The customer, who happens to be my customer in hosting services, is affiliated to one political party. What’s the purpose of the project? To promote one political figure on the Internet. At the same time, it was also to be an online service earning big money.

If the project were on, the money I would earn would be quite substantial. But the problem was, to support that particular politician is not what my conscience told me to do. I’m not affiliated to any political party. But as a rakyat (citizen) with voting power I’m not in favor of the politician.

So what should I do? The customer said he trusted me and wanted me to take the project. Out of courtesy for the customer, and honestly for the money also, I did do everything he asked me to do, including giving them quotations, sourcing solution providers, arranging meetings and so on. But I just did what I was told to do, and didn’t follow up at all. Let God decide the outcome.

But since then, no more news on the project. Perhaps I didn’t “get” it at all. Perhaps he had found someone else. But I believe the whole thing had been called off. I don’t know what caused the changes. Maybe it’s not relevant any more. Maybe their people at the top didn’t want to proceed. After all, there have been many changes in the political landscape in past one year.

But what I know is that now I can have peace and don’t have to struggle between business and political interest any more

No matter whether you are working, running your own business, studying, home-making, retired or somewhat in between, I wish you achieve new heights of success in career and life in this new year!

People say it’s going to be a bad year.  Many will lose their jobs.  Disposable income will become less and less.  Businesses will suffer.  So on and so forth.

We can read or hear so much bad news everyday that some people I know started to automatically develop a response of “immunity” and even “rejection” to these negative bombardments.

According to some really successful people, now is actually a great time to do many things, including developing your business.  So instead of lamenting on the economic situation, let’s learn to take advantage of it - we don’t have such opportunity many times in our lifetime!

So instead of expecting bad things to happen, let’s together hope for and work for good things to come up in our life, work or business this year!  Well, according to the law of attraction, we get what we expect.  We reap what we sow, starting first in our minds.

At the end of 2009, I wish I will have lived a fruitful year.  So I wish for you.  God bless you a successful year ahead!

Selamat Tahun Baru!

新年快乐,心想事成!

新年おめでとうございます！

It gives value to the employees as a good employer and workplace, to the customers as a provider of goods and services value for their money, to the owners for their effort and money well invested, and to the society at large as a responsible corporate citizen to help in sustainable development.

Similarly, why do we individuals exist in this world? Why are we born into this world? For what purpose? I believe, apart from coming to eat and drink, to work and enjoy life, we are here to create values for others.

There’s a Chinese saying that “a tiger dies and leaves its skin, but a man dies and leaves its name” (虎死留皮,人死留名). When we are gone, we will not take away any wealth and materials earned in this life. But we will leave a “name”, or better called our “legacy”.

But the “name”, “legacy” or “reputation” left is not for our interest, but it’s a by-product as we seek to fulfill our purpose in life. And I believe our purpose here is to bless others, that is to bring good things to others, to create values for others by our existence on this earth.

And to be able to give values to others, I’ve been taught not to always look inwards to myself too much, but to look outwards to pay attention to what others need.

This is just what I have learned. I don’t want to be just a traveler in this world, and I’m learning to be a blessing. Let’s create values for others!

I know the process is not easy for non-technical people.  But we will be available anytime to ensure smooth transfer, including doing most if not all of the tasks below for you.

First some definitions.  Transferring domain name means changing your domain name registrar (the company with which you or your hosting provider registered your domain name) to the one we use.  Transferring hosting means migrating your web site and email service from another hosting provider to us.

Domain Name Transfer

To transfer your international domain name (.com, .net, .org etc), please ask your current domain name provider to “unprotect” your domain name, and obtain the “domain name secret code” (domain authorization code) from them and send to us.  It is a little password to protect your domain from unauthorized transfer.

Once received, we will do the rest to transfer your domain over from your existing registrar to the one we use.  The process can take a few working days, but your web site and email service will not be affected.  After transfer, your domain name will be renewed for another year starting from the current expiry date.

For .my domain names, there is no “domain transfer”.  You can simply login to MYNIC web site as billing contact, and change the “Invoicing Party” from your existing provider to the one we use, so that we can take care of your domain name and bill you in the future.

Web Hosting Transfer

To transfer your web site to the new server, please obtain a copy of your web site (most probably you already have), and just upload to the new server using FTP software.

If your web site uses any database, such as MySQL, MSSQL or Microsoft Access, please be sure to backup and upload to the new server too.

Email Hosting Transfer

To transfer your email service to the new server, please first send us a list of your current email accounts.  I’ll create on the new server.  It is possible to achieve zero downtime for email service by checking your emails from both old and new serveres at the same time.  Please read here for more information.

