About The Author - I Believe In Giving...

Long Yun Siang

My name is Long Yun Siang, or Long as I am popularly known - went through a period of disillusionment after failing to gain entry into the super competitive local universities more than 15 years ago. Ok, I was a tad lazy. But it was a lesson I learned hard and fast.

‘A slap and a kick’ from a good-hearted cousin then woke me and I found himself graduating with distinction from University of Kentucky, USA. After making a few Dean’s Lists and 2 merit scholarships later I headed home to Malaysia.

By now, I was a degree more intelligent; so I think. And half a world wiser; so I like to believe.

Feverishly proud I am from a small town in Malaysia called Batu Pahat, I headed to big capital city Kuala Lumpur. Like most ‘outstation’ guys (that’s how the big city folks referred to us out-of-towners), I rented a small room and tried to make a living here. Life has been good to me. It made me believe in giving back.

I was blessed to have landed a job as an AE in a multi national advertising firm. 16 years later I am still in the industry and enjoying it. During this time, I have met many benefactors and people who coached me. I would not have been where I am if not for them. Of course, I have many more miles to walk. But I can at least share the journey I have taken so far.

I believe in giving. This website is my form of giving back what I have benefited. Some I learned from them, others I was formally trained. Yet others I learned the hard way.

I write a few articles per week or month as the case maybe, since we now have a 3rd baby at home. So check back often for updates. Better yet, sign up for our newsletter so you can be kept informed. Don’t worry, we do not spam.

Dorena, my super lovely wife who gave up her career and parked her Masters degree aside to raise our family updates this site for me.

Site Philosophy

Why would someone want to spend so much time doing this site? What’s in it for us, you ask? To begin, we like helping people and we believe giving time and effort can sometimes be better than giving money. We also like to share, so this is one form of it.

Why not a blog then? Well, we have always dreamt of being publishers of some sort. Web publishing is also publishing so in a way it helps us satisfy our smallish dream. Besides, a site like this is more professional and we intend to manage this site in a very professional manner. SBI! helps us do this. Read more about SBI! here. We have a little more about it further down if you are interested.

It’s fun doing this. It’s fun from many angles – it’s fun to know that everyday, we hear from people how some of the things we have written are beneficial to them. One of the best being getting emails from university lecturers all over the world saying they use some of these articles for their classes and that the students about to enter the working world benefit from it. It’s fun to know we can live in a tiny cranny of the world, not met each other but have a positive impact on each others' lives.

What about money? Do you make money? This site is ad supported. It may someday make us good money. If it does, the money goes into our kids’ college education fund. We want to give as much as we can and over deliver hence the free ebooks and all. We hope you will find them of reasonable quality and useful. We intend to add more content and tools.

Privacy. What about privacy? We are consumers (or netizens or whatever terms you use) ourselves, so we know how it feels to have your privacy invaded. We respect and protect the privacy of those interacting with us. We will not release your details to any other party nor use it for unsolicited emails.

As we have mentioned repeatedly in our content, majority of what we share here things we have tried personally, read or seen. Whether it works depends on you. And that is also core of what we propagate here too. YOU need to take personal responsibility for your own career growth.

About This Site

Dorena and I have always been interested in sharing our experiences. In fact, back in the 90s’ during the dot com era, we started a wedding site in Malaysia called Popwedding. It was the leading wedding website in Malaysia at that time. After closing down the site when our partners went separate ways to pursue other interests, we were itching to start another site but on a smaller scale, at our own pace, and more importantly for non-techies like us.

We found SBI! But finding was one thing and starting was another. It took us a whole 2 years before we decided to invest in it. Looking back, we wondered why it took us that long to decide in something we have always believed. After all, it is completely risk free as it provides a FULL refund.

What is SBI? It is the web host company that we use, as it is perfect for us. It is easy to use as it provides a step-by-step action guide, design templates so you do not need any experience at all. You will learn about ranking high with search engines as it provides that help too!

We did not start this site to make money, we started it to do what we enjoy and now we have two sites using SBI!

Interestingly, we have started making some money on one of them. And Dorena has started her own site too called www.easy-banana-recipes.com. Others have discovered how they can make good money via SBI! It all depends on your commitment – read about other success stories here. And best of all SBI! teaches you how to monetize (create revenue from your site).

Go Ahead, Share Your Experience and Make Some Money

As we have mentioned, we did not start this to make money. It was more of a hobby, but we were pleasantly surprised that it can bring in some money. It all depends on you.

If you complain about your job, your boss, here is something you can do for yourself. Do not make the mistake we made – mulling over it for too long! Do it now. Start your own business, slowly, in a small fashion but the potential are huge. Just as we have discovered.