It’s been pointed out to me that the larger dog is Coca-Cola and the smaller one, its daughter, is Pepsi-Cola.

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It became infamous when it was paraded by its owner at KDCA Hall at the height of the Kaamatan celebrations (end of May 2005) dressed in what looked like Kadazan/Dusun traditional attire. In local culture, that is taboo.

The incident was furiously debated in a top local newspaper for some time.

Someone took a video of it then:

The dog is a regular sight in and around Kota Kinabalu, in invariably different and colourful costume every time.

Rahma saw the dog towards the end of May 2009 at Gaya Street Sunday Market:

The owner:

Dorina took the following photo in January 2006:

Disney took the following photo in January 2009 (?)

Elleycia took the following photo on 30th May 2009 at KDCA Hall:

I took the following photo on 31st May 2009 (the following day) at KDCA Hall:

The “things” can be cars, mobile phones, games, televisions, camcorders, portable media players, tourist sites visited, film; you get the idea, it’s basically anything!

Having established the connection of common interest, they can then take it to a higher level, for example by discussing in more depth about their gadgets in order to get more out of it.

Hence, you can say it’s a consumer network site.

Hint: you can even use it as a tool to promote your own blog as you share more information and write more reviews.

There is a big number of glasses’ frames available there. Hence, glasses frame shoppers are more than likely to find one that best suits their requirements.

The materials used include plastic, metal alloy, stainless steel and pure titanium.

There are detailed descriptions (with of course photos) of each one, with information on dimensions of lens (width, height & bridge), frame (width, height & bridge), temple arm length, weight, index lens and colour choices.

Most of the frames cost less than USD30 (about RM100), with some costing less than USD10 (about RM35). In fact, elsewhere on their site, they sell complete eyeglasses (that’s right, with lens) for only USD8 (about RM25).

How did they manage to keep prices so low? According to their website, they manufacture, and only sell their own frames and bring them direct to customers, eliminating overhead like middlemen, retail and advertising costs (they claim to rely on positive word of mouth message-spread).

Shipping is available to anywhere in the world.

If asked to choose one, I think I’d go for the Silver/Gold “Pure Titanium Half Rim Frame”. Weighing a mere 22 grams with the durability of pure titanium, coupled with a reasonable price, I think this is a great frame.

Zenni Optical is based in San Rafael, California, USA.

Too many of them in fact, that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices.

The usual step is to list down your requirements, from space, bandwidth, domain allocation and other features; and of course that most important factor of all, price.

Then it’s shopping time – but this could be a tedious process.

A useful tool that can help one make an informed decision, or at least narrow down the list is the web hosting reviews site webhostinggeeks.com, which has been in business since 2004.

With a non-cluttered, zen-like web design, the first thing one would see at the site is the list of overall top 10 providers, independently reviewed by webmasters and customers. Most of the names there sounded familiar, with big names like Bluehost, Yahoo! and GoDaddy. All those in the top 10 cost less than USD10/mth, has at least one free domain thrown in and a 1-month money back guarantee.

The site even drilled down to best-ofs in specific categories like “best blog hosting”, “best forum hosting”, and “best dedicated hosting”.

Clark Howard of the popular U.S. talk radio host of the nationally syndicated consumer advocate program The Clark Howard Show even recommended them in a post dated 27th June 2007:

Zennioptical.com is still giving amazing deals on prescription eyeglasses to the public. $8 is all it costs for basic prescription glasses. Clark has ordered a pair and so have others on the staff and the customer service and the products have been fantastic. Clark finally got his in and he has not had any problems with them. So if you want some cheap prescription eyeglasses that don’t feel cheap, check out Zenni!

Their frames PLUS lens sell for as low as USD8 (of course you’d have to pay for the packaging and postage), but still don’t you think that’s quite cheap? Looking at the catalog photos for those cheapest glasses – I didn’t think they looked too bad.

Like this one:

I think I know who to recommend these to.

Choices for frames and lens are aplenty, including the following kinds of lenses: single vision, sunsensor, tinted sunglasses, bifocal and progressive.

How can they sell at such low prices? They say the reason for that is: they sell only those they manufactured themselves, and direct to the customer.

3 years and 10 songs (6 Kadazandusun, 2 Bahasa Malaysia, 2 English) later, they finally did it.

If you’re tired of “MIDI songs” and want to hear real musical instruments being played by a true-blue Sabahan pop/rock band, this album is for you.

Apart from having the expected solid melodies, arrangement wise I’d say they went further than most local artistes; there are extended instrumental breaks, for example that minute-long violin-led solo in “Oiyad” and “Iya Om Iya” and that 90-second guitar riff fest reminiscent of Led Zeppelin in “Itu Bukan.”

