it will slash around 1,800 jobs as part of its restructuring efforts. The company is a 50:50 joint venture of Finnish cell phone maker Nokia and German firm Siemens. Nokia Siemens plans to cut about 750 jobs in Finland . It will also close its Hofmannstrasse site in Munich , Germany , which will affect nearly 500 employees. The company separately announced an agreement whereby its manufacturing site in Durach , Germany , will be purchased in a management buy-out. 'That agreement will result in the transfer of around 500 employees. At the completion of the planned headcount restructuring and employee transfer activities, Nokia Siemens Networks expects to have in the range of 10 , 000 employees in Germany , from an initial base of approximately 13,000, 'the statement noted. In addition, the company has planned reduction of headcount by about 50 in Egypt and by 20 in the United States .

Volvo AB : 1,000 jobs and counting

Swedish truck and bus maker Volvo AB has said it will lay off 1 , 000 staff at its powertrain unit in Sweden and the United States as the global financial crisis continues to affect the demand for heavy vehicles. He said a number of consultants in Sweden could also receive notices. The Volvo group has previously announced layoffs of 2,000 workers at their truck plants in Belgium and Sweden and 1,350 workers at its construction unit. It has more than 100,000 employees worldwide, including its subsidiaries Renault Trucks, Mack Trucks and Nissan Diesel.

DHL US Express: 9,500 jobs

German logistics giant Deutsche Post AG announced it would slash 9,500 jobs at its DHL US Express business and shut all service centres following the economic downturn. This is in addition to the 5 , 400-odd positions already reduced since the beginning of the year. DHL US Express will also close all ground hubs and reduce the number of stations from 412 to 103, said a company statement. As a result, its annual operating costs are expected to reduce to less than euro 770 million from the present euro 4.2 billion. The US international express network, with a total of 3,000 to 4,000 employees, will be re-tailored to the needs of the group's international express service customers.

Nortel Networks Corporation: 1,300 jobs

Global telecom equipment vendor Nortel Networks Corporation, which reported a net loss of $3.4 billion on November 10, said it will slash about 1,300 jobs as part of its cost cutting measures for 2009. The firm had a net income of $ 27 million in the same period a year ago. Nearly 25 per cent of the reduction would take place this year and the rest in 2009.

General Motors Corp: 3,600 jobs

General Motors Corp, which plans to slow down production at 10 of its assembly plans, says it will indefinitely lay off about 3,600 workers.

To cope with the shrinking market demand, General Motors is also planning to reduce inventory though production line re-rates.

EW Scripps Co: 400 jobs

Faced with a 20 per cent drop in advertising revenue, US media company EW Scripps Co has announced it would cut 400 jobs. Scripps also reported a Q3 loss of $21 million; in the same quarter the previous year, it registered a profit of $16.6 million. The Ohio-based company owns 10 television stations and newspapers in 15 US markets.

Scripps also hosts the National Spelling Bee, which is in its 78th year.

Ford Motor Company: 2,600 jobs

Battling a net loss of $129 mn million in its third quarter, US car maker Ford Motor Company has introduced cost cutting measures including 2,600 job cuts. According to a company statement, it is also planning an additional 10 per cent reduction in North American salaried personnel related costs. Earlier this year, Ford had sold its two iconic brands, Jaguar and Land Rover, to Tata Motors for $2.3 billion.

Volvo: 6,000 jobs

As part of its restructuring plans, Volvo, a Ford unit, plans to cut 6,000 jobs -- including 1,200 agency employees -- worldwide.

Corus: 400 jobs

British steel giant Corus, now part of Indian conglomerate Tata Steel, will cut 400 jobs in its distribution business. A company spokesperson said Corus would consult its workers and have as many voluntary redundancies as possible. He added that the decision had to be taken because of a steep slump in the demand for steel and softening global prices. Corus's distribution business employs nearly 2,400 people at 36 sites in the UK and Ireland .

American Express: 7,000 jobs

In order to slash costs by $1.8 billion in 2009, US credit card group American Express will lay off 7,000 of its employees, amounting to around 10 per cent of its worldwide workforce. The company is also planning to suspend management salary increases, put a freeze on new hires, slash investment spending and cut expenses for consulting, travel and entertainment.

Bank of America : 7,500 jobs and counting

Bank of America has said it will eliminate 7,500 jobs after buying Countrywide.

