It's 2014 and I don't Want To Live in Poverty

 

It is a bit late but I want to wish every reader of this blog a Happy New Year 2014. A lot of thing had happen during these few days in the new year but all about price and tax increment. But you have to remember that this does not affect your online business at all.

I came to my senses when I heard about all the bad news involving money. What I realize is, I don’t want to live in poverty. That is why I started blogging and blogging is the cheapest way to start a business. Don’t complain about expenses when you are doing nothing about it.

If you try any other physical business such as a flower shop, you need a lot of money to open one. I’m not interested in physical business because I don’t have that kind of money to spend and I can’t afford to loss that money. 

I am sticking to online business forever. The hardship of doing online business is the same as physical business but I enjoy going online because you don’t have to go out from your house to meet people especially your customers.

If you want something, you have to work for it. You can’t get anything for free these days. Sometimes it really saddens me to see people who complain a lot but don’t do anything. Get that lazy ass of yours and start doing something for yourself.

Blogging is like an ordinary business. Yes, it does start slowly. It takes me at least six months to see money rolling in for a few cents. You heard me right, a few cents. A brand new website really takes a long time to see some results. Don’t be discouraged. Stick to it and you will be rewarded. 

Find the right motivation for you to keep you going. For me, my motivation is money and success. Money is a second thing. Success is what everyone really wants. If you are not success, you can’t have money. When I see other people who are better than me, it will motivate me to keep going further. 

Don’t be jealous with other people and their success. Make it as a competition for you. You don’t know what they have been through to get to their status now. They have been in your shoes. What makes them success is their own hard work. If you stop now, you won’t make it like them. 

Conclusion

I won’t make this blog post very long because I know some people hate to read something that motivates them especially if it comes from a nobody like me. But the choice is in your hand. Next time if you see someone is better than you, don’t complain like a little girl.

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Can't Preview Blog and Blog Post Using Wordpress

When I first started my new blog, I was surprised that WordPress has been changing a lot. Maybe because they wanted it to be user friendly and going with the flow of trends. I had to start slowly because there are some new features and the pluggins are also new.

The first thing that I wanted to do is to add the 'www' in front of my domain name so I change the setting of my blog and add the 'www'. After I done this, I can't seem to preview my blog and also my post. To tell you the truth, I felt like an idiot after doing this.

I don't know what's going on with the blog. I even contacted HostGator and the went to Bluthemes (my theme) forum to check what is the problem. I was suspecting the theme was faulty because it was cheap. Then I tried to change the theme with WordPress default theme but the problem was still occuring.

I surf around the net to find some solutions for these and I found a few methods. I tried them all until I find out that the problem was caused by adding the 'www'. After removing the 'www' my blog returns to normal. Such small matter can change the whole blog.

From what that I understand about the domain name, you got what you pay for. If you didn't put the 'www' when purchasing your domain name, you can't change it anymore. You can try to change it in WordPress instead but it will ruin your blog (can't be seen).

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Wordpress Website Crashes After Changing Permalinks Style

If you are familiar with Wordpress, you will know that people loves to change how the permalinks looks like. This is actually good for the search engine. The first time you install Wordpress on your blog or website, the default setting for the permalink ends with numbers.

Hello! Its been a long time since last update. I've been busy studying for my exams and now the final exams has finally ended. Such a big relieve to my brain chemicals :). I intended to do my best updating this blog from the updates and technical stuff that I've learn from my other blog so I can remember back on how to create a wordpress blog.

I was going to post on this technical stuff about permalinks a long time ago but I really don't have the time to do it. I can't even write a simple post because of the limited time I had. Finally I'm here and it is really exiting to be back to the blogging world.

Permalinks can change how search engine search your site

Ok, back to the main topic. This is a stupid error that I did that can make a website crashes or having Internal Server Error. All because a small error in the html and the bizarre thing is, the html itself is created by Wordpress. How funny this can be.


Original default setting:

http://casually-asian.com/?p=123

Change to:

 http://casually-asian.com/sample-post

In order to do this, go to Settings and click on Permalinks on the drop down menu. You will see a few options on how you want your permalinks look like. Click on which one you desire and Wordpress will automatically create a custom html for you to edit the .htaccess file yourself because the settings cannot be change automatically.

