Love… er, I mean wet letter

Posted by Kenneth "Definite" Lee on Dec 30, 2009
3 comments
Make Money OnlineHi, my name is Kenneth Lee. I practice sincere blogging and I share my most honest reviews and thoughts. What goes around comes around - I believe the effort we put into building certain things will come back to determine the kind of outcome we deserve. This blog serves both make money online (left column) and personal (right) niches.

Got a little frustrated after coming back from work.

Well, the usual complaint with my new place…

Wet letter in the mailbox.


How many times do I need to come back home to see a wet letter lying in the mailbox?

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And the cause of getting wet letters? Not because the postman had accidentally splashed his coffee on it, but because my house has a letter slot that pathetically isn’t rain-proof.

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It’s a bit pointless of the developer right? What’s the point of installing a drop box that collects rain water too? If that’s the case, they might as well save some cost for something better, like a post mount mailboxes instead.

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Since it is difficult for me to clear the stagnant water everyday, I had to slot in an egg tray to help absorb the water. Which unfortunately still fails anyways!

What about a wall mount mailbox, anyone? I’m sure a more expensive and quality one would be rain-proof, wouldn’t it?

Office Windowpane Deco Turns Semi-disaster

Posted by Kenneth "Definite" Lee on Dec 29, 2009
1 comment only?
Make Money OnlineHi, my name is Kenneth Lee. I practice sincere blogging and I share my most honest reviews and thoughts. What goes around comes around - I believe the effort we put into building certain things will come back to determine the kind of outcome we deserve. This blog serves both make money online (left column) and personal (right) niches.

The office room that I just got has a huge windowpane found absent on many others’.

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The first day I moved in and sat inside, I felt totally like a chimpanzee on display. When people walked past the corner, I had to look out every time and them in, and that distracts and annoys the hell out of me.

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Initially I did not plan on putting anything up because I thought there was nothing to hide. I even told my colleague, in a naively confident manner, that I didn’t want to cover lor!

And the next moment I found myself pathetically looking for mahjong papers and adhesive tapes eager to cover the windowpane up!

FML.

The aftermath was a bit of a disaster when it turned out to be…

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…WHICH WAS UGLY TO NO END!


But “damage” has been done and after having spent an entire SUNDAY (worked till 8pm or so and the security had to come up to shoo me away) working on the deco, I couldn’t be bothered to redo anymore!

Then, I accidentally discovered the wonder of my masterpiece when I switched on the light from the office room…

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Wahlau — not bad leh! My student said it looks like wayang kulit lmao. And the interior:

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The Christmas ribbon has been randomly recycled from Kathy’s Christmas present (which has a story; and will be blogged in upcoming post). You say I’m environmental-friendly or not?

Speaking of which, the string that runs across the windowpane was made of waste papers. Can you guess how I did that??

Ok, I know there is pack of green bean laying on the cupboard. Because I have to chew on something every 15 minutes. Cannot meh?

The other day I bought a big pack of Mamee Monster (which consists of several small packets) from Tesco, finished it in two days and had myself stunned!

Anyway, about the deco… Still thinking it had room for improvement, the following day I saw some dried leaves along my way to Uni and immediately plucked inspiration from there.

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Oklah, considering I have no prior experience in right-brain-oriented activities like this, the deco isn’t all that bad lah. Not the best work of mine, but certainly an experience.

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It’s Hip To Be Square: Will Credit Cards Kowtow To Web 3.0?

Posted by Kenneth "Definite" Lee on Dec 28, 2009
10 comments
Make Money OnlineHi, my name is Kenneth Lee. I practice sincere blogging and I share my most honest reviews and thoughts. What goes around comes around - I believe the effort we put into building certain things will come back to determine the kind of outcome we deserve. This blog serves both make money online (left column) and personal (right) niches.

This is a guest post by Mike Brains.

With Twitter riding high, it’s no surprise see the founders using their newfound clout to tackle bigger targets. And what could be more imposing than the financial industry. Along with glass-blower Jim McKelvey (also his former boss), Jim McKelvey has launched Square, the first major development in online purchasing since Paypal.

Square is not the only company intending to capitalise on the idea of easy card access all the time. For around $80, Americans can experience the privilege of swiping plastic in their very own homes.

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SmartSwipe connects to Windows PCs via the USB port and allegedly works with 98% of online retaliers in America. However, this sort of product will presumably only ever have limited appeal. While it adds an extra layer of security away from potentially perilous credit card fraud, and avoids the need to repeatedly type a 16 digit number, the average user gets no additional benefit from the device.

Dorsey’s goal is more far-reaching. It came from the realisation: “everyone has this little plastic device in their pocket today, which is a payment card, credit card, debit card or pre-paid card, and they’re using them everywhere”. In a world where every is carrying around their own electronic devices, in the form of mobile phones, it makes perfect sense to try to cut out the middle-man.

Using Square’s iPhone app, users can be set-up and paying within 60 seconds. To be used, a card-reading dongle must be added by the merchant to the smartphones audio input and confirmed by a signature “drawn” on the phone. One cent of every payment will go to a charity of the user’s choice.

Even if the user doesn’t have a 3G iPhone, the encrypted data could still be transmitted via encrypted wireless using the iPod touch. And with the dongles designed to work with the headphone jack, it should theoretically work with almost any phone!

The benefits of such a service are manifold — most notably, the ability give anyone the ability to accept credit cards without going through the expensive card processing service. Small businesses, and even simply local vendors, will hugely benefit from being able to accept card-payments instead of relying on dubious cheques or forcing customers to carry an unwieldy amount of hard-cash.

Other than the consumers themselves, the fact this should lead to an upturn in card use should be a boon for the banks as well. In order to compete, they will need to come up with even more credit card rewards and offers to try to keep up with the pack.

While Jack Dorsey hit the homerun by allowing people to post 140-character messages on the Internet, it could be Square that provides a more significant legacy.
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