I really can access my blog via any proxy server however, due to security issue, I am not able to login to my dashboard to do any blog posts. So this is when the “lite” version of xiaoyenzi.com become active once again.

It’s a simple, light weight version of my blog which is hosted via Tumblr.It is “where I post up short notes, updates, temporary posting when my main blog is down, etc…or simply share anything I like.”

My blog  is kinda unstable. It’s an on and off issue. I might not be able to access it for the next minute, so before anything happen, I quickly make this post to inform my readers (if there’s any) about my current blog status and do follow me on Facebook, Twitter or simply check out lite.xiaoyenzi.com for any updates.

P/S: I think those outside Malaysia has no problem accessing my blog.

^^

It was a good start for the first day of the year. The morning breeze was great. The sun was scorching hot in the afternoon, and it ended with cooling raindrops in the evening. What a day!

I did nothing much today. I sat in front of my computer for hours just to find a new blog theme to give this blog a fresh, new look. It was kinda last-minute-task. Suppose to plan few days before new year comes, but was busy at work. By the way, the new theme is up and I’m not 100% done with the configuration yet. A lot of setting need to be done.

Today is not only a new year day, but also A.P.P.L.E’s 3rd anniversary. Guess a new layout is just what this blog need. ^_^

Okay, for my new year resolution, I think it’s gonna be slightly longer this time:

1. Get a flat abdomen.My weight has decreased and kinda stable right now.
2. Boost up my online revenue. Maybe make a total of at least $30 per month?
3. Encourage myself to read. Hope to complete at least 5 books this year. (I don’t read books)
4. Get a baking oven. I wanna learn and have fun with baking.
5. Get a pair of new spectacles.
6. Plan and spend wisely.
7. Try to manage most of my blogs frequently.
8. Make “Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora” as part of my book collection.
9. Complete an offline PC game  or console game.
10. Learn something new.

That’s all for now.

Happy new year to all of you.

Incoming search terms:

• summer illustration
• morning vector
• vector summer illustration
• view illustrator
• summer illustrator
• illustrator sun
• rising illustrator
• vector summer illustrator
• early in the morning vector
• happy anniversary vector

The author of this blog is a cute girl named Citra from Indonesia. She is a graphic design student. She is very creative and I love her artwork. Even her domain name itself is more than original. According to the author herself, “Oridusartic” is actually a backwards spelling of her full name!

Before she changed her blog banner to the current one, the previous design already attracted my attention. I was like “wow, nice one!”. The new layout is great too. Clean and neat, and cute of course! I like the banner as it looks like Pet Society.

You can even check out her portfolio. They are just too cute!

I encourage other graphic design students to visit her blog more to get inspiration and maybe you guys can learn a thing or two (technically) from one another.

Cherry, you should be friend with Citra
Graphic design is my initial dream. Dad didn’t let me study graphics, and I ended up become a not-so-pro “geek”.

Anyway, go visit Oridusartic and tell me what you think.

Incoming search terms:

• cute portfolio book design

So for I haven’t really go through all the new features, but some outstanding changes are:

• Interface (I like the blue theme, in the new release, the theme looks slightly dark, not as bright as before)
• Widgets navigation changes
• Theme / Plugin editor more “programming friendly”

According to WordPress official blog, there are 180 new features and changes in Baker.

Are you a WordPress user?

Have you upgraded your blog to WordPress 2.8?

Download the lastest WordPress version here.

Although this number is nothing to be boostful about, I just wanna thank all of you who joined my community in MyBlogLog. This is very motivating and it encourages me to keep on blogging. I ever thought of giving up blogging especially when I’m getting more and more busy with my recent life.

Don’t have to be surprised. Starting a blog is easy but to maintain and keep it alive is really hard for a part time blogger who need to stay in the office for 9 hours for 6 days a week. I tried my best to blog frequently starting from January 2009. You can look back at my archives and you will notice that there’s some “improvement” for the number of posts written in a month, comparing to the previous months.