Thousands of more job cuts are likely as the bank integrates its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

Development Bank of Singapore Group: 900 jobs

Even the Development Bank of Singapore Group -- Southeast Asia 's biggest bank when one looks at assets -- has not escaped the mayhem. It has reduced its staff strength by 900 employees in its battle to survive the global credit crisis and a 38 per cent slump in third quarter net profit. The cuts will affect its offices in Singapore and Hong Kong

Mattel Inc: 1,000 jobs

The makers of Barbie and Fisher Price products have not escaped the economic crisis either. Toy maker Mattel Inc has announced it will cutting about 1,000 jobs worldwide. The cuts, which will affect 3 per cent its workforce and 8 per cent of its professional and management staff, will include a combination of layoffs, attrition and retirements.

New York City : 3,000 jobs

The economic downturn has hit New York City hard , with Mayor Michael R Bloomberg announcing the laying off 3,000 employees, cutting expenditure on several other fronts, rescinding a popular 7 per cent property tax cut and suspending checks for annual property tax rebates. These measures will save some $ 1.5 billion but the city will still be in the red.

AMD: 500 jobs

California-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc says it is cutting 500 workers, or 3 per cent of its global staff, in its quest to return to profitability. The struggling chip maker has been facing problems -- caused by product delays and a costly acquisition -- even before the financial tsunami swamped the globe.

Ways in which organizations balance power in favour of men by Sandi Mann

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:04:00 +0000

Some ways in which organizations balance power in favour of men are described below:

Encouraging workers to spend long days at the office, making it difficult for women who have family commitments.
Scheduling meetings at inaccessible times, for example breakfast – this may be difficult for women with families.
Discriminating against women in selection; this creates and enforces a male majority. According to Kottis (1993), those who run large organizations have a tendency to support and promote people who resemble themselves. Moreover, although men may not admit it, their views about women’s attributes, capabilities, roles and aspirations may be outdated.
Talking about matters which the woman cannot easily share in, for example football. The male majority bias mentioned above favours this.
Using derogatory language or jokes – again more pronounced with a male majority.
Holding “informal” meetings or conversation in locations inaccessible to women, e.g. toilets, private clubs.
Having inadequate or no child-care facilities.
Having a poor policy on women returnees, e.g. by demoting them.
Insistence on social participation, e.g. in maintaining networks through mixing socially, staying out late for a drink or playing sport.
Maintaining the status quo through internal promotion; if the workforce is already male dominated, this bias is reinforced.

Do you face this problems at work? How did you deal with it?

Smart Page Ranking

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:10:00 +0000

I came across a pretty cool site that help us check everything at one go.

Smart Page Rank

Go check it out and find out how it analyze your blog from all sites.

7 Signs That Your Blog Is On The Right Track

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:06:00 +0000

Building a solid and effective blog is frustrating and that take hard work to build it. I have been working on building a solid foundation on the blog however with other daily errands I have has made me slow down my activity in this blog. Thus, it make me think like I am getting nowhere. I bet that most of you felt the same way too, at some point of your blogging life. I am wondering whether I am at the right track, or not. Is there any progress?

So, I've started evaluating my blog.

[1] Did my subscriber count increased?

Since I’ve started, yes, I have found it did increased and stop when I slow down. I did see some progress there. Gaining the trust of subscribers is not easy as you need to stay consistent with your blogging.

[2] Did my inbound linking increased?

Links are very important which may help in gaining traffics however, my linking slowed down when I didn’t blog consistently.

[3] Did the numbers of comments increased?

Well it did. However, once I have slowed down again, I could not attract more commenters to participate in the post.

[4] Any increased of page views or page per visit?

Yes, I can see that from my Google Analytics and noticed that readers are very interested in the HOW TO and widgets posts.

[5] Am I consistent in posting?

If you are posting consistently then that will be a major effect in the blog. It may sound easy but to post something unique and informative daily is not an easy job to do. *that reminds me to pick up my consistency once again*

[6] Did I improve my articles quality?

Yes, I would say thorough the time I learn to blog, I have found ways to find more informative post to share it with the readers. Although when I look at my first few posts I am kind of embarrassed by the quality however I know I am not alone. Growth in quality takes time when you are used to blogging for informative topics and learn how to write in general. Don’t sweat, it takes more experience in blogging to be good in quality post.

[7] Did I increase my network of bloggers?

As all bloggers know that networking is significant to gain loyal readers, inbound links and much more. In a way, I am still striving hard in networking areas. I bet most of us out there are trying hard on this as well, spending a lot of time networking here and there, don’t we?

