Ask Melvin Ng

 (Photo: http://www.publishersweekly.com/blog/880000288/post/1920019392.html)

I was having a break over the weekend, recovering from a hectic speaking schedule, when it crossed my mind that 2008 is almost coming to an end, and 2009 is approaching fast.

People usually take advantage of the new year to make their pledge and resolution to achieve something for the year. The question is, should we make our resolution only when the New Year approaches, or should we be thinking ahead now itself, and making preparations and laying the groundwork to achieve our resolutions in 2009?

As far as I’m concerned, I already know what I want to achieve in 2009, and whatever I’m doing now, is to lay the groundwork and foundation for 2009.

I would recommend that you do the same as well. A battle is not fought and won during the war itself, but a long time before that, during the planning and preparation stage. Going after your goals is the same, you need to prepare for it in advance, and not when you are actually embarking on the journey.

Plan your resolutions now itself, and I’m very sure that you’ll have a higher chance of attaining them instead of what happens to most resolutions, forgotten and foregone.

Tagged with: 2009 • new year resolution

Since the middle of last year, having tasted success while partnering up with Vince Tan and Gobala Krishnan on the SendUsTo.US project, I’ve since decided that it’s much more fun if you can find the right partners to work with in your business.

When we were working on that firesale, we practically meet up a few times a week for over a month, just working on the project. The fun, camaraderie and the friendship that was built during the process was just priceless. I don’t think I’ve ever had that much Starbucks coffee before that period of time in my life.

That chapter has already ended, while new chapters are being opened.

Since early this year, I’ve been working on 2 huge projects in my business. The Profit Blogging System Bootcamp which is my main offline business, and a blogging empire which constitutes the major part of my online business.

For the seminar, my partner is Steven Wong. Working with him on the business has been nothing short of an awesome learning experience.

Steven is someone who has the utmost integrity, and his sales prowess is a hundred times better than me. If not for him, I don’t think I would have been able to pull off the seminar successfully.

On my online blogging empire front, I’m very proud to have Khai and Alfred Ko as my partners. We have lots of fun together because not only do we work, we have fun playing board and card games as well. Another main advantage besides having fun working with different partners is the opportunity to leverage on each others’ strength and weaknesses.

At the end of the day, money is just the end result of it. The memories are made up of the journey attaining it. To be able to share it with someone else is even sweeter. We also cross motivate each other and keep each other in check so that we don’t start slacking. Sometimes, when working alone, we tend to give ourselves too many excuses, and start getting lazy.

In future, if other opportunities present themselves for me to work with someone else, I’d take it anytime.

Tagged with: alfred ko • khai • steven wong

Google just released their latest browser to challenge the dominance of Internet Explorer and Firefox.

I can see that Internet Explorer’s position as the main browser of choice has slowly been eroded by Firefox’s dominance, and now with the launch of Google Chrome, I think the end is nigh for IE. Sorry guys but I’m not a huge fan of IE as I find it bulky and slow.

Forget about IE, between Google Chrome (GC) and Firefox (FF), it shares quite a lot of similarity in terms of speed, simplicity and functionality.

However, keep in mind that GC is still in BETA, and that means there will be many more improvements to come (hopefully…crossing my fingers).

The few cool features which I liked are:

• import settings - if you’ve been using Firefox, it is able to import all your bookmarks and passwords seamlessly into GC.
• whenever you open a new tab, on the right side of the screen, you’ll have your last few visited and bookmarked pages.
• the crash control feature, if it really works, would be awesome. Have yet to test proof it yet but what it means is this, if for any reason one of the tab is causing your browser to crash, in IE or FF, generally you’ll have to close off the entire browser, but over in GC, you don’t have to because each tab operates independently. The problem will only affect the respective tab only.
• the Incognito mode, if you ever find yourself wanting to browse certain sites without wanting to leave a trail, this mode would be cool as it will not leave any ‘footprints’ so to speak. I leave it to your imagination…

That aside, I do find these few things which I didn’t like:

• that it came from Google. I think they dominate too much to the detriment of users’ privacy.
• I just don’t like the favicon that came with it. It gave me the feeling of Windows Media Player.
• it’s still new, so some of my favorite apps and plugins in FF is still not compatible yet, such as Roboform and SEO Quake.

Until and unless GC works with Roboform and SEO Quake, I guess I will only be test driving it instead of seriously considering to change it as my default browser.

You can check it out over here: Google Chrome

Tagged with: firefox • google • google chrome • internet browser • internet explorer

I was browsing through the bookshop today and going through one of my favorite magazines when my jaw dropped!

I saw an article about my good friend, buddy and business partner, Khai of AboutKhai.com He was featured in the lastest edition of Personal Money, on the write up of generating passive income.

And come to think of it, he had the cheek NOT to tell me earlier!!!

Nevertheless, I called him right away and congratulated him. Proud of you dude and keep it up!

Tagged with: khai • passive income • personal money

My friend Kidino is organizing a contest for the best Minisite Template Design. I’m pretty bad at template designs, so when Kidino told me about his latest pet project MinisiteGallery.com, I was excited about it because from now on, I know where to go to when I need any templates.

As an incentive to kickstart his site, he’s organizing a best template design contest. Check it out here:

http://www.minisitegallery.com/contest

Tagged with: design contest • kidino • minisite template