Marsha Maung:: Freelance graphic designer and writer

You know what I hate most about emails? I work day in and day out with emails…without it, there’s nothing linking me to my clients and there’s absolutely no way for me to get instructions and send/receive files with, right? well, apparently, the boon of emails is sometimes overshadowed by large attachments people send to me via my business emails!

I work with advertisements and there’s almost always large files involved. I am talking about massive graphics files that might take HOURS just to download!

Gosh, they take such a freaking long time to download! And the strange thing is that even though I’ve asked people to stop sending me large attachments via email, they continue to do it…like I haven’t spoken at all.

For those of you who have the same problem, here’s what you should get others to do.

Use the following services:-

www.yousendit.com (very good and efficient)

www.sendthisfile.com (also quite good and reliable)

www.savefile.com (quite slow and you have to copy down the link somewhere so that you won’t forget the link. And it doesn’t send you an automatic email message to let you know that the file has been sent or anything. But still reliable)

in fact, you can save your images in a free image hosting company called www.imageshack.us and the restriction for the size of the file is about 1024kb or something like that! Pretty generous as it is, if you ask me.

That’s it for today! Check the links out and hope it helps to ease some of your downloading and uploading problems.

Ta ta!

I am not a very superstitious person and sometimes can be quite aloof when it comes to things like stepping over cracks and under ladders….but still!

My book review for “The Star” on the book ‘It’s called a breakup because it’s broken” is published on FRIDAY the 13^th (hear the Twilight Zone song yet?)

So far, nothing untoward has happened to me today…yet...partly due to the fact I've been sleeping the whole day because of late night working on client’s website and is still kind of groggy right now. Touch wood, touch wood.

But sometimes I think the famous Friday the 13^th is all fiction and no fact. Why would it be bad luck day only on Friday the 13^th? Fear of Friday the 13^th has a scientific name, by the way, and it’s called paraskevidekatriaphobia. (I dare you to try to pronounce that!)

Points to ponder:-

• If Friday the 13^th is an unlucky day, the whole world will suffer at the same time and nobody will win lottery on this day.
• Friday the 13^th is really all fiction because it’s a complete national (International?) unfounded trepidation
• The stock market will crash on Friday the 13^th
• It’s all in the mind. Ever heard of THAT one? If you think Friday the 13^th is going to be a bad day…by golly, you’ll get nothing but bad luck all day. But if you snub your nose at the notion, you will have none of the ill fortune
• Nobody should go to work on Friday the 13^th because nothing will go right. The printer will not work, the coffee machine will explode, virus will penetrate the intranet, files will be corrupted, clients will leave, documents and legal agreements will be lost…etc
• Nobody gets married on Friday the 13^th
• Nobody will ever give birth on Friday the 13^th
• Nobody will go to the doctor or dentist on Friday the 13^th
• Nobody will start a new job on Friday the 13^th, lest they get fired on the spot for no apparent reason.
• Nobody will buy insurance or shares on Friday the 13^th

Imagine, the world would have complete stopped spinning because…it’s black Friday.

It’s only the fifth of November, you can still make it! Check out this site www.nanowrino.org to join in the challenge of writing a short novel in a short period of time. This challenge is designed to push those who want to write a novel, have been dreaming of writing a novel, wish that they can write a novel, very damn well should write a novel to actually write a novel.

You know, I think this concept works. No novel is written in one shot. I mean, let’s face it, the biggest challenge is to get past the 3 chapter mark. If you’re a writer, write for a living or have been writing for fun, you know what I mean. You start out gung-ho about everything thinking that you have the funniest, greatest plot in the Universe, thinking that you’re going to get that Pulitzer prize next year…and 3 chapters down, you think it all suck and they all don’t tie together. The characters start to dull down and you lose track of all the characters you introduced and….worse…you run out ideas and no longer have any inkling what you’re writing about.

That, my friend, is the classic symptom of writer’s block. Every writer faces this one. (Back me up here, writer friends).

So, the only way to go…the same advice I gave a friend…is to go on, go on, go on, push yourself to go on. Don’t look back, just write. Whatever it is, write. No plot, get that extra caffeine push. No more characters to introduce, look back into your photo albums, you’ll find some funny characters that’ll fit right in. The point is to continue trudging on till the end. You’ll have plenty of time to edit, proofread and re-edit it.

And trust me, the bulk of the time, you’ll spend editing it, not writing it.

So, this challenge makes sense to all you budding writers out there. Just go on. Write that 50,000 words. I mean, I write about 10 articles a day, each article containing 400-500 words. That makes 4,000, at least. Don’t tell me I can’t push myself to write 1,600 words a day. And if I lag off one day, I still only have to write 3,200 words a day….nothing compared to what I normally write anyway, right?

