Many years ago when I knew nuts about the existence of PHP programming language, I had longed to move my blog from Blogspot to my own web server. My aim was to be able to manage my entire website better, which consisted of pages and blog entries. Pages, to me, were more like permanent pages where visitors should have straight access, while blog entries could be archived into the individual months' links as new entries took over the home page.
Blogspot, at that point of time, did not have the "pages" feature. Even with the late implementation, it did not flatter me with the additional directory URL "/p" on the left of every page's original URL. I could mask my domain name to Blogspot's server but I did not want my pages to appear like "http://sillydumb.com/p/introduction".
Basically, sillydumb.com and my blog had been running on two separated servers - my personal server and Blogger's server. I had actually synchronized the two websites by using the same layout with some tweaks in JavaScript codes that allowed proper linking of all the pages.
However, I did not like the fact that some friends had linked to my blog directly instead of my main website. I also had problems of having duplicated work whenever I needed to make any changes to the layout.
After years of battling with time, I had finally decided to pamper myself a little by installing WordPress to my server to house all details. It was not an easy task at all and I took much longer than estimated time with unforeseen problems.
Basically, I was not very sure of how WordPress was coded. I took the easy way out by modifying the existing template to fit my design. I was not able to get the final design exactly the same since I wanted to speed up the process badly. In fact, I had spent quite an amount of time just to even make the basic arrangement.
The most challenging task was to import the old entries directly from Blogspot over to my server. There was a WordPress plugin to do that but somehow it did not work. Instead, I started importing the blog entries to my test account at WordPress.com, which was a free blog host like Blogspot with the basic and limited WordPress features installed. After importing my old blog entries over to WordPress.com, I exported the blog entries to my harddisk as XML file. Next, I imported the XML file into my trial WordPress installation in Smart Tuition's Singapore server and it worked. After some configuration, I exported the blog entries as a fresh new XML file.
I met one of the toughest challenges when I tried to import the new XML file into my Canada server, which was the home to my personal website. There was an error stating that file size of 2 mb was over and I could guess that the cheap shared server had restricted its users. My Singapore server's team was much kinder because of the much higher cost and that was why I could import the XML file in without facing such problem.
After doing some researches, I managed to find a solution. I separated the 9 mb XML file into five files. It was not very straightforward since the top and bottom of each file should have the same coding which each blog entry started and ended with both <item> and </item> tags. I uploaded the files one by one and it was a pain in the ass since the server was really slow. Then, I figured out that I could not import my blog entries directly from Blogspot due to the restriction in file size while WordPress.com, running on its own server, was much kinder.
My final task was to import the setting of the blog from my trial blog. I had experiences of backing up the WordPress database and restoring them but I faced another big problem this time since the full URL of my trial server differed from the intended one - http://sillydumb.com. Therefore, I had to start searching through the database tables and made amendments manually before I imported the SQL file directly.
I made quite a number of mistakes throughout the process and had reinstalled numerous copies of WordPress.
Right now, I have to give up on some old features such as my Calendar. Some contents' display depends on JavaScript with external files and I have to replace them with static texts instead.
I’m seriously ashamed of myself for not blogging for long. Life is never the same as before and I have to neglect some hobbies sometimes.
Ever since I have started working on my tuition agency website, things have changed a lot. I’m a one-man-show for most of the back-end work. After more than a year, it does look like a professional website, but there are many features I have yet to implement or improve on. I have to worry about SEO and spend lots of time on them every week and eventually the daily boring administration work almost turns me berserk.
I’m also working on quite a number of blogs as well, which are either non-profitable or can earn me money in future. There is also a blog for the tuition agency. This makes my personal blog insignificant compared to them. My contents are also diverted to the blogs.
After all, my time management is really bad. It is not that I’m working 24 hours everyday but I’m always drained and thus operating at a lower speed.
It is definitely good to keep my blog running because it is one of the best ways to relieve my stuffed brain. I rarely get in touch with people and it is bad to keep things within myself, especially my frustration.
However, apart from having lack of time, people around me do give me problems as well. I’m not able to type whatever is in my mind sometimes because I have readers who are stalking my friends. Some people with lower EQ can also quote me out of texts to create problems for me. After all, many things have hit my motivation hard.
Another demoralizing thing is that my plan to move my blog from BlogSpot into my personal domain has stalled for very long. Somehow, I’m quite greedy that I want to keep my existing layout and structure, such that I would need to spend time learning how to edit WordPress template. Recently, updating WordPress for some of my blogs have also given me problems.