This is where I made a terrible mistake. I don't know who's mistake it is actually because I did not create the html. I delete the entire content inside the .htaccess file and paste the new html which supposed to change the permalink style. The website crashes and I have to contact Hostgator for their assist.

Below is the solution made by Hostgator. A simple but highly effective solution :)

The version that I copy and paste (causing error):

[root@gator3268 /home3/name/public_html]# head -n 10 .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule># BEGIN W3TC Browser Cache

The changes made by Hostgator:

[root@gator3268 /home3/bebert/public_html]# head -n 10 .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# BEGIN W3TC Browser Cache

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Fontello Social Icon Don't Load Using Firefox (Wordpress)

In my previous post, I have mentioned that I encountered a few problems with my new website Casually-Asian. One of the problem is the social icon just don't load in Firefox. Finally, the webmaster give me a solution for the problem after he search around in the internet.

I'm still wondering why would  the theme webmaster search the internet for solution. The theme was supposed to be owned by him LOL. Or maybe he is just selling the theme made by someone else. The theme cost $40 in ThemeForest and it is called Bliss by Bluth.

At first, I thought that I screw up with the installation. What I did to configure out the solution was I reset everything starting with the webhosting to the Wordpress installation. I contact my webhost support service via email and reset everything. I was lucky I don't have any post yet at the blog.

For anyone who encountered this problem, forget that, it is not the solution. The solution is simple enough. Add a few codes in the the .htaccess file in your root folder. Below is the solution given to me:

1. Log in to your Hostgator cpanel

2. Find your File Manager and click it

3. On the pop up menu select Web Root (public_html/www) and select Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) and click Go.

4. On the left side, you will see a directory. Look for public_html with the world icon. Single click on it and the menu will appear at the next panel on the right.

5. Look for .htaccess, single click on it and click edit at the menu on top. A popup menu will appear and just click edit.

6. Another browser will opened and you will see a few codes in it. Add the following codes below the existing codes:

<filesmatch "\.(ttf|ttc|otf|eot|woff)$"> <ifmodule mod_headers.c> Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*" </IfModule> </FilesMatch>  

7. Click save and you are good to go.

The social icon is now can be viewed

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I Almost Turn Green

Yep, I almost turn green and become the Incredible Hulk today. For these few days, I only made a little progress on my new blog. The most frustrating is the theme. The theme owner/vendor doesn't seem to care about the problem I had with his theme. Its not like it is a big problem. Only the social icon won't load when using Firefox.

The social icons are not loading in Firefox

This really looks ugly for the blog. Today is the last day for the support team to help me with this problem. If it is not settles, I will get a refund and pick other theme.

Because of this theme alone, I screw up my files in the Hostgator cpanel settings. I have to contact Hostgator support to reset all the settings to default. Luckily, the Hostgator support team was really a helping hand to such problem. They are quick to answer my emails.

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Done My Latest Blog

In these few days it is really tiring. I build my new blog from scratch. Its been a long time since I didn't touch Wordpress. It feels quite different and confusing. Even the menu have change a bit. Doing these things back is like learning the same thing all over again.

My hosting is Hostgator, which is my favorite hosting company. I tried to buy my domain name with Namecheap but they could not process my credit card. What even worse, they blocked my account for 24 hours. Its look like that they don't want my money LOL. That's ok, I give my money to Godaddy (type wow9433 for 35% discount. Applies for new purchase only).

It was going all well until I installed a theme from Themeforest called Bliss. I love that theme so much but it cause me headaches. Everything was fine except for the social icon and the menus. They never appear. The social icons won't appear in Firefox but it was ok with chrome. The menu was bad news. It never appear at all. Now I have to use the free Wordpress default theme. I hope I can settle this problem as soon as posible.

 TheBlog

My blog is called casually-asian.com. It is my personal blog and my passion. The blog is about casual fashion and lifestyle for Asian men. I already told you in my article that I am not an internet guru. This blog is my personal note. If you like what I write here, you can follow what I write.

The blog is still new. There is nothing to read there yet because I'm struggling with the technical issues which cost me a lot of my time for writing. I will update my latest blog post with the note that I've taken during tackling the technical issues.