Alexa's Global Top Sites

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:45:00 +0000

Check out Global Topsite from Alexa

Click to enlarge

Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul Affair

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:22:00 +0000

I didn't know they were ...

And, she FARTS???

6 ways to improve your reader’s experience

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:39:00 +0000

Building a site is not all about building a good looking theme only but building a site means getting your readers coming back and influenced by your site’s user experiences. Your site should be easily navigated whenever visitors come to your site, thus easier for them to look for something they want.

[1] Is ABOUT page important?

When I visit a site, I might be solely interested in what the writer offers in the contents. Mostly I will stumble upon their site whilst searching for something to read. However, I would also like to know who is the writer, whether a she or a he, where is he/she from, what he/she do or work and etc. I want to know who wrote the article and whether they are trustworthy or not. By making yourself known to the reader it makes yourself easier to be contacted. Thus, readers may inform you when your site has problem or give you some ideas on how your layout should be. Plus, they might introduce you to others as well.

[2] Do you find your site loading speed is slow?

Visiting a site with slow loading is sometimes threatening my patience. If I lose my patience I might not re-visit the site. Don’t you? Many readers may not have the higher speed internet connection privilege on their side, thus having a site that loads too slow might kill their interest in visiting your site. I love to install widgets that work very well for my purpose in my blog, however if I find any of it is making my page load too slow, I will take it out or pluck it under the footer so that the body will load first and the footer later. I believe there are many tricks or hacks out there that can help you tweak your page to load even faster.

[3] Do you prefer to organize by categories or dates?

At first, I would organise my site by months and ignore the categories as my list is far too long. However, I find that once I’ve pluck in the categories, the readers managed to navigate to what interest them to read. In money making blogs, it is most important to organise by categories as it will let readers select what they category they are interested in to read rather than finding it through the selected archives by months.

[4] I used related images

A picture speaks a thousand words. Most of the time I will put in an image to portray the topic I am blogging about, thus I can easily relay the message to the readers to the particular post meaning. It might intrigue more readers too.

[5] Make your content scan-able

Sometimes when I visit a money blogging tips blog, I may not take the time to read every word in the post and I will mostly scan through it to pick up the points. So how can I organize the post to make sure that my points are ‘highlighted’ out from the post? Well, I sometime use numbering, block quotes, bolded certain text, italic certain text, and point form. Readers can easily go through the list or words without reading others that might ‘waste their time’.

[6] Do you show your blog’s top posts?

When I visit a blog/site the first time via a search, after reading the specific post, I will search for any related post that might interest me. Having a top posts list might help me out to check out what other readers read. It helps me to navigate through their page to skip from one post to the next as well.

Tell me what other ways you prefer to be able to navigate through a webpage?

Top 5 lesson to make money online

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:51:00 +0000

Starting any blog that you want to make some money from is very easy and some comes free too. There are so many tips or tricks and heaps of information out there on ways to make money online, selling affiliated products or even creating make money forums. The toughest part of the above-mentioned will be continuing in blogging, like what I am doing in this blog. Why is it tough? Well, you need to maintain the frequency of blogging in your busy schedule. Sometime you probably need to turn into a hermit and gone missing for a week or two running your upmost important errands, and worrying how your traffic might tumble down as time passes.

Blogging for money sounds to me like a marathon and I do see some blogs fail after the excitement withered off. Getting ideas to blog in your blog is getting tougher as you go on. I know most of us wants to make money online as well as to start a money making blog, but read the list below before you start.

Are you able to write good contents? Contents that will attract and gain the attention of your readers. Contents that reader will learn something from it. I find contents that helps people to solve problem keeps them coming back for more.
Are you able to make your blog stand out? Anyone creates the money making blog with a general name such as ‘Money Making Blog” or whatnots. How are yours something different than the rest?
Blogging not only takes your time and effort but also your intellectuality in writing something that you enjoy and wants to share with others. Are you able to do that?
Everyone is writing about money making online. Same opinions and same points. Are you able to give different perspective?
Do you know how to make your blog pleasant to read by reducing clutter? Perhaps this will be my next posting tips….

BigMoneyList New Project Self Update Linking

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:35:00 +0000

OK I've copied the whole post from here.

Here's how it works.

Go to his blog to get a CODE!
This code creates the self-updating blogroll you see below.

Each time a new blog joins this program, its URL will be instantly updated on every blog on the Internet that contains this code.