I have been tweeting a lot, which auto forwards the statuses to my Facebook, but the limited characters are pathetic. I have tried to forward the tweets over to my blog automatically through Hellotxt but it has shamefully failed me.
I’m a person full of thoughts but I do not have the chance to express myself freely. Blogging is almost the only way for me to become myself. Although it allows people with not-so-good intention to find out more about what is happening around me, it also allows people who are truly concern about me to show their support.
I’m always curious who will still bother to read my blog after so long of idling.
I went to sleep at 2am but could not doze off. I got up after 3am and worked on my administration pages for the tuition agency site. I went to bed at 6am.
I woke up after 12 noon and started playing with Lucky. My stomach was not well and finally went to office at 3pm. I worked on SEO and followed by the administration pages.
Mike left at 6pm and I stayed on to blog and went home only at 8pm to continue with my work.
I began the day blogging while doing SEO for the quit smoking site. It had been quite long since I started neglecting it. I went to bed at 5am.
My aunt woke me up at around 11am when she came over with our breakfast. However, she added chilli and we could not finish the spicy noodle. We took bus 75 to the home at Bukit Panjang to visit our uncle.
After the long trip, it was one of the worst moments I would ever want to be in – looking at my uncle nearly made my tears fall. He was one of the best guys on earth and it really hurt to see him in such state that he could not even think. Sitting on the wheel chair, he was tied to it and saliva continued to drip.
After leaving the home, we went to Bukit Panjang Plaza for a quick bite at the MacDonald’s. We shared two Mac Nugget and one filet-o-fish meal. Then, we went to Daiso to shop. We went to the bus-interchange and a cute wild dog caught our attention.
I continued with the SEO work for my tuition agency site. In the late evening, I caught the movie “Zombie Land” at on a SCV channel.
It was a totally different Chinese New Year Day 2 this year because my uncle on my dad’s side went overseas with his family and thus there was no gathering. My main stream of ang bao money was eliminated and it was my poorest Chinese New Year ever.
I spent some time blogging for the tuition agency and went to sleep after 3am.
I woke up at 9am to get ready for movie with my family. We caught “Ghosts must be Crazy” at Tiong Bahru Plaza at 11am. It was one of the lamest shows I had ever caught. It had two stories and the last one was really sick. I regretted catching it.
We had lunch at the food court. The four of us had kaya toast with eggs. The tea was diluted. My younger brother went straight for his tuition assignment. We went to the M1 shop for a while. After taking the train back, we went to the NTUC for a while and my mum went missing.
While I was trying to blog and do my work, Joanna messaged me and I was very stressed by her because I could no longer afford more hours to help her do her programming assignment. I started on a new article on teenage dating.
My aunt came over with my youngest uncle and we had reunion dinner at the Kopitiam at Pinnacle Duxton. It was the first time we dined out on the Chinese New Year Eve night.
After that, my youngest uncle went to Chinatown by himself to walk around. My mum and I walked my aunt to the bus-stop at Everton Park.
After reaching home, I continued with my work. There was some discussion regarding the tuition agency.
I started the morning blogging, working on the tuition agency website and chatting with Mike. Eventually, I started editing the admin side of the tuition agency website and included a loading popup for the Ajax script, which was I quite impressed. I went to sleep at around 5am.
I woke up after 1pm and had wantan mee. I did SEO for the tuition agency site after that. It was another rainy day.
My family and I went out for dinner before 6pm. We went to the renovated hawker centre opposite Queensway Shopping Centre. There was a variety of food. After that, we went to Anchor Point, followed by Queensway Shopping Centre to shop. I bought a 3-quarter pant. Finally, we went to IKEA.
Back at home in time, I was engrossed with the channel 8’s show – Zheng He Xia Xi Yang.
I spent hours to blog before going to bed at around 5.30am. I woke up at 3pm to work on the tuition agency website and I managed to improve on the tuition assignments feed.
I had dinner with my family at China's town and I was quite turned off to see the huge crowd due to the pasar malam for Chinese New Year. We ordered a set meal from a seafood stall that offered sting ray, prawn, vegetable and toad’s meat at around $37. I did not really like the food, besides, they were too spicy. My elder brother got some satays and almost got himself into some problems.
I took a little walk around the NTUC with my mum and younger brother. I was busy checking out the coke’s price because I thought Mike could save near 50% money by purchasing large bottle coke instead of can.
I woke up after 11am and set off to the office at noon. The property agent in representing LHN group came over and we had a long chat from the office to the canteen. We tried the leftover dishes from the new Chinese chef.