I’m also looking for guest blogger who can help to write an article or two in Blogging For Novice. That blog hasn’t been updated for 2 months already! Please let me know if you are interested in becoming a guest blogger for my blog.

By the way, I would also like to know what type of post do you, my dear readers, love to read more. I know most people enjoy my food posts. Any other genre which can catch your attention? Do let me know. ^_^

Some of you still may not know what is this PageRank about. You can read it here.  In simple words, it’s an art of building back links to your blog / website. It’s a ranking system or judgment from the big G about the importance of your page. When the big G dislike you, penalty will be given. The big G seems to monopolize the Internet market, so they dislike those who do paid post or involve in selling links.

Since my blog get penalized by Google and suffered a PR 0 for nearly 8 months, the previously mentioned advertisers ASSIGNED ME TASKS NO MORE. I served their ads and get paid, yet when I lost my PR, they “dumped” me (my blog). I strongly believe this blog has its quality by looking at the responses from my dear readers, yes, you. (thank you) It’s not because my blog is full of crap just that Google didn’t like those sponsored contents.

I’ve been thinking of fighting and grab back this blog’s PR. And finally on the 14th November, it got its ranking back to 3! Thanks G! Got your PR penalized? Wanna fix this prob? Continue to read how to overcome this issue.

A.P.P.L.E got back to the PR racing track. It’s not a miracle nor magic. It happened for a REASON – I submitted a reconsideration request to Google via the Google Webmaster Tools.

Login to Google Webmaster Tools (activate this service with your Google account if you haven’t). If you haven’t own a Google account, get one already, as it’s kinda important and useful for bloggers. Once you are in, go to the Dashboard and type in your blog’s URL and on the “Add Site” button. You need to “register” your blog in the webmaster tools system.

Follow all the instructions, fill in all the neccessary information. Once you are done, go back to the Dashboard and on the right sidebar, click on “Request reconsideration“.

It’s pretty straight forward if you follow the instruction closely. Now, you gotta choose which site you want to request for reconsideration.

Requesting reconsideration of: (this is a drop down menu, choose the site that you have added earlier)

Agree (tick the checkbox) with the Reconsideration statement.

The finally step is to tell Google what happen to your PageRank – what actions might have led to any penalties, and what corrective actions have been taken.

(I wrote something like I suspect my PR was penalized because of doing paid posts from X and Y companies and I have removed all posts assigned by them. And hope that they will give my blog a chance for reconsideration)

Lastly, click on the Request Reconsideration button and wait for approval. PageRank will be updated once the requested reconsideration is approved.

Viola~

So, in order to make me feel better (with my blogs), I wake up around 6am to do something with my blogs and community. My friend asked me “Is blogging that important for you?” Yes, it’s addictive. Or perhaps I have put in so much effort in the blogosphere which makes me feel that this is the place to express myself, to be myself. And not to forget, my plan of gaining some extra income.

I used to spend a lot of time in blogging during my previous working hour, because most of the time I’d be free and I was provided with a good Internet connection and a good performance computer. Now everything changed. My office computer sucks like hell. I can hardly do anything with the “Ice Age” computer. Not to say surf net, just by doing office job with the @#$!@#$%@#$% computer already can kill my patience and makes me feel like sleeping…

My dream is to become a problogger. But this is not as easy as it sounds. A lot of measurement and planning have to be done before turning into a problogger. I cannot quit my job because the little amount of my blog income can’t even cover my daily expenses. I want to build up my community and other necessary stuff to get loyal readers and of course be able to update fresh contents regularly. With such little time to manage my blogs, I feel that my dream is fading.

Blogging to me, is a pleasure not a burden. I’m just running out of time every time I do a blog post, reply comments, upload files, read blogs, etc…

I read a very useful article which I think every blogger (problogger-wannabe) must read. Here’s some quote from Roy, the author:

• Do not publish ads in the first there months.
• Do not write a post unless you really have something to say and write a post that would have reference value.
• Network with other bloggers in your niche.
• Work for links – get some one way links for your blog to improve the page rank.
• Offer full feed to your visitors and do not forget to add email subscription option too.