As a result, every blog will be linking to every other blog in the program. The result is increased Google Page Rank and Technorati Rank to all involved.

More importantly, there's no need for ongoing maintenance once the blogroll code is in place. This news will be a huge relief to those who have participated in various link/meme/tag trains in the past which gave early participants an unfair advantage or required returning to the master list frequently to copy and paste new code into one's blog.

To get started, place the code on the front page of your blog (where blogrolls normally go). Next leave your blog URL as a comment on this post. Comments on other posts, will be treated as requests for normal link exchanging. Next, I'll visit your blog to ensure that the code is in place. If it is, I'll include your blog's URL on the blogroll and immediately every blog in this list will link to you.

To keep things fair though, all blogs participating in this program will be continually monitored to ensure that the code is in place. If it isn't, they will be removed from the blog roll. (I'm sure this won't be a problem once you experience the tremendous of the Big Money List 2.0 Blogroll)

Don't believe what it will do? Go check out my LINK LOVE from the top links.

What is LinkedIn.com?

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:07:00 +0000

What is LinkedIn? Well, I must confess that I didn’t know about it until my friend BigMoneyList.Blogspot.com guided me through it and let me see what LinkedIn has in his own profile. I would say it was rather an exciting tour through his profile and I was mesmerised with the level or type of network he has in his profile.

With LinkedIn, a professional person can create his/her profile with working experiences in a way to meet other professional people, or wait to get some job offers that will come pouring to you from around the globe. It is a great place to meet people. Scott has dedicated an entire blog to LinkedIn. I highly recommend you visit his blog.

InterviewChatter gave a good summary of information in the blog as follow:-

1. What is LinkedIn?

2. One Value of Your LinkedIn Profile

3. Book Review:I’m On LinkedIn Now What?

4. LinkedIn Connections - “Now What?”

5. LinkedIn Connections “Now What?” P.2

6. LinkedIn Connections - Degrees

7. LinkedIn - Blast From My Past

8. LinkedIn Answers

9. Create More Value With LinkedIn

10. LinkedIn - Jobs & Hiring

Scott's latest post on:-

9 Ways to Get Linked Out on LinkedIn

I talk a lot about how to make effective use of LinkedIn — today let’s look at some ways NOT to use LinkedIn. Here are nine sure-fire ways to network like a schmuck and achieve exactly the opposite effect you’re probably going for:

1. Use the canned invitations. Really — they’re there for your convenience. A lot of thought obviously went into them already, so why should you put any more effort into personalizing your invitations? Everyone loves to get an “I’d like to add you to my professional network” message.

2. Any time you see an interesting profile, invite them to connect.Regardless what LinkedIn recommends, nobody really uses it just to connect with people they know. It’s just like a MySpace friend request — everybody does it. Don’t bother to contact them first — no need. Just send them one of those default invitations.

3. While you’re at it, invite everyone from all your Yahoo! Groups and other discussion lists and forums. One common interest is more than sufficient reason to connect on LinkedIn, isn’t it? Don’t bother to contact them first either. Just send them one of those default invitations everybody loves so much.

4. Ignore those silly contact settings. If you’ve got a business deal or a job inquiry, you know better than they do whether they might be interested — they couldn’t possibly have anticipated this particular opportunity. Just call it an “expertise request” or a “request to reconnect” and then tell them why you’re really contacting them.

5. Turn off all email notifications and just use the website. Once every week or two is often enough to handle things — there’s never any urgency to things coming through LinkedIn. If people need to contact people in a hurry they should use the phone and contact them directly, not get introductions through LinkedIn.

6. Use Answers to grow your network. What better way to connect with lots of people? You can’t directly ask for connections — that will get your question deleted. Try something more subtle, like “How can I best find other open networkers who are willing to connect with me so I can get thousands of connections?”

7. Answer as many questions as you possibly can in as many different topics as you can. Don’t worry about putting too much thought into them — just get your numbers up so you’ll show up as a top expert. And just by the law of large numbers, you’re bound to get a few “best answer” designations. No one will wonder why you have so much time on your hands.

8. If you’re a recruiter and someone makes an introduction request to one of your candidates, tell them what your fee is. It doesn’t matter that other people make introductions for you for free — you’re a professional — you do this for a living.

9. Ask all your contacts for recommendations and offer them one in return - especially all those people you don’t know who agreed to connect. Just write something generic about what a great guy/gal they are. That’s what reciprocity is all about!

Interesting isn't it? So go join LinkedIn and add me into your network!