Changing DNS

When you are ready to transfer hosting, just login to your domain name control panel and change the domain name server (DNS) to ours.

Please contact us at info [at] bizpartner.com.my should you have any question.

When a customer sends me some complaint, comment and suggestion, I have learned to at least give an acknowledgment in reply.

When a customer takes her precious time to complain to me, I want to thank God because, unlike some customers who simply walk away to another provider, she is still concerned of me and wants to do business with me!

When we are so bogged down by work, we forget whom we are working for.  Customers are the reason we businesses exist and they are the one we serve and the reason of our work.  They are our kings, and should be considered as distraction or interruption.

So, do not ever ignore your customers, no matter how slight the issue is.  Ignoring them is as good as asking them to just go away!

Receiving spams is a reality nowadays. How many spams do you receive each day? We know most spams are about “sexual health”. But I found more and more spams related to training and education these days.

These are subject titles of some spams on training courses received in my spam folder recently. I have never subscribed to any of their mailing lists before:

• How To Sell Successfully To Corporate Customers
• Train The Trainer
• Enhancing Interpersonal Skills
• Corporate Social Responsibility For Competitive Advantage
• Public Speaking & Presentation Skills
• Planning For Strategic Marketing (do they teach us to spam for marketing?)

One of these spammers is even more “sophisticated”. They know how to use a different email address to spam each time to bypass spam filter and to hide their real identity!

But do you really need to spam in order get the words out about your products and services? Nowadays there are many ways to do Internet marketing, such as search engine marketing and blog marketing. Unless you are in fly-by-night business, sending spams will not only not work, but backfire on your reputation as well!

So I advised that company not to spam but consider other ways of promotion that could be more long-term and beneficial. Unfortunately, they said they want “fast results” and will go on shopping for another hoster who allows them to spam. But as I understand, no legitimate hosting provider allows customers to spam. So good luck!

Some customers are very technical inclined, even more knowledgeable than me on server matters :-)  No surprise if they want to do the migration themselves.  So if you are interested in DIY migration, here is a summary checklist for you.

To start with, please make sure your web site can run on Linux server.  Web sites using ASP or .NET technologies will not run and should stay with your current Windows server.

Please also have your domain name control panel login details with you.  You need the username and password to login to change domain name server (DNS).  The details were sent to you when you first registered the domain.  Please contact me if you need help retrieving the details.

After you have decided to migrate, please let me know and I’ll create a hosting plan for you on the new server.  I will send you the hosting details with access to your cPanel.

Please carry out these three things before migration:

• Your web site - Please backup your web site from the current server and upload to the new server, using the temporary FTP details given to you.
• Your database - If you have any MySQL database on the current server, please backup and upload it to the new server using PhpMyAdmin in cPanel.
• Your email accounts - Please retrieve your current list of email addresses from the current server, and recreate them on the new server using cPanel.

However, your emails on the current server, if any, cannot be migrated over.  Your users need to download the emails to their computers.  But you can keep on sending and receiving emails during the migration.  Read here for more information.

Finally, at the migration date and time of your choice, just log on to the domain name control panel and change DNS setting according to the hosting details sent to you.

You can do it!

I’m not a professional blogger and don’t have too much time to blog for you.  Normally I suggest you get a domain name and hosting service, install WordPress on their domain name (can be done easily from web-based control panel called cPanel) and start to blog.

Believe me, it’s good to learn how to blog yourself (or your staff).  Unless you really don’t have the time to blog, blogging yourself is the best option because you are the one who is most knowledgeable on your business, and more importantly, you are the one who is most passionate about what you offer, not any paid professional blogger!

Another way is to team up with me in blogging.  I can get your hosting and/or domain name free of charge, install the blog for you and maintain the blog platform.  All you need to do is just login and blog.

But it depends on what you are selling, your business model, and your commitment to blog.  Contact me if you are interested in further discussion.

Either way, you still need to blog yourself (or get a knowledgeable and passionate staff to do it).  It’s quite easy actually.  But as your provider and friend, I’ll be glad to pass on what I have learned to you out when you need help!

But some customers are not migrating for fear that there might be downtime disrupting their email service during the few hours of migration.  Can there be zero downtime?

I don’t know how other hosting providers do it.  But for me, the answer is yes!  You can still send and receive as usual!  Firstly, you make a small change to the account in your email software to connect to the old mail using IP addresses.  Secondly, you create another account to connect to the new mail server after the migration.

For the old account, you simply change the “incoming mail server” from pop.yourdomain.com to the IP address of your current incoming mail server, and change the “outgoing mail server” from smtp.yourdomain.com to the IP address of your current outgoing mail server.  You can get the IP address by doing a “ping” test to pop.yourdomain.com and smtp.yourdomain.com.  Or you can just ask me and I’ll send you the IP addresses.

