Exabytes, one of Malaysia’s most well-known web hosters (among bloggers and SMEs at least) is currently running a contest dubbed “I Want a MacBook Air.”

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.

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No review of any product is perfect, but the general consensus is that the best reviews are those that are independent and fully customer rated, based on what everybody wants like track record, existing or former customers’ feedback, affordability, reliability and techical support.

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.

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As far back as I could remember (perhaps from the early 1980s), I liked to keep a journal, or rather a mini-almanac.

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.

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Up to at least 10 years ago it was very difficult to get approved to get credit cards. You practically had to beg the banks to let you have even their lowest-level cards. Nowadays it’s the total opposite – banks would send their marketing people to invade offices – at my department they’ve done so at least twice.

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.

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Canada has always been a bit of a mystery nation, at least to me, not least because of its close proximity of its more illustrious neighbour, the United States of America. Most, if not all of us have learnt at least a little bit about it during our Geography lessons at secondary school. Perhaps I speak don’t speak for all of us, but I think we “forced” ourselves to learn about Canada then just to get that A grade. Yes, I got an A in Geography, and promptly forgot everything about Canada after taking the paper.

I read a little bit about Canadian history just now, and still I can’t get the big picture. About tourism in Canada, I can’t remember seeing any marketing moves on it in this country. Most of its visitors come from its neighbour, the USA, so probably that explains it – it makes better sense to concentrate their efforts on the world’s biggest economy.

Digging a little bit, apparently tourism’s importance to Canadian economy is increasing, but it’s not one of its very top priorities. Having said that, other countries, even as far as China now have sent more visitors than ever before to it, making flights to Canada from the Far East a viable option.

Having said all the above, Canada surely has very interesting places to visit. The very fact that it’s the world’s second largest countries already concocts this idea. And being a history buff, the first Canadaian city I’d visit would surely be Quebec – dubbed the most charming city in North America. This world heritage site has beautifully preserved buildings hundreds of years old. Since it is the only walled, fortified city north of Mexico, it’s a must visit place.

On another matter, I would be able to finally wear my medical id here.

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Whatever your personal opinions are about Valentine’s Day, it’s around the corner again, and like it or not, some of us have no option but to cough out the dough to get at least something for loved ones.

So we, those expected to give out something, have to be smart. In this case, Cupid or his companions would be of little help. We need something practical!

And no, I’m not talking about the need to consume weight loss pills here!!!

There are many tricks, and CouponChief is one of them. It’s a place where you can get discounts, in the form of coupon codes, from many online shopping merchants.

Looking through their website, the Dell coupons looked tasty. In one case, their UltraSharp 19″ Flat Panel LCD with Height Adjustable Stand has a 30% discount offer, bringing the price down to USD195.

Then there’s the BestBuy deals, including that temptation-chockful 10% discount on Corsair memory which has free shipping thrown in. I was already cotemplating their Value Select 1GB PC5300 DDR2 SoDIMM Notebook Memory.

Temptations abound indeed…

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An indispensable tool for ICT professionals is remote management for networks than cover many areas or sites. Instead of going physically to each site, he can simply get the tool do the relevant tasks for him.

Tasks would include things like Connection Monitoring, Issue Fixes, Tasks Automation and Configuration Management, all from a central location.

Jaded network administrators might whine that remote management would be useless if the network itself goes down, but Uplogix product remote management tool called Envoy claims to be able to stay connected regardless of the state of the network.

This tool should reduce the rate of balding of network admins, as well as prolong the life of their memory cells.

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The Oregon Coast is the common name of the coastline of the state of Oregon of the United States, located on the west of the country, running along the Pacific Ocean. It runs for a full 362 miles, from Astoria to the border with the state of California.

It is truly unique in that the whole coastline, yes, all 362 miles of it is public land. Absolutely none in private hands. Why? Because the laws of the state of Oregon do not allow anybody, no matter how much money they might offer, to privately own even an inch of the famed Oregon coastline.

You know what that means??? It means you can have a very very long walk on the beach. If not, you can settle for a leisurely vacation with loved ones in a house or a condominium, like the ones offered by Oregon Vacation Rentals.

Even more amazingly, for a top industrialised country, and the fact that Oregon is located near the sea, there are absolutely no large cities located anywhere on its coast. Only tiny ones. The biggest city/area is Coos Bay/North Bend on the South Coast. The total population is a mere 25,000. That’s definitely very small, especially when compared to other cities in California’s coast further south.

And no, this is not caused by another one of the state laws, but rather due to nature: there is a distinct lack of harbours deep enough to allow access to agricultural areas further inland.

And the fact that the coasts boasts old logging towns, fishing villages and artists’ colonies truly sounds like a dream vacation for me, a world away from LA, San Francisco, Las Vegas and what have you.

Now, perhaps the only remaining question is: are the beach homes as good as the ones on the Outer Banks of North Carolina?

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Logic dictates that it would be better if you could take care of your skin from inside out and not merely from the outside. Apparently that’s the hot thing now.

If the idea of basking in the sun makes you immediately think of sunscreen, that’s what people usually do, right? Well, the new thing is a dietary supplement dubbed R.G. Skin Revitalizer.

As you can guess from the name, it’s from the tropical “superfruit” Gâc, from which oil is extracted, and full of carotenoid antioxidants. Even if you’re not a health nut, you should know that carotenoid antioxidants not only make your immune system stronger but helps skin rebuild itself from damage and makes it stronger.

The fruit called Gâc (pictured above) can be as large as a cantaloupe. It grows on vines and can be found from South China to North Australia, but particularly Vietnam. It is commonly grown in home gardens.

Best of all, apart from the usual benefits of eating fruits as part of one’s daily diet, this particular fruit also nourishes one’s skin that does not merely work at the surface, but literally from the inside out. And may I add, this can’t be found in diet pills.

Now one could rightly ask, there are other, more established fruit supplements such as noni, mangosteen and acai. What is the big deal with Gac then?

First thing, is RG is oil, not juice. Being an oil has its advantages: fat soluble nutrient digestion is assisted by natural fruit oils. Meaning to say, the other fruits and vegetables might be equally rich in carotenoids, but because they come in juice form, they are hence almost devoid of fat, and this could limit the human body’s ability to absorb some of these nutrients.

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At the time myself and three friends went to Venice, we only had a Europe By Train guidebook and a European train timetable which we later lost. Still, it was an very interesting adventure, going to a city I’ve read about for years and finally seeing it in person.

Our hectic itinerary didn’t allow us to stay overnight there, so we only visited the top “must-see” places as written in the book. My impression was that Venice was a totally unique city – probably the only city in the world without any cars. And the streets were frustratingly winding, with names barely visible, and some didn’t have any names at all! We had to count the number of turnings we made, how many intersections to pass and things like that, in order to avoid being lost. Yet, even after trying to be very careful, we still managed to be lost at least twice – luckily we managed to retrace our steps.

Being a prime tourist magnet, I expected things there to be very expensive – and they were. And one day was definitely not enough to absorb all the sights. So one is caught in a quandary – how need to see more of the legendary city and still keep expenses down to a minimum?

The next time I go there, the Cheap Hotels guide by hotelsbycity.net could be a helpful guide, so that we could stay there a bit longer. That guide had a list of almost 40 hotels in Venice. Each hotel has its own page, with photos, rates and directions guide.

Where applicable, there’s also a customers’ review, meaning you could read honest, no-holds-barred, independent reviews.

…Next up, European cruises?

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