Contents that drives traffic to the sources

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:09:00 +0000

Something to share...

The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do | Seth Godin at Squidoo

Building Traffic With Article Marketing | Copyblogger

Link Building Blog | Text Link Ads

Link Building Wiki | Text Link Brokers

Advanced Link Building Tactics | SEOMoz

EntreCard bloggers: A Chance to win a free webhosting!

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:57:00 +0000

Well, I was blog hopping on some Entrecard promotion or contest which is exploding through the blogging world recently and I came across SecludedHabitat. The great part of this blog is it is holding a contest to a space to host on his site. Isn’t that great? So, I am answering the needed questions...

Be a current Entrecard member, displaying the EC Widget on your blog

Yes I am and I did.

Be an active and regular blogger (no blogs that have not had a post in over a month)

I did it almost every day!

Be willing to host (at minimum) an active blog on the web space if you win.

It will be such a pleasure to have this privilege as I am looking for one.

Agree to the Terms and Conditions at the bottom of this post.

I truly hope I am!

Why you want to win this competition?

Why? I am so delighted when I saw the opportunity of a free space hosting that I could take advantage of blogging, since I am really looking for a web hosting service now. The more reason I should win this competition!

Why you feel you deserve to win the free hosting?

I deserve this because plainly I am looking and searching for a few web hosting from Godaddy.com to my local web host to any others available, however looking at the package prices has held me back. I feel that I wish to have a my own page to do what I wanted to do such as blogging about widgets, latest technology, some money making tips, tips on gaining traffics and whatnots to share it with people who have interest just like me.

Why you have not got paid hosting previously?

I am currently funding my studies thus do not have the privilege of money to splurge on a web hosting package.

And finally how would having your own hosting enable you to enhance your blog or service to the community?

To encourage interaction with my readers
Probably hundreds of Wordpress plugins
Many template to choose from
To gain more targeted traffics to the blog and retain the readers
To have my very own blog domain that everyone can remember

You are wondering what will the prizes be? Check out his terms & conditions.

5 best chocolate candy bars

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:51:00 +0000

Today is a Saturday, thus I would like to post something more of a lighter note. Something that I bet everyone craves. I am listing down my 5 favorite candy bars since young.

[1] Kit Kat

I prefer the old flavour. If I have a choice I will choose the original flavour than the rest of the new flavours.

[2] Time Out

When this first came out, I was buying it religiously if not every day then it will be every week. Did I turn fat? Well, I am lucky that was when I was pretty young and my metabolism is still kicking rather well.

[3] Cadbury Dairy Milk

I still prefer it's original dairy milk than those with nuts or whatnots.

[4] Mars

I just had this last month after such a long time being distracted by Kit Kat and Time Out. The taste is still the same, however I find it is a bit too sweet for my taste bud nowadays.

[5] Snickers

This is very nutty and full of caramel. I love this when I was young. However, right now my preference is more towards dairy milk type. So I seldom have this anymore.

I still choose Kit Kat from all of the above. What about you? Which one from the above you like best?

5 Reasons Google Chrome Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:22:00 +0000

I have been using Google Chrome since it's first launched and I couldn't deny how fast the loading mechanism it has in each and every tab. I have been using it every time that I want to perform my search or open any sites, however when it comes to blogging, I will still use Firefox. Not only that, I find that certain websites that I've tried to access (eg: online banking) do not recognized the browser as a valid one, thus it blocked me from accessing my page. *BUMMER*

Here, I would like to highlight a few missing stuff that Chrome doesn't have that hindered me on using the browser, which switch me back to Firefox, on and off.

[1] No ADD ONS
Yes, Chrome doesn't have any add-ons as all you may have know now after using it. I find it a trouble when I want to use my StumbleUpon add-on, as I got to switch back to Firefox Browser to do it. I am sure many of you have certain add-ons that you have been using religiously and you would love to have it in Chrome. I wonder when Chrome will have any add-ons development?

[2] Search engine (s)

Yes, search engineS. How to search for youtube.com in a drop down menu just like what Firefox has? It would be fun and easy to use if they have it.

[3] No HOME button
Well, did you guys see any HOME button lurking around? If yes, please guide me there!!!

[4] FIND function
I can't search without getting the correct information through it's FIND function whilst modifying my blogger template, thus I got to switch back to Firefox when doing it.