As a result, the shortest song clocks in at 4:22 (Nung Olingan Oku Dia) while the longest, “Itu Bukan” is at more than 7 minutes.

Further setting them apart is songs like “Iya Om Iya” which I have never witnessed being attempted in Dusun language before: retro images of smoky bars come to mind.

Lyrics wise, apart from the usual love songs, there is also the socially-aware “Misompuru”, which calls for a united society.

Here are some previews, snippets of songs off the CD.

[UPDATE: 16th July 2009: I'm having problems with the internal player, please listen to the previews here. Apologies for the inconvenience.]

“Growing in the light” was written and sung by the group’s multi-instrumentalist Gilbert “Ebert” Lajim.

“Nung nolingan oku dia” has an opening piano and vocal melody that I think Elton John would be proud of. It was written by Gilbert “Ebert” Lajim, with Cyril “Kuak” Johnny on lead vocals. This song is being played almost daily at SuriaFM (105.9 in Sabah) by DJ Othoe:

“Terima kasih” was co-written by the group’s bassist Ezbon “Golib” Godomon and Cyril “Kuak” Johnny. Kuak’s on lead vocals.

“Stream” has an excellent riff and a U2-influenced soaring chorus. It was written by Ezbon “Golib” Godomon.

“Matai-patai do masi”: I don’t know about you, but I have never heard an original Dusun song so heavily early-60s era Beatles-influenced and executed so well. It was written by Gilbert “Ebert” Lajim and the vocals handled by both him and Kuak. Ebert’s two sisters did the backing vocals. I think this will be a favourite with concert audiences.

Please support our local musicians.

If you like what you hear, and would like to purchase the CD (RM20) or cassette (RM13), I was informed that you can get them at music stores in Kota Kinabalu, Penampang, Kuala Lumpur and Johor. I have personally verified that they are available at CKS Donggongon and Polysound Kg Air.

Alternatively, I also keep some in stock. Please email me at bengodomon@gmail.com or leave a comment.

About the album

The songs were mostly recorded and mixed at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), probably the most advanced recording studio in the state. It was mastered by Roger Wang (RAM Studio) and released under TJC Talent Studio of Tenghilan.

Front:

Back:

… does one of them look like he’s wearing a 5.11 Tactical Jacket?

In order to have a chance of winning the RM6,300 beauty, one’s supposed to write a review of Exabytes’ new website design, if one manages to be among the first 100 to sign up for the contest.

Obviously, somehow or rather I managed to be in.

But by then a small print caught my eye.

It says “higher traffic website stands higher chance to win the contest.”

That’s it. No chance lah.

That means that one particular guy from Sarawak whose blog boasts 15,000 unique visitors a day could just do a quick entry, and the world’s thinnest notebook is his for the taking. Or that other guy from Penang who, at last count, gets more than double the traffic of the previous guy I mentioned.

Having said that, since I’m in and being a somewhat satisfied customer of them for the last 3 years, I’d still give it ago.

My short take would be this: a menu (of a restaurant or otherwise) that has too many items is a turn-off: the new design improves on this.

Webhosting providers are in the midst of a price war, what with an abundance sub USD10/mth offers. At the same time, customers are getting more demanding and discerning: they’d throughly research a web host and its product nitty-gritties before making a decision. A review site with comprehensive list of webhosting providers, with relevant information such as plans offered, even promotions / discounts and most importantly uncensored reviews by customers would have an upper hand over the rest.

…I haven’t double-checked, but they might well also do reviews on hardware that run onMac memory.

I created my first blog (if it can be called that) 12 years ago. Of course it had to be hardcoded as sites like blogger.com would not come into existence until several years later.

A few years ago I started blogging on a webhosting provider, after getting word-of-mouth recommendations from an acquaintance.

Earlier this year someone who runs a data centre in the peninsular said that he would not recommened any of the local (Malaysian) webhosting providers, but still I must say that I’m a rather satisfied customer of my current provider.

Probably I could have gotten even better deals if I had read through webhosting reviews. For example, I’ve seen Bluehost being recommended by a few fellow Malaysians so reading up on a review would’ve be a good start.

Having said that, I doubt that I could’ve gotten a quantum-leap-better-deal as I think I got mine at relatively cheap costs and relatively good quality.

All kinds of carrots are dangled; where things like zero annual fee were a rarity then, it’s common place now as competition has reached an intensity like never before.

Of course credit cards are also status symbols; last time a gold card was enough, but now platinum cards are replacing them.

So basically, credit card with rewards stand to get the most signups.