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Before You Say Internet Marketing Is Crap, Read This First

If you are reading this article, it mean that you are not new to internet marketing (IM). There are a lot of self-claimed IM guru out there. I know many people lose thousand and thousand of dollars trying to learn the art of IM. The beauty of IM is, you only do your business online. You don't have to meet even one person to make your business grow.

Some people lose their money for nothing. They buy products to make them rich online but in the end they are just losing more money. This kind of situation is what we all want to avoid. We don't want to buy products that don't work. But greed can overcome one's emotion and that is the beginning of failure.

If you are in this situation, you would probably says that IM is crap or whatsoever. You will feel that it is a scam or a get-rich-quick scheme or a pyramid scheme. Well, many of IM gurus promote this kind of stuff anyway. If you are still trying to make money and this is your fourth or fifth month blogging, you are in the right path. Just don't give up just yet.

For some people who says IM is a scam, continue reading this article. If you are talking about scam, I have tons of them. What even better is, they are licensed and known by the government. It is not actually scams, just like IM, they are businesses but its going nowhere.

In my country, Malaysia, there are a lot of opportunities given by the government or organizations for the people to do business and make the people become success in their life for the country. I will tell you two examples below:

1. Leech breeding

Leeches for breeding

This was popular around 2008 - 2010 if I am not mistaken. A few organizations offer leeches to breed to the public. You do not need license to breed leeches. As long as you have a large barrel or keg, you can breed them quite easily. If you have a small terrain, it is even better.


Why do you breed leeches?
There are saying that leeches are important for the medical field. Leeches can suck blood clots and cancer cells. Even the government encourage the public to breed leeches to increase one's income. At that time, companies selling leech for breed grows like mushrooms.

The Problem
What people doesn't know about leech breeding is, it is hard to breed. Leech feed on blood. To find a good source of blood, leech breeders give the leeches catfish. Catfish is not cheap and you have to give it to the leeches everyday or your leech would grow thin or die. The company who buys back adult leeches won't buy thin and small adult leeches.

Most of the leech breeders are part timers and they breed small amount of leeches at their backyard in a few barrels. This leeches often die from starvation or not enough food to take. With only a few leeches left, it is not enough to return the capital money. What even worse, no company is willing to buy back a few leeches.

That is not the worst part. The worst part is the companies who handles the leeches gone on by one until there are no party who wants to buy leeches anymore. You will eventually lose more than half of the money for the startup. No more leeches, what are you going to do with the large barrels? Its not cheap so I doubt that you would throw it away.

2. Planting Jatropha/Castor Oil Plant
I don't know how many of you who reads this article know what is a castor oil plant and how do it look like. Here, we call it jatropha or 'jarak' in the Malay language. This plant gain its popularity on 2010-2012.

Why Do You Plant It?
Castor oil plant are said to have special oil called biodiesel that can replace the current diesel but with environmental friendly aspects. To plant the castor oil plant, you need a large land for farming. You need a large quantity of these plant to create the biodiesel.

Castor Oil Plant

The Problem
There are many problem than profit in planting castor oil plant. The need of a piece of land, plant maintenance, time and energy, it is really not worth it. There are rarely an individual who are farming this plant because it requires a large sum of 'downpayment' to start the business. So, mostly the farmers are companies or individuals who have extra large cash.

Biodiesel is still on experiment and the market is not large enough to make profit. Only a few machine have tested the biodiesel and not all machine can use it. Most of the companies flows down the drain with a very fast pace. I even saw with my own eyes that the land used to farm the plant are left with only bushes and ghost building.

Conclusion
As for conclusion, scam can come with many faces if they want to. People always blame other people online for their failure. Some businesses are not meant to fail but lack of research makes people lost their money in something that is not certain.

The best recipe for failure is greed. I already write an article about greed and you can read it here. When a person stop being greedy and start a real business, with hard work, there is no way that they will fail.

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Top 4 Most Easy Ways To Make Money Online

For some people who still do not understand, if talking about making money online, all they can think of is blogging. This is because the internet marketers promote blogging more than any other money making ways on the internet. For those who already familiar with internet marketing, they know that blogging is not the fastest way but the safest and longest.

Do you want to know what is the fastest way? Do you even know that there are other fastest way to earn your first dollar online? Below is the top 4 most fastest way to make money online.

4. Become a freelancer

If you have any skills, talent or even have the looks, register your name in the freelance website available on the internet. I have seen the silliest thing that anyone can do on the internet to make money and they get paid for it.

