Category Archives: Personal

3 Simple Steps to Create Your Custom #newtwitter Background

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I don’t know about you but I was one of those caught in the transition phase from the old to the new Twitter. I was in the midst of designing my own custom background days before the #newtwitter launched and my effort went to waste since the measurements are completely different from before. What’s sad was I did not have the #newtwitter until a couple of days back in which I could finally proceed with designing again.

#newtwitter

After some trial and error, I managed to get the measurements right and to my dismay (and many others too), the #newtwitter has very little sides to play with. Nevertheless, the below are steps on how you can create your very own custom #newtwitter background – the easy way in only 3 simple steps!

1. Determine Screen Size /Resolution

I would strongly recommend 1280px x 1050px as most people have this to date but this is entirely up to you. Anything lower is a no-no.

Note that I’ve purposely enlarged the resolution to 1050px instead of 800px as you may want the background to be fully covered even on non-widescreen monitors. 1680px x 1050px is the next most popular resolution.

2. Start Designing

Download the new twitter photoshop templateThis is perhaps the most time consuming part of the entire process as you will need to get your designs filling the space around the Twitter timeline. The good news is that if you’re using Photoshop, you are able to use this template that I’ve created (and used) at no cost! Simply download it and change the background accordingly and you’re all set to go!

3. Save, Upload and Test it out

Simply save your masterpiece as a JPEG / PNG file, upload it to Twitter under “Settings > Design” and you’re done! If you are wondering how would your background look like on different monitor resolutions, I used this really convenient Chrome Extension to do the job for me without having to change the monitor resolutions manually on Windows. It simply allows you to switch between different sizes on the browser window itself!

Note: if you’re using the template, remember to remove the Twitter timeline before saving it into jpg / png

You’re Done!

That wasn’t too difficult, was it? Check out my Twitter page to see what I did. I would also love to see what you came out with!

Do leave your links and I’ll definitely drop by. Have fun designing! :)

A Bronze Saturday

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In case you’re wondering – this site also reveals part of my happenings in life, injecting a little bit more flavour to the site as a whole; something lighter than the usual information dosage, especially for the weekend :)

The day started pretty early (for a weekend) today as I was participating in a mixed doubles badminton tournament in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. I was looking forward to it as it has been quite some time since I last played in a tournament (5 years, at least?).

Tournament Match upThings started out pretty well until a heavy downpour bringing strong winds blowing through the windows and worse of all – a leaking roof, soaking different sections of the court. It was a struggle battling against mother nature herself apart from the game but we managed!

We came in 3rd!

Despite all odds we came in 3rd with a mini bronze trophy to go home with although we could have done better in the semi finals. I would say that we were pretty close in reaching the finals but we kinda gave it away.

Nevertheless, it was definitely a fun experience and different from the ones in the past as it was also my first tournament with her! Am glad we managed to progress this far into the tournament since there weren’t many ‘training sessions’ prior to this.

There we have it! The entire Saturday dedicated to a day-long tournament with a Bronze finish! It’s now time to kick back, relax and recuperate.

How was YOUR Saturday? Hope your weekend has been productive thus far!

Sa Sa Fragrance Award 2010

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On 1st October 2010 I was invited to attend the Sa Sa Fragrance Award Presentation held at Sunway Pyramid. The event had a pretty interesting concept as awards are given to popular fragrances, voted by Malaysian consumers throughout a 38-day duration via a microsite.

Sa Sa Malaysia

If you’ve never came across the brand before, Sa Sa is a one-stop cosmetic specialty store with over 29 outlets throughout Malaysia. Sa Sa originated from Hong Kong has been in the Asian market since 1978, carrying a variety of beauty products from skincare, makeup, haircare, fragrances, health food and even beauty accessories.

What captured my attention in this event is that Sa Sa managed to find a specific area in their business operations and used it as an opportunity to engage consumers, to get their customers involved and be rewarded for their support. They transformed their stores nationwide into an engagement platform instead of mere sales outlet. The outcome? They managed to gather 38,436 votes which also means they successfully engaged close to 40,000 customers through this campaign alone – just by leveraging on their day-to-day operations.

