Changes on the Cow SiteI got a new domain! Yeah! The Cow finally has a home of its own.
I am finally selling onlineTo test the water, I finally started doing what millions have already been doing - selling on eBay
Which one to invest first? Roth IRA or 401K?I did a calculation and figured that 401K is a better choice among the two
My Money Market Fund lost 20% in 9 monthsI was expecting to earn some penny size interest in my money market account, instead, I lost 120 bucks in 9 months
Paper And Pencil Anyone?What do you prefer to use to manage your money? I use paper, pencil, Excel and Text files
Dig into my spending habitI spent a few hours to dig into my spending habit and compared it with my budget plan. Here are the results
Paying interests could be a good thingIf you are investing short term in real estate, taking out loans, even interests only loans might not be a bad idea
It's Time To SaveAs the Fed shot up the rates, so does the savings rate. It's a good time to set up a cash fund and I found some top sites with top returns
Job market reboundsThe U.S. job market sprung back last month from a hurricane-induced slowdown as nonfarm employers added 215,000 workers, according to a government report on Friday that showed the economy on solid ground.
Dating game changes after 40Over a third of Americans age 40 and over are unattached and dating, good for women 'cause that’s when they’re
A gift month for the taxpayersDon't worry about those 24 shopping days until Christmas. It's the 31 check-writing days before New Year's that should concern you.
Best Buy manager told stores to limit Xbox 360 sales to bundlesBEST BUY HAS ADMITTED some of its employees stepped over the mark when it launched the Xbox 360 by selling $800+ bundle package
History's Worst Software BugsSixty years after computers are invented, computer bugs are still with us, and show no sign of going extinct. Here are the worst bugs we have ever dealt with.
Portable TVs anyone?From IPods to Cell Phones, a Breakthrough Few Months for Taking Television Everywhere
Marriott buys some Starwood HotelsMarriott Agrees to Pay About $3.3B Plus Debt for 38 Luxury Hotels From Starwood Hotels. Starwood runs Sheraton, Westin and W
IBM slows light, readies it for networkingIBM has created a chip that can slow down light, the latest advance in an industrywide effort to develop computers that will use only a fraction of the energy of today's machines
The Porbes Fictional 15Forbes identified the ultra-rich 15 people. Check it out.
Jennifer Garner gave birth to a little girlGarner gave birth to the girl at a Los Angeles hospital, Us Weekly reported Thursday. It was unclear if the baby--named Violet, E! News has learned--made her debut on Wednesday or Thursday. Us said labor was induced Wednesday night.
Microsoft holds weirdest press conference everMicrosoft is celebrating the death of Exchange Server 5.5, an eight year old product which the executives described as a "she".
Eat, Sleep,Consume, DieTechnology makes it possible for us to work harder than ever. If you're lucky, you get paid more for your labors. Then you consume more. And the cycle repeats itself. Is this the sign of a healthy society?
Scientists Hope Stomach Can Catch LiarsA group of scientists are turning to people's stomachs to find out if they are telling the truth. A new study by the University of Texas measured electrical impulses in the stomachs of 16 volunteers that were only associated with the act of lying.
How Death-Star really worksYa'll Star Wars fans. But do you really know how Death Star works and what's its purpose?
Male mice sing when the females are nearSongbirds may be the Sinatras of the animal world, but male mice can carry a tune too, say Washington University researchers who were surprised by what they heard
Actual pictures of Bill Gates' houseThese are pretty clear shots of the richest man's house
Link Popularity One Click CheckThis is an even better tool than windexl to check how popular your site is
Knock Knock - free bookSeth Godin's imcomplete guide to build a successful website
26 ways to build 15K Traffic for your siteA must read for any webmaster who would like to build a successful website in one year and draw 15K pageview per day
Master Thesis On Social Phenomenon of BlogsHow many bloggers are actually makeing money? How most bloggers collect information?
WordPress Theme BrowserAll free WP themes for download
Google ranking factorsYour SEO checklist
Windexl link popularity checkCheck how many links your site has
Windexl Search Engine Index CheckCheck how many pages are indexed by the search engines
After soaking my machine in water last week and losing two replacements in a week by the carriers (talking about a lottery winning probability), I will be offline starting tomorrow until Thursday. Let’s just hope my next shipment will peacefully make it to the destination.
In the meantime, I will go to work with pen and paper and play some Lottery. If I managed to lose that many machines in a week, I may hit a home run .. You never know… 
I left my mother’s house this morning with a broken laptop, my only computer. The thought of not having connection for a week frightens me. As soon as I landed in Denver, I went directly to the Apple store and got those:
With wireless keyboard, mouse and a copy of Microsoft Office software, I paid $1600+ for this top line mini plus the 20 inch display. (Yes, my sweet smile got me nearly 200 dollar student + corporate discounts) Buying an Apple is on my New Year Resolution List. I am glad I get to scratch off an item on the list on the 2nd day!
Here I am, blogging at you from my brand new Apple system!
I owned an Apple back in 1993. It’s been so long and things have changed so much that I have no idea how to use this new Operating System. It took me a while to figure out how to create a new folder and download pictures from my digital camera. I still have no clue how Firefox got installed since all I did was clicking on the “Download” button while I was on Firefox’s website through Safari.