[5] DO you think Firefox is hotter?
Well, now I have 2 browsers on my desktop. Chrome for searching / browsing purpose while Firefox for using the add-ons and others. Firefox is still my default browser though. What about you? Which browser is your current default browser?

Million Dollar Pages of Knowledge own newspaper

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:59:00 +0000

The blog has its own newspaper printout!!

No, I am just kidding you.

I came across this great function on web to generate a look-alike newspaper from anything that you want to write.

Here it goes...check this out

LINK LOVE

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:05:00 +0000

Once you linked me, drop me a message and I will be glad to return the favour. However, if the link is taken out, the favour is return too.

http://www.lisafav.blogspot.com
http://bigmoneylist.blogspot.com
http://slumberaja.blogspot.com/

http://sayyo2008.blogspot.com/

http://www.mypennysense.com/

http://www.forrealmen.blogspot.com/

http://dissectingminds.blogspot.com/

http://ahmike.net

http://www.janizarzagon.blogspot.com/

http://wingriders.blogspot.com/

http://www.extincthuman.blogspot.com/

http://seekhealthfeelgreat.blogspot.com/

http://www.moneyonlinethoughts.com/

http://www.badgoodverify.blogspot.com/

http://blog24hrs.blogspot.com/

http://kingofmoneymaking.blogspot.com

http://bbcommunity.blogspot.com/

http://j4fashion.com/
http://narutochen.blogsome.com/
http://ebookshoot.blogspot.com/
http://icylifememories.blogspot.com/
http://mutuallove.blogspot.com

Add Digg button to Blogger or Blogspot

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:43:00 +0000

If you notice, I have a DIGG button on every of my post at the right top. I have added that for the convenience for reader to Digg my post if they found interesting.

Applying this Digg button is very simple. Just follow the few steps below and voila! You can use it like me. Between, try Digging this post via the button and let me know the outcome whether you are able to do it without error or not. First of all, you must have a Digg account.

Steps to install Digg Button:-

Activate Post Pages. To verify or enable it, login to your Blogger Dashboard. Under Settings-> Archiving, set the “Enable Post Pages?” to “Yes” and save the settings.
Then go to Layout and back up your template by clicking Download Full Template. Remember where you save the file so you can find it back easily to Upload to blogger if anything happens.
Tick Expand Widget Templates.
Now, search for this code [data:post.body].
Then, replace this code to your HTML as follows.



<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
digg_url="<data:post.url/>";
</script>
<script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/>
</div>

      <data:post.body/>

7 Reasons Why You Fail At Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:52:00 +0000

Everyone wants to blog but will you last long?

You can see in the blogospheres that everyone wants a piece of blog site in the www. In fact, one may have more than 3 to maintain. However, some of them might not last even 3 months when they fail to achieve something they want when embarking into the blogging world.

1. Spelling

I know to some of us English may not be the 1^st language but with technology around the corner, you can always use the spell checker to correct your grammars. I use MS WORD all the time. This will help readers to understand the message you want to convey, and thus show them that you are doing your best in that way.

2. Regular schedule

From my 10 habits, I have mentioned before about the frequency of your postings. How regular are you to post in your blog? Once a week? Twice a week? Every day? When you decided on a frequency, you might as well stick to the ‘habit’. I bet readers don’t like to wait for long for the next post.

3. Branding your blog

How do you do branding on your site? This is something that I am learning. How do you want readers to recognise you? To stand out from the crowd, perhaps branding will help advertiser to recognise your value.

4. Write for search engines

Everyone blog for money, thus everyone blog for search engines to hit as many keyword as possible. Eg: Money Making Blog, How to make money online, etc. This may be able to generate some traffic to your blog but your blog may not be full of good contents for the readers to focus or return. Why not write for your readers?

5. Link Love

Are you stingy in linking others? Lazy to communicate with others? As I’ve mentioned in my 10 habits post, link love is important to help you get your page rank up. when you blog about something you found on some blogs, and you wish to also blog about it, try to link to them so that it doesn’t appear like you steal from them.

6. Honesty

You are not honest to your reader. If you wish to blog about your earnings or traffic, then you got to be honest and show them your result, as long as it doesn’t go against the TOC of your advertiser’s.

7. Commitment

How committed are you in blogging? Are you passionate about it? I’m sure we want to follow the pioneers of bloggers who have earned thousands but are you committed to your blogging? To achieve what they have, one need to commit on the work no matter how torturing it may sound. You sow what you reap.

www3.photofunia.com

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:46:00 +0000

Great stuff from Photofunia.