Sa Sa Fragrance Award & Fair 2010How so? Sa Sa first identified 6 award categories for the fragrances in which the consumers will have to cast their votes accordingly, namely: Best Women’s Fragrance, Best Men’s Fragrance, Best Couple Fragrance, Fragrance of the Year 2010, Special Colorscentsations Award and the Online People’s Choice Award. To create an engagement opportunity, Sa Sa threw in a PULL mechanism in which voting customers, in return, will stand a chance to win prizes including a Designer Diamond Necklace worth over RM8,000 + RM2,000 Colors & Fragrance product hamper as the grand prize! If that isn’t much of a PULL to you, Sa Sa also donated RM 1 from each bottle of fragrance sold during the campaign to the Breast Cancer Welfare Association (BCWA) amounting to RM13,389 in total!

“A PULL creates attraction among consumers. It can be freebies, special offers, discounts, upgrades, additional services and yes, even charity – anything that captures and commands attention. Remember, your promotion means nothing if it does not captures attention.”

Top View of the Event

The Entrance ArchBack to the event! Invited guests were given the privilege to place an autograph on the entrance arch which was a pretty cool idea as it is a subtle way of appreciating the guests. However, such privilege can easily be abused by the guests, minimizing the brand’s appeal thus brand precautions should have been taken into consideration. Take a look at the picture towards the left (click to enlarge) – as you can see, there are a number of autographs already on the arch coupled with a grand red carpet entrance. Just above the arch sits Sa Sa’s logo, and it has obtained a ‘new tagline’ (i.e. guest autographs). From a branding perspective, that may not be the best thing to portray to the public as the brand should always have a ‘breathing space’ to avoid congestion and misinterpretation of the brand image.

Host - Xandria Ooi

Nominated Fragrances with Models on stage

Putting that aside, the event progressed very smoothly with constant flow of juices and finger food (yet another hospitality plus point!). Hosted by Xandria Ooi, the nominated fragrances were introduced and brought to the floor by individual models, each representing the look and feel of the fragrance that they carry, after which the results were announced, leading to the prize giving ceremony.  The event eventually drew to a close with a mock cheque presentation to the charity body. Oh, in case you were wondering, the below are the winning fragrances voted by Malaysian consumers:

  • Best Women’s Fragrance – Flora by Gucci from P&G PRESTIGE
  • Best Men’s Fragrance – Boss Bottled Night from P&G PRESTIGE
  • Best Couple Fragrance – Dsquared2 He Wood & She Wood from ITF
  • Fragrance Of The Year 2010 – DKNY Be Delicious Fresh Blossom from ADF
  • Special Colorscentsations Award – Free Spirit : Anna Sui Rock Me, Summer Love by P&G PRESTIGE
  • Online People’s Choice Award – Anna Sui Rock Me, Summer Love by P&G PRESTIGE

Mock Cheque Presentation to BCWA

It is interesting to note that there are many areas we are able to learn from this simple event – from the concept to the execution. Hopefully you were able to spot and pick up some ideas from it too! Start looking into your own brand and business, is there something you could convert and command attention with it? I’m sure there is ;)

My Google Story

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In case you’re wondering – yes, this site also reveals part of my happenings in life, injecting a little bit more flavour to the site as a whole; something lighter than the usual information dosage, especially for the weekend :)

“Did you know that Google originally ran under Stanford University’s website – google.stanford.edu?”

On the faithful day of 27th September, a dear friend of mine celebrated his 12th birthday – Google

Google's 12th Birthday

I must confess that I didn’t really like Google when we first met. I was closer to Yahoo! back then. Yahoo! was cooler as he offered various online games, games that allowed me to meet people from other countries through ‘chat’ and the opportunity to beat them in checkers, chess and pool.. all the way back in 1997, when I was 10. I had a mail account with Yahoo! at that time and I thought it was the coolest thing on earth, although I also had accounts with Hotmail, ICQ, Excite, Lycos and the likes. Yahoo! remained my favourite.

“Did you know that the domain Google.com was officially registered on the 15th September 1997, and only launched on 27th September 1998?”