As Apple-dumb as I am right now, I can tell you one thing: Apple rocks! The setup and install procedures so far flow so smoothly. The bluetooth technology instantly recognized my wireless keyboard and mouse. As soon as I put in a DVD, the display turns into a LCD TV and starts playing the movie.
It’d be nice if my Apple-die-hard friend from Heavywinter can give me a Tiger crash course… Mike? Where are you?
Mike from Heavywinter did a post discussing his traffic and stats. I figured I’d do the same for the “Documentary” purpose.
This picture actually says it all about the traffic (click to enlarge):
The stats software I use measures both unique visitors and unique visits. My guts feeling is that my regular readers should be a small subset of the 37000+ unique visitors.
I can pretty much explain the traffic surges from month to month (i.e. I got dugg by digg.com in Aug, etc..) except December. I had neither outstanding posts nor major external links coming in. All the sudden, I am getting tons of Google image search hits in Dec. As you can see in the following tow pictures, the Google image hits brought in major traffic in Dec and the traffic exploded this week with 800 to 900 unique visits per day from the image hunters. I can’t explain why all the sudden my PhotoBlog became so popular, especially the Thongs Must Die Album I came up by myself. I guess people dig original stuff? Or was it because “Bare Butt Sells”?
Dec traffic distribution (click to enlarge):
Jan 1 - Jan 4 daily traffic:
I am definitely feeling a bit lazy about blogging in the past a few weeks. I guess it’s a cycle every blogger has to go through. Once I pick up some more energy, I am going to co-author two more b5 blogs: I will be answering dating burning questions for the older and professional singles; and another one is a console game gadget blog.
Now, I must sleep…
I watched a few movies on my new video iPod and wasn’t impressed until I viewed the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VII – Advent Children (see images below) last night. Initially, I was really worried about the tiny screen with tiny English subtitle. It gotta be no more than font size 2. How the hell can I read it?!
I ripped a high resolution version and surprisingly, I could read every letter! The graphical detail is so impressive even with the screens filled with all dark gray lines. The resolution and contrast are good enough for the human eyes to differentiate objects in super dark scenes.
Cloud with Tifa:
All computer graphcis images, baby!
This is by far the best iPod yet. Although it takes me about 2 hours to burn a movie, it is well worth the effort…
Jason, my good friend and my loyal reader dropped a note today asking if I were still alive. I feel that I own a short post just to explain what’s going on lately. Actually, if you read the posts I did on my professional blog, you may already figure it out.
The project I am working on recently has taken its toll on me. I can rarely find time to breathe, sleep or eat. Maybe I forgot how to say No again. Maybe I am no longer the 20 some year old who can think 15 hours non stop. Maybe I am just too tired to keep going with this job. I am absolutely feeling frightened when I’ve learned that I have to work overtime at night and on weekend again. I started to make critical mistakes on the job which resulted in serious consequences and caused my company some damages.
I have sold my soul to this company in the last 10 years by working overtime year after year. I was ill for 2 years; I lost half of my right eye’s sight; and I lost my family because of this job. I kept going because this is all I know and I like my manager who gives me big bucks.
I finally decided that it’s time for me to retire from the consulting life, retire from the travel job and start to focus on having a normal life. I am 32, yet, I am still trying to figure out where my home is. That’s just plain sad.
I do feel being defeated and I do feel that I am sort of kind of running away from my problems by quitting what I do. But I know one thing though: my current job is the source of my unhappiness and I gotta do something to get my life back.
Stay tuned…
I took my first step today by submitting a informal resignation letter to my manager. Informal meaning that I didn’t state the exact quitting date… Here are a few paragraphs:
I am considering quitting ABC Company and this job because I can tell that I am physically and mentally tired. And I feel that without a break, my current condition does not allow me to take on the challenge as a senior IT consultant regardless how much I want to perform. As my long term manager, you know all the history in the past including my medical issues and lost eye sight.
I truly think that in order to be responsible to myself, I need some time to manage my health and person life so that I can continue the next phase of my career. I also think this is the right thing to do to step down from consulting career right now before I start to under perform or jeopardize the projects.
I have already talked to my project manager and gave him a heads up that he needs to look for replacement so we can still deliver the project on time.
….
You can tell that I don’t want to burn the bridge. But I am very clear on making the point that I can’t do this anymore. Since this a public website, I can’t disclose too much more information. I can tell you this much: I had a conversation with my manager after this letter is submitted. And he is trying his best to work out a couple of exit options to reduce my financial burden.
Just a few hours before I had the conversation with my boss, I was called into another management meeting to receive a cash reward for all the weekends I worked last year in Denver. It’s funny how these two events happened on the same day. The extra cash I received is very nice, however, my life is worth a whole lot more than that check.
I will stop traveling and leaving my current project in 2 and half weeks. Soon, I will have my life back! Yeeeeha!!
I just posted the newest development on my professional site. Yes, I have a new job now. Check it out:
Free The Cow Project - Reaching Financial Freedome