Nuffnang Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:24:00 +0000

I have been using Nuffnang since the start of this blog and Nuffnang helps to keep track of the visitors stats in this blog with its own mechanism.

Extracting last month's visits: 08 Sept - 05 OCt 2008, we can see from the print screen below how many unique visitor, page views and where do they came from.

How to install Top Commenter Widget for Blogger/Blogspot

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:55:00 +0000

This post will show you how to install the Top Commenter widget on your blog. First of all, you need to register a Yahoo Account before accessing Yahoo Pipes. You are required to login your Yahoo account to clone your Yahoo Pipes from mine.

Yes, you heard it right. Clone your pipes through mine. Why? It will be much easier. The meaning of clone is that you will need to make a copy of the widget application in Yahoo Pipes from mine.

Visit this link to access to my pipes as shown in print screen below.

(click image to enlarge)

[1] Then, click on Run Pipe and CLONE next. Once click you will see the information from my blog, however you need to do some settings to get the feed from your blog.

[2] Click on EDIT SOURCE. It will bring you to another page just like the screen below.

[3] Under the box “Blog’s URL (text)”, change both URL of http://milliondollar-pages.blogspot.com to your own url.

http://yourblog.blogspot.com
or
http://www.yourblog.com

[4] Filter your name(s) from the “Filter” box as shown in the screen. For those who need to filter more than one name, this box is good enough to help you to do so.
Remember to SAVE your changes.

[5] Next, you need to copy your own ID number on top of your Address Bar of your Yahoo Pipe application so that you can include it into the widget code below. Remember to also change the URL highlighted below in red to your blog.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.edit?_id=ccf6586d0db52c338c0a6f22c3f9b3df

Click here to get the script or copy from below...


<script type="text/javascript">
function pipeCallback(obj) {
document.write("<ol>");
var i;
for (i = 0; i < obj.count ; i++)
{
var href = "'" + obj.value.items[i].link + "'";
var item = "<li>" + "<a href=" + href + ">" + obj.value.items[i].title + "</a> </li>";
document.write(item);
}
document.write("</ol>");
}
</script>
<script src= "http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_render=json&_callback=pipeCallback&
_id=c92ac21897d8b56e61cfa85930dd89a1&url=http%3A%2F%2FBLOGNAME.blogspot.com&num=10" type="text/javascript"></script>

Now you can copy and paste the script to your Blogger's page elements and made the changes as explained above.

Tell me if it works for you and if you have better ways please share it here.

Gravator for your profile

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:43:00 +0000

I’ve always wonder how others able to show their avatar in every each blog they’ve commented. Now that I have stumbled upon this blog who'd show the steps to register, I’ve learned how and why they managed to do it.

We can do it by using the Gravatars (Globally Recognized Avatars) where it link with your email address to setup your avatar.

What is a gravatar?

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

How do I get a gravatar?

Signing up for a gravatar.com account is FREE, and all that's required is your email address. Once you've signed up you can upload your avatar image and soon after you'll start seeing it on gravatar enabled weblogs!

Sign up now!

How do I get gravatars on my weblog?

Setting up gravatars on your weblog is easy, you don't even need an account! Plugins are available for leading weblog software, and our tutorials will have you running gravatars in no time. To request a gravatar from our servers, you simply add an image to your comments area with an "src" attribute that points to our gravatar image generator and includes an MD5 hash of the commenter's email address. Since all gravatars are rated with an MPAA style rating, you can restrict your site to show only gravatars whose content you are comfortable with.

Check out this blog to see the avatar presented in the comment section.

Have you done yours?

New homepage for Google Blog Search

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:05:00 +0000

Do you want to know what everybody in the world writing about? With so many bloggers out there in the www, one might find it hard to stumble upon some good articles unless you spent time to search the internet. Now, Google has come out with Google Blog Search so that you can browse and discover the top stories in the blogospheres with categories listed down on the left side of the page.

Basically, the groupings are of the same story just like the screen shot below. The first link shows the topic about ebay with 54 blogs over 14 hours and the latest post as the main link.

(click to enlarge)

Thanks to Michael Cohen

Top Commenters Widget for Blogger / Blogspot

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:21:00 +0000

If you’ve notice on the right hand side I’ve added a Top Commenters widget. I put up this widget last night. It has been sometime that I have been looking and figuring out how to display the top commenters in my blog so that I would give a nice link to the top commenter as a reward on my front page. What’s the benefit for you? Well, your name is displayed in the front-page that means any visitors who drop by will see you and tend to click on you, thus bringing incoming traffics to your site. Genius, aye? However, if you click on the name, it will bring you to a summary of page by Google on the last comment made by the commenter (somehow Google limits it), and there is a link for you to check out where they came from.