Once you enter the IP addresses for both “incoming mail server” and “outgoing mail server”, you can retrieve your emails from the old mail server and send emails as usual, before, during and after the migration.  Please do download all emails to your PC within a few days after the migration, as your email service on the old mail server will not be kept long.

For the new account, you create one in your email software in order to connect to the new mail server.  The settings are a bit different and I’ll send to you everything you need.  You can create the account any time but it will work only after the migration.

In addition, please send me the list of your current email addresses under your domain name so that I can help create the addresses on the new server.  This ensures that incoming emails after the migration will not get lost or bounced.

Easy migration!  No more migrane! :-)  Find out more if you are interested to migrate your hosting too.

You can either enter the email addresses of your friends manually. Or you can just enter your username and password of your web-based email service, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail. Then the site will login on behalf of you, extract your friends’ details out of your address book, and send them an invitation email.

While asking for your login details, there is always a disclaimer claiming that “We do not store your login information”. But, do you believe?

As a web programmer myself, I know how easy it is to store people’s password without them knowing. If your login details fall into the wrong hands, the unscrupulous party can just log into your account, read your emails, send emails for you, or simply change your password and block you from accessing your mailbox any more.

I don’t know about you. But I have friends whose web-based mailbox had been hacked and they could not access their mailbox any more. Worse, a hacker even used my friend’s mailbox to send emails out on her behalf!

Of course I do trust sites such as LinkedIn. But if a site called XYZ that you do not know well ask you for login details, will you give them? Better safe than sorry.

From the point of view of site owner, is it good to ask for login details from members? However we claim that we don’t store their login details, they may still not trust us, because we are nobody!

This shows that trust is paramount in doing business, including online businesses. But when we are nobody, it takes time to build trust.

I wish there can be a good mechanism where members can safely invite people on their address book without the site owner getting to know the login details at all.

This is like how credit card details are processed - the customer enters the card number but the merchant never get to see it because it is sent directly to the bank.

Do you have any good solution?

There are a few ways to upload files to, and download files from, your web server by means of FTP (file transfer protocol). The most common way is using an FTP software for this purpose.

But I’ll show you a basic way which works, and which does not require you to install any FTP software.  If you know how to copy and paste files in Windows Explorer or My Computer, you can copy and paste files too to other servers.

1. Open up Windows Explorer or My Computer on your computer.
2. Make sure there is an address bar in Windows Explorer where you can type address.  Can’t see?  Go to View menu, click Toolbars, and turn on Address Bar.
3. Type this into the address bar - ftp://username@ftp.domain.com .  Please substitute username with your FTP account username, and ftp.domain.com with your FTP server name.  You can get these details from your hosting provider.
4. You will be prompted for your FTP account username and password.  Enter them to log on to your web server.
5. Once successful, you will be able to see the file content on your server.  If necessary, browse to the folder where you want to copy files to.
6. To copy files to your server, just copy them from your file system, and paste it to the folder.  Done!

By the way, I host a little Java applet which lets you quickly upload files by FTP here.  Try it out!

Alex, a student years ago, intended to raise money for his education. He thought of a very good idea, to sell advertisement space on Internet pixel by pixel for $1 each. He successfully sold all pixels in the 1000 x 1000 pixels space on his web site, and became a millionaire!

Since then, many web sites surfaced hoping to copy his success story. Any similar attempts from Malaysia? Yes, Million Ringgit Malaysia is one of them.

Two years ago, a teenager contacted me and would like to partner up with me to develop such an idea. I immediately saw it’s a copycat idea and didn’t go ahead with him.

Years have passed by and I have not heard anyone become another Alex Tew so far, either from Malaysia or around the world.

Recently, I came across TwoMAds.com owned by two young Malaysians. It seems they not only want to go for one million, but two million! I’m not sure how they are different from the original Alex’s idea. But from the statistics they publish online, it seems they are not selling too well as yet.

But just as two years ago when the youngster proposed to me, I still maintain that such idea to earn big money through pixel advertising does not work any more, not without changing some if not most elements of the business model.

But I venture to say that it may work under at least two circumstances. Firstly, the idea is not used for profit making, but to raise fund 100% for charity or a social cause.  How about use it for venture capital for social entrepreneurs?

Secondly, the idea maybe applied to other things that may generate such income. To start with, just list down all kinds of measurements you can think of, and see how you can sell one unit each for $1. But this is still “thinking inside the box”.

Any idea?