So, go on to www.nanowrimo.org now and sign up for the challenge. I already did and have passed my 5,000 mark. It’s still far off the target but the amazing thing is that I am actually moving along with my storyline.

So, all budding writers, go push yourself and write now!

When you think you have absolutely nothing to do, loads of time to waste and want to giggle over something nonsensical, try visiting www.stupidvideos.com. Yeah, I typed right, it is STUPID VIDEOS dot COM.

My husband is the King of nonsensical stuff, especially adept in looking for stupid things to download and look at online. Whenever I switch on my computer, I am working, whenever he switches on MY computer, he’s downloading something. Says he doesn’t want to download stuff on HIS laptop because there might be viruses or worms or whatever…and my computer?? Duh….men are such sensitive creatures, aren’t they?

Anyway, he found this website called www.stupidvideos.com where you can watch thousands upon thousands of home videos and commercials that makes absolutely no sense at all but they are all quite funny! Have to say that my son, Joshua, enjoyed it a whole lot sharing the same joke with his dad. Jared wasn’t too sure what all that laughing was all about but we were all crowded infront of my computer watching video after video.

The videos did cheer the poor sickly Jared up a bit.

So, if you have absolutely nothing to do, hop on over for a quick lookie.

Because of the nature of my work, I have to seriously look into ways to keep in touch with my clients and partners. They’re located everywhere in the world, it’s not possible for me to make a phone call to them every so often. Most of them like to SPEAK to me instead of just sending emails to me, so, I have to make it a point to be available to them online.

Not satisfied with using just emails, I have to use my own voice conference room and also MSN and Yahoo messengers to talk with them. And this is something that I take for granted. Grabbing stripes of paper to make ‘lucky stars’ while I am chatting with my clients is the norm. I also tend to massage by kids’ feet whenever I am online chatting. I can even write an entire article about ‘how to get rid of white hair’ while chatting with my clients.

What I don’t realize is that internet calls is a phenomenon for some.

Like my sister who is just as tech savvy as the next person in Malaysia. And also my parents and auntie (who lives in Dubai, for now). I go like… ”You don’t know you can talk with instant messenger?? What century are you living in lah!!” This is, like, very old news from last decade or something! But I take it all for granted.

I work online, therefore, am exposed to all these stuff. They’re not funky in my eyes, but to others, damn, it’s next best thing to colored toilet paper! A couple of months back, I introduced my aunt who is living in Dubai with her husband to MSN voice. Oh, she knew we could chat on MSN but it just never occurred to her to try out the AUDIO tab on top of the messenger. I prompted her and she immediately exclaimed, “Wah, can talk wan meh?”. For sure.

And then my mom and this aunt is close (in fact, my mom is close to really close to all her sisters) to this aunt, so, my sister decided to try to install MSN messenger into the home PC and let my mom chat with my aunt for free. My aunt has been using Skype to talk with her family members. After a couple of glitches where my sister called me ‘David Copperfield’ *blush*, it worked.

Since I opened her eyes to MSN voice, she has been chatting with my mom online, I think. Hopefully.

You see, my point is that…I have been using instant messengers for some time now and it didn’t occur to me that it was anything wonderful. I thought it was normal and this is what everyone does, anyway, what’s the big deal? And then through my family members, I learn that I have been taking all these free facilities for granted. And come to think of it, MSN and Yahoo probably kept my business alive by providing me with all these chatting and telephone services. Sure, there are loopholes, of course, but we can live with it. It’s free, right? And beggars can’t be choosers.

Instant Messenger not only keeps me connected to my clients, but it keeps my mom happy as well.

Accordingly, I am already a multi-millionaire. In as far as I can recall, I have received right about 30 emails this month alone informing me that I am the lucky winner or a lottery I didn’t buy. I don’t gamble – period! Even during Chinese New Year, I cringe every time I have to part with my $0.20!

So, how did I end up winning so much ‘lottery money’ when I never participated in any of their lottery programs…or whatever you want to call it.

For the life of me, I don't know how to stop these people from sending me emails about Viagra and sex toys!! How do I stop them. I keep blocking their email addresses using my Outlook Express and apply sophisticated filters through my web hosting and my Internet service provider but I still continue to get those ads advertising their stupid viagra and other sexual stuff.

I just want to write to them to tell them that "Hey, buster! Please take your stupid sex toys and sex pills somewhere else. Go bug some other desperate human being who is looking for enhancement or something. If you want to do email marketing, at least do it right? And besides, with such unethical practice, you think I wanna BUY anything from the guy?" Come on!!!

In fact, I was irked enough to go check out the definition of SPAMMING and to check out if there are laws to haul these guys' asses to Court (like I've got millions in my bank account waiting to sue the panties off of these guys).

