A Mini-Hackster I Am
30 June 2009 | 2 Comments
WARNING: Geek post ahead!
So, for ages I was annoyed at policies practised by media-related web sites in the US to restrict streaming traffic strictly to IP addresses originating from North America. So poor old Malaysian-bound Rudi had no way of accessing wonderful music, say, on Pandora.
Of course, I investigated options on circumventing this block. Unfortunately, most of them were pretty unreliable or worse, unusably slow.
I eventually forgot about this and just resigned myself to the vagaries of international licensing and royalty legislation.
But recently I took out a VPS in California to host my clients’ sites. I did this for the added reliability, resources and speed, but a nifty side effect of this (expensive) upgrade are a couple of dedicated IP addresses. It suddenly occurred to me that… uh-huh.
Short version of the story: SSH Socks Telnet tunelling into my Linux VPS lets me surf completely undetectable on websites as if I was calling from California. Which means Pandora, Hulu etc are now accessible! And the best part is? It’s just about almost as fast as a native direct connection. And because I, in effect, own the connection, it’s utterly reliable and private.
Gotta love it! And my dad will probably love it as well if the iTunes store practices IP-based restrictions, as he claims it does.
Next step: set up a dedicated VPN service on the box with filtering to allow only HTTP traffic through to my static IP address here at home. Learnin’ Linux! About time, really.
Of Designs and Doodles
13 May 2009 | 6 Comments
A lot of who have asked me what I do for a living. Because I don’t talk about work or share in the vagaries of traffic jams or boardroom gossip like most of my friends, I think many assume I grow money or sell drugs - perhaps both. Even worse, that I live off daddy (let it be known that since 26 March 2001, I have been 100% self-sufficient).
The truth is I have my fingers in a few commercial pies, and three significant ones at the moment. One of them I can’t talk about yet (but looks to be a real cracker in the near future), the other one is a great business that went virtually dead overnight a couple of months ago thanks to government corruption, and the final one is the one that brings me most of my income and has kept me happy and creative for the last six years or so.
In short, I design web sites.
I was going through my past work, picking stuff out to include in my official portfolio, as I have now hit the stage where (about time!) I can command decent fees for my work.
So, whilst doing this, I thought I would pick out a few projects that I have worked on. Some are going strong and are very successful businesses, thanks in part to the work I did for them. Others are now defunct, and others still never even got off the ground.
Here’s a selection, in no particular order. Which is your favourite?
Levante Golf
My latest project - the photos make me want to go there!
Marmite
Recent project in partnership with a local advertising agency. Still in progress.
Primrosa
Portfolio site for a Swiss portrait photographer. Simple and elegant.
ActiveMate
Yes, an online dating site. No, I am not a member. This is probably my most technically-advanced project as yet, and though young, looks on course to be a successful business. Logo, colours, artwork, concept, visuals - all my handicraft.
Bangsar Chiropractic
A little freebie for my delight. Since I revamped her site and optimized it for Google, the site went from page 5+ results to top-three on Google’s first results page for all relevant searches. Daily unique hits have progressed from something like 2 or 3 a day to over 20. :)
Scuderia Systems
For a long time, my showcase client, and the one in my portfolio that landed me a lot of other work. Other things I have done since (especially more recently) surpass it in quality, but it is still a great (and huge!) site, and transformed this company from a little backstreet outfit to a major player in the worldwide supercar aftermarket parts business.
UTruePay
Conceptual site to aid VC pitching - time will tell if my client gets the funding.
World Vision Malaysia
I battled for this contract, won the pitch on the strength of this concept I produced for them, and whilst we were negotiating terms their initial budget more than halved (thanks to the credit crunch) and they couldn’t afford me, even when I pushed my price down charitably hard in recognition of the fact that they are an NGO.
Novitec UK
Product information site for the UK dealer for Novitec Rosso (German Ferrari tuning outfit).
New Standard Financial
This real estate financing outfit went bust at the start of the current recession, and took a huge amount of work I put into the site (complex backend) along with hit.
Blue Sphere Games
One of my older sites, way back in 2003 when I was first getting into this whole web site thing. Boy have standards (and skills!) moved on since then.
Home Gallery
An old artsy site.
Lifestyle One
Simple online presence for property development firm. For its time, it was a very fresh design.
Art in Business
A quick site I did a few years ago. Novel concept, but it never made any money.
V2 Car Hire
Another ugly site by today’s standards. I never invoiced for this site, actually, come to think of it… this was about four years ago!
New Creations
22 April 2009 | No Comments
My world is unravelling before my eyes, and I am stoked. May 2009 be a year of tremendous opportunity for us all, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Ecc 11:9.
Invisibility
26 January 2009 | 1 Comment
Question:
If you could be invisible for just one day, what would you do?
Just think about this for a moment.
Okay? Got your answer?
Now tell me, was it something innocent or was it something naughty?
Chances are, it was something naughty.
Why is it that when removed from the vision of others, the first thing many of us think of doing is something naughty? Is evil and selfishness so innate in us that it instinctively pops up the moment we can be free of the opinions of others?
In fact, the only two things I can think of that I could do whilst invisible that are not naughty is to be alone without anyone disturbing me, and to observe animals up close without freaking them out. Other than that, my mind is filled with all the mischief I could get up to.
Hmmmm…
Precious
22 January 2009 | 7 Comments
preâ‹…cious
1. of great value; very valuable or costly
2. highly esteemed for some spiritual, nonmaterial, or moral quality
3. dear; beloved
4. affectedly or excessively delicate, refined, or nice
5. a dearly beloved person; darling
6. all of the above, and then some