Some time ago I received an email from a Singaporean who just took a course in BOS at UCSI Blue Ocean Strategy Regional Centre, and commended how good the training had been.  I soon surfed to their web site and found it interesting.  But I didn’t notice their building was quietly being constructed right near my house until I passed by recently!

It is good news that more and more businesses are becoming aware of the dangers competing in red ocean, and the importance of creating their own market (blue ocean) by making the competitors irrelevant.  Easier said than done.  But it is achievable.  And there have been many success stories, both locally and abroad.

It is good for the businesses as they can transform their businesses and earn like never before.  They will no longer need to rely on competitive tactics, and even unethical ones, to outsmart one another.  It is good for the market as businesses truly listen and study what it needs, and even discover what it really needs.  It is good for the society as our lives can be improved through creativity and innovation in blue ocean strategy.

But what happens when everyone is doing BOS?  Not every BOS will be good BOS strategy.  Some can be BS strategy.  It will be interesting to see what happens in future when “blue ocean strategy” is as commonly understood and practiced as “differentiation”, “segmentation” and “branding”.

Are you not on the BOS bandwagon yet?

I turned on the radio and tuned to FM 89.9 immediately.  I was so delighted to have found such a channel that I have long yearned for

I’ve been the type of person who don’t listen to music while driving.   No, I was not like this when I was younger.  I spoilt my car audio speaker before for playing rock music too loudly in early years of driving.  It is also not that I don’t like music.  If you go karaoke singing with me, most likely I’ll sing more than you.  But as I grew older, I just became the kind of person who would not turn on car radio for music any more.

But apart from its normal programmes, BFM is music most of the time!  In order not to miss any good business programmes, now I keep the radio on while driving and listen to music after so many years!

The moral of this story is that, BFM turned me from a non-customer into a customer.  Just as Nintendo successfully turned non-customers such as adults to its Nintendo Wii video game console, BFM just successfully turned me into listening to music!

Instead of taking away existing customers from competitors in the market, this is defining a new market boundary by appealing to non-customers and turning them into customers.  A blue ocean strategy!

I don’t charge commission.  I’ll just pass you to the students.  More information can be found here at http://nextlevel.com.my/assignment/32401

So if you can teach Korean, or know someone else who can, please let me know at info [at] nextlevel.com.my.

By the way, do you like to learn foreign language?  Yes, I do.  I wish to learn Japanese, Korean, Thai, Spanish and French.  Very greedy hor

But I can’t be learning so many things at the same time.  So for those who know me, you know what I’m at - it’s Japanese.  So let me just show off.

はじめまして、どうぞよろしく　おねがいします (hajimemashite, douzoyoroshiku onegaishimasu).

It means “nice to meet you”.  Very long, isn’t it?  Literally it means “It’s my first time seeing you.  Please be nice to me”.  It’s a polite way of saying when meeting someone for the first time. Japanese put much importance on politeness, and it seems to me that the more words you use, the more polite you will be

Interested in any new tongue?

Let say you are expecting an urgent incoming email but suddenly your mail server goes down.  You just can’t send or receive emails at all.  You become frustrated and call up your hosting provider.  You are about to curse them.

“We are sorry for the inconvenience. We just restarted the server.  Please try to check your email again in 5 minutes.”

Have you heard such standard reply before?  Perhaps few weeks later the same thing happens again.  And you get a reply just similar to the above, again and again.

What if your hosting provider is so honest to explain to tell you that they are facing such as such problem, taking such as such steps to fix it, and doing such as such to prevent this from happening again in the future?  Will it not be better?

Problems can occur from time to time.  But customers can judge us by how we handle problems.  Instead of hiding the problem and keeping the customers in the dark, we could be more transparent and let customers know exactly what happens.

This way, we will not only pacify our customers, but could actually delight them!

First of all, I am quite a supporter of Google (at least more than Microsoft ).  If I were to work for others, I wish I could work for Google.  They are the number 1 best employer in a survey!  I admire most for their business strategy and innovation.

The team in Google have so far done a terrific job working towards their mission to organize the world’s information and make it easily accessible through their search engine and other applications.  And I believe they will continue to grow and dominate the Internet, at least in the foreseeable future.

In these few years, one of their applications called Google Apps has developed into a formidable application that stores your data in the “cloud” (meaning on the Internet instead of your PC or server).  It allows you to host your domain name, build your web site, access your emails using their famous Gmail (more than 2GB per user!), collaborate with others with online calendar, receive event notifications by SMS, edit, store your office application (vs. the non-free Microsoft Office), and do many other things.

