Bryan - Freelance IT Consultant

Web Marketing Concept - The Trading Guru

2010-05-11T11:58:00.000+08:00

Jeremy approached me for some ideas on how to spread his ideas across the internet and build a community on all his shares/investment/money talk.

Conceptualized ‘The Trading Guru’ and for the setup to run on both Blogspot(FREE) and Facebook(FREE). My services for overall IT setup, marketing concept, ongoing consultation… … also FREE.

Ongoing Projects

2010-04-04T19:37:00.000+08:00

Project Management System - jobs and schedules
Property agent website - listing of property
Web design for business concierge service with CMS - build internet awareness
Procurement Portal for stationery company - facilitate business workflow
Website CMS for travel company - ease of updating website information
Full scale ERP project for manufacturing company - streamline business processes with business workflow system
Customer Relationship Management System - manage customers better

EDM Template and Copywriting for Newsletter - Tinkrbox

2010-04-04T13:21:00.000+08:00

Done up a master template for the Tinkrbox monthly EDM as well as the copywriting for the March 2010 content.

Copywriting for Tech Blog on iPad

2010-04-04T13:16:00.000+08:00

Got a request from a tech blog to help them on an iPad review.

My first write-up of a non-marketing nature; semi-tech review coupled with personal opinions. Too bad I can't release it here as I am not claiming credits for the writeup.

Internet Marketing - Tinkrbox

2010-03-08T09:39:00.001+08:00

Current No of Users: 1500
Target by 10 April: 2000

I'll update with the numbers weekly.

What is Tinkrbox? www.tinkrbox.com

Excel - How to go next line in same cell?

2010-02-17T11:15:00.001+08:00

In Microsoft Excel, most people have the problem of having many lines of input in one cell. Copy and paste works, but what if you are working on just an Excel spreadsheet.

Click ENTER and it will simply run to the column in the next row. This wouldn't work.

To go to the next line in the same cell, simply hold Alt and click ENTER. (Command+Alt+Return on a Macintosh)

Voila. Now you can do more with Excel that you previously thought not possible.

Making Apache,XAMPP and IIS work together

2010-02-10T17:29:00.001+08:00

The Problem:

I have setup XAMPP at work. It comes with Apache 2, MySQL, phpMyAdmin and a whole bunch of stuff.

The Apache resides at

http://localhost (port:80)

I installed Microsoft Visual Studio Express Edition and also setup IIS via Windows Control Panel as I wanted to try MSSQL Server Express Edition .

Now after installing IIS, Apache Refused to start.

Only one usage of each socket address
is normally petmitted. :make_sock could not bound to address:0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available , shutting down
Unable to open logs

It was because there was a conflict in the port 80.

Now i went to the website properties in IIS and changed the port no to 9090 from 80.

Now restarted IIS and tried to start apache

Now similar error but diff port

Only one usage of each socket address
is normally petmitted. :make_sock could not bound to address:0.0.0.0:443
no listening sockets available , shutting down
Unable to open logs

The Solution:

Now i suspected the conflict was in the SSL port so tried digging through the XAMPP files.

found this file httpd-SSL.conf in \\apache\conf\extra\

Navigate to this line.

# When we also provide SSL we have to listen to the
# standard HTTP port (see above) and to the HTTPS port
#
# Note: Configurations that use IPv6 but not IPv4-mapped addresses need two
# Listen directives: "Listen [::]:443" and "Listen 0.0.0.0:443"
#

Listen 443

Change 443 to say some port like 4499

1 more change

# General setup for the virtual host
DocumentRoot "c:/web/xampp/htdocs"ServerName localhost:4499
ServerAdmin admin@localhost

Now IIS and Apache can run parallel. That means working with ASP and PHP at the same time.

Copywriting for Newsletter - Tinkrbox

2010-02-09T01:51:00.002+08:00

Copywriting... I must say I'm pretty good at it. Spiced up the first ever Tinkrbox newsletter in a jiffy. EDM creation from concept to end product complete with images.

Tinkrbox was featured on BBC recently. Hurray~!

Flash Tutorial for Newbies

2010-01-23T09:11:00.001+08:00

Flash Tutorial for Newbies

Creating a Flash Document
Making the Art
Frame to frame animation
Symbols
Motion Tween
Sounds
Publishing your movie
Nifty Effects
General tips for good movies

http://loolaloo.com/flashfornewbies.html

Copywriting and Voiceover - Tinkrbox

2010-01-19T15:35:00.000+08:00

Traces of my work are getting everywhere as I've even done the voiceover for Tinkrbox's product video.

As the main copywriter of Tinkrbox, I brand them for success.

Tinkrbox is a Singapore Web 2.0 start-up company whose CEO is a very good friend of mine. So well, that's how it all began.

Putting all my skills to good use with them. Copy writing, design, voice over; marketing communications in general. Look forward to bringing them success.

Wordpress Design - Tinkrbox

2010-01-11T11:51:00.005+08:00

Did a website revamp for Web 2 start-up Tinkrbox.

They were previously using the basic wordpress blog design(blue) and using it to blog about company matters.

My revamp made it a corporate website since Wordpress is powerful enough for it.
Covered corporate theme web design conceptualization to Wordpress deployment and configuration.