Freelancers at Fiverr have the most silly and weirdest job
description on the internet

The best thing to do before registering is to know what is your skills and specialties. The highest paid freelancers are usually professionals. They can easily get a few hundred dollars for a few hours per day. How cool is that? It is truly the comfort of working from home.

If you have the skills and interested in working from home, you can register at Freelancer, Elance and Fiverr.

An early warning to you that people who hires will prefer freelancers who already have good reputation and high rated. As a new freelancer, you need time to get your first job online.

3. Forex Trading

This is also one of the famous method to make money online. But forex trading is not for everyone. You must know how to trade before you start. There are many forex trading simulation online that you can learn from. Or you can ask someone to teach you to trade.


It is advisable that you don't trade if you are a total newbie. Forex trading involves a lot of money. If you don't have any experience, you can lose a lot of money in a blink of an eye.

I think I don't have the experience to give any advice about forex trading because I don't trade. You can ask around or ask for someone who knows about online trading. However, by doing it right, you can earn a fat paycheck by doing forex trading.

2. Online Betting

A lot of people loves online betting especially involving sports. The biggest online betting are in football or soccer. It is the most popular sport in the world and the influence can make people go loco. Most popular online betting system is from UK because football is popular there.

But it doesn't only target football. You can bet in any kind of sports or event. There are even people who bet on an election campaign.

You don't need to have special skills to bet. Its just following instinct and luck. Be warn that this is gambling. You can lose some and you can earn some. But it is worth to mentioned as the fastest way to make money online.

1. Online Gambling

This is my personal favourite. I love gambling but now I don't have the time to gamble anymore. A few of the gambling sites are also not allowed from my country. The most popular gambling game online is poker and blackjack.

Most people gamble online for fun and to kill their free time. This is like the people tells you 'here's my money, take it'. That is why online gambling is on top of my list about the fastest way to make money online.

My early warning, this is gambling, it involves money like betting and you can lose a lot of money if you get addicted. Gambling also require skills like top poker players in the world.

#Bonus

I want to add one bonus on the most fastest way to make money online that is scamming. You can laugh all you want but this method is also popular, fast and effective.

People are filled with greed that they will do anything to make money. Just build a few websites or send emails to people and see how it work like magic. In my country, Malaysia, you really can get rich quick by scamming people.

But this method is not recommended but it is still worth to mentioned. You can earn a lot of money by scamming but it also the fastest way to land you in jail if you get caught.

Conclusion

As conclusion, you all can assume that the best and fastest way to make money online is to have special skills or talent. Without skills and talent, it's hard, damn hard.

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Best Free or Cheap Wordpress Theme

One of the obstacle that a beginner in blogging have in common is choosing the right theme for their website. This alone can be frustrating like it sounds. Of course there are tons of wordpress themes to choose from in the internet but it ain't cheap.

If you want to find free themes, search for it on Google for free themes that most of the people use. There are a lot of themes to try out until your nose bleed. What I want to share here is about two websites where you can download free or cheap wordpress themes.

Veteran bloggers know where they can find themes they like and can be custom made according to what they prefer. But for beginners, you will not want to spend too much money for just buying a theme. It is better for beginners to minimize costs to avoid any bigger lost in the future.

1. WooThemes

I think this is the most popular website that sells wordpress themes on the internet. They also have free themes for download. The biggest advantage with Woothemes is their template are mostly have ecommerce plugins. If you have ecommerce blog in mind, this is the place for you to visit.

The paid themes will make you drool. It is so beautiful that you want to have them all. But, like I said before, it is not cheap. Most great themes to use costs $99 per theme. If you are interested, you can register for free at their website. Themes are sold through their free membership.

2. ThemeForest


The second website I want to share here is Themeforest. This is the cheapest place to buy a wordpress theme. The lowest is $3 and their best collections starts from $30. With this price, I think it is the most affordable theme that you can get.

Unlike Woothemes, Themeforest doesn't have free themes to download. That means any theme that you like will be paid. This is my personal choice when I started blogging. It is affordable and you don't have to pay for any membership. The themes are sold ala-carte style.

Last Words
Usually, any best themes whether free or paid, you have to register for their website in order to buy their themes. There are many other websites with better themes than Woothemes and Themeforest but their price is also better. A few website even charge you for being a member.