In fact, I already have customers switching their email service to Google Apps.  In future, I believe more and more enterprises will register their domain name and sign up with Google Apps.  I also have one domain name with Google Apps in order to try it out, though I have not started using it yet

Google Apps has a strong selling proposition in email service.  But in terms of hosting your web site, especially the more complex web applications, it has yet to be comparable to normal hosting providers.  But I believe one day they will be as good as, if not better than, us the hosting providers in web hosting too.

So is Google Apps a threat to hosting providers?  Definitely yes.  They think from the user’s point of view and bundle applications in such an innovative way into a complete solution for businesses.  Perhaps one day end users will not know the term “hosting” any more.  They no longer need to “find a hosting provider”.  Just register your domain and “google” it!  And the word “google” here does not only mean to search as of now, but to put up your documents, emails, web site and every other data on the Internet.

As long as Google is a responsible company and does not do evil (as what they swear by and I believe they do walk their talk), their entry into the hosting industry should be welcomed.  The hosting industry may just disappear or change to something else in the future.  But it’s natural progression as the Internet landscape develops.

As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them.  And this is what I’m contemplating to do.  When one day comes that Google Apps is so dominant in the market and becomes a must-have tool for businesses, at least I will be in better position to retain and continue to serve my current over 600 customers.

What do you think of Google Apps?

I was in the workshop to learn about how to generate and evaluates new business ideas.  Actually I already have some ideas myself,  some even few years old!  I want to know how to choose the best idea to work on, or as the speaker said, which idea to sell my house on!

At the end of session, we were told to submit a one-page summary of our business idea by next week in order to apply to MDeC’s (the organization behind MSC Malaysia) pre-seed fund for up to RM150,000 in order to further develop.  Never did I notice that the workshop was aimed for the fund applicants.

But now I’m seriously considering applying for the fund.  It’s a grant, free money!  The money will help in bootstrapping the new business and shorten the time to market.  Also, I will go through some process and learn things that I never learned.  In fact, I will be paid to learn!

Perhaps most importantly, this will instill discipline in me to act on my business idea now, rather than letting it collect dust for another few years.  Since it is a conditional grant, I must achieve certain project milestones and develop a prototype within certain time period, failing which I will need to pay back!

So now, which idea should I submit?  Well, this is not play play and I think I will submit the best one.  Wish me luck

I don’t have much experience on this and am not qualified to speak on this issue. I also don’t have very good solution to this. But I have a very naive idea.  if a customer refuses to pay up, just let him go and do not pursue after the money. Perhaps I have done something wrong that he refuses to pay up. Even if it’s not my fault, at least I have done something to help and bless his business.

You will surely not agree with my suggestion to let the customer go, to bless and not to curse, to look beyond our existence (we don’t exist just to make money), to thank the customer for giving business to us in the first place and for the money he has paid, to wish him well and never do anything to sabotage, even to continue to serve him If he ever comes back in the future.

There is a Chinese word called 舍得 (meaning “letting go”) which consists of two characters - 舍 and 得. Perhaps only when we learn to let go (舍), do we learn to how to truly gain (得).

Yes, I know I am naive :-)  How about you?  What will you do?

For example if you fill up an enquiry form on my web site, you will not only receive a confirmation by email, but a thank you message by SMS instantly as well.

In another example, if you make payment for a product, you will receive a confirmation message by SMS immediately. You will also receive a follow-up SMS exactly one month later, reminding you of my brand

Some customers think I send out every SMS message manually from my handphone. But sooner or later they will find out it’s all automated. I can’t be sitting there to sticking to my phone to send out every SMS so quickly in response to every enquiry, 24 hours a day!

How to create such autoresponders by SMS? There is actually nothing complicated. You just need to subscribe to a bulk SMS messaging system, and then program your system to send out SMS messages using the system’s application programming interface (API). My system has been so programmed to make heavy use of SMS for customer service, branding and marketing as well.

There are many SMS bulk messaging service providers out there. Each SMS message sent costs money. Some charge very cheap rate per SMS, but your message might not reach your recipients at all. So don’t just look for cheap providers.

For me, I’m happily using Redisoft SMS System at the moment. Their system is good and stable. Macrokiosk is another good choice. Are you using any better provider? Please share with me.

Giving instant feedback to your customers can “wow” them and make them think your response is so prompt. So surprise your customers by innovating your online business by SMS today!

What? It’s free of charge! No string attached!

Grab your Free Web & Email Hosting Plan now. More details below:

• Linux server
• cPanel control panel
• 10MB web and email space
• 1GB data transfer (bandwidth) per month

And listen up. More goodies below!