After writing a new blog at Smart Tuition Singapore Blog about Sophie, I continued with some amendments for the admin side. Then, I proceeded to do SEO.
Mike and I took cab over to Vivocity in the rain to take a walk and have our dinner. We went back to Challenger and were quite disappointed that the Xbox showcase area was filled with products and I supposed the charismatic Xbox girl had finished her holiday job.
We went over to Harbourfront Centre and I was impressed with the shop next to the food court that sold very creative and cool household products. Then, we had western food at the first level for our dinner before heading back to the office by bus to Kampong Bahru Road.
I worked on the Singapore Schools page and began my crazy SEO journey for the night. We were both excited to see the results weeks later. We left the office at 11pm and I continued with work right after reaching home.
It was a fruitful day for I had completed a few visible tasks. I finished and uploaded two new pages for the tuition agency – Telephone Numbers in Singapore and Country Codes for Phone Numbers. I tried to exert myself more with setting up of cron job to backup my database and eventually went to sleep at 6am.
I woke up at 11am. Since it was raining, I stayed at home to continue with my work. I realised GCE ‘O’ level results were to be released soon and I blogged about it in the tuition blog. Then, I continued with SEO.
My elder brother was back from the east side and he called my younger brother and I to bring Lucky down to meet him. While we were on the way to the prata shop, my mum was back with her friends but we continued as planned. Since we had to sit outside with Lucky and that there were smokers around, we changed our plan and decided to take away the order.
I worked till 3am before going to sleep and Mike woke me up at around 9am. I thought he was already at the office and that the person doing the QP was arriving, and thus I rushed down to the office at 10am without taking breakfast though my mum had offered to buy.
I spent my time updating my blog and Mike came an hour later. Since he had taken lunch, I went over to our neighbour to get some bread. The workers came over at around 1pm. There were four to five Indian foreigners to fix up the exit and emergency light, together with a drilling a hook to the wall for the fire extinguisher.
I finally to finish and article on Singapore Education, which was the greatest achievement of the day somehow. After that, I tried to spin the article and the software failed me after I finished the job, which was a hindrance to my SEO tactic for the tuition agency.
We had early dinner at Yan Kit Road, ordering two plates of dishes from the seafood store. I tried on my article again and I gave up after it failed me the second time, wasting a lot of my time and effort. I started looking at Mike’s Starcraft 2 game before we went home.
After going home, I continued to work on my article again.
I blogged while catching the last episode of the repeated Hong Kong show “Yi Wu Fang Gu” and went to bed at 1.30am. Lucky was in deep sleep that he did not notice everyone had gone into the room. However, I could not doze off.
Mike woke me up after 8am by SMS and I reached office at around 10am. It rained. During lunch time, I met up with Mike near Kampong Bahru Road. His rented car was spoiled and thus we walked over to Everton Park for the Chinese mixed vegetable rice. We were disappointed again for the rice was too dry and sticky. We went back to the office to continue with work before we started spring cleaning at around 6pm before going off an hour later. We had dinner at one of the Chinese mixed vegetable rice stall near 7-11.
After reaching home, I continued working on the tuition agency site and also had discussion with my brother to engage part-timer to do the job. I messaged Jenrine to see if she could afford any help.
At the first minute of the year, I was busy blogging with the long due entries. Mike was relaxing himself with the Starcraft 2 game. We left at around 1.30am and I went to bed after 2am without switching on my laptop again.
I woke up at 11am and dozed off again until 1pm. My mum cooked instant noodle for me. Mike came to Tanjong Pagar and waited downstairs.
We went to the office in the rain. I did some SEO work for the tuition agency and then, followed by some coordinating work. I added in AJAX scripting for the administration end.
Mike and I had dinner at Everton Park. The Chinese mixed vegetable rice was somehow disappointing for the beancurd was spoiled. We went back to the office soon and left home after 8pm.
I had some discussion with my brother over the tuition agency stuffs.
I continued with my programming work on Smart Tuition Singapore and then blogged. I went to sleep after 4am.
I woke up at around 10am and started hand-washing my clothes. After that, I dozed off.
I had my first instant noodle ever since my family was away, for my lunch. I continued with my programming work for the entire day and I was being rewarded well with the success. I was quite proud of myself for Lucky was disturbing me throughout and I could still finish it.
I called for delivery for the second time and I ordered the normal fried rice instead.
I spent the morning blogging. Before going to bed at 3.30am, I collected the clothes from the bamboo sticks to keep them. Lucky disturbed me from my sleep many times.