At that time, Google looked like this:

Google 1998

And Yahoo! like this:
Yahoo! 1995

I pretty much stuck with Yahoo! all the way till 2004, where my life was turned around with the introduction of Gmail. Really. At that point of time, Gmail offered 1GB worth of mailbox size in which I needed and what made Google cooler is that Gmail was only available on special invitation. Wow! At that time, most mailboxes were only 100MB big small!

Because of that, I started hanging out with Google more and found that he is able to search more efficiently than my previous buddy! He gives me the results I require and does not take a long time to load up as he really is a simple dude, with his name on a white background.

Since then, Google became my answer to everything and has yet to fail me ever since. He became a buddy throughout college, university and life. Today, I can still be found on Gmail and have also furthered my commitment, being attached to Gchat, Gcalendars, Gdocs, Gmaps, Gbuzz and his cousin, YouTube. He is so nice that he has even taught me the secret to be ranked #1 on him and managed to do it for a number of my sites (this site soon, too)!

Sure, he has his pitfalls once in awhile, but I’ve never regretted getting know Google. Happy 12th Birthday, friend!

How did you get to know Google? Do YOU have a Google story? It’ll be great to hear them,too ;)

A Report-Filled Week

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In case you’re wondering – yes, this site also reveals part of my happenings in life, injecting a little bit more flavour to the site as a whole; something lighter than the usual information dosage, especially for the weekend :)

MOFEW 2010 Official ReportIt has been about a month now since MOFEW 2010 and lots of back-end work have took place ever since – compiling of data, closing of accounts and various follow-up duties. The result? We finally managed to get the Official MOFEW 2010 Report up and it can be downloaded over here (5mb)! This 32-page report contains the many aspects of the project including statistics, pictures, feedbacks, media write-ups and also a special page highlighting some very interesting facts of MOFEW! I’m sure glad it’s all done especially when it took out an entire month! Have a look at the report!

Do take a look at what the Malaysia’s Online Fashion Entrepreneurs’ Weekend is all about on the official Facebook page and for pictures, too!

Legend of the GuardiansDespite the busy schedule, thankfully, I was still able sneak some time out for the premiere of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole in 3D last Monday at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. It was a very good movie with a decent storyline, couple of laugh-worthy scenes, awesome visual graphics and a pretty catchy theme song by Owl City! If you’re intending to watch it, 3D is the way to go for this one! Oh, the tickets were free, sponsored by Advertlets, an Asian blog advertising network located in Malaysia.

Group picture after the movie

Looking ahead, I’m sure it’s gonna be yet another amazing week with great opportunities to be unfold! There are several projects on the way and they’ll will be leveraging on the power of social media for a greater measure of success. It’s gonna be really exciting to work with companies that sees social media as an important element to their business and is willing to take the step to make the change. Will be sharing more on it when it is confirmed! For now, it’s the weekend!

Speaking of social media, I can’t help but to share this video I stumbled upon on YouTube:

Have a great weekend ahead!

Hello world!

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It’s alive! After quite a bit of procrastinating, I finally went through the hassle of getting my very own domain name up and running, in conjunction with a series of personal testing projects that will be taking place.

Oh, if you’ve somehow wandered around and crash landed over here, my name is Jan Wong and you’re looking at the very first post on this site. Though I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for quite a bit, janwong.my is where I’ll be making my appearance again by sharing my thoughts, knowledge, projects and happenings around myself.

I somehow cannot resist the urge to talk about the infamous “Hello World” (although I talk about it all the time in previous posts elsewhere and anywhere). If you didn’t know, The “Hello World” term started back then in 1974 as a simple (simplest!) program of all time and has won global recognition till today! This term was then made famous by a book: The C Programming Language as it became the traditional first program many people learn to code. It is so simple that even people who have no previous experience with computer programming can easily understand it, especially with a written guide.

int main()
 {
        printf("hello, world");
        return 0;
 }

“Hello World” has been used across the world by programmers (even hackers) ever since as dummy texts, dummy error messages, sanity tests and  a proof of concept. Jargons aside, it simply a way for devices/programs to say “I Am Alive!” and for humans, it simply means “It Works!” in a more friendly, IT way! :)

Having that said, I shall conclude this post by saying..  Hello World!