• Unlimited email accounts (POP, IMAP, webmail)
• Unlimited FTP accounts
• Unlimited subdomains
• Unlimited parked domains
• Unlimited MySQL databases

If you own a domain name (whether registered with us or not), you can subscribe for the Free Plan. You can also register a a new domain name and subscribe for the Free Plan.

10MB may be too little for some domains. But if you don’t have a web site, or have a very simple one, and you plan only a few email accounts, Free Plan maybe enough for you.

If it is not enough, you can always upgrade to other plans later. But hosting under Free Plan will give you a taste of what cPanel-based Linux hosting is like.

To grab it, please fill in the form here, put in your domain name, and choose Free Plan under Web & Email Hosting Plan.  If you need to pay for the domain name, proceed to the payment page.  Change your domain name servers to our ns1.vesselbiz.com and ns2.vesselbiz.com when ready.  You will receive your hosting plan details by email on the same working day!

Upon some checking, I found others in the hosting industry know about their practice too. Sometimes the company even unknowingly call up hosting providers and resellers.

A contact told me this company “hijacks” other companies’ customers. We may accuse them of “stealing” customers from competitors. But they could claim it’s their marketing strategy.

Legally speaking, they don’t do anything wrong, unless they mislead customers into thinking they are their domain name or hosting provider, which I guess is possible since many customers are not so IT-savvy on domain and hosting stuff.

There is no such thing as a “hosting industry association” in Malaysia. No organization for us to appeal to. We can’t complain against them. They also didn’t break any law, unless we can get the proof of their misrepresenting other companies.

For now they maybe able to “steal” many customers from others. But their name is notorious in the industry for what they do. This does not translate into good business for them in the long run. At the end the customers will know their plot also.

One interesting question is that, where do they get the list of expiring domain names? They told a “mystery shopper” that they check your domain name from the domain name search service (WHOIS) provided on the Internet. But without first knowing your domain name, how do they do a search on your domain name?

The company admitted they have such a list of expiring domain names but refused to reveal the source citing confidentiality. As I understand, domain name registrars like MYNIC, Webnic.cc and others do not share the list of expiring domain names to their partners and resellers.

A possible solution is to register customers’ domains under our own contact details. But for me this would be breaking my promises to customers. Another solution is subscribe for private WHOIS service, where customers’ details will not be available online. But it costs money and add to customers’ expenses.

For me, I think those companies who rely on “stealing” customers from others are desperate short-term businesses who choose to compete in the red ocean and have no unique business strategy for themselves. For them, I think they can choose to gain customers for today and lose their reputation for tomorrow.

What do you think?

In such cases, it’s best to find out whether there is anything wrong in our network connection or not. You can simply use the “command prompt” service in Windows and run a few tests - namely ping, telnet and tracert.

To start, click the Start button, click Run, type cmd, press Enter, and you will be a blank screen awaiting your input. You are then ready to start each test. Let’s assume your domain name is domain.com. You should substitute domain.com with your own domain name in tests below.

Ping

This is a quick connection test to the server. If the connection is OK, you should receive responses from the server. On the command prompt, type:

ping www.domain.com - test the web server
ping pop.domain.com - test the incoming mail server (old server)
ping smtp.domain.com - test the outgoing mail server (old server)
ping mail domain.com - test the mail server (new cPanel-based Linux server)

Telnet

It tries to log you on to the server and sees whether it’s successful or not.

telnet pop.domain.com 110 - test the incoming mail server at port 110 (old server)
telnet smtp.domain.com 28 - test the outgoing mail server at port 28 (old server) - change to port 25 if you are using fixed IP address
telnet mail domain.com 110 - test the mail server at port 110 (new cPanel-based Linux server)

Tracert

It reports any connection problem along the way connecting to a server.

tracert www.domain.com - test the web server
tracert pop.domain.com - test the incoming mail server (old server)
tracert smtp.domain.com - test the outgoing mail server (old server)
tracert mail domain.com - test the mail server (new cPanel-based Linux server)

After each test, you can copy the result and send to us. To copy the result, click on the little icon at the top left corner of the command prompt window, and then click Edit and then Mark. Use your mouse to highlight the area of the window you want to copy, and then press Enter to copy.

Then you can email the test result to us. To exit from the command prompt window, simply type exit and then Enter.

Should you have any question, please contact us here.

Search engine friendliness - A normal web site is “static”, meaning that it doesn’t change much over time. But a blog updated regularly can provide fresh content to the search engines. Google can crawl your web site and so update its search results more often if it has a blog.

Keywording - What keywords you want people to type in Google to find you? In blog you can stuff your blog posts with the keywords you want. A blog is ever-growing and so your keywords’ exposure grows as well.