I woke up at 11am by Mike’s SMS and we met up for breakfast near the 7-11, at one of the mixed vegetable rice stall. Then, we went to the office.
We shopped a while at Vivocity in the afternoon. We covered merely Daiso and Challenger before we went back to the office. The two large whiteboards had arrived the day before and we started fixing them up.
I cracked my head programming in the CMS of my tuition agency site to include AJAX. Mac came over to visit the office and he was very impressed by the design. It started raining heavily in the evening and we were going to Tanjong Pagar Plaza for dinner before the rain became a bit lighter, they decided to have their dinner at City Square instead. I went home alone and called for delivery and I enjoyed my favourite Malay fried rice from the Golden Café.
Lucky never stopped to disturb me from doing my work. I had webcam with my family.
The key thing I did was blogging, followed by editing of my photo. It had been too long that I did not play with PhotoShop and thus I refused to go to bed until 8am.
I woke up at around 1pm and went to the gym to find Tze Khit. He told me that Bobby had taken away the 3G mobile stick and thus he could not go through his website to tell me the amendment needed. I went to the office immediately instead since Mike told me the SingNet guy would be arriving between 3 to 5pm.
I started clearing up the office while waiting for the SingNet guy. Mike arrived with new IKEA stuffs from Tampiness and we continued with our work like fixing up the stuffs on at the walls. The air-conditioner guy came down with his two workers and we left for Vivocity. We shopped at Giants for drill, power extension bar and some stick-on wall hooks. Then we went to the food court to packet chicken rice for the workers. After going back to office to deliver the food, we left for Tanjong Pagar and parked the car at Amara Hotel. However, we went to the Thai food restaurant at the corner of storey two of Tanjong Pagar Plaza. There was a couple sitting at the table near the door and they seemed to know the staffs very well. They were playing cards and sometimes seemed quite intimate, and the most important thing was that the girl was very cute looking. The pineapple rice Mike ordered was a big portion and tasted very nice but my egg wrapping fried rice was just normal. I tried their sour plum juice but it did not really satisfy my taste.
After going back to the office, Mike decided to go back to Tanjong Pagar to withdraw money for the air-conditioner contractor. After it was done, we started cleaning and packing up again and left after 11pm. We wanted to have supper at the shop besides the prata shop for beancurd and youtiao but it was already closed. In fact, I had not even noticed it at all.
I started the day blogging again and went to sleep at 6am. I woke up many times due to incoming SMSes. Eventually I got up after noon. I went to the gym to help Bobby with his poster and flyer editing before going to the office.
Mike and I continued to fix up the office furniture. Then, we went to IKEA in his newly rented Mazda 3. We started shopping around for the office again after having a clearer picture of what we needed. The young couple trying out the rocking chair made the atmosphere envious. Needless to say, the girl was cute looking. After shopping, we went back to the office and continued with fixing up the furniture until my fingers were numbed.
After going home and had my dinner, I went down to walk Lucky with my brothers.
I was busy with the tuition blog and eventually I updated the website with Google Map. The display refused to show the new location and I wasted a lot of time trying out. I also finished up some minor amendments for the tuition’s flyer. Lastly, I updated email and password for a tutor who got it wrong. I went to bed at 5am and I had problems dozing off again.
I was woke up by the drilling noise after 9am. My younger brother went Johor for his eyes check-up and he left some minor tuition assignment tasks for me to follow up. Since I did not handle it before, I took very long to figure things out.
I went down to have lunch with Mike before buying some stuff such as mop for the office. Then, I brought him up to my house so that I could finish up the work. He finally saw clearly why I needed a better working space.
We touched up the painting work in the office before starting to fix up the IKEA furniture. I was exhausted. Mike’s watch was slow for forty-five minutes and I was shocked when I checked the time with my lousy phone and his car’s clock. After he sent me home, I got changed and rushed off to Expo.
I felt relax when I called Caiping and realised I was even earlier than her. I grabbed myself a sandwich at 7-11 and started chewing, while I prayed hard that the Magic Show she invited me to was not a conspiracy. I had a taste of being conned to a church event by a male friend and a MLM one by another female friend many years back. Furthermore, I was so busy and exhausted, and yet I made myself available for her. I had interrogated her before accepting the invitation from her and I really hoped my intuition was wrong.