Spamming
Spamming is the act of sending unsolicited commercial messages (email, blogs, Instant Messengers, mobile phones, search engine and newsgroup) to a bunch of people who have no option of getting out or into the list. By definition, if the message is similar (not entirely alike), it's considered spamming.

Spamming is cheap
Unlike advertisements on billboards or newspapers, spamming is freakily cheap! Yes, advertisements and billboards are considered as spamming as well because they ARE messages directed at the PUBLIC at large and by golly, they sure are UNSOLICITED. But by virtue of the fact that the advertisers paid a whole chunck of money for the advertising, they have the right to get them out.

However, spamming via email, instant messenger, search engine, newsgroup, mobile phones and blogs are literally cost-less!

Anti-Spam
If you're just as irked as me about all this spamming activities, visit the following websites.
http://asrg.sp.am/
http://www.cauce.org
http://www.spamhaus.org
http://spam.abuse.net

This is a screen capture from one of my email accounts with yahoo. I don't think you can see the picture very clearly but here's what the email is trying to tell you. It was addressed to 'De‮ra‬ B‮syalcra‬ M‮bme‬er' (no indication of knowing my personal information, not even my name!)

The email is from : "Barc޶lay޺s" if5chknosh@yahoo.com

Addressed to : marshamaloney@yahoo.com (that's not even my email address, for crissake!)

The email says this:

" T‮sih‬ ema‮li‬ was se‮tn‬ by the B‮syalcra‬ se‮revr‬ to v‮re‬ify y‮uo‬r em‮ia‬l add‮ser‬s. You m‮tsu‬ com‮etelp‬ th‮si‬ pro‮ec‬ss by c‮kcil‬ing
on the l‮kni‬ b‮le‬ow and ente‮ir‬ng in the sm‮lla‬ w‮ni‬dow y‮ruo‬ Barcla‮sy‬ Mem‮pihsreb‬ nu‮rebm‬, pas‮ocs‬de and m‮arome‬ble wo‮dr‬.
T‮ih‬s is d‮no‬e for y‮uo‬r protecti‮no‬ - b‮uace‬se s‮mo‬e of our mem‮eb‬rs no l‮no‬ger h‮eva‬ acc‮se‬s to th‮rie‬ e‮liam‬ ad‮sserd‬es and
we m‮su‬t veri‮yf‬ it. To veri‮yf‬ y‮ruo‬ e‮liam‬ a‮erdd‬ss and ac‮ec‬ss y‮ruo‬ b‮kna‬ ac‮uoc‬nt , cl‮kci‬ on the l‮kni‬ be‮ol‬w:


http://www.barclays.com/?F2i7zQb0VtvAjW8rKhwbEx6Px3Sq2RJGFxgDMwXGZqhTKruzDYpthaZdk7Yo7Y"

QUESTION ONE
Do you seriously think that Barclays would actually use Yahoo email to communicate with their account holders?

QUESTION TWO
Not a question, but my email address isn't even marshamaloney@yahoo.com (as pointed out in the TO field)

QUESTIONS THREE
Why don't they just tell us to log into the website and change or verify the username and password if they are having problems?

QUESTION FOUR
If they want to verify the email address, why don't they just ask the customer to click a link to verify...without requiring the customer to give out the username and password.

HERE'S WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN YOU CLICK ON THE LINK.
The link will lead you to one of their cloaked web pages. You insert your username and password, they capture it....and you're gone!

So, don't be fooled!

As a general rule of thumb, never click of a link like this...from a dubious source. Especially when it involves your username and password! NEVER!

If there's such an email from an email account, say...like Barclays, even...what you should do is to open a new web browser and type the web address into the browser and THEN log in. Don't click on the link. The link leads you to their cloaked URL pages.

Consider yourself WARNED!!

We're in it for the money, aren't we? Being in business, we would want to make everything as COMFORTABLE and EASY as possible for the client, especially when they're trying to pay you, right?

But what if it's comfortable and easy for them....yet, you may never get to see or smell the money? What happens then?

Well, this is precisely the kind of thing that's happening to me at PayPal. Paypal is definitely no pal to me, it's a pal for US residents, that's what they are! Imagine not being able to withdraw your money? Duh? Why else would I be working my ass off for? To let Paypal hold my money for me for....erm, I don't know, fund some marketing efforts for their sister sites or pay one of their large partners or counterparts? Or maybe they want to keep the money to earn some interest from their Banks....I DUNNO!!!!

Furthermore, it seems as though the customer service people are not trained to speak properly on the phone. Even if I didn't have an American slang, I knew they didn't know what else to say apart from, "We're terribly sorry for the inconvenience but at this point in time, there's no way for you to withdraw your money unless you have a US bank account".