Ease of setup - You may need a web designer to do up your web site. But with blog, there are so many free blogging software available, such as WordPress, that you don’t really need so much technical knowledge to create a blog site. DIY stands for Do It Yourself!

Ease of maintenance - With a normal web site, you may need to spend much for a web designer to update your content (maintenance is not cheap so that’s why you can see so many web sites not updated). But with a blog, you can just login any time to make changes yourself! Again, it’s free!

Low cost - You may need to spend thousands of dollars to hire a web design firm. But with blogging, web development can be literally FREE! At most, you need to pay up for your domain name, web hosting, and maybe hire someone to set up your blog. Then you are off to blogging!

So if you already have a conventional web site, I guess it’s time to add a blog to it. If you don’t have a web site yet, why not create your whole site as a blog?

Not convinced?  Find out more from OneCoach - the 3 ways how blogging can help your business.

In 1999, I started BizPartner with 2 other partners when we were university students. We provided all kinds of IT services we knew such as selling and repairing computer, computer training, computer networking, web design, and so on. There was no focus at all.  Naturally the business was not good and soon my partners left me.

I carried on and narrowed down to three major services - computer training, web development and SMS marketing. Before long, I became the top reseller of a hosting company as I managed to get quite a number of customers to host their web sites with me.

In 2001, I registered the domain name bizpartner.com.my (so late!) and started to focus on web hosting services only. Since then I’ve been providing domain name registration, web and email hosting services until today.

In 2002, I launched NextLevel Tutor Network, a home tuition portal for Malaysia and Singapore. The business model was quite different from other players in the tuition industry, and it did shake the industry a bit at that time. The web site went on until today, although many similar sites have emerged.

In the same year, I also launched RichQuote.com, an affiliate web site selling products on personal finance. For a while, it was quite successful as I became the number 1 affiliate around the world earning US Dollar everyday. However, the business model was quite controversial. To avoid any trouble, I later decided to sacrifice the money and turn it into a very normal web site. The site has since disappeared into oblivion, though still earning a little of income every month.

In these few years, I also launched a few other online businesses, some mine, some joint ventures with others. These include an online photo album about Malaysia, a web hosting service using single-level marketing, and so on. I also helped form a company which sells an IT outsource solution. Unfortunately these ventures didn’t work out. But at least I tried

So started in 1999 as a general IT service provider, I changed to become a developer of online businesses as years went by. I no longer wanted to provide IT services (except web hosting), but to build automated (or nearly automated) Internet businesses so that I have free time to do other things.

But starting from 2004, although my little business still went on, I started to get involved in certain non-business activities. As a result, I spent too little time working on business that it has remained stagnant until this year. I’m now very much left behind. Just look at many young entrepreneurs today, some one decade younger than me, they are already doing very successfully!

This year in 2008, I decided to give up many good activities to refocus on business (often “good” is the enemy of “best” use of my time). The relaunch of RickySoo.com as a business blog this year was a milestone as I decided to devote time working on the business again (not just in the business). I’m trying to learn up everything as I did in my early years, and I believe I can catch up.

As a start, I’m now working first to transform my existing sites, and will later work on some business ideas I have kept for years. If you have good ideas and need a technical partner to team up, you are welcome to contact me here.

Simply put, a domain name is an easier-to-remember name for resources on the Internet, such as rickysoo.com and MyCompany.com.my.

Internally, every resource on the Internet is identified by a series of numbers called IP address, such as 202.188.10.99.  Now if you need to access a web site, instead of typing 202.188.10.99 into your browser, you are better off with an alphabetical domain name, such as http://www.rickysoo.com.

It’s like everyone of us having an identification number such as IC number (who doesn’t have?).  But instead of remembering your friends by numbers such as 760814-14-5617, it’s easier (and more humane) to call them by name such as Ricky.

Examples of domain name are such as YourCompany.com, YourCompany.net, YourCompany.org, YourCompany.com.my, YourCompany.my, YourCompany.sg, YourCompany.cn, YourCompany.biz, YourCompany.co.uk, YourCompany.us and so on.

You won’t need to get a domain name if you don’t plan to put up a service on the Internet.  But if you wish to put up a service, such as your own web site (eg. http://www.MyCompany.com), or having your own email address bearing your company name (eg. contact@MyCompany.com), you will need to own a domain name.

Certainly you don’t want your service to be remembered as a cryptic series of numbers, right?

PS: You can buy a domain name from domain name registrars and resellers such as me.

Thanks to Exabytes who treated business partners, suppliers and customers to watch Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa in Cathay Cineplex, free of charge!

As we could see, the cinema hall was packed with people.  As we walked around the cineplex and The Curve shopping mall nearby, many people were carrying the free bags given by Exabytes.