Caiping arrived with her friends and some of them were distributing Christmas presents. I felt uneasy and it was the first step towards unveiling the ugly truth. However, since she was a very religious person, I assumed her closed friends should be of the same religion as well, and thus I gave her the benefit of doubt. As we moved towards the exhibition hall, I saw big banners of City Harvest Church. Since the church could have booked a large number of tickets, I skipped it. After meeting other friends of hers, the guy let out clues by asking me if I were from her group and she tried to stop him. Later on, he asked me if it was the first time I went for a church event. Everything was clear.
In order not to make things look bad, I swallowed up my anger and played on to test my patience. The crowded place was a big turn off. We moved in and took up the seat. When she told me the magician was her pastor, it was nothing shocking to me anymore. As the show began, I felt quite boring since I did watch Taiwanese magic shows on television that were much more impressive. The dances made me sleepier for I was just expecting for “magic” shows.
The worst thing that I had expected did happen. It was a conspiracy to get non-member to join them. They tried to intimidate every non member indirectly by using the mass power - taking account that most of the viewers were their members, they instructed everyone to put their heads down. I was not sure how many strong willed smarties with integrity had refused them like me since I tried at least not to show disrespect and thus I did not turn back, but some people had walked off. It was one of the most disgusting moments that I had witnessed in my entire life when twisted words of nonsense were pushed into everyone’s ears.
Anyone could have started a religion and claim himself as the appointed one, which the special someone had instructed him to spread the religion through his dream. As accordingly to the tales I had heard, since there was no evidence to prove that the dream was a fake one, everyone should believe the guy. I was proud that I was clear that I would only believe if there was evidence. A sane person should not believe something just because there was no evidence to show that it was a crooked up story. It required a really good speaker to do a good job though.
When Caiping asked me about the “message”, I gave no comment since I was too tired and never wanted to waste my time to debate. I did not want to turn friendship sour as well just because of some craps. I could not blame her since she was just one of the victims.
It was one of my greatest hobbies to take photos with pretty girls but I avoided being included in any of the photos. I was quite worried that through Facebook, I would be located and I would see or hear things that I was very annoyed with. We took MRT off and I took a different direction at Tanah since they were going to Bedok 85 for supper.
This incident, together with the previous two, would definitely put me on guard in future when any old friend tried to ask me out.
My younger brother’s friends were at my time. The bedroom was probably too squeezy for them that they had to sit in the living room. I was with them for a while before I went inside the room and dozed off near midnight.
I continued with the SEO for my tuition agency site, followed by blogging and went to bed at 6am.
I woke up after 7am and went off to meet Gilbert and Wanling at Chinese Garden MRT station. Since Gilbert was late, we left first and I was craving for the KFC twister breakfast, which could be located at the Jurong East Swimming Complex. However, the KFC started at 11am and we were too early for it. Wanling and I went to the hawker centre instead and suddenly Gilbert told me he had used his phone to go online and realised the pool did not open on Monday. I quickly called Wanling to return to the table to discuss before she got her food. George called me to keep me even busier as he was enquiring about the old MTRC cards that I was handling before I left ITE. Anyway, both Wanling and I took our breakfast there and Gilbert arrived soon.
We decided to go to Jurong West Swimming Complex instead. We took the train to Pioneer MRT station and walked over. I was all excited at first since it was the first time I had been there. Gilbert was amazed over the construction of it since the entire pool was built on above the ground rather than digging into it. However, the lazy pool’s depth was too shallow. Wanling had the least fun since she had some phobia with water and she had to grab my hands at times. Then, we went up to rent a float. Eventually, we went to the Jacuzzi. It was freezing. Grey clouds marched by but left soon before another platoon of them arrived. Gilbert and I tried the slide once before we left the pool.
We went to Jurong Point for lunch. We dined the Lai Lai restaurant, which Wanling had tried before. I did not like the curry sauce and that I could not finish my food for my bloated stomach and probably because I was too lack of sleep.
We went to walk around and I was stoning all along for I was totally exhausted. Wanling took the same route as me towards east for she was meeting her friend at Novena. I wanted to send her over but she was too nice that she asked me to go home straight, knowing that I was tired.
After reaching home at around 6pm, I dozed off almost immediately for hours.
The worst thing on earth happened. Lucky urinated on the thousand bucks magnetic mattress that my mum was conned to buy ten years ago and she banned Lucky from going into the bedrooms.
I spent the Sunday morning working on the tuition agency website and blogging. I went to bed at 7am and woke up at 4.30am.
My brothers and my elder brother’s girlfriend told Lucky out for nail trimming and I was too tired and busy to join in.
I spent the entire day doing SEO for Smart Tuition Singapore. I was rather crazy about it but at least I could see results that Google loved me more and more.