It makes me feel a lot better when I see this sentence: “Do not write a post unless you really have something to say and write a post that would have reference value. You do not need to write everyday – don’t even try it. The reference posts would develop the reader base for your blog and term you as a new serious blogger in the block.”

In fact, I have a lot of pending posts need to be done, I have many things to share, but I’m just lack of time….

Off topic: Learned a new phrase today. So there’s a sickness call Plantar Fasciitis – it’s a painful foot condition in the heel and arch area.

Incoming search terms:

• 24 hours a day is not enough
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• onion Animation

It’s really an honor to be cyber spotted by Gabey and thus I get a chance to be featured in Malay Mail, hardcopy and virtually. You can read the online version here.

Gabey is so kind to send me a copy of the printed version. Click on the image below to view the original size.

I

This is my second time being interviewed by the local press via my blog.

In this interview, my favorite part is this:

The “Blogosphere”. What does it mean to you?

It’s a social network. I can get lots of first hand information while surfing the Blogosphere. I make new friends, be it local or international. I’m a very indoor person who seldom attends social activities. But I find it very comfortable socialising in blogosphere. To me, the “Blogosphere” also means a place to get your work recognised and appreciated by others.

Yes, the “Blogosphere” is a place for me to get recognised and appreciated by you, my dear readers. I’m a nobody in the office. They order me to do this and that, paying me some very little amount that a Bachelor’s degree holder shouldn’t be receiving. But, I’m still somebody in the Blogosphere. People recognized me as Apple, the blogger who loves Kuma-Kuma and Onionhead.

I do hope through this publication, I can get some local traffic too.

p/s: Liew, hope you don’t mind being mentioned in the article.

To keep this blog alive, I’m going to share some interesting posts when I managed to squeeze out a little time to read and discover.

Image courtesy of Cherry

Cherry has made up a cute story with cute photos, make sure you check it out.

Alvin has discovered a funny fact! Jimmy Page looks like our PM?!!

I found that I’ve gained a kilo or 2!!! Oh gosh. Cherry recommended a diet recipe blog to me and I think all the recipes (with pix) looks tempting. You should check it out too! The Diet Recipes Blog.

I’m also sick of my work, because the computer is so slow. Let’s not talk about blogging in the office, even just to do my job in the computer takes such a long time to complete. Hey boss, maybe you should get a better computer for me. Just like what my friend said in his blog:

For people who use computer daily, he/she should know very well how important it is to have a good and fast running computer in order to have the job done (quality job). A slow and ill working computer might still get the job done, but that is not good enough. Quality job comes from happy employer. If you can keep your employer happy and highly motivated, then you will get Quality job done.

I’ve been “missing” in the blogosphere (not reading blogs or participate in social network) since I changed my job. Even my blogging time is screwed up. I don’t know if I have lost any readership, but for sure, I wanna thank a reader, remblue, for continuously supporting me. It’s happy to see comments when you wake up and check your blog. Thanks, remblue, you made my day!

Okay, I have to get ready to work. Because of wanting to blog, I have sacrificed my sleeping time and woke up as early as 6.30am.  It’s gonna be long, bored working day. How I wish to escape.

Don’t know what game to play? Can’t afford to buy games? All you need is just Internet connection (you probably already have, or else won’t be able to see this post) and some patience. Head over to Orange’s blog to get information on games. I’ve convinced him to continue blogging and encouraged him to slowly convert his blog into a gaming blog.

Enthusiasm, Desire, Fascination is a personal blog that shares information (download links) more on PC games. Please take note those games are P version, for educational purpose only. Use at your own risk.

Most games shared in that blog are tested personally by Orange, so if you encounter any problems, you can ask him in the comment section too. Have fun.