An average membership charge will be $47. This is not including the price for your template. However, they do not charge for nothing. It's for updating the template and a few service for upgrading.

You don't need an expensive template to start. See how much budget you have. I will not stop you from buying expensive template. It's your choice anyway.

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Remembering the SwissCash 'Scam'

Once upon a time there was a scam called SwissCash a.k.a Swiss Mutual Funds. There are a lot more websites like these before it was totally banned by the Malaysian government. I wanted to mentioned a few of them but SC is the biggest so lets stick to it.

SC guarantees the return on investment every month and the according to the following:

1 to 3 months - 10%
4 to 6 months - 15%
7 to 9 months - 20%
10 to 12 months - 25%
13 to 15 months - 30%

All these so-called scams are declared illegal and was banned on 2007. I was one of the investor during the time but luckily I don't lose a large chunk of money like big investors. The first and most popular investing site was of course the SC. Then many other small sites are following its footsteps and slowly gain popularity.

What makes me pissed off was the money that was invested was never returned by the Malaysian Securities Commision. Never mind myself but I really pity others that have invest thousands and thousands of Ringgit (converted to USD) to SC. It is not totally banned, only the website is banned from viewing.

After these few years, SC was still in the back of my mind. I was thinking is it really a scam? However, I never really did a thorough investigation but you can read it in Wikipedia. SC was declared illegal because it is a pyramid scheme and there are no proof that the company even existed.

SC is labelled as a scam and a fraud. During the time it was banned, you cannot even view the website and it never did. It was also claimed that thousands of people lose millions of USD because of this scam. Then, I was thinking, if it is a scam, why in the hell did they pay their investors every month like promised?!

If I am going to start a scam website, I will take everyone's money and poof!! like David Copperfield. I don't have to wait until everybody screams "its a scam!" It is not just SC. All the internet investment websites are paying. They did not take the money and they deliver on time. Where is the scam here?

But that is the past. Now we are in 2013! It is even better! These few months, this dude in my Facebook friend list came out with the same thing but with different approach. With experience that I have, I knew that what he promoted have the same agenda with SC. What's even better is, it is operated in Malaysia and it is licensed.

I won't share the website here for safety reasons. I don't want everybody to get excited again for something that is not certain. It's not the website that I fear, its the government policy. They can turn off the website anytime they want if it is a 'scam'.

I also wanted to see how far this investment would go. I know lots and lots of people here in Malaysia are greedy and lazy. All people want to earn money but they don't want to work. The type that wants to sit at home doing nothing and money comes from the sky. That is why Malaysian are easy prey for scams.

I have tried making email marketing here in Malaysia. I was promoting a few good products for small entrepreneurs. The products is about handling business, money, stocks and a few others. The product was really good and I was honest in helping them. I send the promotion via email to more than a thousand people.

Not a single item was sold! It is not surprising at first because I thought some of the products are a bit expensive. What really surprised me was the same amount of people dare to spend money on a marketing crap that was posted on the same forum. A blind person also can realize that the ads was a scam.

I want to advise to the people who reads this blog to listen to me. If you want to scam, no matter how stupid you are in scamming, try a Malaysian forum or any website full of Malaysian. Trust me, it is an easy target. One more thing, your ad must be something like this:

"Want to earn big money with small investment?! Email me at yousuck@dumbass.com. Just a small amount to earn big"

or

"Invest in real estate with our company to gain huge return! Live like in heaven in 7 days guaranteed!"

You will be surprised by how many people will email or call you to join you so-called investment. Correct me if I sound stupid but if there are such investment, would everyone will be millionaires? A simple logic is needed but no one cares. They are blinded by greed.

Conclusion
I am not trying to defend any scams that are gone or still available and I'm also not a fan of such investments but use some common sense. Why wouldn't the government wait for everyone to cash out their investment before shutting the website down? Give the people some time to cash out their money.

In my personal opinion, I think the government doesn't like the idea of moving too much Ringgit outside the country.  That is why the government rush things out to shut down the entire investment websites.

This should be a lesson to the Malaysian people. Greed makes them lost their money and maybe their everything. Look at the millionaires out there. Do you see them not working? They are also working even if it is a few hours a day.

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