I am like.....now, I reside in Malaysia....born and bred here....why in the friggin' world would I get a US bank account for?

So, I am officially saying 'bye bye' to paypal and will only work for clients who are willing to use ikobo instead. Signing up and verifying the account with ikobo can get very nasty and messy but for the safety of your personal information, won't you rather go through the trouble instead of signing up and using some wishy-washy system...albeit Paypal?

Blog was first published : Tuesday, November 16th 2004

Using paypal as an International user is highly ineffective. Paypal is an ebay company and it has a reputation as a very effective method of paying and receiving money online! It has received amazing review from people who has been using paypal for a long time. However, this is an honest review from an International user (particularly, Malaysia and some of the SEA region) using paypal for projects and receiving money online.

Try a more effective way of sending and receiving money Internationally

First off, if you’re a user from the United States or some of the other approved countries that paypal has approved of, using paypal is probably going to be a breeze. I have not had the privilege of using paypal as a US resident (quite obviously) so, I cannot give you a review on using paypal as one! But as an International merchant using paypal, this is what I have to say – YOU MAY NEVER GET TO SEE YOUR MONEY AT ALL!

I am a genuine merchant/freelancer who was using paypal to receive money from my International clients. They have all asked me if I had problems using paypal for payment, and obviously, keen on trying to tie the project in, I said I did NOT have a problem using paypal. Which was true, at that point in time. In the beginning stages of using paypal, it’s easy peasy – nothing to it. All a user has to do in order to use paypal is to register. The registering process is easy enough. They automatically approve your account to make it easy for you to use paypal. Using paypal to get money into your paypal account is simple. Just provide the payer with your paypal ID: your email address. The payer using paypal as a payment gateway will only have to log into the paypal account and then using paypal’s tools to send the money to your account. Simple enough.

Using paypal : here’s where it gets a little tough

Using paypal to receive money posed some problems to me, as an International user.

ikobo is a more effective way of sending and receiving money online

Verification

In order to withdraw money from your paypal account, you need to first verify your paypal account. The point in using paypal as a payment gateway is lost here because in order to verify the account, you need to have a US bank account or a credit card.

If you’re like me, an International user who does not have a means of getting a US bank account, then using paypal can get pretty rocky. I have explored the possibility of opening a US bank account from where I live, it’s possible. But the setup fee was huge. You need to pay USD299 as a setup fee. Yes, SETUP fee, not deposit. I would understand it if they told me that I would need to pay USD100 or USD50 as a setup fee (which translates to about Ringgit Malaysia 380 or Ringgit Malaysia 190) with a certain limitations to a deposit, but having to pay a setup fee of USD299 was too much for me.

You can always get a credit card to verify your account in order to start using paypal to send money and receive money online. Sure thing. Except….I don’t have a credit card. But I got myself a debit card cause I was sure using paypal was the only way to accepting payments from my International clients. But even if you verified your account in order to start using paypal, you cannot withdraw your money from your paypal account STILL. You STILL need to have a US bank account.

Tired of paypal? Try ikobo.

Sending Limit

If you have not been using paypal for a long time, like me, then you’re not always aware of the small tiny little word ‘unverified – Malaysia’ that sits comfortably right next to your paypal balance. The sending limit is there if you’re not a verified paypal user. For starters, paypal has capped off the sending limit at USD100. USD100 limit on the amount you can ever send through your paypal account until you get yourself verified.

I found myself in a tussle using paypal when I send USD80 to someone and then they told me that I can only send USD20 more to someone before I have to get verified. So, there was a problem using paypal to send money to someone too? And using paypal a payment gateway was also shot because I can’t seem to get the money out.

You see, what I was trying to do was to send whatever money I had in there to someone else in the US and get them to send the money back to me through ikobo. And although I had found the right person for this task, I was still having problems using paypal because I can’t even get my money out of there to someone else so that they can send me the money – so that I can buy milk and diapers for my kids! Sheesh!

In summary: what was my experience in using paypal

It was the pits! This is a user who is hoping that paypal will brush up on their system to make it more user-friendly for International users. First off, the withdrawal process totally sucks because I cannot withdraw the money out from the paypal account therefore, using paypal as a payment option means that I will never smell the money that I have earned. Secondly, the sending limit. What happens that those people who wishes to send money to someone but don’t have a credit card? What happens to the money in there?

The only way out for International people using paypal is to either get a US bank account or spend the money on ebay.

Which makes perfect sense – paypal is part of ebay, didn’t I say?

I’ll just stick to what works for now – my ikobo account!! For now, I'll just say "Thanks, but no thanks" to paypal.