As I was saying it was quite some time I was struggling to get the code right to display the list and thus had gave up on it previously. But last night I was Googling for this widget again to try for the last time to implement it in my blog. However, I find many of the blogs has this widget up for Word Press version. I was rather disappointed until I’ve stumbled on Amanda the Blogger Buster (always reminds me of Ghost Buster), who so genius-ly created a simple widget that even a blogger who has not much knowledge of html coding able to fix it up. She gave a step-by-step Yahoo Pipes setup guide for readers to follow with nicely print screens as well. Although after running through the steps, I have major problem struggling for 2 hours (till 3am) on filtering my own name out from the list of top commenters, I have managed to find out what was the missing part of the steps that causes the problem! And, voila!! The widget is presenting you with the top commenters in my blog.

Congratulation to those who are listed!

I will show you the steps on how to get the widget onto your blog in my next post with the missing part in Amanda's. Do you want it? - if i can get more than 5 votes of YES, I might write it and if no, that means you have successfully figure out how to fix it from Amanda's steps.

Now, I will need to figure out how to reset the list every month to portray the top commenters for the month.

The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Bloggers

noreply@blogger.com (New Haven) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:36:00 +0000

Are you consistence in blogging?

When you started your blog, did you decide on how many times a week you plan to blog? When I started out with this blog I have blogged consistently every day, however if time is a constraint, I will stick to at least three posts per week, which only lasted a week. I’ve seen the traffic slow down when I blog less thus that pushes me to blog more all the time. So, if you are a beginner, I would suggest that you blog consistently with at least three posts per week.

Are you passionate with your blog topics?

Blog contents are important to drive unique visitors and increasing the visitor’s loyalties to your blog. If you don’t have interesting and meaningful contents, you might have a hard time growing your blog. Visitors like contents that they can learn tips to do something and there would probably be a higher chance they will visit again if they found it highly enlightening. So, blog more meaningful stuff!

Do you interact with your readers?

After two months of blogging, I’ve started to implement the chat box in my blog. Initially I rely on the comment function on each post to interact with my readers, however chat box will make me more approachable and keeping my blog on a lighter tone. Readers may not know the real me or feel my friendliness if I depend solely on the comment function, and I would not know who are my readers too. Do drop some messages on my chat box when you drop by.

Giving out love link

Till now, I am not worried about any page ranking mechanism or whatnots. Thus, I will link to anyone who I find have good contents on their blogs. Most bloggers wouldn’t mind to exchange links, something of a hobby bloggers have formed. Send some link love…and interact with each of them!

Do you do niche blogging in your blog?

Do you plan to blog in a niche topic or about everything that interest you? Well, I know for the fact that niche blogging will boost up more traffics as your blog will attract visitors with the same interest, however I have decided to blog anything that I found interesting and will enlightens the readers in my blog. The better way to brand would be getting a domain yourself with a brand name. That would incur cost, thus if you are just a beginner...BlogSpot is a good alternative selection.

Choose your main language

Majority of the world understand English and can read articles in English, so choose the right language for the readers you aim to have.

Is good writing important?

Not everyone is born with good command of English, however writing your content in an easy to understand article is a must to get your message across. Readers mostly want to learn something when they drop by, they may forgive bad grammars once awhile…but contents that are hard to understand will freak them out.

Learn something new every day

I have found that blogging has helped me more in gaining the knowledge I need, knowledge beyond just plain blogging, knowledge that improve myself a lot. A lot of blogs that I’ve came across have been a great resource for me and every time that I hopped to a site, most of the blogs help me to learn effective ways of certain things. Thus, you can treat this as a learning path for yourself whilst sharing the knowledge with your readers.

Be sincere and honest

Well, readers love sincere and honest bloggers. Don’t we all??

Basically, readers will respect bloggers who are honest with their posts and comments. So, whenever I am unsure about something in a post, I will surely state it out and ask for reader’s opinion for some feedback or to correct me. Like the saying goes “there is always room to learn more”.

How frequent do you visit my site?

Last but not least, I never fail to visit the other successful bloggers’s blogs. To be successful, you got to learn from the successful people. Why not visit here often? Let me share with you what I have found from those successful bloggers in my site.