Check out blog.tinkrbox.com

Web design - Flo-Solution

2010-01-11T11:44:00.004+08:00

Currently doing the website revamp for Flo-Solution... due by Jan 2010
Covered from website design conceptualization to the creation and deployment of the website.

Freebies given to client:
CMS for easy updating of news & events page

Website technicalities:
Javascript
Flash
HTML
CSS
Photoshop

How to Choose a Web Designer

2009-11-10T12:59:00.001+08:00

Freelance web designers can be found from every corner of the earth thanks to the growth of the internet. With so many web design agencies out there, how do you choose the right one for your demand?

Here are 3 factors to determine which web designer is suitable for your job:
• What do you want to achieve?
• What is your budget?
• Is the web designer capable of your job?

What do you want to achieve?
For starts, think about the purpose of this website. There is always a purpose, and a good web designer would want to know your purpose in order to tailor his services for you.

Go through this checklist:
• Why are you creating a website?
• Are you selling a product or service?
• Does your merchandise change regularly?
• Who are your target audiences?
• Have you got a brand?
• What industry are you involved in?
• Do you know your competition? Who are they?
• What do their websites look like?
• How will you accept payments? Will you take credit card transactions online?
• How quickly do you need your website completed?
• What will happen if you don't have a website?

Run through the checklist and pen down your answers. This information will help you find out what you really want and help you explain better to the web designers on your need.

What is your budget?
Depending on how much you have, you can employ someone with a great portfolio to give you an amazing website (very expensive), someone with a good but smaller portfolio to give you an amazing website (expensive), someone with a simple portfolio to give you a simple yet good enough website (value for money). Never pay a super low price for a lousy website. A website is usually the face of a business, builds upon the corporate image, and can make or break client impressions. Nobody deserves to pay for a bad website and then lose the business image at the same time.

Is the designer capable of your job?
Here’s how you choose a web designer, read up closely.

1) Tech skills and creativity
Building a website requires expert technical knowledge whereas designing one needs a very creative mind. You should always find someone who is good at both so you get a complete solution. Some clients employ a separate designer and website developer who are good at their own tasks. But what if the design given was not technically possible to create? The money spent on design would then go to waste. To avoid such situations, employ someone capable of both design and building a site, this way, you eliminate chances of deadlock.

2) Experience
Qualifications, experience, has he done a similar project to the one you want? If he has done a similar project to what you want, chances are good that he will be able to give you more ideas and you will get a better website than the last one they created.

3) Portfolio
How you judge a web designer is by the portfolio. See their previous works and find out how well they are at design and professionalism. If you see something you like from the portfolio, better still, ask for it on your website.

4) Costing
Here’s how website design and development is usually charged.

• Per Hour.
Based on an hourly rate, you will get a cost based on an estimated effort for the entire project.

• Fixed Price.
Based on standard sets of requirements, you will get a cost.

• Component Pricing.
This applies more if you have something to add to the website after it’s done. You will get costs of additional components to add on to the existing website.

Once you have selected your web designer, ensure the quotation states everything that you want to have done and also state specific timelines so you get your work on time.

For enquiries on engaging my services, feel free to email me at howaikitbryan@gmail.com

Student - Remote File Sending

2009-04-04T21:52:00.009+08:00

Jack was frustrated, unable to send a project file to his classmate via email and was looking all over the world for his thumb drive to pass to his friend.

The file was just less than 100mb.

File-sharing via thumb drives? I'd think only if you meet often or the file size is a few hundred MB. I had to give some advice.

Current situation:
File to be sent from A to B.

Problem:
Unable to send file via email as it was more than 10MB (email limitation for file attachment).
Does not meet regularly enough to use thumb drive(drive will be stuck at B for a while and A can't use the drive for other purposes).

Solution:
I evaluated the several free file sending options online and found the best in SendThisFile (click on Home and Register for free version).

Features of FREE SendThisFile:

register for free account
no file size limit
3 days file online limit
3 times download limit
Ad supported
File recipient gets link in email and downloads file from link

Testing with 11MB file:

Average upload speed 230Kbps (Uploaded in 6mins)
Average download speed 35KB/sec (Downloaded in 3mins)

Email unable to send your attachment? No sweat! =) Cheers!

Car Insurance Agent - Customer Management System

2009-04-03T12:06:00.006+08:00

For starts, I got to help people around me. Starting with my brother, who's dealing with car insurance at the moment. I understood how he works and devised a new system which better tracks his work and improve his efficiency.

Current situation:
Tracking of prospects and car insurance renewal dates in excel spreadsheet on personal laptop.

Problem:
Unable to access excel spreadsheet when unable to access personal laptop.
Does not know how to filter and sort prospect list.
No reminder system to track renewal dates.

Solution:
With the use of Excel filtering, he was able to do some simple sorting and view data in a more productive manner.
Google Docs gave an avenue to store and edit his document online. He does not even need Excel software to be installed on his machine.
Google Calendar gave a personal/work scheduling system and could also track the actual dates of his prospect renewals, on top of that, free SMS alerts to remind him to contact his prospects.

All in all, I hope to improve his work and personal life. And the solutions I gave him are all free, free consultation too!

I can't change the world, but I can try. =)