From a humble beginning of a few staff members just a few years ago, Exabytes have grown into the most successful, interesting, admirable, enviable and happening hosting provider in Malaysia!

Not to mention many awards they have  won over the years, including the prestigious Golden Bull Award given to the best SMEs in Malaysia, not one time, but two years in a row - last year and this year again!

Years ago I already thought of using their services, but was bogged down by my hesitation to switch provider.  I also considered their lack of their own data centre, and lack of 24-hour phone support as their down sides when compared to another I was using.

But as their boss Chan told me, even if they had the money for a data centre, why use it for a data centre while it could be used for other better purposes?

We know the web hosting industry in Malaysia is a typical red ocean.  But Exabytes seem to have adopted the four action framework (Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, Create) in the blue ocean strategy, among other things they have done.

Unlike some other providers, they eliminated the need for their own data centre.  They reduced their phone support to the minimum.  These two alone are very costly yet not very productive for a hosting provider.

But they raised the quality, variety and innovation of their products by catering to the niche markets such as students, bloggers and resellers.  And most importantly, (to the customers ) they created the FUN in hosting with them with their regular freebies, prizes, giveaways, PR events such as this movie day.  Hosting service is very much a functional product, but Exabytes are not just providing the functionality, but appealing to our emotions as well.  I believe they are also among the most interesting companies to work in!

The thrust of a blue ocean strategy lies in the value innovation, the innovation of values offered to customers yet at a lower cost.  They save much money and do away many headaches by eliminating and reducing unproductive things, but use it to raise and create something very interesting and impactful.  Money well spent!

So Exabytes, congratulations on your success.  I believe you will not sit on your laurels, but grow from strength to strength to become not just a good company but a great one!  Syabas!

But recently they have been having some service problems with that provider. They contacted me and migrated everything back to me.

When they left me, they took their one domain name away. But when they came back, their business has grown and now they returned with three domain names!

I’ve been wondering what problems they have been facing with that provider. If it was not because of those problems with the provider, I guess perhaps they would not switch provider again. I heard a businessman said that one business can beat another not because of its own strengths, but often because of the folly of the other.

But why did the customer return to me and not choose yet another provider? Perhaps this is due to the policy to continue serving customers even though they have left. Or perhaps they subscribed to my mailing list before and so have been hearing from me by email and know what my hosting services are up to.

So it’s good to bless (and never curse) customers even they leave us. Those who bless others will be blessed, perhaps even three times more

But the way Outlook Express stores its emails may not be the best way. Unfortunately things can happen that the emails can get corrupted. For example, if you suddenly power off your computer when it is downloading emails, the downloading is interrupted and your emails in Inbox and some folders can be gone.

So if you are using Outlook Express, or any email software for that matter, it’s prudent that you back up your emails regularly, especially when you have important company emails. One customer of mine opens and saves every email as a file in the hard drive. But this is just too tedious

Worry no more. Just grab a copy of the free Outlook Express Quick Backup. With a click of the “Complete Backup” button, it backs up all your emails in all folders. Not only your emails, but your folder structure, address book, email accounts and settings are backed up as well. Great tool!

In case your emails are lost, you can always restore back your previous backup. Just click the “Complete Restore” button, your Outlook Express will be back as previous. Thumb up!

Daniel Cerventus of Entrepreneurs.my led a session in FOSS.my and shared what businesses can learn from the open source.  An open source movement, or any movement for that matter, is all in and about its community of people believing in its cause and collaborating together to move it forward.

It makes me think that an open source movement is like a religion, or even a cult with its own sub-culture.  The people are crazy for the idea, work tirelessly to build up something for the good of all, and become “evangelists” to promote the software.  In fact, the term “evangelist” is a religious term, isn’t it?

Daniel likens the community to the supporters of a restaurant who strongly believe the food and beverages it provides.  I have a real story to tell here.

A customer recently asked me to join a cafe restaurant business as “member”, having joined herself.  The idea is that, the café owner offers “shares” (not real shares) of profit to all members of the public who invest into the business.  In return, the owner shares the monthly profit back to the members, with minimum fixed returns guaranteed.

In effect, these members will naturally want to help the restaurant do well and become “evangelists” for the restaurant.  It’s a “community café restaurant”.  Isn’t it a good idea?  What a different business model for an F & B business!

By the way, are you interested in investing in the café? Let me know and I’ll gladly connect you with my customer.

Now what if the members also help to develop every part of the café, from the decoration to the menu, just like the software developers help in open source software development?  Will it not become a real “open source café restaurant” then?

Is this achievable?  So what can we learn from open source movement for business?